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The Book Whisperer

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Disney to make "Fallen" movie

It has been announced that Disney are to make a movie of Lauren Kate's book Fallen and also the sequels. You can read about it here.

I have this book on my pile (courtesy of Amazon Vine) so I want to read it even more now! Will report back when I have read and reviewed it.

Out in March 2010

The Body Finder by Kimberley Derting


This book sounds great - I can't wait for it to come out in March 2010.This is what Goodreads says about it:

"A serial killer on the loose. A girl with a morbid ability. And the boy who would never let anything happen to her.

Violet Ambrose can find the dead. Or at least, those who have been murdered. She can sense the echoes they leave behind... and the imprints they leave on their killers. As if that weren't enough to deal with during junior year, she also has a sudden, inexplicable, and consuming crush on her best friend since childhood, Jay Heaton. Now a serial killer has begun terrorizing Violet's small town... and she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him." 




Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her “power” to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers. Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he’s claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him. Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay’s intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she’s falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself.
 
Roll on March!

Author Interview - Becca Fitzpatrick

Thank you to Becca Fitzpatrick, author of Hush Hush, for taking the time to answer some questions about her favourite books and also her own series of books.

Becca grew up reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden with a flashlight under the covers. She graduated college with a degree in health, which she promptly abandoned for storytelling. When not writing, she’s most likely prowling sale racks for reject shoes, running, or watching crime dramas on TV. (Info courtesy of Becca’s Goodreads profile). Hush Hush is Becca’s first book and was published by Simon & Schuster Children’s Books in 2009.

Have you made any new years resolutions for 2010? If so, are there any that you can share with us?

Becca: Laughing! I haven’t made any yet – I’m not that organized! Right now my goal is to finish Crescendo edits on time, and then I’ll start making new goals. Hopefully there’s nothing wrong with making resolutions all year long, because that’s usually how I operate!

Have you ever read a book and thought “damn it! I wish I’d written that!”? If so, which one and why?

Becca: Yes, I’ve thought that! When I read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, I couldn’t help but wish a) I could write like that, and b) have her whole story in my head.

You’re about to be stranded on a desert island for a year and you’re only allowed to take 3 books with you. What do you take?

Becca: Oh man, tough question! 1. How about Jane Austen: the Complete Novels (one book, several stories. I’m trying to economize here.) 2. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon 3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Now on to the fabulous Hush Hush: Where did you get the idea from? Did the plot and characters sneak up on you or hit you like a sledgehammer?

Becca: The very first inspiration for Hush, Hush came from something that happened to me in my own tenth-grade bio class. My teacher asked me, in front of the whole class, to name characteristics I’d like in a mate. I was so embarrassed! Years later, when my husband enrolled me in a writing class for my birthday, my teacher asked me to write a scene “showing, not telling, humiliation.” I immediately started crafting a scene based on my experience in biology. That short writing assignment evolved into one of the early scenes in Hush, Hush.

The setting for Hush Hush is fantastically dark and eerie. Is it based on anywhere you know?

Becca: No…unless you count my imagination! When I started writing Hush, Hush, I knew right away that atmosphere was going to play a big role in the book. I wanted a small, seemingly harmless New England town that was moody and creepy enough that up-to-no-good fallen angels could be at home there. I’m very happy with the way the book’s atmosphere seems to rise right out of the pages. Obviously there are things I wish I could go back and change about the book, but the atmosphere is one of the things I feel I nailed. It’s just the way I imagined it.

I absolutely adored Vee (Nora’s best friend). Do you know a Vee in real life?

Becca: I used to! Vee’s character was inspired by two of my childhood best friends. They were both wacky, crazy, wild girls. They said and did what was on their mind without reservation. In a lot of ways, I envied them the same way Nora envies Vee.

The sequel to Hush Hush, Crescendo, is coming up later in 2010. Can you give us any sneak previews of Crescendo?

Becca: In Crescendo, readers will find out what really happened the night Nora’s dad was murdered. Let’s just say he was living a secret life…one with ties to Patch…Several minor characters also return with bigger roles, including Marcie Millar, Detective Basso, and Rixon. The most prominent new character is a guy named Scott Parnell, whom Nora knew years ago as Scotty the Potty.

Will Crescendo be the last book in the series or are there more planned?

Becca: I’m only contracted for Crescendo, but I really hope I get to write a third book. I have a storyline for Book 3, so I’m definitely not ready to be done with the series just yet.

Do you have any plans for other series after this one? If so can you tease us with any juicy tidbits?

