Category Archives: Fantasy / Urban Fantasy

Guest Post – What’s At The Heart Of Brightstorm by Vashti Hardy

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Today I am super excited to have the brilliant Vashti Hardy on Tales to celebrate the release of her debut novel, Brightstorm!

Brightstorm was released on the 1st March 2018 published by Scholastic and is set to be a thrilling adventure!

Today Vashti talks about what’s at the heart of Brightstorm in this fab guest post…

Twins Arthur and Maudie receive word in Lontown that their famous explorer father died in a failed attempt to reach South Polaris. Not only that, but he has been accused of trying to steal fuel from his competitors before he died! The twins don’t believe the news, and they answer an ad to help crew a new exploration attempt in the hope of learning the truth and salvaging their family’s reputation. As the winged ship Aurora sets sail, the twins must keep their wits about them and prove themselves worthy of the rest of the crew. But will Arthur and Maudie find the answers they seek?

What’s At The Heart Of Brightstorm (the character wants vs needs)

At the heart of every story are the things a character thinks they need and want, and the thing they actually need which they are unaware of, otherwise known as the lie and the truth. The story will have a tension between these things and the character arc and theme both centre on the inner conflict between this lie and truth.

When Arthur Brightstorm learns of the death of his father, he feels he’s lost the future, because of the way he’d seen things working out in life for the three of them – Ernest, Arthur and twin Maudie destined to sail sky-ships together as a family with Arthur navigating as second in command. This is exacerbated by the fact that Maudie’s future still seems so certain to him – he can see the gap that she fills in the world as her talents mean she is destined to be a great engineer, but for himself, Arthur can only see the gap left by his father’s death. What Arthur has to learn however, or his ‘truth’, is that his future is not lost it is just different, and he now needs to learn to ‘sail his own ship’. As Harriet tells him:

‘Control is an illusion. We never know what life will throw at us. You are the master of your destiny, Arthur, and you can still do those things. Your father is still with you inside.’

So whilst Arthur chases what he wants (the truth of what happened to his father), he also finds his inner truth even though he wasn’t looking for it; what he really needed was to learn that he still had a future, albeit a different one, but he had to go on the journey to see that he could continue to achieve this dreams in a world without his father. And by going on that journey he also finds something unexpected – a new unlikely family in the crew of the Aurora.

If you’re writing a story and are a bit stuck, try thinking about what your characters wants and needs are. Think about the tension between them and hopefully you’ll be well on your way to unlocking that all important story heart!

You can buy a copy of Brightstorm here or from your local bookshop!

About Vashti Hardy

Vashti Hardy is a copywriter who lives near Brighton with her family. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Chichester University and previously studied on the Creative Writing Certificate at Sussex University. Very active on Twitter, she is an alumna of and mentor at the Golden Egg Academy.

You can find out more about Vashti on her website – www.vashtihardy.com

Or why not follow her on twitter – @vashti_hardy 

Blog Tour

You can catch up with the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops!

A huge huge thank you to Vashti for such a superb guest post and to Olivia for asking me to host and be part of this fab blog tour!

Have you read any of Brightstorm?  What did you think?  What was your favourite part?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this review or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy!

Happy Reading!

Guest Post – Our Fantasy Coven by Katharine & Elizabeth Corr

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Today I am excited to be part of The Witch’s Blood Blog Tour to celebrate the third and final book in the trilogy!

The Witch’s Blood by Katharine & Elizabeth Corr was released on the 8th March 2018 published by Harper Collins Children’s Books and is a must for any fantasy fan!

Today Katharine & Elizabeth are talking about their fantasy coven in this fab guest post…

Just who can you trust when no one around you is who they seem?

The final spell-binding book in THE WITCH’S KISS trilogy by authors and sisters, Katharine and Elizabeth Corr.

Life as a teenage witch just got harder for Merry when her brother, Leo is captured and taken into an alternative reality by evil witch Ronan. Determined to get him back, Merry needs to use blood magic to outwit her arch-rival and get Leo back. Merry is more powerful than ever now, but she is also more dangerous and within the coven, loyalties are split on her use of the magic. In trying to save Leo, Merry will have to confront evil from her past and present and risk the lives of everyone she’s ever loved. Given the chaos she’s created, just what will she sacrifice to make things right?

Our Fantasy Coven

‘Being a witch meant becoming familiar with hundreds of years’ worth of spells and techniques and history. Merry understood the necessity, sort of. She had to be able to cast spells with the other witches so she could become a full member of the coven. Witchcraft was a team sport. Or at least it was supposed to be.’

