Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

This novel is the start of a spin-off series of another of Sherrilyn Kenyon's series, Dark Hunters. I haven't read that series, and I was unaware of this when I started reading, and I found that I had difficulty keeping track of all the many characters and subplots. Having not read that other series, I can't tell you whether or not that makes this book an easier read, but be prepared if you pick up Infinity for a whole lot of stuff going on, and unless you're really adept at keeping track of characters and various background stories, a bit of confusion. While the world in Infinity is certainly interesting (and action-packed) there are a lot of different creatures, all of which explode onto the scene at the same time. I got the feeling when reading this that it was trying to target readers that are teenaged boys.

It didn't seem a lot like a YA novel - Nick was fourteen, several other characters were teenagers, and most of the time his voice sounded teenaged (if a little cliche), however I also felt at times that it was like an adult novel with the curse words cut out. Which seemed a bit unnatural. I think this is because the author predominantly writes for an adult audience.

I felt a bit unsure what to feel about this book as I read it - it all seemed quite ridiculous and over-the-top, and in that way it was good - some funny characters, and crazy, out-there plotlines (zombies created by a video game, which I think is cool) - however a lot of things were left unfinished, and even after having finished the book I'm still a bit confused. I don't read much of this genre, so I'm not sure whether this fits with it - the full-on action, large casts of crazy characters, lots of unresolved plotlines - so I'm really not the best reviewer. I would have loved more character development. I felt that with so many characters and so much going on, no one had any time to become fully-developed characters.

I'd recommend this if you like action-packed, plot-driven urban fantasy for the younger end of the YA spectrum (the content would be suitable for eleven and up, I think), with zombies and lots of, well, everything.

Infinity on Amazon / Goodreads

If anyone else has read this book, I'd love to know what you thought of it - I really wish I was more of a fan of urban fantasy so I could review this within the context of the genre.

Kate Forsyth: The Best Writing Advice I've Ever Been Given

I have always wanted to be a writer. As long as I can remember, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be. I wrote my first novel when I was 7 or 8, and there’s never been a time, in all the years since, when I haven’t been working on a novel. Along the way, I’ve been given various pieces of advice which have helped me enormously and I thought I’d share them with you.

1) Keep on writing
When I was sixteen years old I sent a manuscript of poems off to the publisher Angus & Robertson, all written out neatly in my childish handwriting on foolscap paper and bound together with ribbon. I remember I stood next to the post box, my heart thumping so hard it bruised my ribs, my palms sweating, my stomach churning with nerves, until I at last managed to find the courage to shove my package in through the slot. A few weeks later my poems were returned to me, with a formal typed letter that concluded with the line, ‘I hope you will keep on writing. You clearly have talent and we would be happy to see more of your work when you are older.' Although I was humiliated and completely devastated, I hung my hopes on that final line and I kept on writing. Twenty-eight years later I’ve had 23 books published in 13 different countries around the world, won or been nominated for lots of prizes, and have to spend several hours a day answering my fan mail. It took me a while – my first book was published when I was 30 – and there were many times when my faith failed me and I thought it would never happen. But it did, and all because I took that unknown editor’s advice and kept on writing.

2) The only way to learn to be a great writer is to read the work of great writers
Thank you, Mrs Fisher, my Year 12 English teacher. This was great advice (though I don’t think we agree on who are great writers or not). As a result of her advice, I went to university and did a BA in Literature, which meant I did nothing but read books, talk about books, and write about books for three years. It was fantastic! I learnt a lot, and I still think the best way to learn how to write is to read, read, read.

3) Stop worrying about what your mother will think
The poet Alex Craig, my creative writing teacher at university, said this to me and it was very insightful. I was paralysed by the fear of offending or upsetting my mother, or my grandmother, or my Year 12 English teacher, or anyone, in fact. It was very difficult for me to overcome this fear but, by overcoming it , I was set free to do whatever I wanted in my writing. I can now write a sex scene without imagining my grandmother reading it. I just lose myself in the story and write whatever needs to be written, trusting in my readers to understand that its make-believe. Or not.

