I decided to give this week’s topic a bit of a SPIN – instead of focusing on the STORIES I gravitated towards as a child | teen, I wanted to participate in a *special!* tour stop on the *Tour the World in 30x Books Blog Tour!* which is directly supporting & helping a library stateside to increase their selections of diverse reads! The stories I am recommending might be choices for teens who read eclectically as much as adults – truly, there are no boundaries or barriers in literature! And, coincidentally some of the these *are!* releases in YA! ?
[ UPDATE: 15th September:
LOOK for the genie! Those stories were selected to be placed on the Library’s Wishlist! I am humbled 5x of these were selected to be shelved! Now, I await the good news someone granted these #bookwishes! ]
[ NOTE: Find the ? to see which books were purchased! ]
The Language of Hoofbeats ?
by Catherine Ryan Hyde
*LGBTQIA, at-risk youth, foster care & social services, unconventional families & found families as well as a beautiful f/f marriage at the centre of the story
An introduction to the characters | one family of blended hearts:
Quinn is the adopted son of Paula and Jackie, whose happy-go-lucky attitude gives his family an anchor of normalcy as much as a bit of insight in how to work through the flow of life as it arrives. Except his anxiety for having Jackie and Paula absent on any given day gives his anxiety a workout; after hearing of his past, the anxiety is natural yet heart-wrenching as it is not easily overcome.
Star is a typical teenager whose vent of angst and anguish inflicts on anyone within her personal sphere of being can become touched by it’s flames. Her emotional leverage of insight into Comet barters on the foreknowledge of knowing how well children (and adults) can benefit from being around an animal who is high strung and/or hyperactive. Sometimes emotionally hyper persons and animals who are equally hyper (even if in a different way) can cancel each other out; thereby giving each of them a more peaceful mood.
Armando is deeply attached to his birth family but wants to attempt to have a measure of independence in his life. He doesn’t quite feel as though he fits inside the family itself but at the same time he doesn’t want to leave. He’s caught in-between and is simply doing the best he can to handle the everyday. When he befriended the barn owl, I had to smile inwardly because he, too, had found an animal he could listen too and draw a breath of empathy for just like Star!
Jackie has an incredible gift for putting people at ease, especially her children of whom are still developing the trust she hopes they will have to know they are safe and loved. Her main flaw is regretting what she doesn’t do and not trusting her own instincts to handle situations which arise out of the blue. She has a lot to give but a part of her questions if how she is being a mother is enough to cause an effect of change for the children.
Paula has the personality of a Mom who listens more than she talks; she processes a lot of things internally, trying to root out a way to not only find the peace in the rougher moments but to sort out the best way through what happens. Her spirit is not easily agitated but being a Vet it goes without saying she has learnt the ability to be calm under pressure and how to fuse her thoughts into her feelings.
Comet, the horse has a temperament you would not necessarily feel drawn too, but I have observed animals for most of my life, and I have the insight to realise the animal never fails to recognise who is need of a friend. Even if the horse such as Comet has a personality quirk not as agreeable to being safe around him, sometimes I think it is this intuition on behalf of the horse which can cause the most healing to occur.
Acquired Book By: I am becoming a regular tour hostess and reviewer for BookSparks, as I began to host for them in the Spring ahead of #SRC2015. I am posting my Summer Challenge reviews during November/December due to the aftereffects of severe lightning storms during July and August. As I make amends for the challenge reads I was unable to post until Autumn; I am also catching up with my YA challenge reads and the blog tours I missed as well. This blog tour marks the last novel I selected to be a part of the YA challenge which coincidentally now becomes my first posted review for the challenge, too! I look forward to continuing to work with BookSparks once I am fully current with the stories I am reading for review.
I received a complimentary ARC copy of “Blonde Eskimo” direct from the publicist at BookSparks in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Happily finding myself drawn into stories of the Vikings:
As I had mentioned on my review for Avelynn, my keen interest to read Viking literature was percolating in the back corner of my reading queues. Find two stories about the Vikings in the score of a few short months of each other is quite remarkable. This next story I am reading (Blonde Eskimo) stood out to me from the choices of books for the Summer reading challenge hosted by BookSparks – the YA side of it by the way. My full intention was to be posting throughout the last season all the lovelies I’ve received, but due to events I’ve blogged about quite extensively, Summer ended on a hard note
Since I’ve resumed my readings this Autumn, a quirky turn of events has me posting this as my first contribution for #SRC2015 past my reading of Wishful Thinking! I will be following this review with more insights into my #summerreads but for now, the best discovery was realising how keenly wicked it is finding out Blonde Eskimo is a genre-bender where the different tides of it’s inner core are such a lovely read for me to enjoy! I never thought I’d find different pathways into understanding the legacy of the Vikings, but in many ways, I felt Blonde Eskimo was a way to continue forward whilst in full pursuit of Magical Realism.
Notation on Cover Art: The watermark spirit animal which acts as a faint tattoo against the image of Neiva on the cover is a signal of how the story within ‘Blonde Eskimo’ are heart centred on the natural world and our connection to nature. Totem animals and spirit guides are a quintessential component of life in Alaska; and this particular motif is not only gracing the cover but the chapters as well. The spirit animals alternate between raven, fox, bear and eagle. I love the softness of the book cover, it’s not glossy but matte with a curiously soft touch. I am unsure if this will have the same textural feel outside of the ARC but this edition (even being an early copy) has all the benefits of layout, styling and the little unique touches that I hope made the final copy!
