Posts Categorized: Blog Tour

Monday, September 17, 2012

The Hallowed Ones Tour Stop

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The Hallowed Ones
Laura Bickle
Publication date: September 25th 2012
 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

 

If your home was the last safe place on earth, would you let a stranger in?

In this captivating thriller, an Amish settlement is the last safe haven in a world plagued by an unspeakable horror…

Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers are free to experience non-Amish culture before officially joining the church. But before Rumspringa arrives, Katie’s safe world starts to crumble. It begins with a fiery helicopter crash in the cornfields, followed by rumors of massive unrest and the disappearance of huge numbers of people all over the world. Something is out there…and it is making a killing.

Unsure why they haven’t yet been attacked, the Amish Elders make a decree: No one goes outside their community, and no one is allowed in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man lying just outside the boundary of their land, she can’t leave him to die. She refuses to submit to the Elder’s rule and secretly brings the stranger into her community—but what else is she bringing in with him?

Today I have the lovely Laura Bickle on the blog for an interview to talk about her book The Hallowed Ones, which is a vampire/post apocalyptic novel based in an Amish setting. So far it has gotten very positive reviews for my fellow Goodreaders and I’m planning on reading it soon to give you my thoughts on it as well, but in the meantime, let’s see what Laura has to say!

Interview with Laura Bickle

Q. Can you tell us a bit about how The Hallowed Ones came about?
     I was thinking about what would happen if the end of the world came…I know this is a common thing to think about on an everyday basis! But that’s part of the fun in being a writer. I get to think about odd things.

I was wondering who would be best-equipped to survive a large-scale disaster. It occurred to me that the Amish would be uniquely equipped to survive. They are incredibly self-sufficient and are not dependent upon things we take for granted in our world, things like electricity and cars.

I live not too far from a large Amish settlement. When I was a child, my parents would take me to visit, and I was fascinated by a world very different than the one I lived in. I’d see Amish girls my age over the fence and wonder what their lives were like.

Q. How much research did you have to do on the Amish?
     I spent some time visiting the Amish settlement near where I live. I also did a good deal of reading…there are a lot of great books out there that look at the Plain way of life from a sociological perspective. National Geographic has also done a number of very good documentaries about the Amish. Many of the ideas were very foreign to me. For example, the Amish do not wish to be connected to the outside world, so power lines, phone lines, and electricity are not used. That kind of voluntary isolation is fascinating to me. The only parallel I can draw in my own life is when storms came through our area and we were without phone, cable, electricity, and internet for a week. It was very still and very peaceful.

I’m acutely conscious that I can’t know or understand everything about the Amish, never having lived in an Amish community. But I learned enough to develop an immense respect for the Amish way of life. 


Q. Why did you decide to write a book with an Amish setting? It’s very unique in the vampire/apocalypse genre.
     Thank you! I mostly wanted to give it a try because I hadn’t seen it before. In its way, the idea made sense to me, and I wanted to experiment with it. If it failed, I could just bury the manuscript in a shoebox under my bed. But it was too tempting not to try.

Q. What was your favorite part to write in this novel?
     The first line: “After the end of the Outside world, the Plain folk survived.”

Q. Would you survive if you were a character in your story?
     I think that would depend on the setting in which I found myself when the end of the world came. If I was trapped in a city, probably not. The competition to survive and fight over resources would probably be too fierce.

But if I was in a rural area, as the Amish are…I think I might have a shot. There would be more stuff to forage and fewer threats.

Q. What book would you recommend to all your readers?
     I love FEVER by Lauren DeStefano.  Her voice is so incredibly powerful – I can’t wait for the third book in the Chemical Garden trilogy. Both WITHER and FEVER were books that lingered with me for a long time after I finished – I love it when a story takes up real estate in my head and haunts me like that.


Thanks so much for dropping by the blog, Laura. I agree, the Amish would have a really good chance of surviving in such a world since they’re not so dependent on technology. I, on the other hand, would perish O_O I also enjoyed Fever, too!

Laura Bickle’s professional background is in criminal justice and library science, and when she’s not patrolling the stacks at the public library she’s dreaming up stories about the monsters under the stairs (she also writes contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams). Laura lives in Ohio with her husband and five mostly-reformed feral cats. THE HALLOWED ONES is her first young adult novel. 

