Tag: young adult

Attention Southern California: Launch Party for The Awakened Announced!

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Hello everyone!

I am SO insanely excited to announce that I will be having a launch party for my debut novel, order The Awakened!

Official Awakened Cover

This is an incredibly exciting thing for me. Not only do I get to celebrate The Awakened finally being a real, tangible THING that people are actually going to read, but I get to celebrate this with YOU guys too!

This is amazing. I literally can’t handle this at all. I will be signing books and doing SO many exciting things and its just amazing as hell. SO great! I can’t wait.

Now let’s dive into the information!

When: 

Saturday, December 5th, 2015
3 pm t0 7 pm

Where:

Comic Book Hideout

215 West Commonwealth Ave
Fullerton, CA 92832

Event Details: 

This will be a VERY casual event!

It takes place between 3 and 7 pm so show up whenever!

Roughly around 3:30 pm, I will be doing a reading from The Awakened, and a short Q and A with one of my very best friends/future author friend, Alexandra Campos! Then I will take questions from the audience, if you guys have any!

From there, I will sign books. I will personalize and sign as many as you want, and pictures are totally okay :) Just make sure I don’t blink in them!

There will also be giveaways featuring exclusives for the release party only!! Make sure to show up for those because they are going to be SO awesome!

Book Purchasing!

There will be books to purchase at the event through Comic Book Hideout! They will be 15 dollars, and she accepts all forms of payment. There will be 50 copies available! Except checks I think. I’m not sure. Because, like, who uses checks besides old ladies anymore…

No offense old ladies..

However! Until November 10th at exactly midnight PST, you can preorder your copy through this eventbrite link!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/launch-party-for-sara-elizabeth-santanas-the-awakened-tickets-19454588197

By doing this, you guarantee that there will be a copy (or 2 or 3 or…) waiting for you to take home at the event! Preorders are only available for THREE days so take advantage of this while you can!

Note: Starting in December/January, there will be an option to purchase signed copies of The Awakened directly from me! I am working out the details on how I am accomplishing this but I definitely want to set this up! I know I have friends and fans and followers all over the place and I definitely want to make this option available for you! Keep an eye out for it, mid to late December or early January!

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I am so insanely excited for all of this! I hope to see a bunch of you there! If you live in Southern California, make sure to share with your family and friends! If you don’t live in Southern California…still make sure to share with your family and friends!

Can’t wait to see you all there!

Book Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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Genre: 

Young Adult, order Fantasy

Pages: 

465 pages

Part of a Series?:

1st in the Six of Crows series

Release Date: 

September 29th, price 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

iBooks

Author Website

GoodReads Summary: 

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

 

My Review:

Leigh Bardugo has created yet another masterpiece that completely blows my mind. Its not just a great YA novel and its not just a great fantasy novel…its just a great book period. She created this incredible world in the Grisha trilogy, and made it so that it was one of my favorite series, period.

Then she goes and continues in this world, and she opens it up even more. She’s already created this beautifully complicated but addicting world, and she opens it up and it is so easy to just fall into it. This new place is so different than Ravka and what we were used to with Alina but it also feels familiar, like you’re stepping out of Ravka and traveling the rest of the world. That’s how great Leigh is at writing, that’s how fantastic she is at world building. World building is the one thing that I struggle with the most and its a HUGE part of why I admire Leigh so much.

But I also love how much more she opens up her world, and its more than just it taking place in another country. We get so close to Alina in the Grisha trilogy but in this book, there are six characters, so different from each other and yet they all have to work together in order to make this incredibly impossible thing work. Leigh’s ability to create such rich and interesting characters in the same book and make them all insanely likable and yet you kind of want to wring their necks too…I love it.

I never know what to say about Leigh’s books because I always just feel sort of socked in the stomach after I read her books. In a good way, of course. She’s just such an incredible writer. She tells amazing stories with these compelling characters and sometimes you feel like you could get lost in what’s going on, but it also is so easy to be a part of. Give it a few pages, you get yourself centered in the story and then bam! You’re there, you’re involved and literally can’t stop reading. She blows my mind. I throw myself at her feet. I could only hope to write as well as she does.