4) Make every word tell
These words of eternal wisdom actually come from Strunk & White’s magisterial Elements of Style, which says: ‘Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or void all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.’ It is Rule 17 – Omit Needless Words. My literature lecturer, Mark Macleod, who went on to become a force to be reckoned with in Australian children’s literature, told all of us in his writing class that we should tattoo this line on to our foreheads so that we saw it and remembered it every day. I think it’s the best advice on craft I was ever taught, and I make sure I cut back everything I write by at least a third, omitting all unnecessary words.

5) Only connect
This is the epigraph to E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howard’s End which I read when I was at university. It simply means that our job as human beings is to connect with each other. This is what we should aim to do as writers – to connect with another human being.

6) Write What You Love To Read
This is something I say to my writing students all the time, and it’s something I learnt myself, the hard way. For quite a few years, in my 20s, I tried to write what I thought the market wanted but as well as hating every moment of what I was writing, I never won that longed-for publishing contract. In the end, I decided to write the sort of book that I liked to read, even though at that time no-one was publishing anything like it. So I wrote a book filled with magic and adventure and drama and mystery, drawing upon history and fairytale and the fantasy books I had loved as a teenager, and next thing I knew I was in the midst of an international bidding war.

Now I just have faith that other people in the world like the same sort of books as me, and write just the sort of book I’d like to read myself.

7) Who’s the Baddie?
One day I was struggling to write a book for young children and finding myself stuck in a way that was most unusual for me. I was talking about it at dinner, telling my children about the book and what had happened so far and explaining I’d got stuck and couldn’t write anymore. And my 10-year old son said, ‘so, who’s the baddie, Mum?’ Straightaway I realised that was what I had done wrong. There was no antagonist. No conflict. I jumped up from the table and ran to my study and wrote myself that question in big letters in my notebook. And almost at once, my brain began to work again and by the end of that evening, I had the whole plot fully worked out and I had no trouble finishing the book in time for my deadline. And now, when starting a novel, I always think to myself, ‘so who’s the baddie?’

Kate Forsyth is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty books for children and adults, including The Puzzle Ring, The Gypsy Crown, The Starthorn Tree, and the bestselling fantasy series ‘The Witches of Eileanan’ and ‘Rhiannon’s Ride’. Her latest book is The Wildkin’s Curse, a tale of high adventure and true love for readers aged 12+. It is the sequel to her award-winning novel The Starthorn Tree.

Since her first novel was named a Best First Novel of 1998 by Locus Magazine, she has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including a CYBIL Award in the US and the Surrey Book of the Year award in Canada. In 2007, Kate became the first author to win five Aurealis awards in a single year when Books 2-6 in the Chain of Charms series were jointly awarded the 2007 Aurealis Award for Children’s Fiction. Book 5: The Lightning Bolt was also named a Notable Book for 2007 by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Her books have been published in 13 countries around the world.

You can read more about her at http://www.kateforsyth.com.au/

The book trailer for The Wildkin's Curse can be found here, and you can read a review here.

What's the best writing advice you've ever received?

This All Could End: Visual Inspiration, Part Two

All images sourced from Tumblr and We Heart It, none are mine. If you know any original sources let me know and I'll update the post with them. If you've done a visual inspiration post, comment with the link - I'd love to see it.

This All Could End: Visual Inspiration, Part One

Visual inspiration for my new work in progress, This All Could End (still not keen on the title). It's about a bank robbery, written in third person from two perspectives, with a timeline that skips between past and present. I have a general idea of where I'm going with it but it's still a bit vague and I like the magic of writing without much of a plan. Writing with an outline feels to me as if I've seen the rabbit smuggled into the hat, I'm not going to be surprised when it comes out. But if I write like this, the magic tricks are magic. The plot twists surprise me. It's brilliant and I feel like a genius for a split-second and that's fantastic. I wonder whether other people feel this way about writing?

All images sourced from Tumblr and We Heart It, none are mine. If you know any original sources let me know and I'll update the post with them.

