It's A Crusade

I want you to start a crusade in your life - to dare to be your best.

                                                                                    ~William Danforth

Rachael Harrie has started her second Writer's Platform Building Crusade. In her words, "The Crusade is a way to link aspiring writers, beginner bloggers, industry people, and published authors together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms.

The Crusaders are all people in a similar position, who genuinely want to pay it forward, make connections and friends within the writing community, and help build each others' online platforms while at the same time building theirs."

I participated in the first Crusade and met some truly amazing writers, so of course I've signed up for this one and I urge you to also. Just go here and put your name in. I promise you won't regret it.

My friend Lola is having a PARTAY and giveaway on her lovely blog. If you've never been there, you should visit. It's full of inspiration and will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
 

The wonderful Andrew Smith, author of The Marbury Lens, has made his vlog debut, where he discusses YA for boys by boys, the US educational system and brussel sprouts. Definitely worth a look.

Until next time.

The Marbury Lens

I "met" Andrew Smith a couple of years ago through a writer's site we both frequented. He had already published his first novel, Ghost Medicine and his second, In The Path Of Falling Objects, was on the way to being published. Still, he always managed to make time for critiques and advice to those of us who were still struggling. By the time The Marbury Lens had been given a release date, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. And let me tell you, it is an exhilarating ride.

From Publisher's Weekly:

In this brutal but highly effective dark fantasy, Smith (In the Path of Falling Objects) tells the story of 16-year-old Jack, who gets drunk at a party and is kidnapped, tortured, and nearly raped by a serial killer. Jack escapes, but when he and his best friend Conner run into the kidnapper the next day, they abduct him in turn and accidentally kill him. Jack is highly traumatized by the experience and refuses to go to police, in part because he and Conner are leaving for England to check out a prep school. When Jack arrives in London, he is accosted by a mysterious stranger who seems to know him and hands him an odd pair of glasses. Looking through them, Jack is transported to the horrendous, postapocalyptic world of Marbury, where he is responsible for two younger boys, and Conner has been transformed into a murderous mutant, further destabilizing Jack's precarious sanity. This bloody and genuinely upsetting book packs an enormous emotional punch. Smith's characters are very well developed and the ruined alternate universe they travel through is both surreal and believable.

This one was hard to put down. I love Jack and pulled for him throughout, even though I didn't expect and would have been disappointed by a happily ever after ending. Every time I thought I had a plot line firmly figured out, I turned out to be completely wrong. How wonderful is that? And that last page you've heard about? Awesome. Questions remain, but I found it very satisfying. I spoke to Andrew the other day and he let me know that the ARCs for his next novel, Stick, should be out in March. My mouth is already watering.

You can catch Andrew on his highly entertaining blog.