Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin, illustrated by Lisa Brown + Contest!

Published May 2010.

Jennie Lovell's life is the very picture of love and loss. First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. The her fiance falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past.

When Jennie forms an unlikely alliance with a spirit photographer, she begins to uncover secrets about the man she thought she loved. With her sanity on edge and her life in the balance, can Jennie expose the chilling truth before someone - or something - stops her? (book back blurb)

Throughout the entire book I felt it hard to actually connect with Jennie. We're thrown right into the action of the plot and told about her past so splattered throughout the story that I feel I just don't know her well enough to really care. That's not to say the story wasn't good, nor was Jennie not a good character. I was just detached from her situation, like I was watching a TV show play out before me.

It wasn't until the very end that I really felt anything for her but I have to say, the ending was fantastic and quite possibly the best part of the book. The last couple of chapters, where the charade started to unravel, had me turning page after page after page to find out what's going on. The rest of the story was interesting enough although I think the spirit photography wasn't as in the forefront as it's portrayed as being. It plays a catalyst for certain plot points in the story but really stays in the background for the most part.

I did like how the story added some validity to the Spiritualist movement. While the spirit photographer was widely a hoax, some of the things that happened to Jennie's photos were rather hard to explain and even if they could be, they were rather enormously coincidental to be, well, a coincidence.

For me the secondary characters were much more three dimensional than Jennie herself was. I loved Aunt, in all her bitchtastic attitude. She was just a character that begged to be loved to hated. Even Quincey was quite a dynamic character. He was such a train wreck - I couldn't keep my eyes off of him, especially at the end. Very much bat shit but it made him all the more interesting to read.

I loved the drawings. They added so much more depth to the story, as if I were paging through Jennie's scrapbook myself. The script was hard to read sometimes but the photos were creepy, so solemn and morbid, most without actually intending to be so. They just made the overall feel of the story that much better.

Picture the Dead was a good read, especially at the end where some real girl power and suck it attitude comes into play, but I still had a distance with it. I wish I could have connected more with Jennie. Maybe if there was a little more exposition at the beginning to give us a better understanding of just where Jennie came from and why her situation was the way it was would have helped. But it is what it is.

Contest Time!!!

Want my ARC of Picture the Dead? Just fill out the form below for your chance to win!

We Hear the Dead by Dianne K. Salerni + Contest!

Published May 2010.

It's starts as a harmless prank . . .

But soon Kate and Maggie Fox's ability to communicate with the dead is the talk of the town and neighbors are begging for the chance to hear the mysterious messages from beyond the grave. By the time the sisters regret what they're begun, it's too late to turn back.

Deception becomes a new way of life for Kate and Maggie, especially after their older sister, Leah, discovers people will pay to witness their performances. But a chance encounter with a very dashing and famous Arctic explorer turns Maggie's world upside down. He has captured her heart and vows to give Maggie a sophisticated new life full of romance, but only if she promises to leave the family business and give up spirit rapping forever. Can Maggie leave her family behind? Or will she choose to live the rest of her life trapped in a lie? (book back blurb)

I felt like a little kid listening to an astounding story being told by some wizened person recounting a rather shadowy part of their lives. While initially the page count had me a little nervous (really, how much story is there to tell, I thought?), it quickly didn't become a problem as I swallowed down gulp after gulp after gulp of this engrossing story.

It's interesting because starting off the story, I had a feeling I wasn't going to care what happened to these girls, whether they fell to ruins or not. I mean, here they are, building up a prank into the dupe of the century all because they didn't want to get scolded or have their family turned out for what they did or suffer any of the repercussions of their actions at all. But as the story goes on, and you continue to get this behind-the-scenes look at these girls lives, you can't help but ask yourself the same questions Maggie asks herself - Is she, at the end of the day, bringing much-needed comfort to the bereaved, even if it's a lie?

I didn't so much like the story from Kate's perspective. In fact I think the story would have been just fine without it but at the same time, it created this juxtaposition between the two girls - Maggie knew she was a fake; as Kate got older, she felt that she actually could commune with the dead. So is there a lie or isn't there? Or are we capable of convincing ourselves of what we want us to be?

I loved the voice of the story. It's definitely told in a rather antiquated prose type of language but it's not so littered with moth balls that it's unreadable. It only adds atmosphere to the story as a whole. It sets the tone for the mid-1800s and makes the reader feel all the more there in the story.

