Liv, Forever Blog Tour: Guest Post by Amy Talkington

Today author Amy Talkington guest post's as part of the Blog Tour for her debut novel Liv, Forever! She'll be talking about Who Would You Cast for the character of Abigail, so.. here you go!

Liv, Forever
by Amy Talkington



Publication:March 11th 2014
by
Soho Teen











When Liv Bloom lands an art scholarship at Wickham Hall, it’s her ticket out of the foster system. Liv isn’t sure what to make of the school’s weird traditions and rituals, but she couldn’t be happier. For the first time ever, she has her own studio, her own supply of paints. Everything she could want.

Then she meets Malcolm Astor, a legacy student, a fellow artist, and the one person who’s ever been able to melt her defenses. Liv’s only friend at Wickham, fellow scholarship kid Gabe Nichols, warns her not to get involved, but life is finally going Liv’s way, and all she wants to do is enjoy the ride.

But Liv’s bliss is doomed. Weeks after arriving, she is viciously murdered and, in death, she discovers that she’s the latest victim of a dark conspiracy that has claimed many lives. Cursed with the ability to see the many ghosts on Wickham’s campus, Gabe is now Liv’s only link to the world of the living. To Malcolm.

Together, Liv, Gabe, and Malcolm fight to expose the terrible truth that haunts the halls of Wickham. But Liv must fight alone to come to grips with the ultimate star-crossed love.

Who Would You Cast for the character of Abigail

ABIGAIL – ALLIE GONINO

Abigail is the reigning queen of Wickham Hall and she’s set on keeping everybody in his or her place, particularly Liv. She’s manipulative, a control freak, and she just might’ve murdered Liv.
With her secretive smile, Allie Gonino (“The Lying Game,” “10 Things I Hate About You”) could be a perfect choice for Abigail. She has poise and pomp, confidence and control... and consistently perfect blond hair.

Sophistication with a sideways glance.

Can we trust her? Don’t think so.

Something about her just says, “don’t mess with me.”


If you want to know all the latest on Liv, Forever follow me on Twitter @amytalkington and Tumblr http://amytalkington.tumblr.com

Amy Talkington is an award-winning screenwriter and director living in Los Angeles.

Before all that she wrote about music for magazines like Spin, Ray Gun, Interview, and Seventeen (mostly just as a way to get to hang out with rock stars).

As a teenager in Dallas, Texas, Amy painted lots of angsty self-portraits, listened to The Velvet Underground and was difficult enough that her parents finally let her go to boarding school on the East Coast. Liv, Forever is her first novel.



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Book Review: The Shadow Prince by Bree Despain

Title: The Shadow Prince (Into the Dark #1)
Author: Bree Despain
Publisher: Egmont USA
Publishing Date: March 11th 2014
Length: 512 pages
Keywords: YA, fiction, fantasy, Greek mythology, romance, friendship
Source: Edelweiss

Haden Lord, the disgraced prince of the Underrealm, has been sent to the mortal world to entice a girl into returning with him to the land of the dead. Posing as a student at Olympus Hills High—a haven for children of the rich and famous—Haden must single out the one girl rumored to be able to restore immortality to his race.

Daphne Raines has dreams much bigger than her tiny southern Utah town, so when her rock star dad suddenly reappears, offering her full tuition to Olympus Hills High’s prestigious music program, she sees an opportunity to catch the break she needs to make it as a singer. But upon moving into her estranged father’s mansion in California, and attending her glamorous new school, Daphne soon realizes she isn’t the only student in Olympus who doesn’t quite belong.

Haden and Daphne—destined for each other—know nothing of the true stakes their fated courtship entails. As war between the gods brews, the teenagers’ lives collide. But Daphne won’t be wooed easily and when it seems their prophesied link could happen, Haden realizes something he never intended—he’s fallen in love. Now to save themselves, Haden and Daphne must rewrite their destinies. But as their destinies change, so do the fates of both their worlds.

