Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Just Kill Me by Adam Selzer Mood Board | Blog Tour & Giveaway!



Today, I'm partnering with Irish Banana Blog Tours and Adam Selzer to bring you a mood board inspired by Adam's book, JUST KILL ME! Be sure to keep reading for some information about the book and the author, to see my mood board & to enter the AMAZING giveaway that Irish Banana Tours put together for all of you! :) 

Monday, August 29, 2016

Wish by Barbara O'Connor | Blog Tour & Moodboard Monday


Today, I am extremely excited to be a part of the blog tour for Barbara O'Connor's Wish! I was wishing to be on this tour ever since I found out about it, and I'm so excited to share the content that I created with you!

For my stop on the tour, I'm sharing a mood board that is inspired by the characters and events in Wish! If you know me, you know that I absolutely love to make mood boards, so I had a blast putting this one together! (Plus, I absolutely love dogs, and this mood board gave me an excuse to spend hours on the internet looking at cute dogs!)

Thursday, August 25, 2016

FISH WIELDER by J R R R Hardison | Release Blitz + Giveaway!

When I first read about FISH WIELDER, the very first thing that I thought of was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. FISH WIELDER is full of funny characters, a silly story and sometimes outright strange mission. While FISH WIELDER may be an epic fantasy, it's completely different than anything on the market. A talking fish and a depressed brute take on the seemingly hopeless mission of retrieving the lost pudding -- not to eat, but to save their planet!

With that, I'm very happy to share a little bit about the author, the book, and give you a chance to try the book for yourselves! Also, don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Jim has worked as a writer, screen writer, animator and director in entertainment and commercials since graduating from Columbia College of Chicago in 1988. He is the author of The Helm, which YALSA praised as one of 2010’s best graphic novels for young readers, and has directed animated commercial and entertainment projects, including spots for M&M's, AT&T, and Kellogg's. He co-founded Character LLC in 2000 and has given story advice to many of the world's largest brands, such as Target, Verizon, Samsung, McDonalds and Walmart, and has even appeared on NBC's "The Apprentice" as an expert adviser on brand characters. Jim lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two kids and two dogs. Fish Wielder is his first novel.

About FISH WIELDER:

Fish Wielder is kind of like Lord of the Rings, set in Narnia, if it was written by the guys who made Monty Python and the Holy Grail while they were listening to the music of They Might Be Giants.

In ancient times, the Dark Lord Mauron cooked the most powerful magic chocolate dessert ever made, the Pudding of Power. One thousand and two years later, the evil leader of the Bad Religion, the Heartless One, is trying to recover the lost pudding in order to enslave the peoples of Grome. Only the depressed barbarian warrior Thoral Might Fist and his best friend, Brad the talking Koi fish, have a chance to save the world of Grome from destruction, but that's going to take a ridiculous amount of magic and mayhem. Thus begins the esepically silly epic fantasy of epic proportions, Fish Wielder—book one of the Fish Wielder Trilogy.

PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE!  Amazon | Barnes & Noble  

EXCERPT:



GIVEAWAY! 
1 winner will receive a $10 (USD) Amazon Gift Card and a copy of FISH WIELDER
*Gift card is open internationally, but FISH WIELDER can only be mailed to a US mailing address*

Rafflecopter Code:

I Turn the Pages is not responsible for sending the giveaway prize nor is I Turn the Pages responsible if the prize is lost in the mail, by entering the giveaway, you acknowledge this!

Thank you so much to Hannah from Irish Banana for allowing me to be a part of this release blitz and to J R R R Hardison for letting me share an excerpt from his book AND have a giveaway for all of my lovely readers!

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake | Waiting on Wednesday

Howdy, folks!

I know I haven't done an official "Waiting on Wednesday" post in a while, so I thought I would bring it back to the blog. There are a ton of books that I am really anticipated for, and some of the release dates are right around the corner, so I wanted to share one with you all today.

The book for this week is.....

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Ten Books That Have Been On My TBR From Before I Started Blogging That I STILL Haven't Read Yet | Top Ten Tuesday

For this week's Top Ten Tuesday, it's all about books that we meant to read in our pre-blogging era. Granted, that was two years ago (I would have been 15) and I still haven't really purged the books I don't want to read anymore from my shelves . However, the books on THIS list are books that I have FULL INTENTIONS of reading -- I just haven't gotten to them yet.

