Book Blitz, Q&A and Giveaway (INT): Insanity, by Cameron Jace

Welcome to the book blitz for Insanity by Cameron Jace, a New Adult paranormal story inspired by Alice in Wonderland! If you've been following me for a while, you know how much I love Alice retellings, so participating in this blitz was a no-brainer. Below you can find more info on the book and author, as well as a Q&A and TWO giveaways!


THE BOOK

Publication date: December 20th 2013
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult, Paranormal

Synopsis:
After accidentally killing everyone in her class, Alice Wonder is now a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll’s paintings, photographs, and find Wonderland’s real whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice leads a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an asylum by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack Diamond, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual science.

Buy it on Amazon

THE AUTHOR

Wonderlander, Neverlander, Unicorn-chaser, enchanter, musician, survived a coma, & totally awesome. Sometimes I tell stories. Always luv the little monsters I write young adult paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and science fiction mostly. The Grimm Diaries series is a seven book saga that deals with retellings of fairy tales from a young adult POV - it connects most of the fairy tales together and claims to be the truth about fairy tales. I live in San Fransisco and seriously think circles are way cooler than triangles.

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Q&A
Q: Is insanity an Alice in Wonderland retelling where fact and fiction intermingle like in your previous series the Grimm Diaries?
A: It’s not quite a retelling of Alice in Wonderland as much as inspired by it. It has all the whimsical and nonsensical wonderland fantasy parts, but it’s more grounded to reality because it happens in our time. Fact and fiction do walk side by side in this book. For instance, Lewis Carroll is present as character himself.

Q: Why did you call it Insanity?
A: Well, insanity is the main theme of the book. All what Alice has seen could be interpreted as madness in many ways. Also, when you read the book, it’s insane. I mean like really insane. You will either love or hate it. I don’t think there is a middle zone.

Q: Is the story told from many point of views like the Grimm Diaries?
A: Just a few, but most of the story is Alice’s personal journey.

Q: The Grimm Diaries was filled with research, how much did you put in Insanity?
A: I think the research in Insanity is even greater than the Grimm Diaries. The book is also more action oriented. Alice travels from Oxford, London, Vatican City then Belgium in a couple of days. Each city had to be researches and connected with Lewis Carroll and his books.

Q: The blurb says Alice’s sanity can only be proved through Lewis Carroll’s photography and writing. We thought this is about Wonderland.
A: It’s about Wonderland. The idea is that all puzzles, action scenes, and even romance have a Lewis Carroll background to them. The main reason why this book came to my mind is my fascination with both Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll himself. If you learn the reasons behind each character and location in his book, you will love Alice in Wonderland even more. It’s no coincidence that we all relate to the book. It’s a masterpiece.

Q: You said Insanity is more of a TV pilot. How so?
A: I did write it as a novel but also as TV pilot. The reason is that once you get the idea of the book, the possibilities are infinite, and incredibly amusing. When outlining my plot, I found out it would take books and books to write it. So I wrote one story with a beginning, middle, and end. It’s satisfying on its own, but if I succeeded in peaking your interest you should like to read the next books. The beauty of it is that once you read one book, each other book will be a story of its own. It’s very much like a TV series.

Q: Anything you want to add?
A: I wish everyone and awesome Christmas and a Fantabulous new year And if I messed with you childhood memories of Alice in Wonderland a bit, don’t hate me. Lol.

GIVEAWAYS

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Waiting on Wednesday: Steampunk Darcy, by Monica Fairview

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine to spotlight upcoming book releases that we're excited about.


This week's pick:

Release date: October 2013
Publisher: White Soup Press
Format: Paperback

Goodreads description:
William Darcy is obsessed with his ancestors. So much so that he intends to rebuild Pemberley (destroyed during the Uprising) stone by stone, and he wants to employ reconstruction expert Seraphene Grant to help him.

Or does he? Seraphene wasn’t born yesterday. She can smell a rat, particularly when it stinks all the way up to her airship. She knows Darcy is hiding something. But with the Authorities after her and her other options dwindling by the moment, the temptation of genuine English tea and a gorgeous Steampunk gentleman are very difficult to resist.

But what if Darcy’s mystery job courts nothing but trouble? What if Darcy is harboring a secret to kill for? When kiss comes to shove, will Darcy’s secret destroy Seraphene, or will it be her salvation?

Join us on a romantic adventure like no other in this whimsical Pride and Prejudice-inspired tribute, featuring Wickham, Georgiana, dirigibles, funky fish, and swash-buckling pirates.