Summary by Goodreads

 

THE SHADOW PRINCE was yet another first book in a trilogy influenced by Greek mythology that spiked my interest as soon as I'd noticed it had a set release date. This is Bree Despain's fourth book and you see that she knows exactly how to write engaging fiction with characters you can laugh with and relate to. So I think you should meet Daphne and Haden now.

Daphne is taken from her well-regulated life in a small town in Utah, where she's been living with her mother, to leave for California with her rock star Dad who she hasn't seen in ages. Before, she's been forbidden to leave town and therefore has never seen all the things she wanted to see and never got to realize her biggest dream of becoming a singer. When our very talented and humble protagonist is faced with such severe restrictions you just can't but feel for her, right?

Now that Daphne is attending Olympus Hills High in California she learns a lot, meets new people for the first time in her life and even investigates the strange happenings in her new home. Beside her testing the new bonds with her father, she's spending more and more time with the other new kid in town, Haden Lord. As you already know he is a prince from the underrealm and set out to take Daphne with him. So you can expect a few delusions and confusions along the way to them becoming an item. I promise you, it's a treat to see Haden adapt to all the human conventions and things a normal teenager noawdays would do. His inexperience and his bedazzlement, his confusion over receiving laughter at his genuine formal requests or clumsy attempts  to convince Daphne to go out with him are just so cute in their ridiculousness. Theirs is a romance forged by the powers of fate, the recognition of a related soul, and music.  

Haden's past is shaped by tragic and cruel fates which play a major role in his relationships to his mother, antagonistic father and brother. If you attempted a THE SHADOW PRINCE character study you would definitely need to put high importance on the complicated family bonds of both main characters. Besides that, music is relevant for the story and both characters, too, and plays an important role in their early courtship, as Haden would call it. 

4/5 **** THE SHADOW PRINCE - Haden and Daphne are the new hot couple in the YA mythology category!

Some parts of the story could've been more progressive and could've used some tightening up. Otherwise I've got no complaints.

Where Bree Despain's THE DARK DIVINE series is one that captivated me with its engaging characters and the desperate love story that is Grace and Daniel's, I see the strong suits of THE SHADOW PRINCE more in its generel story line, the mysterious city of Olympus Hills and the Greek mythology references that are so rich with possibilities that the sequel could head in any direction.

"I did the unforgivable the day my mother died, and for that I've been punished every moment of my life. 

He's too weak-minded. 

Impulsive.

He's too much like her.

He's too human. 

It has been ten years, and regardless of everything I've done to try to change their minds, the Court still speaks of me as if I am unworthy of my birthright. I try to lock away my doubtful thoughts as I watch the Oracle make her way up and down the ranks of Underlords." ―  p.1

THE SHADOW PRINCE you might enjoy Rick Riordan's THE LIGHTNING THIEF and all the other Percy Jackson adventures. If you haven't read these two so far, you could find out if THE GODDESS TEST by Aimée Carter and EVERNEATH by Brodi Ashton are up your alley.

* Have yet to read Bree's THE DARK DIVINE trilogy? Get all three books now!

* Read an excerpt of THE SHADOW PRINCE. 

* Want to see Bree in person? Check out her event schedule!

* Visit www.breedespain.com for more information about Bree and her books.

* Thanks to Egmont USA and Edelweiss for prodiving me with an e-galley of THE SHADOW PRINCE!

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Book Series Review: Incarnate, Asunder, Infinite by Jodi Meadows

Title: Incarnate, Asunder, Infinite (Newsoul #1, #2, #3)
Author: Jodi Meadows
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publishing Date: January 31st 2012, January 29th 2013, January 28th 2014
Length: 374 pages, 406 pages, 418 pages
Keywords: YA, fiction, fantasy, romance, reincarnation, music
Source: Bought, Publisher

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Summary by Goodreads

 

New soul, no soul, reincarnation. You see, the concept and meaning of the essence of a human being, the characteristics, the emotions, the memories that define a person, are a very prominent and recurring theme in Jodi Meadows NEWSOUL three-book series. Numerous discussions about and unsettling discoveries of a godlike being and the temple in the city's center are inevitably connected with Ana's efforts to find the origin and reason behind the reincarnation of Heart's one million souls. Conflicts of various forms resulting from the idea of God Janan were fast becoming parts of the story I would've wished to skip altogether instead of reading even more about them from the first to the last book.

