“Fence” follows the rise of 16-year-old Nicholas Cox in the world of competitive fencing at an elite boys school.
Nicholas is an outsider to the competitive fencing world.
Filled with raw talent but lacking proper training, he signs up for a competition that puts him head-to-head with fencing prodigy Seiji Katayama…and on the road to the elite all-boys school Kings Row. A chance at a real team and a place to belong awaits him—if he can make the cut!
“It’s all about the world of fencing,” said Pacat. “The elegance, the danger, the high stakes of what’s essentially a combat sport.”
Published November 15th 2017 by Boom! Box
I was keen to read Fence from the moment I first heard about it – A YA comic by aussie author C.S. Pacat set in the competitive world of Fencing with M/M romance – YES! a thousand times yes!
I was jumping for joy when The YA Chronicles announced it would be included in their November “Make it Gay” Box. Winning!
The first issue did not disappoint. I absolutely loved it and can see myself reading it over again until the december issue comes out.
Nicholas is a lovable underdog who is instantly likable. You can’t help but want him to succeed.
The first issue perfectly set up the tension between Nicholas and Seiji. I even enjoyed the fencing, a sport I previously hadn’t given much thought to.
The artwork is beautiful! Clear, detailed and flows wonderfully.
I am so excited for the next instalment! Hurray for this new comic book series.
I have eleven short story anthologies, sadly only four have Aussie authors and out of those four only two are YA!
In this photo I have the only four authored by Aussie’s and the only four that are YA (not the same four), the rest of my collection are either adult or eBook short story anthologies.
Sproutlings: A Compendium of Little Fictions and Novascapes: A Speculative Fiction Anthology from the Hunter Region Australia are authored by Aussie’s from my neck of the woods :-). Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean is a duo of Aussie and Indian YA authors. And last but not least Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology is, yep you guessed it, Aussie YA authors.
Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean:
Be transported into dystopian cities and other-worldly societies. Be amazed and beguiled by a nursery story with a reverse twist, a futuristic take on TV cooking shows, a playscript with tentacles – and more, much more. Plunge in and enjoy!
A collection of sci-fi and fantasy writing, including six graphic stories, showcasing twenty stellar writers and artists from India and Australia: Isobelle Carmody, Penni Russon, Justine Larbalestier, Margo Lanagan, Lily Mae Martin, Kuzhali Manickavel, Prabha Mallya, Annie Zaidi, Kate Constable, Vandana Singh, Mandy Ord, Priya Kuriyan, Manjula Padmanabhan, Samhita Arni, Alyssa Brugman, Nicki Greenberg and Amruta Patil.
Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology
The YA event of the year. Bestsellers. Award-winners. Superstars. This anthology has them all. With brilliantly entertaining short stories from beloved young adult authors Amie Kaufman, Melissa Keil, Will Kostakis, Ellie Marney, Jaclyn Moriarty, Michael Pryor, Alice Pung, Gabrielle Tozer, Lili Wilkinson and Danielle Binks, this all-new collection will show the world exactly how much there is to love about Aussie YA.
Cover design by Rue Volley using stock art from Bigstock
In World War Two, not all monsters were human. Male siren Sean Wireman was ostracized from his small village in Israel in the sixteenth century, forced to wander the world until he settled in America in the 1920’s. Since he doesn’t age like a normal person, he was fit to fight in World War Two, to defend the heritage he spent his whole life running from. Seventy years later, after he has lived a whole other life since Hitler was defeated, from attending law school to becoming a bona fide rock star. In 2017, the monsters the Nazis released upon the Jews in concentration camps have returned, and he is the only one who can destroy them. But can he save his people once again, or will this fight take a deadly toll?
* * * * * * *
EXCERPT:
I have no idea how long I stood there after I screamed, but I imagine it wasn’t long before I could hear voices coming closer and closer to where I knelt by the corpse. Panic began to set in then. It was one thing to have sex out of wedlock. It was safe to assume that it was an entirely different kettle of fish to have murdered your partner whilst you were having premarital sex! Sure, I hadn’t meant to do it, but who the Hell would have believed me? I wouldn’t have, had I been asked to believe something so outlandish.
What was I to do? Where was I to go? We were surrounded by barren land beyond our farm. If I were to run, I would be overtaken immediately. And running would make me look guilty. Even guiltier than sitting here beside a fresh cadaver. Of course, if I dressed, perhaps they’d think it was someone else and I had simply found her body here. It was worth a shot, and teenage me didn’t think that someone had seen me leave the house after her.