And she’s my friend. That part blows my mind too. I’m friends with someone who writes incredibly amazing books, YA or not, fantasy or not, just straight up these books ARE so good and I’m already addicted to this characters (Inej = life) and I can’t wait to read more!

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Rating: 

5 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

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Genre: 

Young Adult, health Fantasy

Pages: 

522 pages

Part of a Series?:

Spinoff of Fangirl

Release Date: 

October 6th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

iBooks

Author Website

GoodReads Summary: 

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savor his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest, and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he’ll be safe. Simon can’t even enjoy the fact that his roommate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can’t stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you’re the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savor anything.

My Review:

 

You know what I think amuses me the most about this book? This book is literally a fan fiction of a fandom that only exists in another fictional book. Its beautiful, and I love that this is a thing, and that its successful and even more, its SO damn good.

Its no secret that Fangirl literally is one of my favorite books that I’ve ever read. From page one until the last, I connected with Cath so much, and the story. Its just…its me and Harry Potter, easily. Which gave me an emotional attachment to Simon Snow and Baz and the rest of the characters…these characters that don’t even really have a story but Rainbow makes you love them.

And then there’s this book. THIS BOOK. Its just…I love it. Its a fan fiction of a not real story. And its a fan fiction of the finale to the not real series. Its absolutely absurd when you really think about it, but this is exactly what it is and it just WORKS.

I adore Simon. I adore Penelope and Baz and I love them all. My love for Baz is so deep, I can’t even begin to explain it. Even though this isn’t a real story, I guess, Rainbow makes it real. She makes it seem like you’ve been part of this huge Simon Snow for years and that’s exactly how I felt. I was like, HOW IS THIS GOING TO END? IS SIMON GOING TO FULFILL HIS DESTINY? WHATS GOING TO HAPPEN WITH PENNY? AND OH GOD I SHIP SIMON AND BAZ SO MUCH.

Any author that can make me love these fictional characters so much, so easily, totally wins all the marbles in my book. Seriously. Because its just such a fun story. It has everything that I love about Harry Potter, which makes it the perfect fictional stand-in for Cath in Fangirl. Its hilarious and its action packed, but it has that sort of whimsical and magical feel of Harry Potter…and it has this romance that KILLS me in all the good ways, because there is just not enough fantasy out there with a M/M love story and I adore Simon and Baz together SO much.

But I also think that it makes such a great Harry Potter fan fiction as well. Its obvious what Simon Snow is supposed to be but that’s what makes it so great. Its Rainbow’s own little shoutout to this amazing series, and she takes it and writes her own fan fiction and its beautiful, and cheeky and the bad words make me laugh because its a total fan fic thing to do. It literally feels like a Harry Potter fan fiction but one of the best written and it doesn’t feel fake or, like its taking advantage of an already established fandom. Its like, she’s paying it a huge compliment.

It also really makes me want more Simon Snow, which makes NO sense because really, its ONLY the one book. It just makes me laugh at the absurdity and yet its just so freakin perfect.

Rating: 

5 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy

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Genre: 

Young Adult, sildenafil Contemporary

Pages: 

364 pages

Part of a Series?:

Standalone Novel

Release Date: 

September 15th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

iBooks

Author Website

GoodReads Summary: 

Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

My Review:

 

I was so incredibly impressed with the first book that I ever read by Julie Murphy. I do own her first book but honestly just haven’t had the chance to dive into it yet. Have you seen my TBR pile? Its massive!

Anyway, I had heard some really good things about Dumplin’ and I knew I eventually wanted to get my hands on it and was SERIOUSLY stoked when I got it in one of my OwlCrate boxes (You rock, OwlCrate). I decided that I needed to get on that right away and I did. And I read it fast.

Here’s the thing: I could sit here and tell you that its a great book about body positivity and that we should have more books like this and that it preaches self confidence and all this stuff. I could go on and on about that but I’m not going to.