Merry, our main character in The Witch’s Kiss trilogy, has a love/hate relationship with the coven that she (sort of) belongs to. Excluded initially because her mum refuses to let her practise magic, Merry starts training to join the coven in The Witch’s Tears, but she chafes against the rules and restrictions. And the other coven members aren’t entirely comfortable being around Merry either, especially as her power grows. Still, the coven has an important part to play, for good or ill (no, we’re not going to tell you which!) before the end of The Witch’s Blood. We rather like the idea of having a bunch of powerful witch friends to hang out with, so we’ve decided to put together our own Fantasy Coven (limited to eleven witches, because it’s the closest we’re likely to get to picking a fantasy football team).

Granny Weatherwax (The Discworld books, Terry Pratchett)

One of our favourite Discworld characters, illustrated here by Paul Kidby. Granny Weatherwax is wise, really powerful, sharp as a scalpel, and always does the right thing. Not necessarily the nice thing, mind you. She would be brilliant as our coven leader and would have no trouble keeping the more morally ambiguous members in line.

Nanny Ogg (The Discworld books)

The brown sauce to Granny’s bacon sandwich. Nanny would be the one to keep an eye on the coven’s younger members, and she’d be sure to supply plenty of interesting ‘refreshments’ for those late-night coven meetings.

Maleficent

We’re plumping for the Angelina Jolie version here because a) she’s much nicer than in the Disney cartoon, b) she has cheekbones to die for and c) has wings. Super useful for when your broomstick breaks down.

Hermione Granger (The Harry Potter books, JK Rowling)

As the brightest witch in her generation (or probably almost any generation, let’s face it), we think Hermione would get on really well with Granny Weatherwax. Plus, we’d really like
to see Hermione as part of a team of powerful witches without any of those annoying (and, let’s face it, less talented) wizards hanging around.

Merry Cooper (The Witch’s Kiss trilogy)

Merry doesn’t have Hermione’s application and love of studying, but she is really powerful and she’s determined to take care of the people she loves. Definitely someone we’d like on our side.

Meg (from Meg & Mog, Helen Nicoll/Jan Pieńkowski)


Meg’s spells don’t always go to plan, but we’d still love to have her in the coven: for starters we’d get to pet Mog, which we’d love as we’re both cat people. Plus Meg has all the traditional witchy paraphernalia: cauldron, broomstick, black boots, black dress and pointy black hat. The quintessential witch.

Willow (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Super loyal, bookish and fun to hang out with, we think Merry and Willow would get on like a house on fire. Both witches are extremely powerful and at times find if difficult to exercise due restraint: but ultimately both seek to use their power to protect the ones they love. And you can’t blame them for that. Also, being in a coven might help Willow stay on the right side of the line when it came to magic; she has been known to dabble in some very dark spells…

Glinda the good witch (from The Wizard of Oz, L Frank Baum)


Glinda’s outfit choice literally makes pink the new black. We’d like our coven to be as blinged up as possible: sparkly ballgowns and jewel-studded broomsticks all the way. No sneaking around secretly for us! Also, unlike some of the other witches in our coven, Glinda has impeccable manners. She’d be useful when diplomacy is required.

Sally and Gillian Owens (Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman)

Confession time: we haven’t yet read the book on which the Sandra Bullock/Nicole Kidman film is based. Still, from the film version, we think these highly talented siblings would be good coven members: just like Merry and Leo, they’re absolutely devoted to one another, working best as a team. Plus, they have fabulous hair, a keen fashion sense and would certainly – along with Glinda – inject some much-needed glamour into the coven. Not a wart in sight.

Arianwyn (The Apprentice Witch, James Nicol)

Arianwyn is a little bit like Mildred Hubble: she gets off to a slow start, magically speaking. Failing her witch’s assessment, she’s sent off to the remote village of Lull to start life as an apprentice, somewhat in disgrace. However, just like Mildred, there’s much more to this resilient and courageous young witch than meets the eye. Not only is she fiercely loyal, considerate and kind, it turns out she’s way more powerful than anyone realised. All in all, she’s a real sweetie – the sort of witch who would definitely have your back.

Witches we definitely WON’T be letting into the coven: Jadis (aka the White Witch from the Narnia books by CS Lewis), Nancy Downs (The Craft) and Bellatrix le Strange (Harry Potter). We just don’t think any of them are really team players… But what do you think? Who would be in your fantasy coven?

Thank you so much to Michelle for being one of our blog tour hosts!

You can buy a copy of The Witch’s Blood here or from your local bookshop!

About Katharine & Elizabeth Corr

We are sisters and best friends (try writing a book with someone else and you’ll see why that last bit is kind of important). After spending our childhood in Essex, we now live ten minutes away from each other in Surrey. We both studied history at university and went to work in London for a bit. Then we stopped working to raise families, because somehow we missed the memo explaining that children are far more demanding than clients or bosses. When we both decided to write novels – on account of fictional people being much easier to deal with than real ones – it was obvious we should do it together.