With Ana, Jodi Meadows introduces us to a main character whose journey has only just begun. Her upbringing was anything but kind and loving and so Ana is someone who doesn't easily trust and love. Ana is a delicate, yet strong character and hers is a story of significant emotional development. How could it be different, the bonds of friendship and Ana's love story with Sam, her beloved musician, were my main reason and motivation to finish the series as a whole.

When I look back at the entire series, more than thousand pages worth of story, I don't have the impression that very much happened beside the main conflicts with Janan, sylph, new soul opposers and dragons. Characters were likely to be followed in their repetitive quests. In addition the story's overall ending was one of the most anticlimatic I have encountered in a dystopian novel. 

Phoenixes, dragons, sylphs, reincarnation, the God of souls. There are many different things to be discovered in Jodi's fantasy world. The world map had so many incredible possibilities and enticements like the mentioned jungle, islands, the ocean, but they were left unexplored in the end. 

Notes, melodies, music. They are the heart of Jodi Meadow's trilogy. Music is always something that's very hard for me to work with in a story. Books with affinity for music are often those that don't enchant me as much as they could. Ana and Sam are practicing all the time, talking about music, learning new instruments, composing new songs. Their lives are so centered around it that their characters are irrevocably linked with the music inside them. It defines them and who they are or want to be. Beside the people in their lives, music is the most important thing for them. Something I just couldn't be as enthusiastic about as they are, creating a slight discrepancy between the characters, story and me. Even so I'm sure many people will like this series especially for its great musical finesse, for its many songs and moments of euphony and friendship.

3/5 *** NEWSOUL series - A colorful, melodic dreamland of souls and magical creatures for music aficionados. A YA symphony slightly dissonant for me. 

The NEWSOUL series is different and doesn't follow the same patterns of action that other standard YA novels do. Jodi Meadows came up with a very unique concept of reincarnation and invited us to her wide and wild, beautiful and dangerous, dark and multicolored world. In the end her explanation for the enternal reincarnation process of souls, the godlike being of Janan and the temple were a bit too far fetched for me. I missed many adventurous chapters that could've been waiting for our characters out there exploring the world outside of Heart instead. I'll be waiting for Jodi's next project, THE ORPHAN QUEEN, to throw me off my feet then.

"I wasn't reborn. I was five when I first realized how different that made me. It was the spring equinox in the Year of Souls: Soul Night, when the others traded stories about things they'd done three lifetimes ago. Ten lives. Twenty. Battles against dragons, developing the first laser pistol, and Cris's four-life quest to grow a perfect blue rose, only for everyone to declare it was purple. 

[...]

Everyone else rememberd a hundred lifetimes before this one. I had to know why I couldn't. 

"Who am I?" My first spoken words.

"No one," she said. "Nosoul."" ―  p. 5-6

the NEWSOUL series you might enjoy the INCARNATION duology by Avery Williams. THE ALCHEMY OF FOREVER and THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TOMORROW are very great reads and are about a different concept of reincarnation and the use of alchemy.

* Don't miss Sam's novella, PHOENIX OVERTURE!

* Read an excerpt of INCARNATE here.

* Click here to watch the INCARNATE book trailer.

* For more information about Jodi and her books visit www.jodimeadows.com.

* Thanks to Harper Collins International for sending me a copy of INFINITE for review!

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Book Review: Panic by Lauren Oliver

Title: Panic
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publishing Date: March 4th 2014
Length: 416 pages
Keywords: YA, fiction, contemporary, thriller, romance, danger, dares, game
Source: Publisher

Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a dead-end town of 12,000 people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

Heather never thought she would compete in Panic, a legendary game played by graduating seniors, where the stakes are high and the payoff is even higher. She’d never thought of herself as fearless, the kind of person who would fight to stand out. But when she finds something, and someone, to fight for, she will discover that she is braver than she ever thought.

