Child of a Hidden Sea
Sophie is determined to find her birth parents. But when she finds her mother, there isn’t the grand reunion she was hoping for. Not ready to give up yet, Sophie happens across her aunt being attacked in a San Francisco alleyway and rushes to intervene.
The next second she finds herself in the middle of an ocean surrounded by glowing moths, along with her aunt, who has been stabbed, with only Sophie to save her.
Sophie does save her aunt, but unknowingly sets off a chain of events that disrupt the lives of the people who surround her.
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Giveaway: The Devil’s Only Friend
Updated 6/22/15: Ian A from Utah is our winner. Congratulations! Your book will be on its way soon.
You loved John Cleaver in I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER , MR MONSTER , and I DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU . Now Dan Wells brings back our favorite demon-hunting sociopath in THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND , releasing June 16th.
The publisher (Tor) has provided us a copy of this book to give away to one of our lucky readers. To enter this giveaway:
1. Email us at elitistbookreviews@gmail.com
2. Include the following on the subject line: Dan Wells Giveaway
3. In the body of the email include your name and mailing address.
Giveaway rules can be found here. Entries will be accepted until midnight of June 21st and the winner will be posted on the 22nd.
Don’t miss our review of the book to be posted this week, as well as a guest post from Dan Wells himself.
Guest Post: Dan Wells
Dan Wells. You all know how much we love Dan around here. He’s been a great friend to Elitist Book Reviews, and he writes incredible novels. To cap off this week of all things Dan Wells–in celebration of the release of his new novel, THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND (Amazon)–we leave you with a guest post from our good friend, and one of our favorite authors.
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As you may have heard, because I talk about it ALL THE TIME, the first book in my John Cleaver series I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (EBR Review) is being made into a movie. It stars, Max Records, Laura Fraser, and Christopher Lloyd, and I’m super excited about it, and it’s going to be awesome–in festivals next year, and theaters soon after. I had the chance to spend about a week and a half on set with the cast and crew earlier this year, and it was great to meet them all and see their vision for the film and share their excitement for the story and the characters. But then I realized something: now that I’d met those characters, how could I continue to do such horrible things to them?
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The Devil’s Only Friend
When it comes to author Dan Wells, people seem to point to his Dystopian YA Partials series. Those are good novels, no doubt about it. But the novels that won me over were those in his John Cleaver series. It’s no secret how much I love Horror, and Wells’ first novel, I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (EBR Review), hit all the right notes for me. After three novels in that series, I wondered if I would ever again read a new John Cleaver story. I feared the worst…
…until Wells said he was writing a new John Cleaver trilogy.
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Next of Kin
With THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND (Amazon) releasing tomorrow, I figured I’d draw your attention to a must-have novella from Horror author, Dan Wells. Set in his John Cleaver series, and during the events of THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND, we have the novella NEXT OF KIN (Amazon).
From the moment I first began reading the John Cleaver novels, I was arrested by my curiosity for the series’ villains, the Withered (or Gifted, as they call themselves). These god-like beings are known and identifiable by what they lack, and that simple idea became such a compelling one that I often (all the time) wondered how THEY were seeing this story unfold.
NEXT OF KIN does exactly that. It puts readers in the head of one of the Withered.
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Blog-off Entry Commentary: Point of View
Point of view (PoV) is how a story is narrated, usually through the eyes of a main character. If writers are doing PoV right, it shouldn’t even be noticeable, it fades into the background. But when it’s done wrong, it’s a slap in the face. First-time authors don’t give PoV the attention it deserves. They treat it like the short kid when picking basketball teams during P.E. because there are better athletes of storytelling: setting, character, and plot. But we need the short kid to have a full team, and ignoring PoV is like not having a full team. Viewpoint is important because it affects how the story is told and the connections readers feel with the characters.
Let’s define a few terms:
- First-person–Uses “I” to tell the story. Not used as often as third-person because it isn’t as flexible, but when done right is fun to read (prevalent in thrillers, YA, Urban Fantasy, and the ramblings of narcissists).
- Second-person–Uses “you” to tell the story (Choose Your Own Adventure, RPG adventure primers, technical manuals, and lectures from your parents).
- Third-person–Refers to “he” and “she” to tell the story. Most commonly used viewpoint in SF&F (as well as Vulcan mind melds). Styles include “limited” (one head per scene) and “omniscient” (sees and knows everything within a story).
- Alternating viewpoint–When you just have to be in everybody’s business. Switches viewpoints between characters within a story — i.e., first-person for one character, third-person limited for others… seen most recently in RESIDUE (EBR Review)! First-person PoV alternating viewpoints appear in books narrated via letters, such as DRACULA (EBR Review).
Cibola Burn
I was really excited when I got this book in the mail (which was forever ago, granted. Sorry this was soooo long in coming). Couldn’t wait to get back to Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante. Abraham and Franck really have a good thing going for them with this series. Not only is the series really good, the SyFy channel picked it up for a TV series and they’re spending oodles of money on it (more than they’ve spent on any other series before). Looks like it’s going to be absolutely fabulous too. In addition, the series is under contract through book 9. Oh. My. Goodness. Although I was just the teensiest bit perturbed at the fact that the initial release for new books in this series have been switched to hardbacks. A good sign for the authors and publishers, agreed; just not such a great deal for those of us that like to look at the complete series on our bookshelves and see continuity. But who am I kidding, the story is really the part that matters anyhow and it was freaking awesome.
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The Border: Free Audio Clip
If you saw Steve’s awesome review for THE BORDER and you still aren’t convinced, check out a free audio clip HERE.
You’re welcome.
Giveaway: Trial of Intentions
Updated 6/8/2015: Matt B from Albany is our winner. Congrats and your book will be on its way shortly!
TRIAL OF INTENTIONS has been out a week, but it looks like we have an extra copy hanging around here at EBR to give away. If you’d like a hardback copy of Peter Orullian’s second book, enter the giveaway by:
1. Emailing us at elitistbookreviews@gmail.com
2. Include the following in the subject line: Trial of Intentions Giveaway
3. In the body of the email include your name and address.
The giveaway ends midnight (MST) on June 7th. The winner will be posted on Monday, June 8th.
Check out our recent posts on Peter’s stuff:
Peter Orullian Guest Post
Interview with Peter Orullian
Beta Reading for Peter Orullian
TRIAL OF INTENTIONS: EBR Review
THE UNREMEMBERED: AUTHOR’S DEFINITIVE EDITION: EBR Review
Guns of the Dawn
The secret of gunpowder is that anyone—a man, a woman, a child, a cripple—can kill with it.
I think the above quote perfectly sets the tone for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s stand-alone, gunpowder fantasy novel, GUNS OF THE DAWN (Amazon). I’ve been a big fan of Tchaikovsky’s for a while now, with his Shadows of the Apt series being one of my favorite Fantasy series out there.
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