Blog Tour: Author Interview + eBook Giveaway | The Light Tamer by Devyn Dawson

Hello and welcome to The Light Tamer Tour hosted by These Paper Worlds. Today I have Devyn stopping by for an interview in which she shares with us a little about The Light Tamer, her writing process and herself. Enjoy and look out below for a chance to win an eBook copy of The Light Tamer!

Find Devyn Dawson: Website | Facebook |Twitter


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Describe The Light Tamer in five words.

Funny - Intelligent - Happy - Flawed - First love (2 words, sorry)

What was the process like for titling The Light Tamer? Did you go through several titles before deciding?

Once I decided to title the book, it came in an instant. No other titles, it was much easier than my other books.

What can we expect to see in the second book in The Light Tamer Trilogy?

The second book is going to have more information about Light Tamers. Amber will have to face her issues with her brother's death and her dad's progress. The Rosicrucian Order classes will have a couple of characters blended in from another book of mine. If anyone has read Malevolence, they know that the Order was introduced there. School will be very interesting and challenging for our young friends.

If you and Jessie could spend the day together, what would you do?

I have two severely handicapped black labs, I'd have her heal them. I also have a rescue cat from the animal shelter, she has serious issues - I'd see if she could heal my kitty so life wouldn't be so scary to her.

Do you have a specific routine while writing or do you just wing it and see what happens?

I keep a ongoing dictionary of the characters and their abilities. I have a few crystals that I keep in my pocket while I'm writing - one is to help your writing, the other is to help you stay focused. I like the house to be empty of humans, and I like it to be silent. One of my cats likes to sleep on top of my mouse.

What book are you currently reading?

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong - my all time favorite author. When I'm finished, I'm going to read 50 Shades of Grey.

What are three weird facts your readers may not know about you?

The scene about the bee was straight from me... I have a fear of bees that I can't control. I carry hand sanitizer with me everywhere, and I won't touch salt or ketchup in public without a napkin in my hand. When I'm happy, I sing opera songs.

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Title: The Light Tamer
Series: The Light Tamer #1
Genre: YA - Paranormal/Romance
Publication: Self-published

Summary: Jessie's moved from New York to North Carolina one week after school let out for summer break. Her newly 'single' mother and her move in with grandma Gayle. Being a teenager in a retirement area is one more thing to add to her 'this sucks' list. It's bad enough to have to move, but even worse her alcoholic father left for Greece on a quest to fulfill his artistic abilities.

Things begin to look up when she is reintroduced to Caleb, the dorky boy that saved her life one summer at the beach. Caleb is no longer scrawny and nerdy, he is now tall, dark, and handsome. Caleb is a Light Tamer. Caleb introduces Jessie to Amber, a no frills, snarky, sassy attitude Light Tamer. Her words will have you laughing out loud and gasping 'oh no she didn't'. Amber's father was paralyzed last summer in a surfing accident that left her brother dead and her life upside down.

Buy the book: Amazon

Giveaway rules: One eBook copy of The Light Tamer is up for grabs. Open internationally. Must be 13 years of age or older to enter. Winner will be drawn Friday, May 4.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Make sure to check out all the other stops on the tour today for a chance to win more fun prizes! 

 Tour Stops: 

http://readingandwritingurbanfantasy.blogspot.com/ 

http://www.coffeebooksandme.blogspot.com/ 

http://melissaseclecticbookshelf.blogspot.com/ 

http://www.autumnreview.com/ 

http://fictionaldistraction.blogspot.com/

http://countingpaperstars.blogspot.com/ 

http://www.angelsdemonsandvampires.com/

 http://paigebradish1996.blogspot.com/ 

http://themagicatticreads.com/ 

http://splashofourworlds.blogspot.com/ 

http://understandingshaestory.blogspot.com/

 http://melissamaygrove.blogspot.com/

 http://www.tsktskwhattoread2.blogspot.com/

 http://www.bittersweet-enchantment.com/ 

 http://thebooklovie.blogspot.jp/ 

http://devyn-dawson.blogspot.jp/

Monday Recap (04.17 - 04.23)

Hello friends. How are you? I had an eventful past few days. Friday was both my three year blogoversary and my brother's birthday, so I spent the day (mostly) celebrating. I also got some shopping done ;) On Saturday I had a few things for school to do and then I spent the afternoon watching Dexter. I love that show ♥ This weekend was the L.A. Festival of Books at USC and living so close by, I got a chance to go on Sunday. It was great and I will most likely be posting pictures later this week :)

