Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
You might be curious where Jorie’s been since the days leading into Christmas,… I had a lot of lovely plans of how I wanted to round out the year – stories I earmarked to read, a series I wanted to showcase Christmas week and weekend as much as a few final posts I was looking forward to composing in order to properly send out the year with a bit of a glow of joy rather than the angst I had felt off/on throughout 2020.
However, as Christmas and New Year’s weeks turnt into a working fortnight for my Mum rather than the first bout of holidays wherein Mum would be able to spend the hours with us as a family – you could say I was the busiest elf behind the holidays this year! I felt like I had lived through most of the hours Mum worked as she totalled nearly (or even surpassed) 112 hours in less than two weeks by the time her hours conclude on New Year’s Day! She was the only one who could accept emergency holiday shifts and as thankful as we were for the increase in hours – Dad and I missed having her for Christmas and we’ll be celebrating separately for New Year’s this year as well.
Due to the shift in what we were doing this year and how those upturnt hours left me fatigued and exhausted – I haven’t picked up a book in more than three weeks, nor have I sorted out anything on my blog in over two – if you wanted my updates, they were flickering into my tweets, as I did manage to microblog my Christmas. I decided to re-shift my #yearendreads into a New Year’s readathon courtesy of Mum’s emergency shifts New Year’s Eve & Day, whilst I am hoping to release some posts to conclude my thoughts about the past year on Jorie Loves A Story, too.
Today – I have the pleasure of showcasing a new book which I am quite sure by now with #TheWriteReads blog tour in full swing is on everyone’s bookish radar – is a new Middle Grade Fantasy novel I’m wicked excited about having in my hands to read, too! It can take me half of forever to find the kinds of Fantasy stories I want to read because I’m not really into all the topical Fantasy series (save Harry Potter) as I tend to read a predominately high level of Indie Fantasy authors, such as this year’s Esme’s Wish.
In fact, I read another Indie Fantasy novelist (Owen Crane) this year for Wyrd And Wonder (@WyrdAndWonder) as much as I showcased interviews with Indie Fantasy novelists as well for the event. Indie Fantasy (and all the stories within the Speculative realms) is where my readerly heart tends to lie these last years due to how Indie authors are writing stories I not only *devour!* but they are told in a way which appeals to my fantastical sensibility especially if you consider the adult side of the ledger with the Tipsy Fairy Tales by E. Chris Garrison: Blue Spirit, Restless Spirit and my forthcoming review of Mean Spirit.
Yet, what drew me into this world of #AmariAndTheNightBrothers is simply the breadth of the world-building in the description of the book! I love Fantasy stories which give you a proper sense of themselves at the jump point and build this wicked sweet layer of anticipation prior to reading the story itself. I am hopeful my library will buy a copy of this lovely story and I’ll be able to read it come January when its released! I did enter the bookaway by the author but as I hadn’t heard from him, I’m presuming those copies went to other readers. Thereby, enjoy the bits I’ve found online to help introduce you to *Amari!* and let’s get ourselves wicked happy for a lovely NEW YEAR full of fantastical reads!!
I love being part of the community of #TheWriteReads and I hope in future to continue hosting the authors on their blog tours – I keep an eye out on the stories I most desire to be reading in order to host a guest feature as print copies are a bit rare for these tours to request. I love hosting the conversations because it helps me feel a bit more rooted in the stories and I hope you’ll have the same takeaway yourself. Although when a conversation isn’t available to host, I like featuring the stories themselves to help give them a signal boost in case one of my readers and followers hasn’t yet discovered the story (or series) which has caught my bookish eye!
Brew yourself a cuppa and enjoy the book trailer!
Amari and the Night Brothers
Quinton Peters was the golden boy of the Rosewood low-income housing projects, receiving full scholarship offers to two different Ivy League schools. When he mysteriously goes missing, his little sister, 13-year-old Amari Peters, can’t understand why it’s not a bigger deal. Why isn’t his story all over the news? And why do the police automatically assume he was into something illegal?
Then Amari discovers a ticking briefcase in her brother’s old closet. A briefcase meant for her eyes only. There was far more to Quinton, it seems, than she ever knew. He’s left her a nomination for a summer tryout at the secretive Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Amari is certain the answer to finding out what happened to him lies somewhere inside, if only she can get her head around the idea of mermaids, dwarves, yetis and magicians all being real things, something she has to instantly confront when she is given a weredragon as a roommate.
Amari must compete against some of the nation’s wealthiest kids—who’ve known about the supernatural world their whole lives and are able to easily answer questions like which two Great Beasts reside in the Atlantic Ocean and how old is Merlin? Just getting around the Bureau is a lesson alone for Amari with signs like ‘Department of Hidden Places this way, or is it?’ If that all wasn’t enough, every Bureau trainee has a talent enhanced to supernatural levels to help them do their jobs – but Amari is given an illegal ability. As if she needed something else to make her stand out.
With an evil magican threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 978-0062975164
Published by Balzer and Bray, Egmont Books
on 19th January, 2021
Published by: Egmont Books (@egmontbooksuk)
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers UK
This is the first installment of a trilogy!
Available Formats: Hardback, Audiobook and Ebook
Converse via: #Fantasy, #Paranormal #MiddleGrade or #MGLit
as well as #TheWriteReads & #AmariAndTheNightBrothers