Dodge has never been afraid of Panic. His secret will fuel him, and get him all the way through the game, he’s sure of it. But what he doesn't know is that he’s not the only one with a secret. Everyone has something to play for.

For Heather and Dodge, the game will bring new alliances, unexpected revelations, and the possibility of first love for each of them—and the knowledge that sometimes the very things we fear are those we need the most.

Summary by Goodreads

  

Carp, a small town, a place without prospects and the last place a teenager like Heather wants to get stuck. Even when Lauren Oliver doesn't write dystopian fiction or fantastical Middle Grade worlds, I still experienced her YA contemporary setting as if I were a part of the dangerous game of Panic.
In PANIC Lauren Oliver observes what young people come up with when they are bored out of their minds in a town like Carp. Born out of hopelessness for a better future, thoughts are wandering to darker places. They need money to get out of there. They need something that keeps them alive. The thrill, the possibility at something grand. And so they risk everything in something they call a game. Panic.

I can't emphasize enough that Lauren's characters are never like any characters from other novels, and even in an assemblage of characters from her own pen, I can't think of any other character that compares to Heather or Dodge. And I very much admire Lauren Oliver for writing about uncommon characters with rough edges and unique stories to tell, rather than pen down the characters that people are used to or should want to read about.

PANIC is as much about the game as about the characters' lives that are at risk. We witness the problematic home life of two teens who are brought together by chance. Heather cares about her little sister more than anything. They need to get out of Carp as soon as possible and leave their useless mother behind, if they want to have a shot at a future worth living.
Dodge's story and incentive to participate in Panic circle around his sister, too, and something terrible that happened to her in the past. You will read more about the bonds between the siblings and the friendship between Heather, her friends Natalie and Bishop, and Dodge. Natalie and Bishop were two secondary characters so worth getting to know. I think I even liked Bishop best out of all the PANIC characters. 

The romantic ties in this story are knotting themselves into surprisingly different patterns than I expected them when I first heard about this story. I thought Heather and Dodge just had to grow together and start having romantic feelings for each other, with them both being main characters and both having their own chapters. But nuh-uh. Not Heather and Dodge. They are both finding someone else worth fighting for.

The longer the game of Panic is running, the bets and dares are becoming more extreme and dangerous. Heather isn't fearless, she's anything but, but she has something to fight for. A better future for herself and her sister. Meanwhile Dodge isn't taking the game too seriously, he's simply after revenge. For his sister who is paralysed. And Dodge can't wait to show the guy who hurt her that revenge can hurt a lot worse.
They both go into the game with very different motivations. Heather and Dodge are from two different worlds it seems. Somehow along the way to the final round of this game, they notice that nothing is as it seems. In the end both experience what it means to make sacrifices for the things that are dearest to them, to take the risk and what it means to say 'No'. Also, how it feels to face your biggest fears and figurative enemies and how brilliant the reward can be once you've overcome them.

4/5 **** PANIC - The YA world has never been more ready to play such a sinister and wicked game as Panic, crafted by the one and only, genuinely talented Lauren Oliver. You should dread and desire this book to equal parts.

Lauren Oliver's writing is once again thrilling and fast-paced. Her characters are driven by strong emotions and needs. Future, past, isolation, hope, dreams and fears. With its dark undertone, the daring, hiding, running and surviving that have to be mastered, PANIC is one of the most extreme and dangerous YA books in early 2014.

"In seven years of playing, there have been three deaths - four including Tommy O'Hare, who shot himself with the second thing he'd bought at the pawn shop, after his number came up red. You see? Even the winner of Panic is afraid of something." ― p. 8-9

PANIC you might enjoy NEARLY GONE by Elle Cosimano, THE MURDER COMPLEX by Lindsay Cummings or DEAR KILLER by Katherine Ewell. They aren't exactly like PANIC, but all are pretty dangerous and scary.

* Fans of Lauren Oliver, don't miss her adult book ROOMS, coming out September 2014!