If you didn't know, I am having a few giveaways right now for my blogoversary as well as one or two others. Also, this is pretty exciting news for me: I started a YouTube channel to go alongside this blog. I will be reviewing YA books there, as well as posting monthly haul videos, TBR videos and maybe some bookshelf tours in the future. I'm also going to discuss other book related stuff there too. I hope you guys take the time to subscribe and to watch :)

Here's what I plan to read this week:

 

Last week I read:

+ The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

+ The Light Tamer by Devyn Dawson

I reviewed:

+ Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan 

I finally got through some books last week. I don't want to set my goals to high for this week, but I think I can get through both these books. Tonight I am going to the YA or Bust Tour at Children's Book World in Los Angeles. I am pretty excited! I am going to be meeting a few more authors, yay! Happy reading and have a great week everyone :)

Happy Earth Day!

I hope you all had a great Sunday! I spent mine at the L.A. Festival of Books so I didn't have a chance to post this earlier...Happy Earth Day and happy reading :D

Blogoversary!

Today is my three year blogoversary, woo!
I can't believe how fast time has gone by and how much I still love doing this. It has been such an enjoyable experience :)

Since I almost forgot again this year to celebrate, like I've done the last two, I only have a few things planned. What exactly do I have planned you may ask? Well for one thing, I have decided to become a BookTuber (a book reviewer on YouTube) starting today and I hope you guys will follow my adventures over there by subscribing to my channel. I will be posting more about in the future and I am really excited to get that project started and hopefully expand my readership. I also have several giveaways for you, my lovely readers. Without you guys reading this here blog of mine, I do not think oodles of books. would have survived this long :) I will be posting them over the next three days and I hope you will stop by to check them out.

I will be linking up each giveaway below and adding this post to my sidebar so you can find all the giveaways easily. Thanks for stopping by and for reading ♥ I look forward to many more years :D
It is also my brother's birthday too :D Happy Birthday Eric :)
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Giveaway #1: Romance ♥ Prize Pack
Giveaway #2: Paranormal ☠ Prize Pack
Giveaway #3: Foreseen Prize Pack ★

Review | Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Title: Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
Series: Sky Chasers #1
Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan
Genre: YA - Dystopian/ Science Fiction
Publication: September 13th 2011 by St. Martin's Griffin
Source: Won in giveaway
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: What if you were bound for a new world, about to pledge your life to someone you'd been promised to since birth, and one unexpected violent attack made survival—not love—the issue?

Out in the murky nebula lurks an unseen enemy: the New Horizon. On its way to populate a distant planet in the wake of Earth's collapse, the ship's crew has been unable to conceive a generation to continue its mission. They need young girls desperately, or their zealous leader's efforts will fail. Onboard their sister ship, the Empyrean, the unsuspecting families don't know an attack is being mounted that could claim the most important among them...

Fifteen-year-old Waverly is part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space; she was born on the Empyrean, and the large farming vessel is all she knows. Her concerns are those of any teenager—until Kieran Alden proposes to her. The handsome captain-to-be has everything Waverly could ever want in a husband, and with the pressure to start having children, everyone is sure he's the best choice. Except for Waverly, who wants more from life than marriage—and is secretly intrigued by the shy, darkly brilliant Seth.

But when the Empyrean faces sudden attack by their assumed allies, they quickly find out that the enemies aren't all from the outside.

Thoughts: I didn't really have high expectations for Glow because I had seen a lot of so-so reviews on it. I was glad I won an audio copy of it because I was able to listen to it in my car when I had a chance . While I was not disappointed, Glow didn't really offer too much for me. I am not sure if I enjoyed it or not.

I can't really explain how I felt about Glow because while it was an adventurous read, with lots of shocking moments, it still felt sort of empty for me. I didn't feel any connection or sympathy towards Waverly because her personality was a little to confusing. I did not like Kieran because he was a little pathetic...and Seth, well...he was sort of a psycho. The secondary characters didn't offer much more depth either.

The story moves really quickly at first but then the pace sort of slows down a bit, and while this wasn't bad, I sort of felt a little bored after a while. Told from alternating points of view, we are able to see what happens between both the New Horizon and the Empyrean, and get into both Waverly and Kieran minds but this didn't interest me too much either.

I am not sure what the "point" of Glow really was because of all the religious difficulties the author threw in there. I really wasn't expecting religion to play such an important part of the book and made the whole plot of the book a little weak for me.