This sounds like so much fun! I really like the sense of humor used in the description :) I'm not a huge Pride & Prejudice fan but I love Steampunk! Also, it promises airships and pirates, so how could I say no? ;)
Have you heard of Steampunk Darcy? And what are you spotlighting this Wednesday?

Waiting on Wednesday: Unhinged, by A.G. Howard

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine to spotlight upcoming book releases that we're excited about.


This week's pick:

Release date: January 7, 2014
Publisher: Amulet Books
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages

Goodreads description:
Alyssa Gardner has been down the rabbit hole and faced the bandersnatch. She saved the life of Jeb, the guy she loves, and escaped the machinations of the disturbingly seductive Morpheus and the vindictive Queen Red. Now all she has to do is graduate high school and make it through prom so she can attend the prestigious art school in London she's always dreamed of.

That would be easier without her mother, freshly released from an asylum, acting overly protective and suspicious. And it would be much simpler if the mysterious Morpheus didn’t show up for school one day to tempt her with another dangerous quest in the dark, challenging Wonderland—where she (partly) belongs.

As prom and graduation creep closer, Alyssa juggles Morpheus’s unsettling presence in her real world with trying to tell Jeb the truth about a past he’s forgotten. Glimpses of Wonderland start to bleed through her art and into her world in very disturbing ways, and Morpheus warns that Queen Red won’t be far behind.

If Alyssa stays in the human realm, she could endanger Jeb, her parents, and everyone she loves. But if she steps through the rabbit hole again, she'll face a deadly battle that could cost more than just her head.

I really really cannot wait for this one!!! Ever since finishing Splintered, I somehow had the impression that there was  unfinished business in the story. I liked the ending, but I felt there was too much potential left over... so I kept my eyes open. And BAM then there was the announcement, and later this cover!!! o.O Gorgeous. It comes really close to how I imagined Morpheus! I admit I'm still kind of rooting for him and Alyssa ;)
What do you think of my pick? Are you as impatient as I am? And what did you choose this week?

Teaser Tuesday: Splintered, by A.G. Howard

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: • Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


After doing quite a few Top Ten Tuesdays, I've decided to mix things up a little and tease you guys again ;) I've just finished Splintered by A.G. Howard and it was amazing! One of my most anticipated releases of the year, and a great way to start reading them :) Since I haven't decided on my next read yet, I'll pick this book to tease you with...

Please meet Jeb:
" 'You know, you really should go to prom. Show up just like this and knock everyone on their asses. I guarantee you'll still have your dignity.' He studies my face with an expression I've only seen when he paints. Intense. Absorbed. As if he's considering the painting from every angle. Me from every angle. He's so close, I smell the raspberry on his hot breath. His gaze shifts to the dimple in my chin and my cheeks flame." - Paperback, page 27

And here's a snippet about Morpheus:
"Morpheus is not his true name. He is glory and deprecation - sunlight and shadows - the scuttle of scorpion and the melody of a nightingale. The breath of the sea and the cannonade of a storm. Can you relay birdsong, or the sound of wind, or the scurry of a creature across the sand? For the proper names of netherlings are made up of the life forces defining them. Can you speak these things with your tongue?" - Paperback, page 288


About the book:
This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.


What do you guys think of my teasers? Do they make you want to read the book? And what did you pick to tease the rest of us with this week?

Review: Two and Twenty Dark Tales, edited by Nina Berry

Released: October 16, 2012
Publisher: Month9Books
Format: Paperback, 340 pages

Goodreads description:
In this anthology, 20 authors explore the dark and hidden meanings behind some of the most beloved Mother Goose nursery rhymes through short story retellings. The dark twists on classic tales range from exploring whether Jack truly fell or if Jill pushed him instead to why Humpty Dumpty, fragile and alone, sat atop so high of a wall. The authors include Nina Berry, Sarwat Chadda, Leigh Fallon, Gretchen McNeil, and Suzanne Young.



The following review is based on an eARC provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. It differs from the final version. 


Review (no spoilers):
I love anthologies, but this is my first time reviewing one. As the title says, there are twenty-two stories by twenty different authors in it but I’m not going to talk about every one of them. Instead, I’m going to point out some of those I think were most brilliant as well as a few that didn’t work for me. Overall, the quality of the stories was very high! Anthologies are always a mixed bunch but I really enjoyed the vast majority of the tales in here.

An aside: as a Swiss girl, I don’t really know many nursery rhymes. We have some here but they’re not such a big thing. They’re more like figures of speech or else short songs or lullabies, but I have the impression that in the English-speaking world they are more part of culture than here. So I didn’t know most of the rhymes these stories were for, which made the reading more exciting for me because I had no real inkling what to expect most of the time since I didn’t recognize the usual context of the rhyme.

