Epidemic, The--Suzanne Young

Title: The Epidemic
Author: Suzanne Young
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2016
Pages: 384 p.
Source: VOYA
Compensation: None
Read: February 2016

Suzanne Young's The Epidemic

In a dystopian society, closers are hired by grieving families to impersonate a deceased child and give the family a chance at closure. Quinlan McKee is the best closer there is, but then she discovers that everything she has ever believed is a lie. Not sure who she can trust, Quinn flees her controlling employers and sets out to discover who she really is, uncovering far more than she could imagine.

Quinn is a sympathetic character and readers will want her and fellow closer on the run, Deacon, to succeed in their mission and their relationship. Suzanne Young's latest book perfectly illustrates how good intentions can lead to horrible results. An effort to save people from pain and grief actually causes much more damage than simply letting people feel hurt. The Epidemic is the sequel to The Remedy and both novels serve as companion books that lead to the events in Young's popular Program duology. Although this new duology can stand on its own, teens who have read The Program and The Treatment already will finish The Epidemic with a deeper understanding of how and why society could wind up like it did. Readers who have not read the Program duology yet will be interested enough to continue with Young's unique dystopian world.

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Trix and the Faerie Queen--Alethea Kontis

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

I don't normally sign up for book tours (in fact I've never signed up for one!) but how could I pass up an opportunity to get a copy of Alethea Kontis's newest Arilland book? Read on for information from the tour, my review of the book, and a giveaway. Don't forget to check out the other tour stops.

Title: Trix and the Faerie Queen

Author: Alethea Kontis
Publisher: Alethea Kontis, 2016
Pages: 210 p.
Source: Author/Prism Book Tours
Compensation: None

Alethea Kontis's Trix and The Faerie Queen

Summary from the tour:

Join Trix Woodcutter on an epic new animal-filled adventure!

Fey magic and animal magic: that troublemaking imp Trix Woodcutter has both, if not the ability to use them to their full potential. While traveling with his companion—the golden girl Lizinia—to see the King of Eagles, Trix is sent a vision of the Faerie Queen, who is in desperate need of his help. An evil sorceress has stormed Faerie and trapped all the fey magic under the Hill, leaving the Faerie Queen powerless! Trix’s talent for communicating with animals is desperately needed…but before he braves the wild world of Faerie he must arm himself, with nothing less than the bow and arrows of a god.

With the help of his gilded companion, her ghost-cat godfather, a blind brownie and a sister or two, the Boy Who Talks to Animals must befriend a mischievous leprechaun, best a wolf, and journey into the depths of Faerie to restore order and free the fey magic before the imbalance destroys the world.

Trix and the Faerie Queen is second in The Trix Adventures and sixth in the Books of Arilland.

Fans of the Woodcutter Sisters: Desperate to know what happened to Saturday and Peregrine after they found Trix at the end of HERO? Here’s your chance!

Goodreads│Amazon│Barnes & Noble

My review:

Trix and the Faerie Queen picks up where Trixter left off-- Trix and his new companion are on their way to find the King of Eagles. But Trix has yet another vision, this time from the Faerie Queen, which delays his quest and sets him on a new adventure to rescue the Queen and save all of Faerie-land.

This latest offering is a very quick read. Readers will enjoy the blossoming fairy tale friendship between Trix and his golden girl Lizinia. Their budding relationship is totally fairy tale--Lizinia is the perfect companion and Trix is completely appreciative of her talents. Fans of Arilland will be happy to see a couple of Trix's sisters and hear about more. Readers will be left clamoring for more at the end of the novel and eagerly await the next installment.

There were a few instances in the ebook I received that would benefit from better editing to fix the typos and incomplete sentences, but overall the story is quite good and anyone interested in Arilland will overlook them.

Other Books in the Series

Alethea Kontis is a princess, author, fairy godmother, and geek. Her bestselling Books of Arilland fairytale series won two Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Awards (Enchanted and Tales of Arilland), and was twice nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Alethea also penned the AlphaOops picture books, The Wonderland Alphabet, Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome, Beauty & Dynamite, The Dark-Hunter Companion (w/Sherrilyn Kenyon), and a myriad of poems, essays, and short stories. Princess Alethea lives and writes on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie. You can find her on her YouTube channel, all the social media, and at www.aletheakontis.com.

Website│Goodreads│Facebook│Twitter│YouTube

Tour Schedule

April 2nd: Launch

April 3rd: Rockin' Book Reviews & Wishful Endings

April 4th: Brooke Blogs & Zerina Blossom's Books

April 5th: deal sharing aunt & Goddess Librarian

April 6th: Becky on Books & Colorimetry

April 7th: Mel's Shelves, A Backwards Story, & Amanda K Thompson

April 8th: Grand Finale

Tour Giveaway



3 copies of Trixter and Trix and the Faerie Queen (signed copies if US, ebooks if INT)

Ends April 15th



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Trixter--Alethea Kontis

Title: Trixter
Author: Alethea Kontis
Publisher: Alethea Kontis, 2015
Pages: 144 p.
Source: Purchased ebook
Compensation: None
Read: March 2015

Alethea Kontis's Trixter

I discovered Alethea Kontis's first book in the Arilland series, Enchanted, while browsing my library's shelves for something interesting.  Then I discovered the second book, Hero, while browsing my library's ebook shelves. After that I would periodically check the ebook collection to see if there were more. I came across the rest quite by accident--or fate--while checking my twitter feed one night. I'm not quite as good about checking that account--I'm usually on my personal one talking about running--but I've been trying to be better about it. This particular night Kontis tweeted the covers of the other books in the series and I realized I was quite behind! My library still didn't own the ebooks and I was sitting on my couch, so when she tweeted that Amazon was selling the ebook for only .99, I figured I'd better listen & buy it.

Trixter tells some of the events of Hero from adopted cousin-brother Trix's point of view. At the beginning of Hero, Trix has poisoned his family so that he could travel to see his recently deceased birth-mother. After discovering what Trix has done, Saturday unwittingly summons an ocean and sets about on her adventure. In Trixter, we see the effects of that magical ocean as well as the rest of Trix's journey. Before Trix can complete his quest to see his birth-mother, he must survive the ocean's sudden coming and leaving. The Boy Who Talks to Animals is helped by both normal animals and magical creatures and gains a new traveling companion when he stumbles upon a bewitched cottage with a golden girl.

Just as enchanting as the previous books of Arilland, Trixter will not disappoint fairy tale fans.

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I'm an Amazon Associate now. If you click on the Amazon links and buy anything I might make a tiny bit of money.