1. I have a dream,” he said slowly. “I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a heart-fire in it, a cat and a dog, the footsteps of friends — and you!
    Gilbert to Anne - Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery
    June 17, 2013
  2. Win a Winter Queen eBook and a $25 Amazon Gift Card! Since I’ve been highlighting it all week, I thought that perhaps it’s about time to do a giveaway! I haven’t done one of these in a while.  The winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter and will receive 1 Kindle eBook version of Winter Queen by Amber Argyle and a $25 Amazon Gift Card.  To enter you can tweet every day or post a comment. Be sure to log your progress below! Contest ends on July 1st!  Winter Queen Giveaway on Rafflecopter

    Win a Winter Queen eBook and a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

    Since I’ve been highlighting it all week, I thought that perhaps it’s about time to do a giveaway! I haven’t done one of these in a while. 

    The winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter and will receive 1 Kindle eBook version of Winter Queen by Amber Argyle and a $25 Amazon Gift Card. 

    To enter you can tweet every day or post a comment. Be sure to log your progress below! Contest ends on July 1st! 

    Winter Queen Giveaway on Rafflecopter

    June 15, 2013

  3. 10 Literary Restaurants for Hungry Book Nerds Around the World

    What’s even better than drinking while reading? Eating while reading, of course (hint: you can have a drink, too). With the news that Biblio, a book-themed eatery, was popping up in Williamsburg, F…

    June 14, 2013
  4. Review: Winter Queen by Amber Argyle Winter Queen is the first book in Amber Argyle’s new series and I think it’s pretty great!  It’s a high fantasy novel, set in a land that’s divided into clans. Each clan produces unique products that they trade with each other. They are a relatively peaceful bunch and their main threat are the raiders. When Ilyenna (the Shyle clan mistress), her father and brother were out riding they find a wounded man from the neighbouring Argon clan lying half dead in the snow. The Argon clan was attacked by the Tyron clan and this sparked a war between the Shyle and Tyron clans during which Ilyenna is mortally wounded.  Hidden in the forest, Ilyenna is visited by the winter fairies who heal her wounds for the price of becoming their queen. Ilyenna, not wanting to abandon her clan, chooses to stay with her people, going into slavery to save them, where she’s taken to the Tyron clan and where she meets the Argon slaves (or tiams) and Rone, the Argon clan master, her brother’s best friend and her love interest.  Unlike her first two books, Winter Queens has a lot of physical violence and while it’s not extremely graphic, it’s graphic enough to cause me to cringe. Ilyenna is mistreated in the Tyron camp, she’s beaten and almost raped. Darrien (the Tyron clan master’s son) brutally beats one of his housemaids - who is pregnant. Personally I thought there was way too much violence for me, however, I appreciated the way that Amber handled the story, it wasn’t as gory as it could have potentially been.  I liked Ilyenna well enough, she was a strong and sensible protagonist, even though her reactions to Rone were sometimes groan-worthy; but I’ll forgive her, we often do silly things for love. I liked that the politics in the story wasn’t complex, but it wasn’t simplistic either. The only part that was a bit confusing was the fantasy aspect of the story. The focus was mainly on the human world and when the fairies did come into play it sometimes seemed disjointed. I would have liked to see more of their world and understand more of the Winter vs Summer aspects,  but I’m assuming we’ll see more of that in the next installment.  Publisher: Starling Books || Details → Get the book on → Amazon || Barnes & Noble || Books A Million Twitter || Goodreads || LibraryThing || Amazon || B&N || Shelfari||G+ 
    High Res

    Review: Winter Queen by Amber Argyle

    Winter Queen is the first book in Amber Argyle’s new series and I think it’s pretty great! 

    It’s a high fantasy novel, set in a land that’s divided into clans. Each clan produces unique products that they trade with each other. They are a relatively peaceful bunch and their main threat are the raiders. When Ilyenna (the Shyle clan mistress), her father and brother were out riding they find a wounded man from the neighbouring Argon clan lying half dead in the snow. The Argon clan was attacked by the Tyron clan and this sparked a war between the Shyle and Tyron clans during which Ilyenna is mortally wounded. 