* Listen to Lauren Oliver read the first chapter of PANIC here.

* Want to meet Lauren Oliver? Check out her event schedule.

* For more information about Lauren and her books visit www.laurenoliverbooks.com.

* Thanks to Harper Collins International for sending me a copy of PANIC for review!

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Behind The Pages #2 - Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller

This is my second Behind The Pages post! You can find the first post of this feature with The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver here.

What is Behind The Pages all about? I asked some of my favourite authors and a bunch of promising 2014 debut authors to annotate a scene, page or more of one of their books. I see the feature as a chance to show readers what's behind a page. Authors can share their favourite writing memories, the music that influenced a certain scene or anything else that comes to their mind. We might get hints to what the characters were thinking and feeling that exact moment or other fun details about their story.

Hope you enjoy Behind The Pages as much as I do. I'm intending this feature to be a monthly post here on the blog. Today I'm happy to have Trish Doller sharing a page of her second novel, WHERE THE STARS STILL SHINE. Plus she wrote an awesome guest post about girl friendships in her story. Thanks to all the fabulous authors who took the time to annotate a page or scene for us, your comments are always so insightful and fun to read. When readers can't get enough of a book and its characters it only shows how much the author's work means to them, to us. Thank you! 

_____________________________________________________

Stolen as a child from her large and loving family, and on the run with her mom for more than ten years, Callie has only the barest idea of what normal life might be like. She's never had a home, never gone to school, and has gotten most of her meals from laundromat vending machines. Her dreams are haunted by memories she’d like to forget completely. But when Callie’s mom is finally arrested for kidnapping her, and Callie’s real dad whisks her back to what would have been her life, in a small town in Florida, Callie must find a way to leave the past behind. She must learn to be part of a family. And she must believe that love--even with someone who seems an improbable choice--is more than just a possibility. 

Source

About Trish Doller: I've been a writer as long as I've been able to write, but I didn't make a conscious decision to "be" a writer until fairly recently. For that you should probably be thankful.
I was born in Germany, grew up in Ohio, went to college at Ohio State University, got married to someone really excellent, bounced from Maine to Michigan and back to Ohio for awhile. Now I live in Florida with my two mostly grown kids, two dogs, and a pirate. For real.
I've worked as a morning radio personality, a newspaper reporter, and spent all my summers in college working at an amusement park. There I gained valuable life skills, including counting money really fast, directing traffic, jumping off a moving train, and making cheese-on-a-stick. Also, I can still welcome you to Frontier Town. Ask me sometime.​
These days I work as a bookseller at a Very Big Bookstore. And, you know, write.

Book Summary from Goodreads, Find Trish's author bio and her picture here.  

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Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller

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Trish Doller's Guest Post on Girl Friendships in WHERE THE STARS STILL SHINE

When I started writing the book that would become Where the Stars Still Shine I knew there were going to be a lot of issues to unpack. Callie, the main character, is the victim of parental abduction, neglect, and sexual abuse—big issues in their own right. I also knew issues would arise over being reunited with a parent she doesn’t remember and tension within her new blended family. But when I sat down to write, I didn’t know that girl friendships would play an important role in the book.

Kat—we learn in the scene that begins on the page I’ve shared—is Callie’s second cousin and they played together when they were little girls. Except when I began the scene that would introduce Kat, I had no idea that she was Callie’s cousin. I imagined her as a Greek-American girl who worked at one of the local shops who would take Callie under her wing, but when I realized they could be related it just felt...right.

Once Kat started taking shape in my mind, I knew I wanted her to be different than Callie. There is an unabashedly “girly” side to Kat—she likes clothes, jewelry, and makeup—but she owns it. And that was something I felt was incredibly important. Girls can like makeup and be kind to little old ladies. They can enjoy shopping for shoes and be fiercely loyal to their friends. They can whip on eyeliner like a pro and like to laugh. None of these things are mutually exclusive and girls can enjoy whatever they want. Kat’s “girlyness” doesn’t make her a throwaway character any more than an actualteenage girl’s “girlyness” makes her a throwaway girl.