Becca: I do have another story idea! In fact, I started working on it right after Hush, Hush went on submission to editors. I have a plot, and a couple of pretty cool characters. The story has a paranormal element, but not in the way people might expect. It’s a sexy, flirty novel, and it’s lighter than Hush, Hush.

Finally, the quick fire round:

Cats or dogs: Dogs
Summer or winter: Summer
Bath or shower: Shower
Beach or mountains: Beach
Coffee or tea: Neither! I’m a water girl. It’s the best drink in the world, and it’s great for your skin!

Book Review: Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie

Girl, Missing gets into full swing immediately, no messing around with backgrounds or character development - the first page tells us all we need to know. Lauren Matthews is fourteen and knows she is adopted but becomes suddenly curious when she has to write a school essay called "Who am I?" and her parents become cagey and withold imformation. Lauren decides to try and find out where she came from herself with the help of the internet, a missing childrens website and her best friend, Jam. Lauren and Jam end up on an adventure that takes them to America where they find themselves on the run.

Although it was clearly aimed at the younger end of the YA spectrum, it still had it share of excitement and was a very pacey book with plenty of cliffhangers at the end of chapters.

I think I would be interested enough to check out McKenzie's other books The Set Up and Blood Ties look interesting.

On My Pile

These are some of the books on my Mt. TBR. The best part is reading them, the worst part is deciding which one to read next.......

Book Review: Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Love, love, loved it!!! I read Hush Hush in less than a day; I could not put it down. Infact I was up at 2am this morning with my eye-sockets sagging half way down my cheeks ‘cos I just had to keep reading the damn thing!

The story starts in France in 1565, when a fallen angel appears to a boy in a remote field and tells him that he has a job for him to do and an oath to swear. Flashforward several hundred years and Nora Grey is a sixteen year old student in Maine, with little interest in boys until Patch turns up in her Biology class, as a lab partner, seemingly hell-bent on making her life a misery with his arrogant, uncommunicative ways. Everywhere she turns, there he is, and trouble seems to follow him around. Nora soon finds herself in the middle of something that she can’t explain but she doesn’t know who to trust.

The book has a great setting: eery fog, desolate roads and rainswept coastal towns. It’s dark yet vibrant and pacy at the same time. The characters were great; I especially loved Nora’s best friend, Vee. Her humour alone could have sold the book to me.

I really enjoyed this book; I almost turned into a prune in the bath when reading it because I couldn’t bear to put it down to even climb out. The second in the series, Crescendo, will be out later in 2010. Highly recommended!

Book Review: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

In Shiver Grace was attacked by a pack of wolves when she was eleven years old. She was dragged from her back garden which back onto Boundry Woods. But she didn’t struggle or cry even though she could see her own blood in the snow: instead what she remembers about that day is the wolf who saved her. The wolf with the yellow eyes who looked right at her and dragged the other wolves off her.

Over the next six years, Grace becomes obssessed with the wolves in Mercy Falls, where she lives. But it’s the one with the yellow eyes who she seeks out. On the occasions when he’s appeared at the edge of her garden they watch each other, waiting. One day, a local boy from her school is attacked by wolves and dies and the town is in uproar and a party of men go hunting the wolves in the woods. When Grace returns home she finds a naked boy about her age on her porch who has been shot. She takes him inside and recognises him instantly – the yellow eyes, Sam.


What follows is a love story between two people who have “known” each other for years. It’s simple, tender and subtle. They are drawn together and can’t be apart, but there is something in their way – whenever it gets cold, Sam changes back into a wolf and this year there is a race against time to stop him changing as Sam thinks it may be his last year as a human.


I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I can absolutely see how it would appeal to teenagers but I think it’s a good one for adults too. It’s touching and tender. I am looking forward to reading Linger, the next in the series when it’s out (July 2010).


Stiefvater has also written another series which I will be reviewing shortly - the first two books in the series are Lament and Ballad.

Book Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I had seen this in book shops for months and had picked it up and put it down again so many times that I finally decided to give it ago based on so many positive reviews I had seen. I’m so glad I did. For the 3 days it took me to read it I was immersed in the life of a young German girl during World War 2 and although the book prepares the reader almost from the beginning for what is going to happen I wasn’t prepared for the ending to pack such an emotional punch.

The book itself is narrated by Death (not the Grim Reaper image that most of us have, but a figure who roams the world collecting the souls of the newly departed and gently taking them away with him.) Death tells the story of Liesel, a young girl who has been placed with foster parents in a poor part of Munich and we follow her story throughout the war. We are told from the start that most of the characters we meet will die but because we spend so long with them and become so involved in their lives, it doesn’t make it any less shocking by the end of the book.