If anyone else has done/is planning to do a visual inspiration post for their novel, please leave the link in the comments! I'd love to see it.






















What are you writing right now?

Tyger Tyger by Kersten Hamilton

Teagan Wylltson's best friend, Abby, dreams that horrifying creatures--goblins, shape-shifters, and beings of unearthly beauty but terrible cruelty--are hunting Teagan. Abby is always coming up with crazy stuff, though, so Teagan isn't worried. Her life isn't in danger. In fact, it's perfect. She's on track for a college scholarship. She has a great job. She's focused on school, work, and her future. No boys, no heartaches, no problems.

Until Finn Mac Cumhaill arrives. Finn's a bit on the unearthly beautiful side himself. He has a killer accent and a knee-weakening smile. And either he's crazy or he's been haunting Abby's dreams, because he's talking about goblins, too . . . and about being The Mac Cumhaill, born to fight all goblin-kind. Finn knows a thing or two about fighting. Which is a very good thing, because this time, Abby's right. The goblins are coming.

Love love loved all the mythology and ancient stories that were integrated into this novel - things I've never read about before, and this was a really vibrant reimagining of all this Irish lore. It was fantastic. I think in terms of the storyline, it was brilliant. Some characters were wonderful, others seemed a little two-dimensional (though I believe this is the start of the series, so hopefully they'll all have an opportunity to be further developed - Abby seemed as if she didn't serve much of a purpose other than comic relief).

There was a point in the book where we skipped ahead several months between chapters, and missed a fairly major events. I get the feeling that the decision to skim over this part was intentional, but I really would have loved for Teagan to really digest what had happened, or react to the event at all. Everything seemed to be glossed over and forgotten about within a few chapters, which seemed unusual. I also didn't really understand her motivation towards the end of the novel, either, and why she said and did the things she did. Apart from those two instances, I really liked her as a character.

Apart from that, I thought it was thrilling and fantastic - I haven't read any books featuring goblins (I don't think), but this made them incredibly scary. I'd recommend this book to YA fantasy fans twelve and up.

Released November 15th 2010 by Clarion Books

Tyger, Tyger on Amazon

hello, friend

An extremely important question

Muffins or cupcakes?

Personally, I like muffins. I don't like the icing on top of cupcakes usually, and muffins give the illusion of being healthier. Muffins are lying liars from liartown, because of course they aren't healthier, they're twice the size of cupcakes and just because they have apple in them doesn't mean they're good for you, but I still love them.

(I may be blogging about my work experience experience at a certain Australian newspaper in the next few days...)

Why do you want to be published?

I want to ask all writers who are yet to be published but aspiring to see their books on shelves one day: Why do you want to be published?

For me, it was because of a multitude of reasons 1) I loved writing and wanted to share my stories with people, 2) I wanted to someday make a living out of it, and 3) I perceived that being published would make me feel fulfilled, accomplished – and that I’d be happier if I felt I was successful. What about you?

The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey's boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie's own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they're the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can't collide without the whole wide world exploding.

This remarkable debut is perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Francesca Lia Block. Just as much a celebration of love as it is a portrait of loss, Lennie's struggle to sort her own melody out of the noise around her is always honest, often hilarious, and ultimately unforgettable.

I loved a lot of things about this - the multi-layered characters (Lennie annd her family especially), the writing style, the little pages of poetry (in the Aus/UK edition there are photos of objects - a tree, a scrap of paper - with Lennie's poems written on them, such a gorgeous touch), basically everything about it. It was awfully compelling, for lack of a better word, and a book I enjoyed very much. Lennie's relationship with her sister was beautifully potrayed and there was a lot of brilliant poetic imagery in this.

I think it tended towards the melodramatic and the fantastic - I think this may turn off some readers (Lennie's romances were ridiculously intense, Twilight-level intense, and I was a little disbelieving at times of how quickly that all went down), but I think this is the sort of book that would really appeal to teenaged girls who don't really pick up many books - girls who love full-on Twilight romance. Except Joe is a musician, not a vampire. And of course girls who read more books, as well. There's just a lot of emotion in this, and there's nothing wrong with that in a book. I loved it, and I strongly recommend it.