When I understood that Kat was comfortable with herself, I realized she made the best kind of friend for Callie. Kat is optimistic. She’s buoyant, even when Callie is awful. But friendship is not innate and Callie’s mom robbed her of the skills the rest of us learn when we’re young. Callie has never had a friend so she doesn’t know how to be a friend, but Kat is strong enough to handle it. She teaches Callie what a real friend looks like. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know any best friendship that haven’t included fights, hurt feelings, or misunderstandings—even for girls who carry less emotional baggage than Callie. And if Callie’s and Kat’s road to friendship had been smooth, how boring and unrealistic would that have been?

I sometimes joke that if Kat is the friend who would bail Callie out of jail, Ariel is the friend who’d be in jail with her. The similarity between them is that I had no idea Ariel existed, either. 

When I first wrote the bookshop, the person who worked there was Ariel’s male counterpart. But I realized that Callie had spent so much time—and not much of it good—in the company of men. I toyed with the idea that she need a male friend who was not a romantic interest, but she kind of had Nick and Connor, so in the end I decided I wanted Callie to have another girl friend. 

With Ariel, I kind of wanted to poke at how we judge people by...well, everything under the sun. Callie sees tattoos and plugs and black-rimmed glasses and thinks pretentious hipster (which: see above about how girls can like anything they want) but later learns that Ariel is a is a drop-everything-and-get-the-keys type of friend. No question asked. She was only meant to be the girl who worked at the bookshop, but she turned into something so much more than that.

I think, to me, what sums up the girl friendships in Where the Stars Still Shine is the scene in which Kat presents Callie with a string of fairy lights.

“Thanks. For—everything,” I say. “And I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”

“Ooh! That reminds me.” Kat ignores my apology and rummages through the pile of bags for the small one she said was a surprise. Inside is a box of tiny white star-shaped Christmas lights. “Every girl needs a string of these for her room,” she says. “Not only are they beautiful, but when you have fairy lights, you’re never completely in the dark.”

The lump in my throat won’t let me speak, but she doesn’t wait for a reply. Instead she hands me one end of the string. “Let’s hang them now.”

We loop them around the curtain rod on the window beside my bed. It takes only a minute and when we finish, Kat plugs her end into the outlet. With daylight still streaming in through the window, the stars are pale yellow and weak.

“Well, okay, they don’t seem very special at the moment,” she says. “But later? They’ll be spectacular.”

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Click on the picture to see Trish's Pinterest inspiration board for WHERE THE STARS STILL SHINE.

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Teaser: Infinite by Jodi Meadows

Infinite by Jodi Meadows

"But we weren't alone. Our people rushed through the passageway, firing pistols. Horses screamed, and the odor of burning wood filled the area. Both sides collided, all wild and chaotic. 

"Ana!" Sam's voice rang above cacophony. "Ana!"

I squeezed through the fighting, searching for Sam, but when I found my way back into the guard station, another group of Deborl's people surged into the main chamber. Blue targeting lights lit the room. Glass exploded in one of the vehicles, and screams crescendoed. 

I shouldn't have left my post. Stef had  put me by the door, and I'd left. 

"There you are." Deborl's voice pierced the noise as he appeared in front of me, his laser aimed at my forehead."  ― p. 69

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Book Review: Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky #3) by Veronica Rossi

Title: Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky #3)
Author: Veronica Rossi
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publishing Date: January 28th 2014
Length: 400 pages  
Keywords:YA, fiction, dystopian, romance, action, friendship
Source: Publisher

Their love and their leadership have been tested. Now it's time for Perry and Aria to unite the Dwellers and the Outsiders in one last desperate attempt to bring balance to their world.

The race to the Still Blue has reached a stalemate. Aria and Perry are determined to find this last safe-haven from the Aether storms before Sable and Hess do-and they are just as determined to stay together.

Meanwhile, time is running out to rescue Cinder, who was abducted by Hess and Sable for his unique abilities. And when Roar returns to camp, he is so furious with Perry that he won't even look at him, and Perry begins to feel like they have already lost.