Blonde Eskimo
Part Viking, part Eskimo, Neiva Ellis knew her family’s ancestral home, the island of Spirit, Alaska, held a secret. A mystery so sensitive everyone, including her beloved grandmother, was keeping it from her. When Neiva is sent to stay on the island while her parents tour Europe she sets out on a mission to uncover the truth, but she was not prepared for what laid ahead. On the night of her seventeenth birthday, the Eskimo rite of passage, Neiva is mysteriously catapulted into another world full of mystical creatures, ancient traditions, and a masked stranger who awakens feelings deep within her heart. Along with her best friends Nate, Viv and Breezy, she uncovers the truth behind the town of Spirit and about her own heritage.
When an evil force threatens those closest to her, Neiva will stop at nothing to defend her family and friends. Eskimo traditions and legends become real as two worlds merge together to fight a force so ancient and evil it could destroy not only Spirit but the rest of humanity.
Kristen Hunt is an artist and writer based in Phoenix, Arizona. She is an avid fan of movies, graphic novels and Young Adult literature. Anything evolving fantasy and supernatural experiences captures her interests.
As a young child Kristen visited her family in Nome, Alaska and learned of her Eskimo heritage. Her Grandmother, known as the blonde Eskimo because of her golden hair and blue eyes, told Kristen the many legends found throughout Alaska, such as the Ishegocks, totems, and much more. It was these stories that inspired Kristen to write her current novel.
UPDATE: 6 January, 2017 finding the author's social presence has been altered, I reflected the changes in the links attached to her biography.
You may or may not recall a tv series from Canada entitled Due South but for me this was a beautiful series that owned the diverse heritage of Canada alongside a lovely heart-centred mystery series who followed the life of a Mountie. I picked up the soundtrack to the series before the seasonals were released as they tend to release music before the shows themselves. On the soundtrack there is a beautiful evocation through song about the Inuit sung by Paul Gross; who is a singer-songwriter in his own right not just the lead actor in Due South. His soulful performance on behalf of the Inuit in the story of that song never left me. It’s soul-stirring and it’s epic in scope when you think about what the story is truly highlighting and giving insight into during that one brief moment of verse.
Ever since I heard the song (Inuit Soliloquy) I have wanted to read stories of the Inuit and draw closer to the heart of where that song took my mind. I have had a full respect of Native Americans on this side of the border since I was quite young, as I might have mentioned in past posts where I grew up in a city where a Native American art gallery and bookstore was a happy place for me to visit with my family due to how the owner took me under his wings sharing stories of his tribe the Cherokee. The First Nations of Canada came fuller into my mind when I watched the documentaries during the Vancouver Games, but it wasn’t until I discovered Blonde Eskimo that I found a pathway back inside the lore and heart of who the Inuit are as a whole. Read More
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
Week of Thursday, 26st of September through 1st of October, 2015 | Hostess List
I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
No, your eyes did not lie to you, this is No. 6, No. 2-5 will be released this Autumn.
No. 1 | Corvidae + Scarecrow | Anthologies by World Weaver Press
As you might have recalled I happily devoured the stories in Rhonda Parrish’s first anthological series debut FAE, wherein I found myself quite delighted to find stories of the fae represented in such a uniquely clever collection of inspiration and craft of story-telling. After concluding my review on behalf of FAE, I wasn’t quite sure what I should request next via World Weaver Press, when happily their publicist Ms Wagner suggested I follow FAE with the next two anthologies in sequence:
What is so wicked awesome about these two anthologies is there is a serial short between them, which outside of pulp fiction and the classical serials found in zines decades inside the early 20th Century, I haven’t come across serial shorts inside anthologies! I’m quite a newbie to anthologies of the 21st Century, and thereby, each time I make a discovery I am wicked excited by the possibilities of what I am about to read!
I am now piqued with keen interest to read Sanctuary and Judge & Jury! I had agreed knowingly with the reviewer – sometimes you come across a short so profoundly moving, if you never found another you loved dearly as much, the collection was worth it’s weight in gold! This happened to me once in another anthology where I found a writer so tapped into the human condition and the emphatic heart we all have within us, I was forever moved! Shorts despite their length are powerful in what they convey! The four I focused on myself from FAE are still with me, even now.
I must confess, this fellow book blogger out here in the book blogosphere is as keenly passionate about these anthologies as I am, as it’s his reviews on behalf of these two anthologies that encouraged me to take the plunge into reading them myself!
I must admit – reading the reviews on Tangent in combination with reading the Press Kits helped make my decision because Tangent has bloggers who knit out the heart of each story and give me ‘just enough’ to whet a thirst of interest.
Do visit his reviews, ahead of my own which will be arriving in October!
And, dear hearts guess what!? Parrish isn’t yet done with her Magical Menagerie! She’s putting together a new collection entitled: SIRENS! Eek. Can you just imagine!? Watery stories of EPIC MYTHOLOGICAL loveliness?! I’m not sure about you, but World Weaver Press has bewitched me!
No. 2 | Being a part of DAW’s blog tour for This Gulf of Time and Stars by Julie E. Czerneda
I initially thought my path had crossed with Ms Czerneda during Sci Fi November 2014, until I ran a search for our tweet convos and realised it was a bit earlier in 2014 during the Sci Fi Writer’s chat! Who knew!? I used to duck inside the #sffwrtcht on a regular basis, as I have a healthy appetite for SFF whilst getting the opportunity to talk to writers who are enveloping us in worlds that are a jolt outside our own realities to the brink of epic intraspace proportions! As we do not just jettison ourselves off of Earth or into the orbit surrounding Earth, we sometimes traverse the divides of time itself whilst visiting territorial systems beyond our line of sight. Then, there is the hidden joy of writers who write an arbitrage of stories contained on Earth herself but within the light years of time ahead of our own living futures, taking us both on land and sea to explore new frontiers and the plausiblilties of life therein. Read More
The Language of Hoofbeats ?
Blonde Eskimo
