Blog Tour - Guest Post by Don Calame on Swim The Fly

Swim the Fly is Don Calame's debut novel and it's already making a splash (do you get it?) over in the US of A, so to count down to the UK release, his lovely publishers Templar have organised a lovely and rather hysterical blog tour, of which I am very excited to be a part of.  Visit templar's blog right here for more details!!  I can remember reading a review of the book over at Steph Su Reads and I just knew that I wanted to read it.....and for those who might need it, here is the book summary.

Fifteen-year-old Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Coop and Sean, always set themselves a summertime goal. This year? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time. But this impossible mission starts to look easy in comparison to Matt's other challenge: to swim the 100 yard butterfly (the hardest stroke known to man) and impress the gorgeous Kelly West.

And here is the man himself!

“Did those things really happen to you? The things that happened in your book?”

For some reason I am asked this quite a lot. Since my books are based in reality, I suppose it’s a fair question. Although, it’s a very loaded one. Sure, I can admit to having been on the swim team. And yes, my friends and I used to try and create the most disgusting drinks possible by mixing things like chocolate milk and tomato juice together just to see if we could get each other to hurl our lunch all over the kitchen table.

I’ll even confess to having once gone in search of a much-rumored-but-never-completely-verified nude beach. A fantastical place that could only be reached—or so it was told—by walking for miles and miles across scorching hot sands and over countless tick-infested dunes.But once I start admitting to these small truths—things that I expanded and expounded upon in order to ground Matt’s story in believability—it can become a slippery slope.  Because, if these things are true, then perhaps other, much more embarrassing things are true as well. And that’s when the questions get more specific and probing:

Did you dress up like a girl and sneak into the women’s locker room?

Did you accidentally soil your pants in front of the girl you had a crush on?

Did your grandfather hit on poor unsuspecting widows at their husbands’ funerals?

The answers, of course, are no, no, and no.  But will I be believed? One would hope so, though I sometimes wonder.

This is my writing process, however. Sometimes I will take tiny seeds of reality—be it mine, or my family’s, or my friends’—and then stretch those truths, fictionalizing them beyond recognition, so that they fit the tale that wants to be told.

And so, the real answer to the question, “Did the things in the book really happen?” is, no, nothing happened to me exactly how it happens in the novel. Did I use things that happened to me to spark my imagination? Yes, absolutely.

But did my friends and I actually hide in a closet at a party in hopes of catching a glimpse of a couple having sex?

Next question, please.

------

BIG MAJOR THANKS to Don for taking the time to write this!! You can read the first chapter of Swim the Fly right here

GOODBYE ENGLAND

Okay, so I have a real big surprise for you guys......I'M COMING TO AMERICA TOMORROW....oh you already knew?

So this means I won't be here and I have made NO plans for the blog because I have been super crazy busy with real life stuff.  Sadly, this also means I won't be on Twitter all that much either BUT I have my tumblr, which I am hoping to be able to update daily/whenever I get the time whilst i'm in the states, it will either be through photos, quotes, or just whatever makes me laugh.  So, if you want to follow my tumblr for updates then YAY and i'll see you when i get back!!!

http://thecrookedshelf.tumblr.com

I leave you with this. Drunk Carla salutes you.

In My Mailbox!

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren and inspired by Alea @ Pop Culture Junkie.  BOTH of whom I get to see next week.  OMGGGGGGGGG.

Review

Any Man of Mine - Rachel Gibson

Passion - Lauren Kate - Really need to read the second book of this series huh?

Black Swan Rising - Lee Carroll

Pretty Twisted - Gina Blazill

There is no Dog - Meg Rosoff - ZOMGGGG I have died and gone to book heaven.

The Demons Surrender - Sarah Rees Brennan - this was a total surprise and I may have jumped around a little and laughed like a crazy person.  I have this packed in my hand luggage and i'm planning to devour this on my flight to Chicago.  Where I fly to on Wednesday.  Have I mentioned that?

