Teens Wanna Know: Extraordinary Stories

Hey, sci-fi/fantasy fans - I have another batch of book recommendations for you! Read my brand-new guest blog at Teens Wanna Know.

Today, I've recommended The Jenna Fox Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson, His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, et al) by Philip Pullman, The Cold Awakening trilogy (aka Skinned trilogy) by Robin Wasserman, The Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, et al) by Libba Bray, and The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. These books are packed with magic, mystery, action, and romance.

Which of these series do you like best? Drop by my Extraordinary Stories post at Teens Wanna Know and leave a comment!  

Teens Wanna Know: Otherworldly YA Books

Looking for an awesome YA book that will take you out of this world? Love sci-fi/fantasy series? Check out my guest post at Teens Wanna Know! 

I've recommended five fantastic stories by Christopher Golden (Prowlers), Thomas E. Sniegoski (Fallen), Scott Westerfeld (Uglies), Justine Larbalestier (How to Ditch Your Fairy), and Holly Black (The Curse Workers). These books include angels, shapeshifters, surgeries, good luck, and bad luck, among other things. 

If you haven't read them yet, you should. If you have read them, let me know which one you liked the best.

Check out my Otherworldly YA post at Teens Wanna Know and leave a comment!  

Attention Diana Wynne Jones Fans!

Attention Diana Wynne Jones fans: I need quotes for an article being published mid-month. Leave a comment below telling me which DWJ book is your favorite, how old you were when you started reading her stories, or why you love her books in general! Leave your comments at my blog along with your real name OR username, however you'd like to be credited. Thank you!

Not sure what to say? Here are some prompts to help you out:
Which volume of the Chrestomanci series (aka The Chronicles of Chrestomanci) is your favorite?
What did you think of the film adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle?
What's your favorite part of The Tough Guide to Fantasyland?
Have you read her poetry and/or short stories?

Please leave your comments at my blog - and feel free to share this link with fellow fans and bloggers!

Story Secrets: STORK by Wendy Delsol + giveaway!

Today I'm excited to have debut author Wendy Delsol on the blog to chat about her contemporary myth-come-to-life, STORK - plus she has generously included a giveaway (see below for details).

I met Wendy through the awesome new YA blog, YA Outside the Lines, and am very pleased to welcome her!

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Borrowing from Norse mythology, STORK is the story of Katla (Kat) LeBlanc, a sixteen year old who—following her parents’ divorce—moves from L.A. to her mother’s small Minnesota hometown of Icelandic heritage. With the school year already off to a bad start, Kat’s world is further upended when she is mysteriously summoned to a meeting of the local Stork Society: women with the responsibility of matching the undecided of hovering souls with the right mother. Kat is their newest—and youngest ever—member. As if this discovery wasn’t burden enough, Kat soon meets Jack, an aloof classmate to whom she senses an inexplicable connection. Additionally, when Kat finds herself in more than one life-threatening situation, she suspects that someone or something wants her out of town.


Holly Cupala: I love to hear the stories behind the story –what is the story behind STORK?

Wendy Delsol: A long time ago, while watching the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, there was a segment about a young boy who claimed to have a pre-birth memory of flying above the earth and choosing his mother. The story stuck with me. Years later, when spinning what-ifs for a YA paranormal, I paired that story with the symbolic image of childbirth: a bundle-bearing stork. The next step was to create an ancient society of human Storks who have the ability to guide undecided souls...


Read more of Wendy's secrets and enter to win STORK here!

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: ENCHANTED IVY by Sarah Beth Durst + Giveaway!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm very happy to be hosting Sarah Beth Durst to hail the arrival of her fourth amazing YA fantasy novel, ENCHANTED IVY (and you may remember that she was my very first Story Secrets post last January for ICE).

Sarah Beth and I go way back...all the way back to the SCBWI Conference in New York the year before I signed with my agent and sold Tell Me a Secret. She had just come out with her first book, Into the Wild, and I was almost finished writing the first draft of mine. It didn't take long to become fast friends!

Sarah Beth, welcome back to Story Secrets!

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Enchanted Ivy is about getting into college. You know, taking the campus tour, talking to the gargoyles, flirting with the were-tigers, riding the dragons... Essentially, it's about magic at Princeton. (read a first chapter excerpt here)

Holly Cupala: Hi, Sarah Beth! Tell us about Enchanted Ivy.

Sarah Beth Durst: Junior and senior year of high school, I was absolutely obsessed with the whole college application process. I saw college as this huge Life Turning Point (with all capital letters) that would determine the shape of the Rest of My Life, and I was desperate to do everything "right," i.e. choose the right school, write the right essay, etc.

Of course, after all of my neurotic obsessing, I choose my college because I liked the trees and wrote my essay about the trials and tribulations of having curly hair...