The love story aspect of the novel was unbearably heart-wrenching. I'll admit it. I cried at some points. It was such a tumultuous affair between Maggie and Elisha and so symbolic of life during that time that I couldn't help but feel as destroyed by Maggie's situation as she was. The harder part? This was real. I'm afraid any little tidbit about the ups and downs of this relationship would give away valuable plot secrets and this story is just too good to do that so I'll leave it for you to read. Just know that it'll rip at your heart as you read it.

And then there's the historical aspect. While some points of the novel were dramatized to suit the story, for the most part the major points were true. These two girls did found a religion and like I said, watching the magic show from behind the curtain left me in this wide-eyed awe that these people, so many people from all across the board, and so influential, could believe that what these girls were doing was true. But how fake was it? Did Kate really have some kind of ability like she felt she did? How red in the face were the followers of this Spiritualist movement when it was debunked? And what does it mean for the rest of it still going on now? Have scheisters graduated to CGI-esque effects to pull off the dupe or or is there something there to actually believe?

Not only is We Hear the Dead a great story, it makes you re-think all of the magical mystical out there. Just what's real and what isn't? What these girls did was at the same time abhorrent and amazing. And their story is hard to pull away from. I didn't want to put the book down. I just had to know what came next. And hopefully you'll feel the same way.



Thanks to the wonderful people at Sourcebooks, I have a copy of We Hear the Dead to give away to one lucky winner! Just fill in the form below to enter. Good luck!

Sourcebooks Having Another Great Promotion for Bloggers!

From Paul at Sourcebooks -

In honor of the 160 year anniversary of the spiritualist movement, and to celebrate launching two books with spiritualist undertones, we’re hosting a paranormal YA double header! I’m calling this our “Do You See Dead People, too?” paranormal mystery giveaway!

If you spotlight either (or both) of the following books on your blog from May 1st to June 15th, you can participate in this paranormal YA giveaway. Twenty five copies of each book will be given out to 50 lucky readers who answer at least one of the following questions:

* Do you believe that communication with the dead is possible? Have you ever felt the presence of someone who was not physically present?
* +1 if you tweet about the contest, linking to either your blog or our contest page…

In order to participate, comments should all be left on our contest page at http://teenfire.ning.com/forum/topics/do-you-see-dead-people-too. The winners will be selected at random, but they must answer at least one of the questions. They can also specify which book they’d like (in case they win). Otherwise, I’ll pick… both are fantastic!

I can’t wait to read what people think!

The two books are -


If you're interested in the promotion, just leave a comment with your email and I'll forward you the information. I've had my eye on We Hear the Dead so I'm rubbing my hands together evilly to get a hold of that one.

Sourcebooks Fire Teen Fire

Back in October I made a post about a new imprint coming out from Sourcebooks called Fire which aimed squarely at the YA market. Now they have their own interactive website called Teen Fire which focuses on all things promoting their new line of books. Like many publishers are doing now, Teen Fire is aimed at linking their reading public with not only themselves but to their authors as well in order to further their reading awesomeness.

From Sourcebooks -

I wanted to let you know about the creation of our very own Sourcebooks Fire social network! You can check it out at http://teenfire.ning.com. We have several exciting events, like a writing contest, a chance to be a teen reviewer and perhaps influence how we publish a book, AND a star-studded launch party in New York City —all are invited!! Tiger Beat, the only YA author rock band featuring Libba Bray, (our own) Dan Ehrenhaft, Barney Miller, and Natalie Standiford, will be providing entertainment! Other celebrity YA authors will also be in attendance, so bring your cameras! In the coming weeks we’ll be hosting giveaways, author chats, and a variety of other events, so check out the site and sign up for the newsletter to stay abreast of all the latest developments!

So be sure to head on over to the website and join in the fun! It's very nicely made, very interactive and sure to draw in a slew of readers!

New YA Imprint for Sourcebooks

Sourcebooks, which you might know from the Jabberywocky imprint, will be launching their new YA line, Sourcebooks Fire. Personally I think they could have gotten a little more creative in the line-naming but at the very least, the books look pretty cool. Previously any YA titles, including Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble, were printed under the Jabberwocky name. Now any new prints of older YA books from Sourcebooks will be printed under the Fire line. Fire won't discriminate about the types of books they print, just so long as they're YA so look for a range of books from fantasy to romance and everything in between.



Those are the covers to some of the books that will be released by Fire in 2010. Personally I'm most looking forward to Recognized, about the teens that "invented" the seance. Granted the explanation right there is faulty as seances have been happening for much more than 150 years but regardless, it still sounds interesting. And that grunge rock font on We Hear the Dead is everywhere. And I just love that cover in general. I may just dye my hair that color . . . wouldn't match my eyebrows though . . .