Sunday, September 21, 2014

Dispatches from the Dating Zone by K.T Valentine

 
Having exhausted all the conventional ways to meet 'Mr Right' (and because now she really is a little bit desperate), Fleur Summers turns to her well-meaning , but eccentric friends and family for help. 

From 'Man Mountain'; an engineer who eats everything in sight and tall dark handsome Tom with big hands but no idea how to use them, to the mysterious and brooding Henry Austin. Follow the trials and tribulations of Fleur's journey as she works her way through a number of eventful blind dates, all in the name of finding true love.


I received this copy from the author for an open and honest review.


Star Rating 

 
It has been a very long time since I read a chick-lit novel and I have to say that this offering from K.T Valentine was an unexpected surprise. When the author contacted me to request a review I jumped at the chance purely based on the book's title. I myself have been on a number of dates recently, some enjoyable and some disastrous, and I was looking forward to reading about the protagonist Fleur's dating experiences.

From the very start this book is filled with humour and I often found myself laughing out loud. K.T Valentine's writing style is very colloquial and, with the protagonist speaking straight to the reader, made me feel as if I was having a girly catch up with a friend as she embarked on bad date after bad date.

K.T Valentine included enough subplots to keep the reader interested throughout, for example the bitchy mothers in the school playground who Fleur catches taking Class A drugs at a party. The chapters are extremely short making this a quick and easy book to read - perfect for a weekend indoors. However, the chapters flit between different events too quickly and I felt that, particularly at the beginning of the story, the author didn't allow enough time to fully develop the characters.  

As predicted, towards the end of the novel, I found myself racing through desperate to find out which man Fleur would end up with and take to her brother's wedding. Surprisingly it wasn't the guy I was rooting for and for me was an unexpected but happy ending. 

This is one of those novels that will be stored in my list of guilty pleasures. A laugh out loud easy read which will thoroughly entertain!! 

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor Q&A with the talented illustrator Brian Biggs

Science meets science-fiction in this smart and silly middle-grade series launch from master storyteller Jon Scieszka. 

Frank Einstein loves figuring out how the world works by creating household contraptions that are part science, part imagination, and totally unusual. In Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, after an uneventful experiment in his lab, a lightning storm and flash of electricity bring Frank’s inventions - the robots Klink and Klank - to life! Not exactly the ideal lab partners, the wisecracking Klink and the overly expressive Klank nonetheless help Frank attempt to perfect his Antimatter Motor . . . until Frank’s arch nemesis, T. Edison, steals Klink and Klank for his evil doomsday plan!


Having yet to read and review this series launch with my class I had a quick flick through to see what we had in store. What I discovered was an abundance of quirky, "sciencey" illustrations that I know the boys in my class will just love! The layout of this book is very similar to the fantastically popular 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' books by Jeff Kinney. 

This week Frank Einstein is on a blog tour stopping here for a Q&A with the ridiculously talented illustrator Brian Biggs. Read on to find out Brian Biggs' 'BIG SECRET' and whether he will be rooting for Team Kink or Team Klank...
 



  
Well, we’ll start with who’s your favourite character to draw and why?

Oh gosh it’s definitely Klank, the big goofy robot. He has so much personality and his more-humanoid-tyhan-Klink shape and facial features give me a lot of latitude in expressions and whatnot. I love him on the cover of the book. I was so happy when I nailed that.



What is the process when illustrating a character for the first time?

Normally I have to go through the text and highlight the various concrete physical descriptions of the characters. Then I take this and combine it with my own notes on what I think the character might look like apart from the stuff that the author described. I’ll find various actions in the book and “test” my sketches with the characters in these scenes and see how they work. This is the typical process for a book where I come in after the book is written. In the case of Frank Einstein, Jon and I had been discussing the personalities of the characters for some time before he ever wrote the actual texts. My sketches informed the descriptions and even some of the scenes from the story.
The biggest thing is to make sure that the characters are distinct and visually exemplify the personality that Jon is striving to give them in the text. I want you to look at Frank, for example, and immediately see the brainy, adventurous, curious kid that Jon writes about before you even read about him.


How was it working with Jon?

So here’s the big secret. “Jon Scieszka” is not even a real person. He is a revolving committee of five eleven-year-old kids. Sort of like that band “Menudo” from the 80’s, once they turn 12, they have to leave the committee. This group of kids writes ideas down on small yellow pieces of paper, and then they pass the ideas along, adding things and changing things and eventually, like the proverbial monkey at a typewriter, something amazing comes out of it. Charlie, the editor, sort of ropes these brilliant ideas into something that resembles a connected story. The handsome old man that they hired to be “Jon” at signings and events is an actor from the suburbs of Michigan. He’s a nice guy and all, but kind of weird.

In the end, it’s been the most fun experience of my career.



What was the most elaborate scene to draw in the book?

The scene near the end where the robots are about to get zapped to obvlivion by the huge pink nuclear squirt-gun. This had to get all the characters in place, six of them, show the big CERN-style collider location, and have some semblance of the drama that Jon put into words. It took a lot of sketches to get there.
A close runner-up was the science-fair scene. Drawing the perspectives of the rows of displays and all the activity was a bit like engineering more than illustrating.



 Who was the hardest to get on paper in the world of Frank Einstein?

It was pretty easy, since the story was something I really liked and identified with. But I think the hardest was Frank himself. He’s the lynchpin and he had to be right. I kept sketching him as if he was six years old. 

 
Are you Team Klink or Team Klank?

Beep beep! Klank!





Check out the rest of the Frank Einstein blog tour at the following stops:

 Rhino Reads

Wondrous Reads

Serendipity Reads

Library Mice




Please check back soon for my full review of
Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor!





Sunday, September 14, 2014

Become an Ava Advocate

To become an ‘Ava Advocate’ and help The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton take flight, email Walker Books at marketing@walker.co.uk with your name, age, and tell them your answer to this question:

If you were born with wings like Ava, where would they take you?

The selected advocates will receive two paperback copies of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton, one for you and one for a friend, as well as some beautiful feather bookmarks to share and help Ava fly.

You can read an extract here, or visit Wattpad to read an extended part of the story.


To become an ‘Ava Advocate’ and help The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton take flight, email us at marketing@walker.co.uk with your name, age, and tell us your answer to this question:
If you were born with wings like Ava, where would they take you?
Our selected advocates will receive two paperback copies of The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton, one for you and one for a friend, as well as some beautiful feather bookmarks to share and help Ava fly.
You can read an extract here, or visit Wattpad to read an extended part of the story.