Stuff Katharine likes: playing instruments badly; dead languages; LOTR; loud pop concerts; Jane Austen; Neill Gaiman; Loki; the Surrey Hills. Killing off characters.

Stuff Elizabeth likes: sketching, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, cinema, long baths, kitchen discos, Terry Pratchett, Thor, London. Saving characters.

Stuff we both like: YA / non-YA fantasy and science fiction,Star Wars, Star Trek, each other (most of the time).

You can find out more about Katharine and Elizabeth on their website – www.corrsisters.com

Or why not follow them on twitter – @katharinecorr and @lizcorr_writes

Previously on Tales….

You can catch previous posts by Katharine & Elizabeth Corr by clicking on the below links…

Our Favourite Literary Curses

Our Favourite Magical Moments In Literature

Blog Tour

You can follow or catch up on the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops!

A huge huge thank you to Katharine and Elizabeth for such a superb guest post and for being so lovely to invite me onto the blog tour!  Also a huge thank you to Jess at Harper Collins for having me and sending me a copy of the book.

Have you read any of The Witch’s Kiss Trilogy?  What did you think?  Who would be in your coven?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this review or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy!

Happy Reading!

Guest Post – How I Found Baver and Angel by Amy Wilson

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Following on from the fly away success of her debut novel, A Girl Called Owl last year I am honoured to have the magical Amy Wilson on Tales today to celebrate the release of her second YA books A Far Away Magic.

A Far Away Magic was released on the 25th January 2018 published by the lovely Macmillan Children’s Books and is set to whisk you off your feet.

Today Amy is chatting about her characters Angel and Bavar and how they came to be in this fab guest post….

When Angel moves to a new school after the death of her parents, she isn’t interested in making friends. Until she meets Bavar – a strange boy, tall, awkward and desperate to remain unseen, but who seems to have a kind of magic about him. Everyone and everything within Bavar’s enchanted house is urging him to step up and protect the world from a magical rift through which monsters are travelling, the same monsters that killed Angel’s parents.

But Bavar doesn’t want to follow the path that’s been chosen for him – he wants to be normal; to disappear. Fighting one another as well as their fears, Angel and Bavar must find a way to repair the rift between the worlds, and themselves, before it’s too late . . .

How I Found Baver and Angel

The first thing I knew about A Far Away Magic was that it had Bavar in it. He’d been in my mind for years, ever since I’d seen the tall, stooped figure of a boy leaving my local secondary school, alone and hiding behind his hair.

The second thing I knew was that Bavar lived in a huge old creepy house, where ancestors called his name from the walls. There was an aunt, Aoife, and an Uncle Sal, and there was magic.

Bavar and I had quite a few starts together before we found the right story. In my very first attempt, his words came to life around him, letters floating like little clouds everywhere he went. I kind of liked that idea, but it didn’t lead me anywhere. So we were stuck. He just mooched around in my head, for a long time, while I became increasingly interested in how we see others, how we perhaps think we know a person, solely based on how they look, the way they walk and talk, and how many of us carry our scars and differences on the inside.

That, I think, is how Angel came about. She looked like a perfectly normal girl, but she’d been through something that made her as different as Bavar, only instead of that being an external thing, it was internal. From the outside, they might look like Beauty and the Beast, but in fact they are both beautiful, and both beast. It’s when they come together that they begin to sort that out for themselves; to challenge the monsters, and the world’s perception of them.

As soon as Angel came in with her own dark backstory, Bavar and I were moving. She brought the fight, and the desire for change, and she gave Bavar a reason to do the same, and she brought the fight to me too; I had to find a way to make it all okay for them – at the very least, for them to be okay with them.

You can buy a copy of A Far Away Magic here or from your local bookshop

About Amy Wilson

This is me, with my cat Ivy on my shoulder (!) and with my headphones on, mid-writing. I quite often write with music playing, and I wear my headphones even if the sound is off, because it blocks out some of the background noise and helps me to feel like I’m in my own world.

I spend a lot of my time at home writing and looking after various animals and children. I’ve always loved to write, and I feel very lucky that now, after quite a few years of bashing away, it is my job.

I have a background in journalism and live in Bristol. I’m a graduate of the Bath Spa MA in Creative Writing. A Girl Called Owl was my first novel, my second, A Far Away Magic, is out now, and I’m now working on my third!