    Hidden in the forest, Ilyenna is visited by the winter fairies who heal her wounds for the price of becoming their queen. Ilyenna, not wanting to abandon her clan, chooses to stay with her people, going into slavery to save them, where she’s taken to the Tyron clan and where she meets the Argon slaves (or tiams) and Rone, the Argon clan master, her brother’s best friend and her love interest. 

    Unlike her first two books, Winter Queens has a lot of physical violence and while it’s not extremely graphic, it’s graphic enough to cause me to cringe. Ilyenna is mistreated in the Tyron camp, she’s beaten and almost raped. Darrien (the Tyron clan master’s son) brutally beats one of his housemaids - who is pregnant. Personally I thought there was way too much violence for me, however, I appreciated the way that Amber handled the story, it wasn’t as gory as it could have potentially been. 

    I liked Ilyenna well enough, she was a strong and sensible protagonist, even though her reactions to Rone were sometimes groan-worthy; but I’ll forgive her, we often do silly things for love. I liked that the politics in the story wasn’t complex, but it wasn’t simplistic either. The only part that was a bit confusing was the fantasy aspect of the story. The focus was mainly on the human world and when the fairies did come into play it sometimes seemed disjointed. I would have liked to see more of their world and understand more of the Winter vs Summer aspects,  but I’m assuming we’ll see more of that in the next installment. 