Released March 10th 2010 by Dial

The Sky Is Everywhere on Amazon

Adios, Nirvana by Conrad Wesselhoeft

"When you piss off a bridge into a snowstorm, it feels like you’re connecting with eternal things. Paying homage to something or someone. But who? The Druids? Walt Whitman? No, I pay homage to one person only, my brother, my twin. In life. In death.
Telemachus."

Since the death of his brother, Jonathan’s been losing his grip on reality. Last year’s Best Young Poet and gifted guitarist is now Taft High School’s resident tortured artist, when he bothers to show up. He's on track to repeat eleventh grade, but his English teacher, his principal, and his crew of Thicks (who refuse to be seniors without him) won’t sit back and let him fail.

I just finished The Sky Was Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, which is about a girl grieving the death of her older sister. This novel is about a boy grieving after the death of his brother. So they are essentially about the same thing - the loss of a sibling (siblings who both characters lived in the shadow of) - and I found it fascinating the way the two stories and two protagonists and two authors dealt with the same theme. Lennie, the narrator of The Sky Was Everywhere, dealt with her loss with a new romance and becoming close to her family again - in this novel, Jonathon has quite a different journey. The greatest element, to me, was his frienship with the man whose biography he was asked to write - all of the scenes with him were brilliantly written.

At times I found Jonathan to be quite an alienating character - I'm not sure whether it was the writing style, or the intention of the author, but he seemed to me quite superior at times, as if he knew better than everyone else. That's probably quite representative of teenagers (*ducks, avoids tomatoes*) but every now and then the character would say something (something sexist, or ageist, or just stupid) and I thought, if you were real, I would smack you upside the head about now. But there was a lot of voice and a lot of attitude to this character, which I liked. He was no Bella Swan. The other characters, too, were fantastic - everyone was brilliant (I really felt as if I knew Telly, even though he was dead for the entirety of the book). I loved it and I hated it and the fact that I had such an emotional response to it means it must be fantastic.

Strongly recommended if you like books with a musical or poetic theme, and a very snarky narrator. I think this novel could be equally enjoyed by both teenaged girls and boys.

Released October 25th 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

Adios, Nirvana on Amazon

Teaser Tuesday: This All Could End

I'm editing Signs & Wonders (remember my visual inspiration posts last year?) at the moment (I realise now how much the story has changed since last November. It's kind of a totally different novel now). I'm also working on the first drafts of two new novels (one paranormal YA, one that might be a YA suspense, I'm not sure) to keep myself sane in between doing lots and lots of lovely schoolwork.

So, I thought, why don't I share a little excerpt from one of these new works-in-progress!

This is from midway through the first chapter of what is currently titled This All Could End. It's the first time I've tried to write in third person, so it's tricky for me (I like first person a lot better, but the characters always end up with the same voice and thought-patterns - mine). This All Could End is mainly about a bank robbery, but it's also about aliens, awkward teenage romance and how to deal when your parents are sociopaths. So, you know, it's the sort of novel I'd write. A weird one.

It's an early draft, so it's not perfect. I'll probably be taking it down in 24 hours or so. Let me know what you think!

*cut* Thanks everyone for your comments. Hopefully I'll do another teaser soon.

Kiss & Break Up by Kate Kingsley

Half term may be over but the chaos has just begun. Mr Logan has run off and eloped with Miss Sharkreve leaving the Lower Sixth with a new housemistress - the tyrannical, catty Mrs Dicks. And with the rules getting tighter at St Cecilia's the students are getting way more creative in finding ways to break them - especially as they're all feeling a bit frisky.

Tally, broken hearted and on the rebound, sets her sights on safe bet Rando, while Alice and Tristan decide to take their relationship to the next level. Things between Dylan and Jasper are seriously heating up - could she finally have found a guy who won't disappoint her?

