Today, I’m really excited to help reveal the first chapter of Altered, the sequel to Gennifer Albin’s Crewel. I really enjoyed Crewel when I had the opportunity to read it last year and I’m eagerly awaiting Altered. And if you’ve read Crewel, you’ll understand when I say, “Guys, that ending! GAAHHH!” Thankfully, one lucky reader has the chance of winning an ARC at the end of this post to temporarily appease their suffering.

This is the second part of chapter one, so be sure to check out Bewitched Bookworms for the prologue and first section.

Part Two of Chapter One

Jost yanks me along as he runs toward the metro that lies miles away, farther under the hood of the strange raw weave of Arras. The other direction would take us toward the ocean and there will be nowhere to hide there. I stumble behind him, tripping against rocks in our path.

Interview with Jessica Shirvington about her new novel, Between the Lives:

1. In Between the Lives Sabine switches between two different lives and is suffering trying to maintain the two completely different situations. 

How did you handle maintaining the character of Sabine while everything else around her changes?

I gave a lot of thought to how a person would adapt and learn to survive in Sabine’s unique situation. In the end, I decided that Sabine’s solution would be to fully embrace each of her lives for what they were supposed to be. When she is in Wellesley, where she had more access to money, fashion, social events, she plays that role. But of course, when she is in Roxbury she knows she can’t be that person and survive, so she fully embraces what it means to be Sabine in Roxbury – how to dress, the right amount of sass and attitude to not be hassled, etc And in each world she adapts to her family and siblings and tries as much as possible to forget about her other world while she is not there.

“We’re trekking through a forest again? Why do you hate me?” Kat complains.

“Well, Josin and I were talking about where we should meet to do the Q&A and she was like ‘let’s go camping’ and I was like ‘I love camping’,” I say, pulling on my nap sack.

We’re meeting up with Josin L. McQuein, author of Arclight for a little interview session. I knew Kat wouldn’t be happy with our choice of destination, but I try to make it my mission to put her in at least two compromising situations every week. What are good co-boggers for anyway? The Forbidden Forest on the Hogwarts grounds seemed like a perfect place as any.

“We’ve been over this, Steph. If it’s not at least 4 stars, I’m not interested,” she says.

I roll my eyes and say, “Walk faster. Josin said to make sure we got there before dark or else things would happen.”

“How very ominous of her,” she replies.

Welcome to the blog tour for The Symptoms of My Insanity by Mindy Raf!

A laugh-out-loud, bittersweet debut full of wit, wisdom, heart, and a hilarious, unforgettable heroine.

When you’re a hypochondriac, there are a million different things that could be wrong with you, but for Izzy, focusing on what could be wrong might be keeping her from dealing with what’s really wrong.

I almost raised my hand, but what would I say? “Mr. Bayer, may I please be excused? I’m not totally positive, but I think I might have cancer.” No way. Then everyone at school would know, and they would treat me differently, and I would be known as “Izzy, that poor girl who diagnosed herself with breast cancer during biology.”

But Izzy’s sense of humor can only get her so far when suddenly her best friend appears to have undergone a personality transplant, her mother’s health takes a turn for the worse, and her beautiful maybe-boyfriend is going all hot and cold.

So, apparently I’ve been living under a rock. There’s this series everyone’s been raving about, saying how awesome the characters are and how fun the story is. And here I am and I’ve yet to read it. I don’t know about you, but I hate being left out of the loop. Thanks to Wendy Darling from The Midnight Garden, Kensington and Brigid Kemmerer, I have this amazing opportunity to binge read, along with Jen from The Starry-Eyed Revue, on the entire Elementals series all the way up to Spirit. And we want you to join along.

Why should you join this super awesome read along?

1. Three words, peeps. Hot, bad boys.

Who doesn’t love a bad boy? I think I’m a bit overdue for one.