    Publisher: Starling Books || Details →

    Get the book on → Amazon || Barnes & Noble || Books A Million

    Twitter || Goodreads || LibraryThing || Amazon || B&N || Shelfari||G+ 

    June 13, 2013
  5. An excerpt from Amber Argyle’s Winter Queen 3. Blood and Ashes Blood seemed to follow Ilyenna everywhere. When she fell into dreams, she drowned in a river of it. Whenever she blinked, crimson light leaked through her closed eyelids. Even now, the predawn sky was stained the color of bloody water. No matter how many times she scrubbed her hands, she couldn’t rinse the hurt from her soul. With tears stinging her eyes, she lay slumped against the window, blankets wrapped around her. She relished the cold against her aching head as she watched tiny frost flakes fall from the sky. For a moment, she thought they were really winter fairies dancing and spinning on the breeze—fairies who should have long ago given up winter and returned to their homes in the far north. But that was ridiculous. Even if they were fairies, mere mortals could never see through their glamour. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. The Balance was seriously off when the seasons failed to shift and one clan turned on another. It had been two days since the Argons had arrived. She’d been unable to sleep that night. Sometime in the darkest hours, an idea had formed in her mind. A dangerous one. But after two days of people dying… Bratton moaned and shifted in his bed. After extracting herself from her blankets, Ilyenna went to check on him. He still burned with fever. She leaned over the other bed. Her father was so unnaturally still, no matter how hard she had struggled to wake him, no matter how many medicines and treatments she had tried. He was worse than ever. They both were. Ilyenna had been healing since she was old enough to thread a needle. She knew how close she was to losing both of them. In the end, that made the choice for her. Before she could change her mind, she tiptoed through the clan house so as not to wake the Argons scattered everywhere. When she reached the hall where the most severely wounded were kept, she nearly gagged. The air was rank with garlic, whiskey, and a myriad of body odors. Hiking up her skirt, she stepped over a slumbering woman, her arms clutching her child—even in sleep, she was afraid to let go. Just before Ilyenna reached the door, she caught sight of the old man with the amputated foot. He was dead. All she could feel was relief that there was one less mouth to feed. She covered his face so as not to frighten the children. “So passes a warrior,” she whispered. “So passes an Argon.” Brushing the death from her hands, she stood. She’d have to remember to call one of the men to haul him out. She entered the kitchen and fed the fire. Having the refugees in her home left her feeling like she slept under too many blankets. And the dying hadn’t slowed. If anything, it had increased. Already a line of shrouded, frozen bodies waited for the ground to thaw so they could be buried behind the clan house. But Bratton was right. Ilyenna couldn’t worry about burying the dead until the living had the time and strength to dig the graves. Without waiting for the fire to take off, she wrapped her coat over her dress, braced herself against the cold, and stepped outside. The cold immediately took her breath away. When Ilyenna was a child, Great-aunt Enrid had told her stories of the constant battle between the queens of winter and summer—two women on opposite sides of the Balance. In winter, the summer queen was always forced to retreat to her personal domain far to the south. A place where summer never faded, where no one ever died of cold and where food was always fresh. Ilyenna thought if she ever came to such a place, she’d never return to her home in the mountains. She hated winter, hated the sickness, hunger, and death it brought. It had tried to break her once. She’d vowed it would never come so close again. She trudged through the snow to the slight rise behind the clan house. There, snow-covered mounds dotted the hillside far back into the trees. A graveyard was a link between the living and the dead, and she had to speak with her mother. Twilight or morning was best. The dead were tied to night’s side of the Balance, as the living were tied to the day’s. She stopped at her mother’s grave. “Mother…” She hesitated. It was dangerous to seek the dead’s attention. Dangerous because they might just decide Ilyenna should join them. “I need you to let Father and Bratton stay with me. I know you miss them. I know you long for them. But I–I’m not strong enough to lead the clan by myself. Please. If you hold any sway with death, let it pass them over.” Wondering if she’d been heard, Ilyenna waited. Nothing happened. It was said that the dead no longer understood the living’s fondness for life. Ilyenna’s mother had died trying to save her. Perhaps it was selfish to ask for more. Perhaps Matka wouldn’t understand why Ilyenna wished her father and brother to remain in a world of cold and cruelty. But she had watched so many die. She couldn’t bear to see her father and brother join them. As she turned to go, a small shadow fell across her. But that was impossible; the sun had yet to rise. She glanced at the sky. Frost was still falling, but one of the flakes was acting strangely, almost as if it was moving of its own will. Ilyenna stared as it zipped and twisted, moving horizontally instead of downward as falling frost was meant to. But it moved so fast and erratically, Ilyenna kept losing sight of it. She started when she felt a strange pressure at her feet. In the hollows of the snow, shadows boiled like cauldrons of vapors. Ilyenna’s breath caught in her throat. The shadows surged and spilled over her feet like smoke, then stretched up, reaching for her. She cried out as they crawled up her body, covering her like a second skin. Ilyenna scrubbed at her arms, trying to remove the shadows, but they clung to her. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as she stumbled and fell back into the snow. Suddenly the shadows returned to the ground. She pulled her sleeves up, revealing her pale skin, no shadows in sight. She scrambled to her feet and ran from the graveyard. At the clan house, she hurried past Enrid and went straight upstairs to her father. She knelt beside him, pressing her fingers to his face. He shifted away from her cold touch. Moving to the other bed, she touched her brother. His fever had broken and his color was better. Relief warred with horror inside Ilyenna. She pressed her hands into her stomach and doubled over. It was never a good idea to attract the attention of the dead. But if she was careful, perhaps they would forget about her. Besides, she’d had no choice. Twitter || Goodreads || LibraryThing || Amazon || B&N || Shelfari || G+ 
    High Res

    An excerpt from Amber Argyle’s Winter Queen

    3. Blood and Ashes

    Blood seemed to follow Ilyenna everywhere. When she fell into dreams, she drowned in a river of it. Whenever she blinked, crimson light leaked through her closed eyelids. Even now, the predawn sky was stained the color of bloody water. No matter how many times she scrubbed her hands, she couldn’t rinse the hurt from her soul.

    With tears stinging her eyes, she lay slumped against the window, blankets wrapped around her. She relished the cold against her aching head as she watched tiny frost flakes fall from the sky. For a moment, she thought they were really winter fairies dancing and spinning on the breeze—fairies who should have long ago given up winter and returned to their homes in the far north.

    But that was ridiculous. Even if they were fairies, mere mortals could never see through their glamour. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. The Balance was seriously off when the seasons failed to shift and one clan turned on another. It had been two days since the Argons had arrived. She’d been unable to sleep that night. Sometime in the darkest hours, an idea had formed in her mind. A dangerous one. But after two days of people dying…

    Bratton moaned and shifted in his bed. After extracting herself from her blankets, Ilyenna went to check on him. He still burned with fever. She leaned over the other bed. Her father was so unnaturally still, no matter how hard she had struggled to wake him, no matter how many medicines and treatments she had tried.