Teenage me was an idiot and could go fuck himself, if you ask my opinion.
I dressed, clothes were simpler then and I had no need of zippers and complex belts and shoes. We hadn’t progressed from sandals at that point. Despite my quick thinking, I was still distraught, and as soon as I heard the voices even closer I let out the anguished cry that had been sitting, painfully, in my breast. It was followed by a plea for help.
Now that I think about it, maybe I am evil. To have such deep artifice at such a young age and during such a traumatic moment, maybe Angelica should have killed me when she had the chance.
Anyway…
The doors to the barn were wrenched open and I could see everyone entering, silhouetted by their torches. My dad and her dad were leading them all. No women were present. Which was good, because if things went south, I wouldn’t have wanted my mother to see me like that.
“Dad! Dad, help!” I called. “It’s Gail, something happened…” My panic and confusion didn’t need to be faked: I had no idea what had happened. And I was terrified.
They came closer, and the din was suddenly silenced as they took one look at Gail, laying there with blood and little else on her body. I wished I had covered her: it was shameful to let her body be seen this way, but if I had they would have known right away that I was the culprit. Artifice was not a strong point for anyone back in those days, but I seemed to have a knack for it anyway.
The pure silence lasted for only a moment before there was a tortured scream. It came from David, Gail’s father. Thankfully not dropping his torch, he lunged forward only to be held back by my father.
“Sean, what happened?” my father asked me.
“I don’t know. I—I saw her leave earlier and when I went outside to get a drink I saw she wasn’t around but our barn doors were open so I went to close them and I found her…” I swallowed a large gulp of air, having been talking too fast to breathe while still crying.
“Liar!” David cried. “It was you! It had to be you! Everyone else was inside!”
“No matter who it was…what happened to her?” my father asked, looking at her emaciated corpse. “That’s not normal.”
No, it’s not, I thought, panicking. It wasn’t normal, so what the good fuck was I?
“Monster!” David hissed. “What did you do to my daughter?”
I couldn’t answer even if I did want to, because I knew as little as he did. I was sick inside, and frightened of myself. I wondered if I should go to a rabbi myself, get diagnosed. Was it a demon? Did I need to be purged? Or was I just…a monster?
Trailer:
Lily Luchesi is the award-winning author of the bestselling Paranormal Detectives Series, published by Vamptasy Publishing. She also has short stories included in multiple bestselling anthologies, and a successful dark erotica retelling of Dracula. She also edited and curated the bestselling horror anthology Damsels of Distress, which focused on strong female characters within the genre.
She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and now resides in Los Angeles, California. Ever since she was a toddler her mother noticed her tendency for being interested in all things “dark”. At two she became infatuated with vampires and ghosts, and that infatuation turned into a lifestyle. She is also an out member of the LGBT+ community. When she’s not writing, she’s going to rock concerts, getting tattooed, watching the CW, or reading manga. And drinking copious amounts of coffee.
This year I started a word document where I’ve been keeping quotes from the books I read. I intend to do the same thing next year, the year after and so on. I’ve decided to start sharing them with you week by week. Obviously, whatever is going on in my head and home at the time I’m reading a book makes a big difference to what words grab me and I find this interesting to look back on – I hope you do to.
I really wish I’d thought to start doing this years ago (the quote collecting word document thing). Other than a quote about needing a cunning wizard, the opening lines from Pride & Prejudice and some Dr Seuss, I can’t verbatim remember any quotes from books I’ve read.
It seemed fitting to share the “cunning wizard” quote that’s been randomly popping into my head since 2015 for the first post. The quote is from a book I read in September 2015, The Soul Thiefby Majanka Verstraete.
It’s a little too long ago for me to remember what was going on in my life at the time. One could assume my husband was really pissing me off? Or maybe I was taking part in some dangerous underworld activity (ok we all know my life’s not that extreme). Whatever the reason these words hit me hard while I was reading, so hard they’ve never left me.
Thanks for visiting The Adventures of SacaKat.
It you want to make my day, just Like this post, simples.
In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.
Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.
Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.
Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?
In a realm where toxic mist sweeps the lands and magic is forbidden, all Bleak wants is a cure for her power.
Still grieving the death of her guardian and dangerously self-medicating with alcohol, Bleak is snatched from her home by the Commander of the King’s Army, and summoned to the capital.
But the king isn’t the only one interested in Bleak’s powers.
The leader of an infamous society of warriors, the Valia Kindred, lays claim to her as well, and Bleak finds herself in the middle of a much bigger battle than she anticipated.
