The YA's Nightstand: Book Tours

Today we're taking part in the blog tour for Laura Kenyon's Desperately Ever After, hosted by Fiction Addiction Tours. I love a good fairy tale character, don't you? Let me know what you think and don't forget to enter the giveaway!
Enjoy x

DESPERATELY EVER AFTERby Laura Kenyon

One part Sex and the City. Two parts Desperate Housewives.

Three parts Brothers Grimm.

Pages: 296

Publication Date: February 2014

Received From: Fiction Addiction Tours

Summary

“If you are looking for a fun and gossipy story to satisfy the holes left when Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives had their series finales (or even if you’re going through Once Upon a Time withdrawal come season finale time) look no further than Desperately Ever After.” ~ Chick Lit Central

Imagine what might happen if our most beloved fairy tale princesses were the best of friends and had the dreams, dilemmas, and libidos of the modern woman. How would their stories unfold after the wedding bells stopped ringing? Set in a fictional realm based on New York City, DESPERATELY EVER AFTER sprinkles women’s fiction with elements of fantasy, and encourages readers to rethink everything they know about happy endings.

Years after turning her husband from beast back to man and becoming his queen, Belle finds out she’s finally going to have a child. But before she can announce the wondrous news, she catches him cheating and watches her “happily ever after” go up in flames. Turning to her friends for the strength to land with grace, she realizes she’s not the only one at a crossroads:

Cinderella, a mother of four drowning in royal duties, is facing her 30th birthday and questioning everything she’s done (or hasn’t) with her life.

Rapunzel, a sex-crazed socialite and one-woman powerhouse, is on a self-destructive quest to make up for 20 years locked away in a tower.

Penelopea, an outsider with a mother-in-law from hell, is harboring a secret that could ruin everything at any moment.

Review

"We didn't thrive because of magic. We survived in spite of it."

I think the first thing that needs to be said about Desperately Ever After is that it is NOT a fairy tale retelling. No, it's more like what happened after the last page was turned. After the happily every after. It's this perfect mix of past and present with mobile phones and magical kingdoms. It's the perfect book to be reading this summer and it's completely unputdownable!

I'm not going to lie, I was a little dubious when I first started reading DEA. I loved the idea of the book, as I've often wondered about what happens after true loves kiss but when I was reading the first chapter I was starting to wander whether or not I really wanted to know. The idea of a happily ever after is something I think everyone dreams of - even if it's just a little bit and what Laura has done is turn our magical fables into something very real. It's gritty at times and humorous at others and after the first two chapter's I was hooked! The journey's and the growth of all our leading ladies is down right inspirational and makes for that warm fizzy feeling.

I think the fact that we know the character's going into the book makes it a lot easier to connect with them. Every single event that happened throughout made me feel something. Even within the first couple of chapters, I wanted to smack Donner (The Beast) and wrap Belle into a massive bear hug. These are my beloved fairy tale character's and you go into it caring what happens to them. And even though Laura has given each character their own new, stronger and empowering voice there is no denying these are our princesses.

Also, can I just say that I love Laura's choice of princesses! Yes we have the traditional ones, such as Cinderella (Cindy), Belle, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty (Dawn) but she's also thrown the Princess and the Pea in there (Pen) too. Not to mention odd snippets of the original Grimm fairy tales, like the little mermaid, giving the whole book a much more colourful and rich concept than if she had just stuck with the Disney Classics.

The story is full of twist and turns and moments that will have you picking your jaw up of the floor. There's a real sense of girl power and nostalgia to DEA that will have you captivated. It is brilliantly written and was a real joy to read. The character's are endearing. The story compelling. It's Once Upon a Time meets Desperate Housewives. The perfect chick-lit that will have all readers smiling, laughing, cursing Donner and cheering on Pun. I can't actually recommend this enough and I can't wait for DAMSELS IN DISTRESS!

READ THE BOOK PEOPLE! READ. THE. BOOK.

**I received this book as an ARC from Laura Kenyon through Fiction Addiction Tours to read & review. This is a 100% honest review.**

About Laura

Like so many women today, I grew up on Disney films and fairy tales. But as wonderful as these were at the time, they always left me wondering what came next. How did Cinderella feel ten years down the road, when her iconic ball gown no longer fit and she had four kids, royal duties up the wahzoo, and a husband who was hardly ever around? How long did it take Beast to return to his old ways when he no longer needed Beauty to break the curse?
My debut novel, Desperately Ever After, takes our most beloved fairy tale princesses, makes them the best of friends, and imagines what happened when the wedding bells stopped ringing. At its core, it’s about honesty and friendship, and how one can never work without the other.
In addition to writing books, I am a freelance journalist and blogger, and enjoy traveling, hiking, and playing with my 92-pound, ridiculously energetic, four-year-old puppy.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Thursday you lovely people! Today we're taking part in the blog tour for Fury by Charlotte McConaghy, hosted by Candace's Book Blog. I've included my review, some of my favourite quotes and just for a bit of fun a Polyvore outfit! So Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Title: Fury (Book 1 of The Cure)

Author: Charlotte McCONAGHY

Publishing Date: March 1st 2014

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Received from: Candace's Book Blog - for tour purposes.