Maybe you could help me by suggesting a few to read from this list, or linking me to your own TBR so I can get some more ideas :)

Without further adieu, here are some of the books I mean to read in the near future. :)

Monday, August 22, 2016

For This Life Only by Stacey Kade | Blog Tour & Giveaway


I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of the Irish Banana Blog Tour for FOR THIS LIFE ONLY by Stacey Kade! 



Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publish Date: August 30th 2016
Page Amount: 320 Pages
Price: $17.99 Hardback
ISBN: 1481432486 (ISBN13: 9781481432481)
"A young man struggles to move forward after the death of his twin brother in this gripping, coming-of-age tale about loss, redemption, love, and the moment you begin to see the world differently.

Three minutes.

Jacob Palmer died for three life-changing minutes.

And when he woke up, nothing was the same. Elijah, his twin brother, is dead, and his family is broken. Jace’s planned future is crushed, along with his pitching arm. Everyone keeps telling him that Eli’s in a better place, but Jace isn’t so sure. Because in those three minutes, there was nothing.

Overwhelmed by guilt and doubt, Jace struggles to adjust to this new version of the world, one without his brother, one without the certainties he once relied on. And then Thera comes into his life.

She’s the last girl he should be turning to for help.

But she’s also the first person to truly see him."





ABOUT STACEY KADE:
As an award-winning corporate copywriter, Stacey Kade has written about everything from backhoe loaders to breast pumps. But she prefers to make things up instead.

She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, Greg, and two retired racing greyhounds, SheWearsThePants (Pansy) and Shutter. When she’s not reading or writing, you’ll likely find her parked in front of the television catching up on her favorite shows (Scandal, The Vampire Diaries, Almost Human, The Walking Dead, and Sherlock, among others.)

Stacey is the author of the The Ghost and the Goth trilogy (THE GHOST AND THE GOTH, QUEEN OF THE DEAD, and BODY & SOUL) and The Project Paper Doll Series (THE RULES and THE HUNT). You can find her (far too often) on Facebook and Twitter as well as http://www.staceykade.com


If you know me well, you know that I absolutely love to make mood boards for my blog! I decided to make a mood board for my stop on the FOR THIS LIFE ONLY! I really hope you enjoy it!

As you can probably tell by the mood board below, this book does contain some pretty heavy themes. I'm actually extremely happy about that, because I feel like a lot of YA in the past had not discussed ideas like the death of a sibling, or the connection to a character's faith, or the aftermath of a disaster. I love how the publishing industry is changing and embracing more books that contain extremely important narratives. While it might not relate to you personally, there is a reader out there who might need a book like this one. 

With that, let's reveal my mood board for this book!


Note: I received a copy of the book in the mail today (8/21) and already finished it! I didn't want to redo the moodboard/explanations because I put a ton of time into this post, and I also want to do a formal review comparing my initial thoughts to my final ones!

I've decided to change this post and make it a little bit different than the post for my Mood Board Mondays, simply because the book isn't out yet (and I haven't received my copy yet!), so I feel like if I tried to answer some of those questions, I would not be able to.

For this mood board, because I haven't read the book yet, I pulled most of what I know about the book from other advanced reviews and the summary. I wanted to try and capture the essence of the story - that is, a boy dealing with the lost of his twin brother - even if I couldn't read the book yet.

The main character in this book loves baseball, and has a very strong connection to his faith, so I wanted to include those two pieces as elements of my mood board. Jace, however, has to give up his passion for baseball when his pitching arm is crushed, in the same accident that killed his twin brother.

Throughout the book, not only does he have to grieve the loss of his twin, but learn how to cope with losing one of his passions as well.

I do know that this book deals with some sort of a friendship/romance through one of the girls that he meets, but seeing as I didn't know the exact nature of it, I didn't want to include it in my mood board. Instead, I wanted to focus my mood board on Jace and his family, along with the feelings he might be dealing with. The little girl in the mood board is his younger sister. I thought it would be interesting to include her in the mood board, because I wonder how much of the story focuses on her and how she is coming to terms with something that she might not understand completely.

