Entwined!

Entwined. Say it, it rolls off the tongue in an alluring way. It's an intriguing word that makes me say, "What? Who's entwined? With who? With what?"

Well my friend Heather Dixon knows the answers. Check this out:



Entwined is Heather's debut novel and it's as awesome as she is. Here's the jacket blurb:

Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it’s taken away. All of it.

The Keeper understands. He’s trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.

Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest.

But there is a cost.

The Keeper likes to keep things.

Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.

Entwined is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses and for me one of the best parts of this book was the characters themselves. Oh, and the magic, because who can live without magic? Not me.

Heather did a brilliant job of showing relationships between the characters. They weren't just people acting out a story, they were people living, loving, grieving, and struggling to understand WITH each other. Did I mention brilliant?

My favorite example of this is between Azalea and her father. They're both heart sore over Azalea's mother's death, but it takes the whole book before they realize and understand this in each other. I loved that Heather didn't rush this moment, but took her time to fully develop the reconciliation.

I really enjoyed this book. It is simply beautiful. So, run out and buy it and sink into its pages with thoughts of balls and dresses and family.

Enjoy!

Leisha

White Cat and preparing for WIFYR

Hey all, about a month ago I mentioned the WIFYR conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you're a writer and live on earth, you should check it out. Heck, if you live off planet you should still check it out. It's a great conference.

In preparation, I'm not only trying to hammer out a new WIP, I'm also reading books written by the awesome staff. Yesterday I read White Cat by Holly Black.



Here's the blurb from the jacket flap:

"Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen."

Doesn't it sound gooooood? It was.

I knew I'd like this book when I read the acknowledgments page. Any writer who thanks someone for driving her around locked in the trunk of a car has to be intriguing. And the best part is, not only did the plot keep me turning pages, but the characters and their unique world fascinated me. I always marvel when a writer gets me to care about someone who isn't a typical hero, and there are a lot of characters I felt drawn to in this book who live on the shady side of the law.

Even more exciting is the release of Red Glove, the second book in the Curse Workers series, on April 5,2011. This means I won't have to wait very long to re-immerse myself in Holly's haunting world.

I'm excited to meet Holly at WIFYR and learn from her. Check out her books and the WIFYR conference.

The Lost Saint

I was lucky enough to be given an ARC of The Lost Saint by Bree Despain. It's the second Dark Divine novel and comes out December 28, 2010. If you haven't devoured the first book, The Dark Divine, you should before this one comes out.

Here's the blurb from the back of the book:

*Spoiler Alert* - If you haven't read The Dark Divine, this synopsis may contain spoilers.





Really

Grace Divine made the ultimate sacrifice to cure Daniel Kalbi. She was infected with the werewolf curse while trying to save him, and lost her beloved brother in the process. When Grace receives a haunting phone call from Jude, she knows what she must do. She must become a Hound of Heaven.

Desperate to find Jude, Grace befriends Talbot—a newcomer to town who promises her that he can help her be a hero. But as the two grow closer, the wolf grows in Grace, and her relationship with Daniel is put in danger—in more ways than one.

Unaware of the dark path she is walking, Grace begins to give into the wolf inside of her—not realizing that an enemy has returned and a deadly trap is about to be sprung.

Doesn't it sound yummy? Well, it is. Bree does a great job of pulling you into the world of a teenager trying to come to grips with her inner wolf, something we all deal with in a less life threatening and much more metaphorical way.

One of my favorite things about this novel is that it deals strongly with choices and their consequences. I'm dying to share several parts of this luscious book with you, but since it isn't mine, and it doesn't come out until December, you will just have to take my word for it.

Put it on your wish list.