I don't think the book was bad, but do not think I will continue this series because it didn't offer much to hold my interest. It was just an okay read for me. There are a lot of mixed reviews on this one though, so I still recommend it to others who enjoy dystopian novels to check it out.

Monday Recap (for a few weeks again)

I've been in a reading slump I think. I've been reading the same books for almost a month now (if not more) and I can't get myself to finish them. At first, I was too busy, but now I don't know. This is the last week that I am going to give these two books a shot and if I can't get through them, I am going to put them on my DNF list and move on. I want to read some YA too, but I don't want to have to many books started at one time. 

Here's what I plan to read/finish this week:

I reviewed:
+ Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne [review]

Review | Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne

Title: Youth in Revolt
Author: C.D. Payne
Series: 1/7
Publication: 03.15.1996 by Crown Publishing Group
Source: Gift
Challenges: Young Adult Reading Challenge
Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary: SIX MONTHS IN THE LIFE OF THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS TEENAGER

Youth in Revolt is the journals of Nick Twisp, California's most precocious diarist, whose ongoing struggles to make sense out of high school, deal with his divorced parents, and lose his virginity result in his transformation from an unassuming fourteen-year-old to a modern youth in open revolt. As his family splinters, worlds collide, and the police block all routes out of town, Nick must cope with economic deprivation, homelessness, the gulag of the public schools, a competitive type-A father, murderous canines, and an inconvenient hair trigger on his erectile response–all while vying ardently for the affections of the beauteous Sheeni Saunders, teenage goddess and ultimate intellectual goad.

Thoughts: Youth in Revolt was one of those books that had been sitting on my TBR list for years and only happened to pick up because it was randomly chosen for me (read more on that here.) Fortunately for me, Youth in Revolt turned out to be a fun adventure that I couldn't get enough of, with fun and wacky characters that I loved and sometimes loved to hate.

Nick Twisp (who just so happens to hate his name) is a fourteen year old teenage boy who thinks of little else but sex. He is on the search to lose his virginity and along with his friends, they come up with crazy plans on how numerous ways to accomplish this. Nick lives with his mother, and her good-for-not-much boyfriend happens to stay over a lot. When the boyfriend gets in trouble with some sailors, the three hit the road and end up in a trailer park. This is where Nick meets Sheeni, the love of his life. Of course, to win her heart and stay close to her, Nick must be bad, very bad and his hilarious and wild attempts to reach her (and hopefully lose his virginity to her) cause his to cause quite some havoc that land Nick in some pretty huge trouble.

Although very single minded, Nick is an likable kid (but not always) and even though I wanted to smack him on the head every once in a while, he had me grinning most of the book with his witty thoughts. Quite smart for his age, he gets away with a lot and his ideas had me laughing out loud especially when his alter ego, Francois, was involved. His relationships with others were also very eccentric but worked well with the rest of the book. While rather long, there was a lot to get through with the book, and at no point did it ever feel dull. Nick was getting himself into one thing or another and this kept me engaged the entire time.

The author has a marvelous way of keeping the reader wanting to learn more about the characters, which there are many of. I definitely look forward to reading the rest of Nick's escapades in the next books. I definitely recommend Youth in Revolt to older teens and adults (some scenes are just not appropriate for younger audiences, but do offer quite a laugh sometimes) who think they would enjoy a different, ridiculous, humorous and raunchy coming of age story of a fourteen year old boy.

About the author:  Author and showman C.D. Payne was born in Akron, Ohio in 1949. In 1971 he moved to California. During the next 25 years, he held over 50 jobs including newspaper editor, book publisher's assistant, proofreader, trailer park handyman, and catalog writer. Since 2004 he has been the proprietor of the Eyelusion Museum, a mobile discovery museum in a restored and polished 1964 Airstream trailer. His latest mobile sideshow is a 1950s miniature town. It can been seen at the Santa Rosa Handcar Regatta and other events. He is married and lives in Sonoma County.

Website
Buy the book: Amazon

Monday Recap (03.26 - 04.01)

Happy Monday friends! I am really excited to be back to blogging :) This week I will definitely have more time to post more :D Last week wasn't too great on reading, but oh well. Time to focus on this new week :)

Here's what I plan to read/finish this week:



Last week I read:
+ Fallen from Grace by M.J. Putney

Other posts:
+ In My Mailbox 53

I've been reading the same books for weeks now and I plan to actually finish them this week. I hope! I've been saying that for a while now :/