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson - LOVED this book like Woah....review is here

Starcrossed - Josephine Angelini

Shift - Jeri Smith-Ready - AHHHH Luuuuuurve this series.

Elixir - Hilary Duff

You guys, in case it slipped your mind, I leave for America on Wednesday for BEA!!!!!!!!! MAJOR SPAZZ ATTACK. so this will be my last IMM until I return.  Also, that marks the end of my book buying ban.  OMG LET'S GET THIS BOOK BUYING PARTY STARTED.  Plus, I don't have and posts scheduled because I have spent the majority of my time fahhhhhhREAKING out and well, do I really seem like I am that organised? Surely you should've learned to expect this kind of flaky beahviour from me.  I will FO SHO be doing a LOT of road trips when I return, but for the meantime, I hope you all had a fabulous week and I will see some of you NEXT WEEK OMG I'M GONNA BARF.  I leave you with this which goes to show how much of a nerd I really am.

ME AND MY CASE THAT'S COMING TO AMERICA AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOU GUYS BETTER PREPARE YOURSELF FOR TACKLE HUGS.

Review - Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott

Published by Simon Pulse
Published 24 May 2011

Summary - Abby accepted that she can’t measure up to her beautiful, magnetic sister Tess a long time ago, and knows exactly what she is: Second best. Invisible. 

Until the accident. 

Now Tess is in a coma, and Abby’s life is on hold. It may have been hard living with Tess, but it's nothing compared to living without her. 

She's got a plan to bring Tess back though, involving the gorgeous and mysterious Eli, but then Abby learns something about Tess, something that was always there, but that she’d never seen. 

Abby is about to find out that truth isn't always what you think it is, and that life holds more than she ever thought it could..

I have a lot of love for Elizabeth Scott.  A LOT.  And damn did I want to shout my love for this new book of hers from the rooftop of a extraordinarily high building.  Except, I didn't love it.  In fact, I kind of feel like i did after watching Dear John......a little lost and disappointed, but impressed with the hotness of the guy.  But a hot guy a good story does not make (I know, I know this saddens me too, but we have to move past it).

So our main gal Abby is dead set on waking up her older sister Tess from her coma.  Tess has this rockin bod and is supermodel gorgeous and Abby may as well be the crust in her sisters eyes, because she has serious self image and perception issues.  All Abby wants to do is sit in the hospital because her sister is going to wake up, of course she's going to wave up, I mean the sun shines out of her amazing sculptured perfect arse.  All she wants to talk about is how amazing her sister is and how inconsequential she herself is.  (snore).  And this is where I got stuck in a big ol rut.  Abby whined SO much about how crap of a person she was that I started to hate her a little, because she was like a broken record and damn when your record is broke you go out and BUY A NEW RECORD.

Enter Eli.  The random insanely criminally hot guy that randomly shows up at the perfect moment.  OF course this hot guy is the answer to Abby's problems! If she can just get him to talk to Tess, she'll wake up because he's beautiful and they will fall in love and have the worlds most amazingly beautiful children in the history of the universe.  (seriously, whaaaaa?).  And again, I questionned the path the story was taking.  Yeah Tess is awesome blah blah blah, but really? a stranger is going to wake up a girl from a coma when her best friends and family have failed to do so? This is not logical and is simply a bit stupid.  I can really appreciate how difficult it must be for Abby to be in this situation and how her desperate need for her sister back would lead her to drastic measures, but that's just plain dumb.  Then some secrets get uncovered and drama and more whining ensues.

That's not to say there wasn't good parts on the book.  I particularly liked all the references to how bodacious Eli was, because this girl likes her swoon. And he's described as having this lovely caramel colour skin which makes me want to say YUMMMMM.  And Clemente.  You'll know what I mean when you read it.  AH I LOVE HIM.  So, yeah, I didn't love this one, but I still appreciated Scott's trademark writing style.  This one just was't for me, but that doesn't mean it's not for you! So read it and let me know what you think.