You can find out more about Amy on her website – www.amywilsonbooks.com

Or why not follow Amy on twitter – @AJ_Wils

A huge thank you to Amy for such a fab post and insight into her characters.  Also a huge thank you to Jo at Macmillan Children’s Books for asking me to host.

Have you read A Far Away Magic?  Are you intrigued?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this post or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy !

Happy Reading

Spotlight – Twister by Juliette Forrest

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Today I am thrilled to be shining the spotlight on a whirlwind of a debut novel, Twister by Juliette Forrest!

Twister was released on the 1st February published by Scholastic and is set to be full of twists and turns to keep your head in a spin.

The lovely people at Scholastic have given me some giveaway copies so I thought I would shine the spotlight on this brilliant book in celebration….

Twister’s father has gone missing and as she’s searching for him she stumbles across a witch living in the woods. She is given a magical necklace that holds the souls of living things and can turn the wearer into a wolf, or a rushing river, or a rainstorm. But there’s a dark foe on the hunt for this necklace, a baddie who wears a coat crawling with creatures and who might have something to do with her father’s sudden disappearance…

You can buy a copy of Twister here or from your local bookshop!

About Juliette Forrest

I blame Rutger Hauer. In 1987 he starred in the Guinness commercials. They made such an impression I scribbled the dialogue all over my school folders. That’s when it struck me I no longer wanted to become an opera singer – I wanted to go to London and learn how to write adverts.

Here I am, a few years down the line, still doing what I love. I’m a freelancer now; I’m just as happy on my laptop in a client’s office as I am working from home. And talking about home, I live in Glasgow with a court jester of a Cypriot rescue dog called Vince.

You can find out more about Juliette on her website – www.julietteforrest.com

Or why not follow her on twitter – @jools_forrest

Giveaway

With thanks to the lovely people at Scholastic I have 3 x copies of Twister to giveaway to 3 lucky winners.

You can enter via my twitter here

UK Only

Ends 5th March 2018

Good Luck!

A huge thank you to Lorraine at Scholastic for sending me this fab book and for asking me to host this fab giveaway!

Have you read Twister?  What did you think?  What was your favourite part?  If you have not read it yet have we tempted you to go and grab a copy?   I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this post or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy!

Happy Reading!

Guest Post – Female Hero – Éowyn daughter of Théodwyn by Matt Killeen

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A month or so ago I received an intriguing email about a new debut book, Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen.

Orphan Monster Spy is due to be released on the 8th March 2018 and is set to be “deeply disturbing and chillingly good”

Today is my stop on a fantastic blog tour for this book where Matt has been sharing some of his female hero’s…..

A teenage spy. A Nazi boarding school. The performance of a lifetime.

Sarah has played many roles – but now she faces her most challenging of all. Because there’s only one way for a Jewish orphan spy to survive at a school for the Nazi elite. And that’s to become a monster like them.

Survive. Deceive. Resist.

They think she is just a little girl. But she is the weapon they never saw coming… with a mission to destroy them all.

Éowyn daughter of Théodwyn

I struggle sometimes with fantasy – which I can love – on two counts. Firstly, and I’m looking at you video games, it has a preoccupation with anatomically dubious breast sizes and a minimalist attitude to female armour. By that I mean, fetish underwear as battle equipment. It’s not just that its offensive objectification which plays to some preoccupations that should have been left behind in adolescence, which it is. It’s also dumb. It’s impractical. Instant narrative dissonance. Caitlin Moran’s one question to identify sexism applies here: would the blokes put up with this?

Secondly and given its almost infinite possibilities, some fantasy (or sword & sorcery) tends to come with a set of tired tropes, themes and races established by J.R.R. Tolkein nearly 70 years ago. To the extent that I came out of The Fellowship of the Ring complaining that it was “too-Tolkeinesque”. I think my addled brain was attempting to articulate that decades of homages, re-treads and knock-offs had taken some of the lustre off the real thing.

I did love the movie, but at that point the jury was still out. That was because the character I was waiting for didn’t appear until the second film and her defining moment wouldn’t happen until the third, several years away. Only then could I judge the series. Would Peter Jackson – director of Meet the Feebles – get it right? Not for me, but for everyone?

Now Tolkein didn’t so much do women badly, as kind of ignore them altogether – bypassing the breast and underwear issue, I suppose. I could spend many thousands of words bitching about that, but he did create Éowyn daughter of Théodwyn, and for large parts of the book that did not suck.

I had fallen in love with Éowyn the way any straight boy of seven would have, from the minute that The Lord of the Rings was read to me (…and thanks big brother for one of the greatest gifts anyone has given anyone). She was brave and brilliant and her disobedience resulted in her being in the right place at the right time, so no one would tell her off. She was the kind of woman that made my little chest heave. So, given that, my inner-child may not be an impartial feminist on this.