Overall, I really enjoyed creating this mood board for the tour! I can't wait to get my hands on this book and read it! I'll definitely be writing a review on this, and I would love to see how my initial interpretations of the story compare to the writing.

Now, for the giveaway!

Giveaway:
3 Finished Copies of FOR THIS LIFE ONLY (US Only)

This giveaway is being run TOUR WIDE, so I Turn the Pages is not personally responsible for this giveaway nor if any of the items get lost in the post, etc. 

Click below to enter!

Don't forget to rack up some more entries in the giveaway and stop by the other posts on the tour as well!


What was one book that you needed to read about when you were younger? Let me know in the comments below!

Thank you SO much to Irish Banana Blog Tours and Stacey Kade for allowing me to promote a book that is very much needed in the YA world!

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

UNKNOWN by Wendy Higgins | Release Day Blitz + GIVEAWAY

Today, I am very excited to partner with Irish Banana Blog Tours and Wendy Higgins to bring you some amazing news on Wendy Higgins' new book, UNKNOWN, which releases today! 

I know this is a New Adult series, and it's not suitable for the younger readers in my blog, but I figured it would be a nice deal to share! I know a lot of my readers read New Adult as well, so I want to share this amazing new series with you from a NYT Bestselling Author!

There is an amazing sale going on, but it's only for a short time! You can purchase UNKNOWN for only $2.99 (USD)! If you ask me, that is definitely an AMAZING DEAL. A whole book, for less than the price of a coffee at Starbucks.

Since you know you definitely want to buy the book, I'll include a summary of the book and the links to purchase below!

About UNKNOWN:
Amber Tate believes the worst thing she’ll suffer in life is dealing with the unrequited love she feels for her brother’s best friend, Rylen Fite. She also believes war is something unfortunate that happens places far, far away from her rural Nevada town. She’s wrong on both counts.

When an unknown organization meticulously bombs major cities in the United States and across the globe, a trickle-down effect spreads to remaining towns at an alarming speed—everything from food and water sources to technology and communications are compromised. Without leadership, the nation is split between paralysis and panic, but Amber isn’t one to hide or watch helplessly. She’s determined to put her nursing skills to use, despite the danger, even if it means working alongside the man she can never have.

In this first installment of NY Times bestselling author, Wendy Higgins’s debut New Adult series, a frighteningly realistic apocalyptic America is brought to life, entwined with searing romantic tension that will leave you eager for more.

ORDER UNKNOWN HERE! For only $2.99 USD!
Kindle: https://goo.gl/KEKn2D
iTunes: https://goo.gl/R9nav8
Kobo: https://goo.gl/XiYj6g


ABOUT WENDY
Wendy Higgins is the USA Today and NY Times bestselling author of the SWEET EVIL series from HarperTeen, the high fantasy duology THE GREAT HUNT, and her independently published Irish Fantasy SEE ME.
After earning a Creative Writing degree from George Mason University and a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from Radford, Wendy taught high school English until achieving her dream job as a full-time writer.
Wend lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with her husband, daughter, son, and little doggie Rue.

*********

And now for the really fun part, the GIVEAWAY!!!

This giveaway is open internationally, which means all (and I mean all) of you lovely readers can enter to win a prize pack!

The GRAND PRIZE is the picture below. 

If you are the GRAND PRIZE winner, you will receive: a Signed Paperback Copy of Unknown, an Unknown Poster, Bookplates, and Bookmarks!

But WAIT! There are going to be two more winners for this giveaway, with each of the "runner-ups" receiving a digital copy of UNKNOWN from either Barnes and Noble or Amazon), with signed bookmarks and bookplates!

This giveaway runs blitz-wide, so I'm not responsible for anything lost in the mail/anything bad happening if you win. (I won't see your information either, so don't worry!)

BUT: You should definitely enter because this is an amazing opportunity for ALL of you guys!


Again, thank you so much to Irish Banana Blog Tours and Wendy Higgins for allowing me to promote a great book and a great sale! 