For those of you who are Elizabeth Scott virgins, check out Stealing Heaven and Bloom, both of which I super enjoyed!

Waiting on Wednesday - There is No Dog by Meg Rosoff

Published by Puffin
Published 4 August 2011

Summary - What if God were a feckless teenage boy named Bob? 

‘You can’t leave Bob to run the planet on his own.’
‘He is God.’
‘He’s not much of a God.’ 

In the beginning, Bob created the heaven and the earth and the beasts of the field and the creatures of the sea, and twenty-five million other species (including lots of fanciable girls). 

But mostly he prefers eating junk food and leaving his dirty clothes in a mouldering heap at the side of his bed. 

When Bob plays with mortals, millions die. And every time he falls in love, earth erupts in natural disasters. So humankind is going to be very sorry indeed he ever ran into a beautiful, completely irresistible girl called Lucy.
OH MY GOSH.  I want this book like crazy insanely bad.  I even have a little list going in my head, so here goes.  1. it's Meg FREAKING Rosoff.  2. I seriously am in love with How I Live Now, so muh so that when I walk past my bookcase I can't help but reach out to touch it, even if looking at the cover makes me want to cry like a complete baby.  3.  Remember that show, Joan of Arcadia? well, it wasn't all that amazing BUT the premise that the girl spoke to god and he was just regular people FASCINATED me.  4.  I'm interested to see what this means for religion and how that translates in the book.  5.  I too like eating jumk food and leaving dirty clothes laying around so I suspect me and Bob would be bff's.  6.  MEG ROSOFF OMGGGGGGGGGG.  7.  cover love, cover loooooooove!!! 8.  crazy big thanks to Book Smugglers for bringing this to my attention!!! (psssst Anna, see you in NYC next week *explodes*)

Blog Tour - A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, Extract 5

A Monster Calls was published on 5 May 2011 by the one and only Walker Books.  If you follow my blog at all, you'll probably know that I have only recently been introduced to Ness's work and that I have now declared my undying love for his ability to make the written word into something so extraordinary.  SO, when i got asked to be a part of the blog tour for his latest release, A Monster Calls, well let's just say I broke out the happy dance.

You can check out the first extract over on the lovely Sya's blog The Mountains of Instead right here, and follow the links to read every exclusive extract.  The next stop on the tour is Undercover Reads, and that will be posted tomorrow, so head on over there for your next fix!!

It is my absolute pleasure to present to you lovely people, the fifth extract from A Monster Calls:-

School

He could already taste the blood in his mouth as he got up. He had bitten the inside of his lip when he hit the ground, and it was what he focussed on now as he stood, the strange metallic flavour that made you want to spit it out immediately, like you’d eaten something that wasn’t food at all.

He swallowed it instead. Harry and his cronies would have been thrilled beyond words if they knew Conor was bleeding. He could hear Anton and Sully laughing behind him, knew exactly the look on Harry’s face, even though he couldn’t see it. He could probably even guess what Harry would say next in that calm, amused voice of his that seemed to mimic every adult you never wanted to meet.

“Be careful of the steps there,” Harry said. “You might fall.”

Yep, that’d be about right.

It hadn’t always been like this.

Harry was the Blond Wonder Child, the teachers’ pet through every year of school. The first pupil with his hand in the air, the fastest player on the football pitch, but for all that, just another kid in Conor’s class. They hadn’t been friends exactly – Harry didn’t really have friends, only followers; Anton and Sully basically just stood behind him and laughed at everything he did – but they hadn’t been enemies, either. Conor would have been mildly surprised if Harry had even known his name.

Somewhere over the past year, though, something had changed. Harry had started noticing Conor, catching his eye, looking at him with a detached amusement. 

This change hadn’t come when everything started with Conor’s mum. No, it had come later, when Conor started having the nightmare, the real nightmare, not the stupid tree, the nightmare with the screaming and the falling, the nightmare he would never tell another living soul about. When Conor started having that nightmare, that’s when Harry noticed him, like a secret mark had been placed on him that only Harry could see. 