    He was worse than ever. They both were. Ilyenna had been healing since she was old enough to thread a needle. She knew how close she was to losing both of them. In the end, that made the choice for her. Before she could change her mind, she tiptoed through the clan house so as not to wake the Argons scattered everywhere.

    When she reached the hall where the most severely wounded were kept, she nearly gagged. The air was rank with garlic, whiskey, and a myriad of body odors. Hiking up her skirt, she stepped over a slumbering woman, her arms clutching her child—even in sleep, she was afraid to let go.

    Just before Ilyenna reached the door, she caught sight of the old man with the amputated foot. He was dead. All she could feel was relief that there was one less mouth to feed. She covered his face so as not to frighten the children. “So passes a warrior,” she whispered. “So passes an Argon.”

    Brushing the death from her hands, she stood. She’d have to remember to call one of the men to haul him out.

    She entered the kitchen and fed the fire. Having the refugees in her home left her feeling like she slept under too many blankets. And the dying hadn’t slowed. If anything, it had increased. Already a line of shrouded, frozen bodies waited for the ground to thaw so they could be buried behind the clan house. But Bratton was right. Ilyenna couldn’t worry about burying the dead until the living had the time and strength to dig the graves.

    Without waiting for the fire to take off, she wrapped her coat over her dress, braced herself against the cold, and stepped outside. The cold immediately took her breath away.

    When Ilyenna was a child, Great-aunt Enrid had told her stories of the constant battle between the queens of winter and summer—two women on opposite sides of the Balance. In winter, the summer queen was always forced to retreat to her personal domain far to the south. A place where summer never faded, where no one ever died of cold and where food was always fresh.

    Ilyenna thought if she ever came to such a place, she’d never return to her home in the mountains. She hated winter, hated the

    sickness, hunger, and death it brought. It had tried to break her once. She’d vowed it would never come so close again.

    She trudged through the snow to the slight rise behind the clan house. There, snow-covered mounds dotted the hillside far back into the trees. A graveyard was a link between the living and the dead, and she had to speak with her mother. Twilight or morning was best. The dead were tied to night’s side of the Balance, as the living were tied to the day’s. She stopped at her mother’s grave.

    “Mother…” She hesitated. It was dangerous to seek the dead’s attention. Dangerous because they might just decide Ilyenna should join them. “I need you to let Father and Bratton stay with me. I know you miss them. I know you long for them. But I–I’m not strong enough to lead the clan by myself. Please. If you hold any sway with death, let it pass them over.”

    Wondering if she’d been heard, Ilyenna waited. Nothing happened. It was said that the dead no longer understood the living’s fondness for life. Ilyenna’s mother had died trying to save her. Perhaps it was selfish to ask for more. Perhaps Matka wouldn’t understand why Ilyenna wished her father and brother to remain in a world of cold and cruelty.

    But she had watched so many die. She couldn’t bear to see her father and brother join them. As she turned to go, a small shadow fell across her. But that was impossible; the sun had yet to rise. She glanced at the sky. Frost was still falling, but one of the flakes was acting strangely, almost as if it was moving of its own will.

    Ilyenna stared as it zipped and twisted, moving horizontally instead of downward as falling frost was meant to. But it moved so fast and erratically, Ilyenna kept losing sight of it. She started when she felt a strange pressure at her feet.

    In the hollows of the snow, shadows boiled like cauldrons of vapors. Ilyenna’s breath caught in her throat. The shadows surged and spilled over her feet like smoke, then stretched up, reaching for her. She cried out as they crawled up her body, covering her like a second skin.

    Ilyenna scrubbed at her arms, trying to remove the shadows, but they clung to her. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as

    she stumbled and fell back into the snow. Suddenly the shadows returned to the ground. She pulled her sleeves up, revealing her pale skin, no shadows in sight.

    She scrambled to her feet and ran from the graveyard. At the clan house, she hurried past Enrid and went straight upstairs to her father. She knelt beside him, pressing her fingers to his face. He shifted away from her cold touch.

    Moving to the other bed, she touched her brother. His fever had broken and his color was better. Relief warred with horror inside Ilyenna. She pressed her hands into her stomach and doubled over. It was never a good idea to attract the attention of the dead. But if she was careful, perhaps they would forget about her.