This book is brilliant in the way that it manages to avoid the gory detials of war but involves us in the day to day lives of some of those who lived through it. It is so important that we never forget what happened during that time and that there were so many wonderful, selfless people out there that were prepared to help others.

I highly recommend this book and I’m sure it is one that will stay with me for a long time.

Book Review: Evermore by Alyson Noel

I really did enjoy this book. Ever Bloom has survived a car accident that kills her whole family, including the dog and she is the only surviving member. When she awakes she is able to read peoples minds, know their entire life story, see their auras and not only that but her younger sister, Riley, who was killed in the accident is still very much around. Enter Damen, a drop-dead-gorgeous boy who joins her new school (after she is whisked off to live with her Aunty in California) who starts leaving her red tulips everywhere and confesses that he is an "immortal".

When I first opened it I was determined not to make the obvious Twilight comparissons but I'm afraid that they just leaped off the page at me and I feel unable to avoid them: High school students, a girl with hardly any friends and wanting to be left alone, mysterious and gorgeous boy who can move at the speed of light, knows his school-work off by heart without even doing homework etc and never eats anything. That said, that's where the comparissons end. The love story between Ever and Damen isn't even close to that of Bella and Edward. There was no real "falling in love" or the romance of Twilight. In fact, some of the narrative felt very clumsy and verged on ridiculous. That said, I still couldn't put it down. I read it in less than a day and was glued to the pages. Ever's sister, Riley, was a wonderful character and gave some great light relief. It says in the author interview at the end of the book that Riley is to get her own series soon - I shall be looking out for that, as I will the next 5 books in this series.

The next book in the series is Blue Moon and I have a copy that I managed to get in New York last month, although it isn't out in the UK until 5th March 2010. I'm looking forward to seeing how the story develops.

Book Review: Stolen by Lucy Christopher

I’m struggling somewhat to write a review of this Stolen as really not much happened.

The premise is great: British girl at Bangkok airport gets kidnapped and drugged and taken to Australia by her captor where he keeps her in the middle of the baron outback with no way of escape. I wanted to like it but the truth be told I was bored throughout most of it. I didn’t feel any anxiety for Gemma’s predicament or feel her fear, I never really got a sense that the book was set in the Australian outback (I knew it was set there, but it didn’t feel real). There was not an adequate enough explanation for why her kidnapper, Ty, had taken her.

I have read other books about being in the Australian outback (Douglas Kennedy’s The Dead Heart scared the life out of me) but as far as this book goes, it’s not one I could recommend unfortunatley.

Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

This book is amazing! It was so difficult to put it down that I cursed every time I had to. Such a brilliant idea for a plot and coupled with being so well executed has made it one of my favourite books, possibly of all time.

The book is set in Panem (formerly the USA) where there are districts known as the Capitol (who rule everything else) and Districts 1-12. Seventy-five years ago, the people of the Districts (who are fenced in and not allowed to communicate with other districts) staged a rebellion so in order to make sure that it never happens again, the Capitol invented THE HUNGER GAMES. Every year, two children (one girl and one boy, aged 12-18) are picked randomly from each district and are put into an arena which can be anything from swamps to lakes or forrests or deserts and the victor is the last one standing once all the others are dead. The Hunger Games are mandatory TV viewing for all Districts who have to watch their loved ones be killed on live TV. The only ones who relish this are the people of the Capitol where the cheer their favourite tributes on and place bets about who will survive and who will die.


Katniss Everdeen is sixteen years old and when her 12 year old sister’s name is read out at the reaping (the televised event where the names are called) she steps up and volunteers to go in her place. Katniss’s district partner is Peeta, a boy from school who has always liked her. The book follows their journey from District 12 to the Capitol where they are put into the arena to fend for themselves.


I read that the author got her idea for the book when she was flicking between channesl on the TV and on one side was a reality TV show and on the other was footage of the horrors of the war in Iraq and she wondered what it would be like to put these two together. The synopsys for this book may seem farfetched but to be honest I’m not so sure that we’re all that far away from these games anyway. You only need to watch Jerry Springer or Big Brother (the UK version) to realise that so much of it is set up or instigated to get the best arguments and subsequently ratings possible. It’s not that far away from the Gladiators in Rome killing each other for the publics viewing pleasure.


Having said that, this book is aimed at young adults and although the theme of the book is one that really makes you think, it isn’t gory or gruesome and is appropriate for its intended audience. I may be well past my teenage years but I can honestly say that this book is one of the best I have read for pure excitement and that “un-put-downable” factor.


I highly, highly recommend this book!


The second in the trilogy, Catching Fire is just as fantastic and I cannot wait for the final book to come out in August 2010!

These are the latest books sent to me by Amazon Vine.