The way the stories were retold varied a lot. Some stayed close to the rhyme while others took a more abstract approach, incorporating the general theme or situation instead. There were medieval-ish fantasy retellings, modern retellings, with or without magic. There were wishes and curses and spells. Witches, vampires, some type of faeries, dystopian tales, Irish as well as Egyptian mythology! I really enjoyed how creative these authors got and how they twisted their ‘raw material’!

I was especially looking forward to Karen Mahoney’s story, One For Sorrow, and it ended up to be one of my top favorites! I really enjoyed the atmosphere she created, the references to Poe, the way she took up different fairytale motives and wove everything into something new and original set in the modern world. And I loved the chemistry between her main characters!

Another story, one that really rattled me, was Life in a Shoe by Heidi R. Kling. It's set in a dystopian society where women no longer have the right not to get pregnant and pretty much ‘produce’ another kid each year even though no one has enough food to keep everyone nourished. The lack of choice and the heroine’s will to persevere and pursue a better future than her mother really stuck with me.

A story that made my university-trained, literary theory savvy self rejoice was Blue, by Sayantani DasGupta. The idea of creation through writing, gaining a voice and a sense of self by literally writing oneself into being and being read by another, came through brilliantly in this one. I loved how the main character went from passive, observant chronicler to being an actor in her own right!

One story that seriously creeped me out in a good way was Wee Willy Winkie by Leigh Fallon. The ending is wickedly ambiguous in my opinion! I also really enjoyed the carnival feeling in A Ribbon of Blue by Michelle Zink, as well as the character dynamics in Suzanne Young’s The Wish.

Unfortunately, as I said above, there are some stories that didn’t quite work for me. One of them was Pieces of Eight by Shannon Delany and Max Scialdone. The basic idea was good but it was too big in scope for a short story and would have needed more space to really develop, in my opinion. As it was, it appeared a bit confusing. I liked the writing and the wolf guard character though.

Another one I was a bit disappointed by was Candlelight by Suzanne Lazear. I’ve been curious about her novel Innocent Darkness for a while and was eager to check out her writing, but I was not convinced (in this story at least). The basic idea was good though not exactly new. I liked the bond between the sisters in her story but it was all very predictable, right down to the ending. What would have been interesting is how the characters deal with things at the exact point the story breaks off, or how society reacts to the disappearance of so many teenagers. However, the story might have appeared weaker to me than it really is because it’s positioned right after Life in a Shoe which, as stated above, packed one hell of an emotional punch for me! The problems of these girls just appeared very petty to me after the very real issues Kling’s heroine had to deal with.

I also felt a bit ‘meh’ about Tick Tock by Gretchen McNeil. The atmosphere-building was brilliant but there wasn’t really a plot or an explanation for what was happening. One story I’m undecided about is Clockwork by Leah Cypress. Her idea was really original and I loved the connection she drew between clocks and magic. Her heroine was strong – apart from the ending where, in my opinion, she succumbed to weakness. How you read that ending is highly subjective though which is why I’m conflicted. To another reader, her decision may well be a display of strength.

There were many other stories I really enjoyed though I can’t give them any space here now. Overall I loved the collection so much that I’ll definitely buy a finished version, especially since the second part of a story by Nancy Holder, as well as a story by C. Lee McKenzie and an Interlude poem by Georgia McBride were not included in my eARC yet.

If that’s not enough, proceeds from the first 5000 books sold will be donated to YAlitchat.org, a literary organization that fosters the advancement of YA literature around the world. So you’re also doing a good deed by buying yourself a set of awesome stories right in time for the Halloween season ;)

Have your read the anthology or any of the authors’ other work? What were your faves?

Review: Ironskin, by Tina Connolly

Published: October 2, 2012

Publisher: Tor Books

Format: Hardcover, 304 pages

Description from Goodreads:

Jane Eliot wears an iron mask.

It’s the only way to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek. The Great War is five years gone, but its scattered victims remain—the ironskin.

When a carefully worded listing appears for a governess to assist with a "delicate situation"—a child born during the Great War—Jane is certain the child is fey-cursed, and that she can help.

Teaching the unruly Dorie to suppress her curse is hard enough; she certainly didn’t expect to fall for the girl’s father, the enigmatic artist Edward Rochart. But her blossoming crush is stifled by her own scars, and by his parade of women. Ugly women, who enter his closed studio...and come out as beautiful as the fey.

Jane knows Rochart cannot love her, just as she knows that she must wear iron for the rest of her life. But what if neither of these things is true? Step by step Jane unlocks the secrets of her new life—and discovers just how far she will go to become whole again.