Heart of Mist is the gripping first book in The Oremere Chronicles, a fantasy series of epic proportions.
When fifteen-year-old Esme Silver objects at her father’s wedding, her protest is dismissed as the action of a stubborn, selfish teenager. Everyone else has accepted the loss of Esme’s mother, Ariane – so why can’t she?
But Esme is suspicious. She is sure that others are covering up the real reason for her mother’s disappearance – that ‘lost at sea’ is code for something more terrible, something she has a right to know.
After Esme is accidentally swept into the enchanted world of Aeolia, the truth begins to unfold. With her newfound friends, Daniel and Lillian, Esme retraces her mother’s steps in the glittering canal city of Esperance, untangling the threads of Ariane’s double life. But the more Esme discovers about her mother, the more she questions whether she really knew her at all.
I missed my blog anniversary (28th October) AGAIN. I forgot last year too. Oops. My bad. Maybe I’ll remember beforehand next year (hahahahaha yeah right) and get around to organising a giveaway or something.
HAPPY FOUR YEARS BLOGGING TO ME.
Alright i’m off to track down some more coffee and read a couple of chapters before the kids get bored with their current game.
Eight Days on Planet Earth
by Cat Jordan
Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction
Release date: November 7th 2017
HarperTeen
How long does it take to travel 13 light-years to Earth?
How long does it take to fall in love?
To the universe, eight days is a mere blip—but to Matty Jones, it may be just enough time to change his life.
On the hot summer day Matty’s dad leaves for good, a strange girl suddenly appears in the empty field next to the Jones farm—the very field in rural Pennsylvania where a spaceship supposedly landed fifty years ago. She is uniquely beautiful, sweet, and smart, and she tells Matty she’s waiting for her spaceship to return to pick her up.
Of course she is.
Matty has heard all the impossible UFO stories for all of his seventeen years: the conspiracy theories, the wild rumors, the crazy belief in life beyond the stars. As a kid, he searched the skies with his dad and studied the constellations. But all that is behind him now. Dad’s gone and Matty’s stuck.
But now there is Priya. The self-proclaimed alien girl. She must be crazy or high, right?
As Matty unravels the mystery of Priya, he realizes there is far more to her than he first imagined.
And if he can learn to believe in what he can’t see: the universe, aliens…love…then maybe the impossible is possible, after all.
A heart-wrenching romance full of twists that are sure to bring tears to readers’ eyes, from Cat Jordan, author of The Leaving Season.
The story is set over the course of eight days, but you probably guessed that from the title. It focuses around 17-year-old Matty, with the back drop his small rural home town. At the start of the story Matty’s dad runs off, leaving Matty and his mum to pick up the pieces.
Matty feels lost and unsatisfied with his life. We see him drag his feet all through day one, perking up when he spots a strange girl in the field next to his house late that night. The same field that a space ship supposedly crashed in back in the 60’s.
The girl says she’s an alien. Matty thinks she’s nuts, but humours her, worried about her welfare. Matty feels an intense connection to her early on. And takes it upon himself to keep an eye on her, as she is determined to stay in the field all night by herself, waiting for a spaceship to pick her up.
It is summer holidays and with nothing much to do Matty keeps finding himself drawn back to the field and the strange girl. They spend the next five days together hanging out in the field and around town, the whole while Matty is trying to figure out what the strange girl’s deal really is, where she really comes from and why she was really camping out in the field next to his house – this takes up most of the book.
Matty notices that the girl’s health is deteriorating and presses her to tell him the truth about who she is, she of course does a runner. AND I can’t say much more without giving everything away. I will just say that “somehow” Matty manages to track her down and that the book’s ending is both heart-warming and heart-breaking.
At first, I was torn as to whether the girl (Priya) was an alien or not. I want to believe. I always want to believe. At one point I almost expected a spaceship to come and pick Priya up. I even went and checked if the book was actually listed as YA contemporary and not YA sci-fi. Either way, alien or not, I enjoyed the story. The writing was easy to read, and the story followed well. The chapter headings were split into days and times which helped propelled the story and add tension. All in all, it was a Quick and enjoyable read.
Thank you for the review copy, Cat and YA Bound Book Tours.
Fence (Fence #1)
I was keen to read Fence from the moment I first heard about it – A YA comic by aussie author C.S. Pacat set in the competitive world of Fencing with M/M romance – YES! a thousand times yes!
RIOT’S REDEMPTION 