    Besides, she’d had no choice.

    Twitter || Goodreads || LibraryThing || Amazon || B&N || Shelfari || G+ 

    June 12, 2013

  6. The Actual ‘73 Giving Tree Movie Spoken By Shel Silverstein

    June 12, 2013

  7. I’m a bit baffled that some of these “for Dummies” titles actually exist!

    June 12, 2013

  8. Omnivoracious: Uncharted Waters: Joe Hill Explores Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane

    neil-gaiman:

    Editors Note: As you’ll see from the first line of his introduction through to his last fantastic question, horror author Joe Hill has tremendous respect for Neil Gaiman’s work. In this exclusive discussion of Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End…

    WARNING: This wonderful piece/interview by Joe Hill does contains spoilers — or at least information on things that happen in the book. But it also ends with a pancake recipe, which makes it the weirdest interview I’ve ever done. If you make the pancakes let me know how you get on…

    June 11, 2013

  9. explore-blog:

    In this lovely animated short from Blank on Blank – who have previously given us David Foster Wallace on ambition and perfectionism – beloved children’s author Maurice Sendak, born on June 10, 1928, reflects on being a kid and the lifelong grip of anxiety. 

    Pair with this beautiful letter to Sendak from his legendary editor, the great Ursula Nordstrom, and his posthumous love letter to the world.

    June 11, 2013

  10. Amber Argyle talks about her new book, Winter Queen

    1. Where did you come up with the setting for Winter Queen?

    Amber: I wanted something with abrupt mountains and alpine meadows. A rocky, cold environment that made surviving a challenge, but which also provided protection from any marauding forces. Basically, a landscape that made characters as tough as it was. 

    I also wanted a place where winter was a dark and deadly presence, signaling the end of warmth and light. All this so my character would hate winter and see it as a sort of evil. When she’s presented with the opportunity to save her people from a war they cannot win, she must turn to this dark force to save them. 

    I even searched out old maps and Pinterest for such places and found Triglav National Park in Slovenia (there are lots of hints of this throughout the novel, but they are buried pretty deeply). Check out my Winter Queen Pinterest board to see some of the images that inspired me.  

    2. Is it true parts of the book were inspired by the movie The Last of the Mohicans? 

    Amber: Yes. I watched the movie as a young teenager and found myself much more fascinated with Alice’s story as opposed to Cora’s. Alice was portrayed as the weaker of the two sisters, but in reality, she was simply untried—very young, and very innocent. 

    The moment when she stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down the long drop below, still haunts me. She had a choice to marry and bear children for her captor, or end her life. 

    She chose to die, and I wanted to shout at that there was another choice. She could be strong, endure until she had a chance to change her life. To live. 

    But she didn’t. She dropped, silently and suddenly. And I wondered how differently that story would have been if Alice had chosen to live. 

    That’s the story I wanted to explore in Winter Queen. A girl faced with a similar choice: death or marriage to the murderer of those she loves. But … well, I don’t want to spoil it for you. But it’s pretty intense.  

    3. You also explore themes of what it means to be a man and a woman in the book. Can you tell us a little about that?

    Amber: I’m not sure when I realized that boys would, for the most part, outgrow rules like “stranger danger”, “the buddy system”, etc. While I never would. 

    That to be a woman meant I was and always would be vulnerable. How much worse then for a woman raised in a time when all that stood between her and those who meant her harm were her kith and kin. 

    So what would happen if her kith and kin were presented with a choice to save her—the daughter and girl they loved—or themselves? It’s a choice that is replayed over and over again throughout the world’s history.

    In ancient times, men were fighters and protectors. So what does it do to them when they fail? When they aren’t strong enough to defend what’s theirs, despite everything they could do. I explore this as well with my hero, Rone. 

    4. This sounds like a pretty intense book, with some difficult themes. What age to you recommend reads it?

    Amber: If you’re okay with the violence level in Hunger Games and the steaminess in Twilight, you’ll be fine with Winter Queen. 

    Twitter || Goodreads || LibraryThing || Amazon || B&N || Shelfari || G+

    June 11, 2013