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

I Have a BookTube Channel! | Youtube

Let's just cut to the chase: I made a YouTube channel!

(ou can view my new channel by clicking the link above!)

You might be thinking: Sheridan, if you already have a blog dedicated to books, why did you have to make a YouTube channel as well? Are you not just accomplishing the same thing?

The answer is, well...complicated. 

Yes, I will now have a blog and a YouTube channel, both of which are geared toward books, whether that be book reviews, mood boards, tour stops or even book related Q&As can depend on the week in which I'm posting or recording a video. 

I chose to make a YouTube channel as well because I want to explore a little bit. I want to play around with the format of my reviews, and also improve my oral communication skills. Plus, I realize that not everyone likes to sit in front of a computer screen and read my words off of a page - loads of people are auditory learners, which means that people learn better from hearing someone speak instead of reading words off of a page. 

I want to make sure that people who don't like reading blog posts or have difficulty doing so can also find a home in my blog of I Turn The Pages. I don't want anyone to feel alienated or not feel like they are a part of the community. 

That's not the only reason I created a YouTube channel. I created a YouTube channel because I wanted to, and I feel that it will be a fun, creative adventure. I wanted to challenge myself, and this was one of the things that I came up with.

So, to answer the original question: no, I'm not accomplishing the same thing. I go a little bit into detail in the next few questions, if you want to know my thought process!

What does this mean for your blog? Are you going to stop posting?

The answer to this one is incredibly straight forward. The answer is: No, I am not going to stop posting! My blog isn't going anywhere!

My YouTube channel is an additional outlet for me to talk about books. For me, I think about it as having multiple social media accounts, like Facebook and Twitter. You can use Facebook and Twitter for the same thing (connecting with other people & sharing your opinions), but you reach different people, and you may have different things to talk about based on who is in your social circle on each account and the parameters of the website itself. It can be hard to get into a debate on Twitter, where tweets can only be 140 characters, but relatively easy on Facebook because the word limit is much higher there. 

For the book community, think about unboxings. For me, it is very difficult to write a blog post featuring the items that I opened in a subscription box or that I was sent in the mail, but if I do an unboxing video, it's very simple! I already have to open the package to see what is inside, so why not film my reaction to it as well?

So, when you are asking about the impact on my blog, here is what I have to say. Nothing is happening to my blog! It will be here forever. I will continue updating it, writing posts, and doing what I love. The only thing that will change on my blog is the consistency of posts, and that's a good thing! I want to become more consistent on my blog! My YouTube Channel will not hurt my blog, at all! 

Sure, I might have a video and a blog post overlap on the same book, but that's okay. For example, I filmed a video review of AND I DARKEN by Kiersten White and I wrote a review about it to post on my blog. You can pick which one to watch/read, but because of the medium, they both come across a little bit differently. 

While I didn't mean to have two reviews here on the blog and on my YouTube channel, I have bright ideas for the future. I might review a book on my YouTube channel that I have posted about on my blog multiple times. I might do a Q&A with the author on my blog, and talk about the book in other ways on my YouTube channel. 

My YouTube channel is meant to bring my love of books full circle. It is way easier for me to do a haul video, rather than write a blog post about it. I can't write a blog post about a "Follow Me Around" video. Starting a YouTube channel is just about getting another medium to share my content in an effective way and in a way that is best for me to share that content. 

So no, nothing is changing about my blog! Ease your mind of all of your worries, I will be here, better than ever, and still doing what I love. 

Okay...do you have an upload schedule yet?

Nope! I'm still hammering out the kinks on that one. Once I have one, I'll update you, here and on my YouTube channel to let you know if that changes!

But, if you want to be notified when I post a new video, you can subscribe to my channel now, and my videos should appear in the nice little subscriptions box that YouTube prepared for you. 

I want to leave you all with this: Don't worry! My YouTube Channel is full of exciting adventures, just like my blog, and I'm so excited to start my own channel in addition to blogging!

Do you have a YouTube channel? Let me know your BookTube channel and link me to it in the comments below if you do! Are there any kinds of videos that you would love to see from me? Let me know!