Find out more of Sarah Beth's secrets and enter to win ENCHANTED IVY here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: AVIELLE OF RHIA by rgz co-founder Dia Calhoun!

I'm very excited to get to chat with rgz co-founder and award-winning fantasy author Dia Calhoun today about her YA fantasy novel, AVIELLE OF RHIA!

Dia has the soul of fantasy as well as amazing storytelling skills (plus she always has gorgeous covers, don't you think?). Not to mention AVIELLE is engrossing, moving, and suspenseful fantasy at its best.

Dia is here to tell us about the stories behind her fantasies, writing as a way of working through grief, and her next project.

Welcome, Dia!

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Avielle of Rhia is about a princess who overcomes grief and fear after a deadly attack kills her family, and comes into her power as queen by learning to face her fears and love her people.


Dia Calhoun, on the story behind the story:
AVIELLE OF RHIA was directly inspired by the 9/11 and its aftermath. At first the story was too directly tied to 9/11. I had people waving the flags of Rhia and shopping after the attack to stimulate the economy. I had twin towers. All of that had to go, the story took awhile to find its own form and truth...


Read more of Dia's secrets here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: DRAGONS OF NOOR by Janet Lee Carey

Hooray, the dragons are on the shelf! I'm very very very excited (can you tell how excited I am?) to invite my dear friend Janet Lee Carey, one of the most amazing authors and one of my own mentors, to Story Secrets today to talk about her latest YA fantasy, DRAGONS OF NOOR.

It's epic. It's wonderful. I've been incredibly fortunate to get to hear this book from the very beginning, so it's like watching a beloved niece or nephew go off to high school. It's here!

You must read it.

Plus, if you are in the Seattle area, you can come to the launch party at Kirkland Parkplace Books on Saturday, October 23rd, at 7pm!

Ok, enough strongarming...er, recommending. But Janet is wonderful. She contributed to my Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market article, "Telling Your Secrets!" She's the author of STEALING DEATH and DRAGONSKEEP. You will love them. She was also one of the original four co-founders of readergirlz!

Welcome, Janet!

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Miles, Hanna, and Taunier are swept into a new adventure in the haunting sequel to THE BEAST OF NOOR. The tale begins when a mysterious wind steals Miles’s and Hanna’s younger brother Tymm. Tymm and other wind-stolen children are swept east across the sea. The three teens sail after Tymm blown by the wind into a Dragon war. Siding with the Dragons of Noor fighting to save the ancient trees is the only way to bridge the broken worlds, the only way to reach the missing children.

Holly Cupala: I love to hear the stories behind the story – how did you come up with the idea for DRAGONS?

Janet Lee Carey: THE DRAGONS OF NOOR began with a daydream. In a kind of trance, I saw a mysterious wind sweep in, steal a child and blow him across the sky. I followed the dream to see what lay behind it. As I asked questions the dream expanded on paper. I was soon traveling across the Noor Sea with Miles, Hanna, and Taunier to find Miles’s and Hanna’s little brother. When I began I didn’t know they’d meet up with Dragons who were fighting their own fierce battle, I didn’t know how the Dragon’s battle for the last great forest of Noor intertwined with the missing children...

Read more about Janet and the dragons here...

~Holly Cupala

Story Secrets: BLUE FIRE by Janice Hardy + Giveaway!

Once in a while, we fly into fantasy around here - rare, I know, but I do love fantasy, especially when I'm in the middle of writing something contemporary and want to escape into a completely different world.

Janice Hardy is here to chat about her new fantasy YA, BLUE FIRE: THE HEALING WARS Book II. (You can browse an excerpt of Book I: THE SHIFTER here.)

Way back in the D&D and fantasy game days, I used to always love to play a healer. So I find the premise of Janice's books, the dark consequences of healing gifts, to be quite fascinating. I hope you will, too. So I'm giving away an ARC of BLUE FIRE that I picked up in my travels! Details below.

Welcome, Janice!

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THE HEALING WARS is the story of Nya, a war orphan who has the unique ability to heal by shifting pain from person to person. She's forced to use that ability to save her sister in book one, and ends up being drawn into a growing rebellion against the ruler currently oppressing her people and the surrounding lands in book two. BLUE FIRE is the sequel to THE SHIFTER, and it follows Nya as she deals with the consequences of saving her younger sister in the first book, and her discovery that her city isn't the only one being oppressed. And of course, things go horribly, horribly wrong.

The Making of THE HEALING WARS

Years ago I was playing with different common fantasy ideas, trying to turn them on their heads to find something new. I started thinking about healing and how you rarely see any consequences associated with it. It made me wonder if there could be a darker side to it, and if something always portrayed as good could be bad. That led to the idea of buying and selling pain, and how a society like that would work. The rest developed from the world building. I created the culture first, then thought about who would suffer the most in this world. That was Nya...

Click here to learn more about Janice's secrets and to enter to win BLUE FIRE!

~Holly Cupala