Summery (via GoodReads)

When emotions are erased from the world, creating a civilization of mindless drones, only those with fury can survive.
On the same day each year Josephine Luquet wakes naked, shivering and covered in blood that is not her own. Under the cold gaze of the blood moon she is someone else entirely, but when dawn breaks her memories flee and she is left with only an icy horror, a burning fury. Amid a sea of drones, she alone hasn’t been cured.
It will be the same each year: atrocities forgotten, truths hidden and pieces of herself left to die.
Until Luke.
He isn’t like the other drones. With secrets whispering behind his eyes and a hunger for all things Josephine, he is the only one determined to help her discover the truth before the next blood moon rises.
But time is running out. Is Luke willing to risk his life to be near her? Does he truly understand what violence she is capable of?
Raw and full of passion, Fury is a story of love in a dystopian world, and how much we are willing to forgive in the struggle to remember our humanity.

Review

This book had me within the first chapter and I honestly wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was. I haven't read anything by Charlotte McConaghy before so I didn't know what I was getting. Suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a powerful story and keeps you guessing the whole way through. There wasn't a single moment where I thought I knew where this was going. It didn't hold back and Charlotte certainly wasn't afraid of shaking thing up and adding in those all too important plot twists.

The book follows the story of Josi, an all but invisible girl 364 days of the year but on the blood moon something changes. The book is set 150 years or so in the future, in a world were they've 'cured' the human race by removing they're ability to feel anger. But in doing that they've produced a generation of people who aren't able to access all their emotions, which in turn causes them to act in strange, almost inhuman ways. Josi calls them 'drones'.

It's told with multiple points of view (Josi, Luke & Antony) which would normally annoy me. However, to get the complexity of the plot you needed to know everything and by using not two but three different voices you were given everything you needed to understand Josi's curse.

The Characters:

First, and most importantly with have Josi. She's had a hideous upbringing that instantly draws you in. I wasn't expecting her to be quite as easy to relatable as she was. With a lot of books like this you find the female lead is more like freaking Rubik's Cube than a person but everything Josi did was understandable. She was driven and stubborn and relatable in a lot of ways.

Then there's Antony. Oh, the poor sod. Antony is Josi's shrink and has most definitely been 'cured'. Which of course means he's almost completely inept to deal with the whole 'Josi Situation'. For the first half of the book you almost want to shake him into being something more than he is but you also know it's not his fault. Then in the second half you'll spend the whole time cheering him on in your head. He too has this heart wrenching back story - but you don't find that out until the very end so I won't say anything more.

Lastly you have Luke.
Luke. Luke. Luke. Luke! You damn fool!! In many ways he's your perfect swoon worthy book boy but he has one - fatal - flaw. He lies. A LOT! It gets to the point where there's almost a compulsive nature to his lying and whether or not he thinks he's doing it for the right reasons you spend the whole book knowing that when he's lies get discovered there'll be no turning back. He's the perfect example of what lies can do - not just to you but to the people around you.

It's a great story with moments that will make you smile and other that will break your heart. Not to mention more than a few chapters that will have you picking you jaw up of the floor! I've never read a book were there have been quite so many plot twists, with each and every one smacking you right in the chest. You think you know someone one minute and then the next you realise you've been looking at it all back-to-front!

Even though this is a fantasy novel I don't see why any lover of contemporary reads wouldn't also enjoy this book. The fantasy aspects comes in drips and drabs - great drips and drabs I might add - with the majority of the book focused on Josi's past and if she'll be able to find a place for her in the future. Highly recommend and well worth the read! You'll love it!

**I received this book as an ARC from Candace's Book Blog to read and review. This is a 100% honest review**

Author Bio

Charlotte started writing her children’s fantasy series ‘The Strangers of Paragor’ as a teenager and has since gone on to publish five novels. After a Masters degree in Screenwriting she wrote ‘Avery’, the first in her adult fantasy series ‘The Chronicles of Kaya’, published by Random House. She now lives in Sydney, Australia, and has just released a new dystopian sci-fi novel called ‘Fury – Book One of The Cure’, published by Momentum.

TWIITER | FACEBOOK | WEBSITE

Quotes

Here are just a few snippets that I highlighted when reading Fury.

You're like a phantom moving through life. A dream I can hardly hold onto and yet can't shake.

You tear everything into a thousand pieces but you never put anything back together! One day you will have broken everything in your life, Luke Townsend.

I am alive, and I must fight this blood moon and the monster inside me, if only to save the man I love from having to grieve me.

A perfect lonely world, shared by two who make each other now, in fact, lonely at all.

Turns out I was wrong after all. Love an fury can't live in the same place.

"I'd burn the whole world down if I could," he whispers, his eyes flashing with a bright, exhilarating fever. "I'd make it so that there was no cure, no censorship, no propaganda, nothing but you and I."

I have a body that has know the furthest reaches of human capability. I don't need a drug - a virus - to be strong.

And to finish I thought we'd have a little fun! This is a Book Look I created to go with the cover of Fury. What do you think?