A mark that drew Harry to him like iron to a magnet.

On the first day of the new school year, Harry had tripped Conor coming into the school grounds, sending him tumbling to the pavement.

And so it had begun.

And so it had continued.

YAY!! Sounds amazing right? YEAH? so go buy it!!

As always you can follow Patrick Ness on twitter here, visit his website or become a fan on facebook

City of Fallen Angels Bloghunt

Today I am super DUPER excited to kick off the City of Fallen Angels blog hunt!! As you all probably know by now, I am a serious Cassandra Clare fan girl and her books are the reason I started my blog in the first place.  So, when I got asked to kick off the tour in which you can win a letter from Jace himself, I was all over that like white on rice.

Okay, here's the deal:

Six questions

Six blogs

One chance for all you UK and Ireland fans to get your grabby little hands on the letter that Jace writes to Clary in City of Glass before he leaves on a life-threatening mission.  HOW EXCITING!! I don't know about you, but as soon as I read that line and realised I wasn't going to get to see the rest of the letter I was distraught, so this is fabulous news!

Okay, so once you've answered all the questions, you need to put the first letter from each of your answers together.  Those letters will create a word.  A word that will win you that letter.  All you have to do is email Undercover Reads (they have a fancy google document where you can submit your answer), and the ever lovely people at Walker Books will send you a beautiful print of Jace's letter, complete with the Morgenstern Seal.  YAY!!!

The first question is......

1. What is Simon's surname?

Grab a pen and write down the answer! Question two will be unveieled on Zoe Marriott's blog, The Zoe-Trope tommorrow.

THANK YOU and GOOD LUCK.  

Happy HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!!

Today is my good friend Jenny's birthday.  Y'all probably know her as that cool girl who runs the ever fabulous Wondrous Reads blog.  Or this girl here with that other crazy girl known as me.

So, i've known Jenny for almost two years.  Hers was the first blog I ever stumbled upon and she is the first person I ever spoke to about wanting to start my own.  I seem to recall emailing her, exclaiming how much I looooved Borders (le sigh) and how in the crap did she start her blog and make it popular.  I knew nothing about blogs; I didn't know there was this huge corner of the internet filled with amazing people.  And the fact that she took the time to reply to my email and spoke to me on twitter was like insane to me, because of course, I thought she was famous.

THEN......things got even better.  We realised we live in the SAME FREAKIN CITY.  Which means that I get to see her in person!!! My own real life book BFF and I wouldn't swap her for the world (not even her twilight obsession).  Now, Jenny is one of my closest friends.  I speak to her all the time, we meet up for book swappage and movies and food.  We go to author events together and she puts up with my generally crazy self.  So....HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!!! I hope your day is filled with vampire boys, fake blood and pizza with fries.  Oh and BOOKS!! YAY.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

Fake IMM

Okay, so I did get some fahhhhhabulous books this week, including a fancy pants shiny finished copy of Divergent, the review of which went live on Friday.  Seriously, IT'S SO SHINY!!! Thanks to Harper Collins for that beaut! Also, I got another review copy of Blood Magic, which is OH SO AMAZING.

ZOOOOOMG YOU GUYS IT'S FRICKIN MAY!!!! And you know what this means right? I COME TO AMERICA IN 17 DAYS!!!!! Also, BEA is almost upon us!!! As you can probably guess I am super super SUPER excited.  I got my tickets yesterday and it was like celebration central up in hur! I was screaming and jumping around.  That has happened to me a LOT this week, because I've been reading the Chaos Walking books that make me want to do this -

Then I watched the Royal Wedding and inbetween crying and shipping Pippa and Harry with MY WHOLE ENTIRE HEART, I was doing this -

Because look.  JUST LOOK.  I mean, he can't help it.  He even knows and he's all like "yeah I know, but what can you do huh?"

AHHHHHH and now of course, I want this - 

CHEERS!!! Have a fab week of good books and even better drinks