Out of options, Perry and Aria assemble a team to mount an impossible rescue mission-because Cinder isn't just the key to unlocking the Still Blue and their only hope for survival, he's also their friend. And in a dying world, the bonds between people are what matter most.

Summary by Goodreads

When you've read all three books in this series you can see a very significant development and distinct suspense curve from UNDER THE NEVER SKY, THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT to INTO THE STILL BLUE. A trilogy with a strong and very harmonious story unit. Veronica Rossi's books are adventurous and wild and have just so much to offer. The Still Blue is this mythical and paradisiac place we've been waiting to discover together with our heroes since the very beginning and now we are as close as never before.

This last leg of Aria and Perry's journey isn't any less thrilling and dangerous than the previous instalments. This book is the chance of one last surge of action, to win the final battle against nature and the hellish Aether storms. But the Horns and the Dwellers around Hess aren't any easier to defeat than the Aether.
When our friends start into INTO THE STILL BLUE there are many uncertainties weighing them down. How can they get Cinder back? Find the Still Blue and outwit their enemies? You should be prepared to lose more characters in this final battle.

INTO THE STILL BLUE is very much about how all three different tribes are trying to achieve their respective goals, about the violence and battle potential between them. The Horns are very rural and big in force, the Dwellers are strong in the research and technology department and the Tides are caring and are putting high importance on the well-being of their people. I guess I know who you'll all be rooting for.

Amidst all the chaos and fighting there is Aria and Perry's love for each other, which is soothing and a welcome change. Their romance can be your silent island in the storm-tossed sea of this story. Now there are even more emotions and needs in the relationship of the two. Like other YA couples they are not free of conflicts and problems, but they are always reasonable and talk about what's worrying them at some point at least.

One could think after I liked all three UNDER THE NEVER SKY BOOKS so much, I should finally be able to give this last book in the trilogy the full five-star rating. Here's why, besides the very good last book that it was,  I wasn't completely happy with the ending.
Veronica Rossi reserved a good amount of chapters to tell us what's in it for our characters in future and tries to tie up every single story thread in the end. I wasn't convinced that she used the time we readers get to spend with our characters in the end economically enough. Some expendable scenes were simply stealing time from my precious last happy minutes with Aria and all the others. You can imagine I wasn't okay with that. I guess you see, this isn't the worst critique one could have about a book, wanting to always know more about your favourite characters in the end and to hope that their story never ends.

4,5/5 ****/* INTO THE STILL BLUE - The astute and perilously wonderful conclusion to the much beloved UNDER THE NEVER SKY series.

I only started the UNDER THE NEVER SKY series in the summer of 2013 and didn't have to wait too long to read the second and third books. Now I'm letting my favourite characters go with mixed feelings and can all but hope that we'll meet again soon in an UNDER THE NEVER SKY spin-off series. I'm so glad that everyone who discovers this series now can get all three books at the same time. Think of this series when you are planning your next special book series reading weekend.

"Aria lurched upright, the echo of gunshots ringing in her ears. Disoriented, she blinked at her surroundings, taking in the canvas walls, the two bed pallets, and the stack of battered storage trunks, finally recognizing Perry's tent. Pain pulsed steadily in her right arm. She looked down at the white bandage wrapped from her shoulder to her wrist, dread swirling in her stomach." ― p.1

INTO THE STILL BLUE you might enjoy THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS, a fantastical world created by Rae Carson. In BREATHE by Sarah Crossan and BLOOD RED ROAD by Moira Young teens are fighting the lack of oxygen on the planet and sandstorms. Just in case you are already missing Veronica Rossi's Aether storms.

* Have you read BROOKE, the novella between THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT and INTO THE STILL BLUE?

* Click here for an excerpt of INTO THE STILL BLUE.

* To watch the book trailer, click here.

* Want to meet Veronica Rossi? Check out her event schedule.

* For more information about Veronica and her books visit www.veronicarossi.com.

* Thanks to Harper Collins International for sending me a copy of INTO THE STILL BLUE for review!

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