Review (no spoilers):

The following review is based on a copy provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

When I heard about a Jane Eyre retelling with fairies, I was super excited! Jane Eyre is one of my favorite Classics and the fairy element, in my opinion, is already hidden in there. But more about how the two texts relate to each other later.

Jane’s character and the world of Ironskin are closely related. Five years before the beginning of the novel, a war with the fey ended. The fey attacked humans with some sort of bombs, then entered those they killed to gain bodies and be able to fight. This means that people had to kill what looked like their friends or family members to eliminate the fey. In that war, Jane lost her younger brother and her cheek was injured, scarred, cursed. Her curse is rage, meaning that unless she wears an iron mask over half of her face, the curse will leak out and influence the behavior of those around her. The Ironskin, as people like Jane are called, are half outcast from society – it fears them, their curse, and the reminder of the war’s price.

I liked Jane, she has a tough life but rarely complains about it and is a very pragmatic person. However, because of her curse, she is often bitter or angry – an anger she shares with the heroine of the original novel. Overall, she was resolute, though there were times when I didn’t understand her decisions.

All Jane has left at the beginning of the book is her sister Helen, who is her complete opposite: cheery, frivolous, wanting to secure her living by finding a husband rather than by working to be independent. When she manages to snag a rich fiancé, Jane moves out of their London flat to work at the country manor of Mr Rochart to teach Dorie, his cursed child. Jane expects a girl with Ironskin but finds one with fey gifts who never uses her hands, moving things by telekinesis instead. Jane resolves to stay despite her initial shock and try to teach Dorie to behave in a more human way. What follows is a match of stubbornness and a part of the novel that dragged a bit for me and felt quite tedious – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it means that Tina Connolly manages to convey Jane’s own feelings of frustration to the reader. Still, I wanted to shake and smack Dorie at times.

About halfway in things pick up speed as Jane begins to figure out her employer’s secrets and begins to feel an attraction and closeness to him. She also starts to question her curse, its workings and origin, and whether the iron mask really benefits her or not. How much of what she’s believed for the past five years is true? What exactly is the relation between humans and the fey? Who is to blame for the war, and is it really over? And what is Mr Rochart doing in the woods, a place no rational being would enter out of fear of the fey? What is his business with the beautiful women exiting his studio?

I was fascinated but at first also confused by the world of Ironskin. I expected a Victorian setting like in the original, but from what I gathered it resembles the 1920s more. The rendering of a country in the aftermath of a war and what that means for a society as it tries to scramble together a new way of living without the amenities of fey technology was very realistic. Also, suddenly it is revealed that there are also dragons and dwarves, species I hope to hear more about in the sequel. Generally, the reader is left to put the puzzle pieces together on his/her own, which wasn’t always easy. It took me a while to get into the novel because it wasn’t clear where the plot was going, but once I did I could hardly put it down to get my much needed sleep! There’s lots of action quite late in the novel after a long build-up of hints and mysteries, but then the events unraveled with twists I never saw coming!

Finally, a note on intertextuality. The way the two books relate is complex. Names were changed (sometimes it made sense to me, sometimes I thought it was unnecessary), some characters from the original novel had their traits split up and transferred to several minor characters in Ironskin. One of those was Grace Poole, whose name equivalent would be Poule the dwarf butler, a character I really loved but whose temperament and function is very different from her namesake’s. There’s no madwoman in the attic in this retelling, which changes Jane and Edward’s relationship quite a lot. To be honest, their dynamic was just not as captivating as the one in the original (I’m biased there though, as that relationship is pretty much my ideal). I thought both were interesting characters but I just didn’t feel as invested in their budding relationship as I had hoped to. All in all, having read Charlotte Brontë’s novel will enhance your reading but also hinder it through prejudices; you can read, understand, and enjoy the novel just as well if you haven’t read the original.

Overall, though I didn’t absolutely love the novel I really liked it a lot. The writing was solid with some really great bits and I liked the description of the fey as truly terrifying and Other, not of this world. I also liked the interactions of Jane and Poule a lot and the way Jane’s character develops over the course of the book. I was impressed with the way the author wove her research on post-WWI England into the book and adapted it to her own setting. Whether you ultimately like it or not, Ironskin has a way of lingering on the mind between reading session as well as after finishing it. I’d recommend it to people who would like to read a different take on fey, are interested in retellings of Classics, or enjoy historical novels. However, if you lose patience quickly if a book is slow at the beginning, this is maybe not for you.

Have you read Ironskin? What did you think? Does this sound like something that could interest you, and what's your take on retellings/refigurings of Classics in general? Comments and review feedback make me happy :)