Because even though that’s all true, very very true, there’s just so much to this book. I absolutely adore Willowdean. I love that she just sort of accepts the person that she is, and I love that. Willowdean is Willowdean. She’s big but that’s just the way it is. But she has insecurities and she has a hard time sometimes believing in herself or her own attractiveness but I never sit here and feel like its specifically because she’s fat. She has this because she’s a teenager and she’s going through the same shit that we all go through when we’re teenagers. THAT is what I love about it. Sure, we have body positivity, sure we have diversity with a character that isn’t perfect and pretty and skinny. But Julie doesn’t make it a big thing, not to me anyway.

Willowdean is a great, familiar, awesome character that just happens to be bigger and THAT is what makes it so good. She creates this character that is SO different from maybe what we’re used to in YA but we all connect with her because she feels so real and familiar. She has a shitty job and there’s a cute boy that can’t make up his mind about her and she’s like WTF (I’m 27 and I still deal with this crap…) and that’s what makes it so good. Creating diversity by making a diverse character who has these differences but connects with everyone…GENIUS.

I have no idea if I’m making any sense.

Basically, I totally loved this book. I adore Willowdean and kind of wish she was my best friend. She’s a great character and THAT is what makes this story so damn good. The story itself is great but Willowdean carries it and its definitely one of my favorites of the year.

 Rating: 

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Stand-Off by Andrew Smith

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It’s his last year at Pine Mountain, and Ryan Dean should be focused on his future, but instead, he’s haunted by his past. His rugby coach expects him to fill the roles once played by his lost friend, Joey, as the rugby team’s stand-off and new captain. And somehow he’s stuck rooming with twelve-year-old freshman Sam Abernathy, a cooking whiz with extreme claustrophobia and a serious crush on Annie Altman—aka Ryan Dean’s girlfriend, for now, anyway.

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THE AWAKENED Cover and Release Date Revealed!

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I am SO insanely excited to share this with you today!

I’ve been counting down the days to revealing the official cover for The Awakened, tadalafil and to finally tell you when you can get your hands on this beauty!

As a reminder, my debut science fiction novel, The Awakened, is being published by the amazing BenjaminOfTomes through his brand new micro publishing company, OfTomes!

I’m insanely excited about this. I’m about to finally share the cover, and I’ll also share the synopsis. I’m going to add the links to my official author pages: website, instagram, twitter, etc, so please follow me on there. Then also click the link on GoodReads to add it to your TBR list!

All right now…

You ready for this…

I am SO SO SO ready for this…

Here it is!

The Official Cover Reveal!

Official Awakened CoverThis is the official front cover! This is what you will see when you buy it in ebook format!

Official Awakened Paperback Cover

This is what the entire paperback is going to look like!

ISN’T IT GORGEOUS!

I can’t handle how much I seriously LOVE it. This is MY book and it looks totally amazing. Sigh. Its beautiful. Mad props out to Kim at KimG Designs for making this absolutely beautiful and more than I could have ever hoped for!

The Official Release Date

December 1st, 2015!

And for those of you in Southern California, stay tuned for an official launch party!!

The Official Synopsis

Zoey Valentine is concerned with two things: surviving the multitude of self-defense classes her dad makes her take and avoiding Ash Matthews.

That is, until the Z virus hits, wiping out a third of the population in a matter of weeks. If that weren’t frightening enough, the bodies of the victims disappear and suddenly reappear, awakened from their dead state. They’re faster, smarter, and they work together to get the one thing they crave, human flesh.

The United States is in a panic and then the government decides the unthinkable: to bomb every major city overrun with the awakened.

Now Zoey is on the run, with her dad and Ash, desperate to find a place of safety amongst the ruined remains of the country.

Add it on GoodReads Now!

All My New Official Author Links

Please follow them!

My Website 

My Twitter

My Instagram

My NaNoWriMo

My Facebook

My GoodReads

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Thank you SO much for being a part of this! Stay tuned for more info on preorder, giveaways, and all sorts of awesome stuff coming soon!