As tensions reach an explosive high, a pool party at Rando's country estate should be just the thing to cool everyone down. Or will it push the temperature up a notch?

This is the type of book you’ll enjoy if you like series like Gossip Girl – stories about mean, vain and rich girls, stories that are stupendously ridiculous. This book left me asking many questions. Do so many private schoolkids really drink hard liquor? Is it actually possible that many sets of parents are always holidaying in Paris and not actually raising their children? Does any sixteen-year-old really treat relationships and sex so casually? And since when is any sixteen-year-old so glamorous and self-assured?

So the series is totally preposterous, and there are a lot of themes (drug use, drinking, sex, and so on) that wouldn’t be suitable for young teens or those with objections to those themes. At times while reading I actually enjoyed it a bit, looking past the totally exaggerated characters and getting into the story, but after I finished reading it felt like a waste of time – I didn’t particularly like the characters or empathise with their struggles (their main concerns were getting as drunk as possible and getting laid, and that’s not really to my tastes).

I’d probably only recommend this book to older teenaged girls who are comfortable with the themes mentioned earlier, and who enjoy books like Gossip Girl – something melodramatic and frivolous. While they’re not really my cup of tea, judging by the success of Gossip Girl and similar series there are massive market for books like these. I think in terms of the market this book has been written for, it’s actually a decent read. It’s entertaining and fast-paced, and I prefer it to Gossip Girl novels I’ve read.

Kiss & Break Up on Amazon

Theodore Boone, Young Lawyer by John Grisham

A perfect murder
A faceless witness
A lone courtroom champion knows the whole truth . . . and he’s only thirteen years old
Meet Theodore Boone

In the small city of Strattenburg, there are many lawyers, and though he’s only thirteen years old, Theo Boone thinks he’s one of them. Theo knows every judge, policeman, court clerk—and a lot about the law. He dreams of being a great trial lawyer, of a life in the courtroom.

But Theo finds himself in court much sooner than expected. Because he knows so much—maybe too much—he is suddenly dragged into the middle of a sensational murder trial. A cold-blooded killer is about to go free, and only Theo knows the truth.

The stakes are high, but Theo won’t stop until justice is served.

Brimming with the intrigue and suspense that made John Grisham a #1 international bestseller and the undisputed master of the legal thriller, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer will keep readers guessing and pages turning.

I’m not sure what to say about this book except that it reads like a prologue. Nothing huge or earth-shattering really happened. We didn’t really get much of a conclusion. We got a whole lot of info about all of the characters, and a lot of plotlines were established that were not developed. It really is just an introduction to a series.

Something that’s surprising about this is that Theodore is thirteen, which is an odd age for what I believe is meant to be a YA novel (it seems more like the age of a protagonist in an MG novel). And Theodore didn’t really seem like a teenaged boy, or a teenager, or a child at all. He seemed like a miniature adult. I’m not sure whether that was the intention of the author or not, but to me, in spite of having a young protagonist, this didn’t seem like a YA novel at all. I’m not even sure what kind of novel it was. It confused me.

That said, I found the characters interesting, and the book was well-constructed – I kept reading because I needed to find out what happened. It was a disappointment that not a whole lot actually did happen. I’m interested to see what happens with some of the plotlines in the next book.

If you like John Grisham’s novels, and you’re interested in reading the rest of this series (I haven’t even checked whether there will be a series, but I’m assuming it is as it certainly doesn’t read like a standalone novel) then it’s worth checking out. I was an underwhelmed by it, but I’ll be interested in reading the next book in the series and seeing if things get a little livelier.

Theodore Boone on Amazon

A reminder.

How long should a novel be?

I've been thinking about this recently: how long do you like your novels? Epic 600-page monsters, or little 150-page novellas? And why?

And if you're a writer, how many words are your novels? Fifty thousand words? Seventy-five? One hundred?How do you figure out how long they should be?

I'm very interested to know!

(By the way... I just did a book chat with Megan at Literary Life about Melina Marchetta's latest novel The Piper's Son. We're giving away two copies of The Piper's Son, so head over and check it out!)