Yes, she didn’t want to be a woman and wear pink, and yes that’s a cliché with its own problems, but Éowyn’s Moment of Awesome is dependent on her true nature. And boy, is her Moment of Awesome truly awesome, maybe the greatest single moment of any character ever in the realm of hitting things with bits of metal.

It is a pivotal moment in the whole trilogy. The arrival of the Witch-King of Angmar to stop the charge of the Rohirrim is a game changer. So monstrous is his presence that everybody runs. Nobody can go near him, let alone face him down. Everything hinges on this one moment. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields is basically lost at this point, long before Aragorn can get there with his ghost friends. Minas Tirith falls, there’s no march to the Black Gate, no distraction to empty Mordor, Frodo is captured and Middle-earth falls under an eternity of darkness.

But someone does face him down. One woman (and a hobbit, naturally) stands in front of her uncle’s body and dares the Lord of the Nazgûl to come through her to get him. After a lifetime being side-lined by the patriarchy, squaring up to an unspeakable horror clearly didn’t seem that much more difficult by comparison. She kills the big pterodactyl thing, she gets her arm shattered blocking his giant mace, yet still has the wherewithal to spot the flaw in his overconfidence…yes, no man can harm him, but she isn’t one. It’s a beautiful moment. With the last of her strength, she uses Merry’s distraction to drive her sword into his giant Ringwraith face.

Yes, there’s that horrible now-I’m-in-love-I-can-stop-being-myself thing with Faramir, but I kind of edited that out myself. It made far more sense to even the seven-year-old me that Éowyn could surrender her sword because, a) she was probably a little tired from all the Nazgûl slaying, b) there wasn’t anyone left to fight, and c) she was now a famous ultimate badass that people would sing songs about for all time. You know, some resolution and peace of mind on her own terms. Being a bit down before that was understandable, and it was probably PTSD brought on by a sudden life-threatening trauma or the spectre of worldwide destruction. In fact, if the chance of a snog and a future free from fear of enslavement by evil eldritch powers helped her get over that, she should be congratulated for her resilience.

In the peerless 1981 BBC Radio 4 dramatization Éowyn’s moment was lost in a cacophony of screams, grunts and sound effects so I’d waited two decades to see it come to life. I wasn’t disappointed. Miranda Otto plays Éowyn to perfection.

She doesn’t “fall in love” with Aragorn, not really. She just feels the natural leader he is, the opportunities he represents and yearns to follow him, like everyone else, male or female. And when the time comes, she and Jackson got that bravery is not the absence of fear. In fact Éowyn looks absolutely terrified every second of the encounter. Amongst all the grizzled detachment elsewhere, it makes it the standout confrontation in the trilogy. The exception to all that distress is that great epiphany. I am no man. No, she knows she’s better than that, she is the very thing she felt held her back all this time. It turns out she is good enough and had been all along. She smiles and SMITES him.

You can buy a copy of Orphan Monster Spy here or from your local bookshop

About Matt Killeen

Matt Killeen was born in Birmingham and, like many of his generation, was absorbed by tales of the war and obsessed with football from an early age. Guitars arrived at fourteen, wrecking any hopes of so-called normality.

He has had a great many careers – some creative, some involving laser guns – and has made a living as an advertising copywriter and largely ignored music and sports journalist. He fulfilled a childhood ambition and became a writer for the world’s best-loved toy company in 2010.

He lives near London with his soulmate, children, dog and musical instruments, looking wistfully north at a hometown that has been largely demolished & rebuilt in his lengthy absence.

Orphan Monster Spy is his first novel.

You can follow Matt on twitter – @by_Matt_Killeen

Blog Tour

You can follow or catch up on the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops

#OrphanMonsterSpy

A huge thank you to Fritha at Usborne for sending me this fab book and for asking me to be part of the Blog Tour and to Matt for such a fab post!

Have you read Orphan Monster Spy?  What did you think?  What was your favourite part?  If you have not read it yet have we tempted you to go and grab a copy?   I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this post or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy!

Happy Reading!

Spotlight – The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

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Today is my stop on the brilliant The Belles blog tour!

I started this book earlier this week and 100 pages in I can tell it is already going to be one of my fave books of 2018!  A brilliant YA Fantasy which will captivate you with it’s beauty from the off set.

The Belles was published on the 8th Feb 2018 published by the wonderful Gollancz and beauty, obsession and magic are at it’s heart.

So for my stop on the tour I am going to shine the spotlight on this brilliant book and it’s fab author….

Welcome to the dark decadence of Dhonielle Clayton’s sharp tale of beauty, obsession and magic. . .