Monday, August 8, 2016

AND I DARKEN by Kiersten White | Mood Board Monday


You may recall that on Friday, I posted my written review of AND I DARKEN on the blog, and I also recorded a video review that I posted on my YouTube channel a couple of weeks ago.

Well, I thought that now would be a perfect time to create a mood board for this book as well!

Friday, August 5, 2016

AND I DARKEN by Kiersten White | Written & Video Review

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Before you read this review, I want to let you know that I also recorded a video review! So, if video reviews are more "your style", you can click here to watch it (and subscribe to my channel, if you would like!)





Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publish Date: June 28th 2016
Page Amount: 475 Pages
Price: $18.99 Hardback
ISBN: 0553522310 (ISBN13: 9780553522310)

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

Victoria Aveyard’s RED QUEEN meets Sarah J Maas’ THRONE OF GLASS in this historical fiction by MIND GAMES author Kiersten White.

Lada Dragwyla and her younger brother Radu have lived peacefully in Wallachia --- their father’s kingdom --- for as long as they can remember. But just because the pair have been living peacefully doesn’t mean they have been happy. Lada is forced to follow in her mother’s footsteps, knowing all well that the only value she holds is in marriage to create an alliance, even if that’s not what she wants. Radu, on the other hand, has been forced into the spotlight as the “Son of the Dragon”, as he has been taking classes to learn how to become a true warrior. Lada would kill for that opportunity --- literally.

But when Lada learns of chaos coming to their humble home which threatens her father’s rule, it tears their life apart. Under the pressure of an Ottoman authority, Lada’s father surrenders his children to the Ottoman Courts, causing the pair to adjust to a completely different lifestyle, with different people, rules, and expectations. But the “Daughter of the Dragon” has her own bite, and she doesn’t play by the rules --- even if it means the lives of herself and her brother could be taken away in an instant.

Being the history buff that I am, I fell in love with the way that Kiersten White brings the Ottoman Empire into a fictional story. White is able to flawlessly weave the fabrics of reality and fiction together, bringing in historically accurate information into a story while putting her own spin on the time period. I almost forgot that this story was a fictional encounter, and didn’t actually occur in history!

While adjusting to the new lifestyle in the Ottoman Courts, Lada goes through not only a change in her lifestyle, but several transformations of her personality, values, and morals. Lada, being more of a female Vlad the Impaler in the beginning of the book, not only questions her life back in Wallachia, but how she has treated others, what she values and what she wants her future to be. Radu, Lada’s brother, also goes through a period of transformation, questioning his family, his home, and above all, his religious beliefs.

As a teen myself, I enjoyed seeing these characters question what they have been taught and the situations they have grown up in. I think that this questioning helped to change and strengthen their frame of mind, and it was not all that different to what young adults and teenagers do during our transition from our adolescence to our adult lives. Seeing uncertainty, doubt, and fear on the page made these characters human, and ultimately, helped me connect with them a lot more as a teen reader going through the same questioning of everything that I know.

AND I DARKEN follows Lada, Radu, and a slew of other characters during very important times in their lives. The book opens during Lada and Radu’s time in Wallachia, their homeland, and progresses through their time in the Ottoman Courts. Within both of these settings, characters are introduced to new and tricky scenarios, and forced to make decisions that will change the course of their lives. It does take the characters quite some time to make decisions and see the consequences of their actions, so the plot progression can be slow at spots in the book. However, once the characters begin to realize the consequences of their choices, the plot thickens, and several high-intensity scenes occur right after another.

I would recommend AND I DARKEN to anyone that likes to read Young Adult literature. Because the book takes place within the Ottoman Empire, AND I DARKEN does include references to historical events and figures.AND I DARKEN already had me sold on the “gender-swapped Vlad the Impaler” piece, but the story is much more than these historical tidbits. Sure, AND I DARKEN showcases the successes and perils of the Ottoman Empire, but also explores the concepts of free will, hope, family and religion in ways that all readers understand. Kiersten White crafts a thought-provoking, captivating, and enthralling tale of two young siblings trying to find their place in the world and discover who they truly are.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from Emma's ARC ADOPTION AGENCY in exchange for a review. This in no way affects my review of the book. All reviews are honest and my own.