This post is a part of:

My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century Tour Stop

Posted by on 09/12/2012 • 25 Comments

Today on the blog I’m happy to have the fabulous Rachel Harris drop by for her blog tour. She’s got a great guest post about life and technology. Could you live in the Sixteenth Century?

My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century Rachel HarrisRelease date: September 11th 2012 by Entangled Publishing

 

On the precipice of her sixteenth birthday, the last thing lone wolf Cat Crawford wants is an extravagant gala thrown by her bubbly stepmother and well-meaning father. So even though Cat knows the family’s trip to Florence, Italy, is a peace offering, she embraces the magical city and all it offers. But when her curiosity leads her to an unusual gypsy tent, she exits . . . right into Renaissance Firenze.

Thrust into the sixteenth century armed…

Review & Interview: What’s Left Of Me

Posted by on 09/07/2012 • 21 Comments

Xpresso Reads welcomes the What’s Left of Me Blog Tour on the blog today which is hosted by HarperCollins Children’s Books. I have my review along with a great interview with the fabulous Kat Zhang!

What’s Left of MeKat ZhangSeries: The Hybrid Chronicles, #1Publication date: September 18th 2012by HarperCollins

 

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared…

Review & Giveaway: Send by Patty Blount

Posted by on 09/03/2012 • 26 Comments

SendPatty BlountPubication date: August 1st 2012by Sourcebooks Fire

 

To keep his secrets, all he has to do is listen to the voice in his head and just walk away… On his first day at his new high school, Dan stops a bully from beating up a kid half his size. He didn’t want to get involved. All he wants out of his senior year is to fly under the radar. But Dan knows what it’s like to be terrorized by a bully-he used to be one. Now the whole school thinks he’s some kind of hero, except Julie Murphy, the prettiest girl on campus. She looks at him like she knows he has a secret. Like she knows his name isn’t really Daniel.

*A copy was provided…

Authors Are Rockstars Tour Stop

Posted by on 08/24/2012 • 28 Comments

I’m stoked to be a part of this fabulous tour that Fiktshun and Two Chicks On Books have put together. Today, I’m hosting one of my most favorite authors who wrote a book that is in at least one of my top 10 book ever. If you haven’t read it, do so! It’s fantastic. So let’s go meet this incredible mastermind!

Mike’s Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget)….

Onyx Review, Guest Post, & Giveaway

Posted by on 08/17/2012 • 46 Comments

I know a lot of you are absolutely loving this series alongside me so I’m happy to have the Onyx make a stop at Xpresso Reads. I have my  review for you today, as well as a fantastic guest post about sex in YA by Jennifer L. Armentrout, and there’s a giveaway!

OnyxJennifer L. ArmentroutSeries: Lux, #2Publication date: August 14th 2012by Entangled Teen

 

Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…

Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.

Something worse than the Arum has come to town…

The Department of Defense are here….

The Treachery of Beautiful Things Tour Stop

Posted by on 08/13/2012 • 43 Comments

The Treachery of Beautiful Things is a highly anticipated novel for lovers of fantasy, and especially perfect if you’re looking for an old-fashioned fairy tale. Today I’m very happy to have Ruth Frances Long over for an interview, and you can win your very own copy!

The Treachery of Beautiful ThingsRuth Frances LongPublication date: August 16th 2012by Dial Books

 

A darkly compelling mix of romance, fairy tale, and suspense from a new voice in teen fiction The trees swallowed her brother whole, and Jenny was there to see it. Now seventeen, she revisits the woods where Tom was taken, resolving to say good-bye at last. Instead, she’s lured into the trees, where she finds strange and dangerous creatures who seem to consider her the threat. Among them…

Circle of Silence Tour Stop

Posted by on 07/30/2012 • 63 Comments

Today I have the fabulous Carol Tanzman over the blog for Circle of Seilence’s Blog Tour. I previously enjoyed her other novel, dancergirl – find my review here – and stay tuned for my review of Circle of Silence later this week! For today’s post, I have an interview with Carol, along with a pretty awesome giveaway 😉

Circle of Silence Carol M. TanzmanPublication date: July 24th 2012by Harlequin Teen

 

THE BIGGEST STORY OF MY LIFE COULD BE HOW IT ENDS It’s my turn to run a “Campus News” crew, and I’ve put together a team that can break stories wide open. And Washington Irving High has a truly great one to cover, if only we can find a lead.

A secret society has formed in our school….