I AM A BELLE. I CONTROL BEAUTY.

In the opulent world of Orléans, the people are born grey and damned, and only a Belle’s powers can make them beautiful.

Camellia Beauregard wants to be the favourite Belle – the one chosen by the queen to tend to the royal family.

But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favourite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that her powers may be far greater – and far darker – than she ever imagined.

When the queen asks Camellia to break the rules she lives by to save the ailing princess, she faces an impossible decision: protect herself and the way of the Belles, or risk her own life, and change the world forever.

You can buy a copy of The Belles here or from your local bookshop!

Praise for The Belles

‘Looking for the next big groundbreaking event in YA? This is it.’ Rick Riordan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson series

‘Sumptuous and original worldbuilding, heart-pounding plot and gorgeous prose.’ Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Season

‘A whip-smart writer with grand, grand talents.’ Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist

‘Breathtakingly beautiful and deeply unsettling.’ Marie Lu, #1 New York Times bestselling author

About Dhonielle Clayton

Dhonielle Clayton (“Dhon” like “Don” or “Dawn”) spent most of her childhood under her grandmother’s dining room table with a stack of books.

She hails from the Washington, D.C. suburbs on the Maryland side, but now lives in New York City. She was an extremely fussy and particular child with an undying love for Cheerios (honey nut only), pink lemonade, and frosted animal cookies. A self-proclaimed school nerd, she loved covering her books with brown paper and filled her locker with Lisa Frank stickers. She loved putting headings on her homework, odd-looking pens and freshly sharpened pencils, and numerous notebooks to fill with her research. On most Saturdays you could find her with her equally nerdy Dad at Crown Books and then the comic bookstore where she stocked up on her weekly reading material. Plus, she was so spoiled that her grandfather took her to the library after school almost daily.

She attended Our Lady of Good Counsel High School because her parents thought Catholic school would keep her out of trouble. She went to Wake Forest University, and studied pre-med until she received a fateful F in Chemistry. This setback prompted her to change her major to English, and earned a BA. She rediscovered her love of children’s fiction by re-reading Harriet the Spy, which pushed her to earn an MA in Children’s Literature from Hollins University and an MFA Writing for Children at the New School.

She taught secondary school for several years – at a pre-professional ballet academy and a private K-8 school. She spent most of her twenties in and out of America – living in London, Paris, a small Japanese town, Bermuda – and wandering the planet. She’s been on five out of seven continents, and has grand plans to reach all of them.

She is a former elementary and middle school librarian, and co-founder of CAKE Literary, a creative kitchen whipping up decadent – and decidedly diverse – literary confections for middle grade, young adult, and women’s fiction readers. She is also COO of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books.

What’s next? She will be enrolling in culinary school in New York City and plans to open up a restaurant in the city of her soul, Edinburgh, Scotland

You can find out more about Dhonielle Clayton on her website – www.dhonielleclayton.com

Or why not follow Dhonielle on twitter – @brownbookworm

Blog Tour

You can follow or catch up on the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops!

A huge thank you to Stevie at Gollancz for sending me this fab book and for asking me to be part of the Blog Tour!

Have you read The Belles?  What did you think?  What was your favourite part?  If you have not read it yet have we tempted you to go and grab a copy?   I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this post or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy!

Happy Reading!

Spotlight – The Fandom by Anna Day

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Today is my stop on the brilliant #JoinTheFandom blog tour and as it’s the last tour stop I have a fab giveaway!

As well as a giveaway I thought I would spotlight this awesome book that is all the talk on twitter at the moment and is also our debut of the month for the #BritishBooksChallenge18!

So sit back relax and enter the world of The Fandom….

‘THE FANDOM is an absolute thrill to read … Highly recommended!’ JAMES DASHNER, AUTHOR OF THE MAZE RUNNER

Violet and her friends love being part of the fandom for The Gallows Dance. But at Comic-Con, they’re somehow catapulted into the story itself – for real. Trapped in a twisted world where they’ve accidentally killed the original hero, Rose, there’s only one way to survive: Violet must fill Rose’s shoes and put the plot back on track. No story is worth dying for … is it?

You can buy a copy of The Fandom here or from your local bookshop!

About Anna Day

I’m an Author/single mum/Clinical psychologist/Geordie/ lover of stories, music and floaty things.

You can find out more about Anna on her website – www.annadaybooks.com

Or follow Anna on Twitter – @annadayauthor

Giveaway

The lovely people at Chicken House have given me a copy of The Fandom to giveaway to one lucky winner!

You can enter this giveaway by my twitter here

UK Only

Ends 29th January 2018

Good Luck!

Blog Tour

You can catch up on the rest of this fab blog tour at the below stops!

A huge thank you to Jazz at Chicken House for asking me to be part of the #JoinTheFandom blog tour and for the fab giveaway.  And also a huge thank you to Anna for being our #BritishBooksChallenge18 debut of the month!

Have you read The Fandom?  What did you think?  What was your favourite part?  If you have not read it yet have we tempted you to go and grab a copy?   I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of this post or tweet me on twitter using @chelleytoy!

Happy Reading!

Tales Review – Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone

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‘Once an adventure digs its claws in, there is not an awful lot you can do about it. Especially when magic is involved . . .’
  
In the snowy kingdom of Erkenwald, whales glide between icebergs, wolves hunt on the tundra and polar bears roam the glaciers. But the people of this land aren’t so easy to find – because Erkenwald is ruled by an evil Ice Queen and the tribes must stay hidden or risk becoming her prisoners at Winterfang Palace.

Join Eska, a girl who breaks free from a cursed music box, and Flint, a boy whose inventions could change the fate of Erkenwald forever, as they journey to the Never Cliffs and beyond in search of an ancient, almost forgotten, song with the power to force the Ice Queen back.
 
This is a story about an eagle huntress, an inventor and an organ made of icicles. But it is also a story about belonging, even at the very edges of our world . . .

Publisher – Simon & Schuster Children’s UK

Date Published – 4th January 2018

Pages – 288 pages

Format – Paperback

Category – Children’s, MG, UKMG

Source –

I was sent a proof copy of this book by the wonderful the publishers in exchange for an honest review.  This does not affect my review or my opinions in any way.  Thank you Simon & Shuster Children’s for sending me this book to read and review.  I also bought a finished copy myself from my local bookshop.

** Please note Tales Of Yesterday Reviews are written as spoiler free as possible**

Back in 2015 a proof landed on my doorstep of a new book by a debut writer.  That book was The Dreamsnatcher and the debut author was Abi Elphinstone.  Three years later and I squealed with excitement when a proof copy of Sky Song, Abi’s fourth book and a stand alone story, landed on my doorstep and I just knew that a magical adventure was awaiting between the pages ready to sweep me off my feet.

And swept off my feet I was….completely.

Sky Song tells the story of Eska who has been captured inside Winterfang Palace by the evil Ice Queen who rules all of Erkenwald.  Stuck frozen inside a cursed music box Eska has no memories of where she has come from, who she is or why the evil Ice Queen wants to steal her voice from her.  All tribes in Erkenwald  must stay hidden or risk becoming prisoners themselves , but one boy, an inventor called Flint who still believes in magic, breaks into the castle on a mission to save his parents who have been captured by the evil Ice Queen.  He decides to break the curse that is holding Eska in her music box and when this causes his plan to save his parents to go wrong Flint and Eska escape together and so begins their journey to find an ancient song with the power to restore Erkenwald back to its former glory without the Ice Queen at it’s helm.

Straight away from the fairy-tale prologue you instantly know that Sky Song is going to be something very very special indeed.  Abi Elphinstone instantly builds the foundations of Erkenwald around the reader drawing them into the depths of its icy, snowy world where anything is possible and it is truly wonderful.

With it’s wintery snowy setting with vast epic landscapes and snow capped mountains Sky Song is as breath taking in the imagery it creates as the story it tells.  An adventure of bravery, friendship, kindness and belonging, through frozen waterfalls with secret hideaways, labyrinths with rope ladders,  snow monsters, Erkenbears, an eagle and most of all magic.

The story is told from both Eska and Flint’s voice with varying chapters with the story sometimes giving us a glimpse from the evil Ice Queens point of view too.  I enjoyed all of these and it made the story flow really nicely with a good pace that makes the reader eager to keep flicking the pages to find out what will happen next. 

The Ice Queen has such a terrifying, powerful and frosty presence on every page she appears on.  From her black staff, her evil magic captivating people under her spell, to her icicle organ that plays the voices of her prisoners to the whole land.  She is a magnificent character that is not easily forgotten.

The same goes for Flint’s sister, Blu, too.  I loved her character so much and I loved how devoted she is to her brother and never doubts him for one second.  Even when she is in the most gravest of danger she believes in her brother and Eska and becomes a brave adventurer herself.

Eska, Flint and Blu never give up hope.

One of my favourite parts of the book has to be when Eska, Flint and Blu find The Grey Man….who’s character I absolutely loved.  I don’t want to give too much away but he made me smile lots.

This book would make the most breath-taking film or TV movie….someone sign it up now please!

Abi Elphinstone is hands down one of my favourite authors.  And Sky Song is a classic in the making.  Her writing and storytelling is just as stunning and as precious as a diamond which will dazzle you with it’s pure beauty.

I recommend this book to both adventurers young and old and want to be swirled into a gorgeous snow storm of a book with unforgettable characters and a story that will make you feel like you have found your tribe and where you belong.

“Once an adventure digs it’s claws in, there is not an awful lot you can so about it.  Especially when magic is involved….”

I award this book 5 out of 5 Tales Of Yesterday Books

You can by a copy of Sky Song here or from your local bookshop

About Abi Elphinstone

Abi Elphinstone grew up in Scotland where she spent most of her childhood building dens, hiding in tree houses and running wild across highland glens. After being coaxed out of her tree house, she studied English at Bristol University and then worked as a teacher in Africa, Berkshire and London. She is the author of THE DREAMSNATCHER, THE SHADOW KEEPER and THE NIGHT SPINNER, a series of fast-paced adventure books for 8-12 year olds which follow Moll, Sid, Alfie and wildcat Gryff’s quest to find the Amulets of Truth and destroy the Shadowmasks’ dark magic. When she’s not writing, Abi volunteers for Beanstalk charity, speaks in schools and travels the world looking for her next story. Her latest adventure involved living with the Kazakh Eagle Hunters in Mongolia…

You can find more about Abi at www.abielphinstone.com or follow her on social media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/abi.elphinstone; Twitter: @moontrug; Instagram: @moontrugger.

Previously On Tales…

Click on the below links for previous post with Abi Elphinstone her on Tales Of Yesterday!

Tales Review – The Dreamsnatcher by Abi Elphinstone

Corey’s Corner Review – The Dreamsnatcher by Abi Elphinstone

Guest Post – The Research Behind The Dreamsnatcher by Abi Elphinstone

Guest Post – Top 10 Shadow Keeper Songs by Abi Elphinstone

Guest Post – The Adventures Behind The Night Spinner by Abi Elphinstone

Spotlight – British Books Challenge Author Of The Month – Abi Elphinstone

Have you read Sky song?  What did you think?  Have you read any of Abi’s other books?  I would love to hear from you!  Please feel free to leave a comment by clicking on the reply button at the top of the page or why not tweet me on twitter – @chelleytoy .  I would love to hear from you!

Happy Reading!

Spotlight – Otherworld by Jason Segel & Kirsten Miller

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Today I am super excited to be part of the #Otherworld blog tour where I am sharing a thrilling extract and exciting giveaway!

Otherworld was released on the 31st October published by Rock The Boat and is set to me one addictive thrilling read!

So sit back and relax and enter the Otherworld……

“Full of high stakes, thrillers, and fantastic twists and turns, fans of Ready Player One are sure to love this addictive read.” ―BUZZFEED

Welcome to real life 2.0. Are you ready to play?

There are no screens. There are no controls. You don’t just see and hear it – you taste, smell, and touch it too. In this new reality there are no rules to follow, no laws to break. You can live your best life.
    It’s a game so addictive you’ll never want it to end. Until you realize that you’re the one being played.
    Step into Otherworld. Leave your body behind.

The frightening future that Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller have imagined is not far away. Otherworld asks the question we’ll all soon be asking: if technology can deliver everything we want, how much are we willing to pay?

You can buy a copy of Otherworld here or from your local bookshop

Otherworld – Extract

“Hey, crazy!” someone shouts. I recognize the voice. It belongs to a girl from school. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” I call out. “I’m getting a tan.”
“Put some clothes on, you pervert!” shouts a second voice. “Nobody wants to see your hairy butt cheeks, Simon,” screams a third. I open my eyes a crack and see three girls from school hanging out of a car. One of them is already tapping away at her phone. Their friends will be arriving soon.

My butt cheeks aren’t quite as furry as they’ve been made out to be, and apparently lots of people would like to see them, because the traffic on my street goes nuts for the next thirty minutes.

I don’t pay any attention to the hoots and catcalls. Crossing ice fields and getting blown to smithereens for hours on end was exhausting. I got about five hours of sleep, but I’ll need more if I want to go back in tonight. I’m just drifting off when I hear a car pull into my drive. A few seconds later, someone’s thrown a jacket over me.

“Get up and get inside.” It’s my mother.

I open my eyes. She’s looming over my chaise, and she’s pissed as hell.

“The people across the street are threatening to phone the police,” she hisses.

“Hi, Mom,” I say with a yawn. “You look stunning this afternoon.”

She does. Her black hair is pulled into a fancy knot, and she’s wearing a silk dress in a very tasteful shade of pale blue. Her painted lips are pressed together beneath her perfect nose.

“Now, Simon. Or you’re going to jail.”

I sigh and sit up, tying her jacket around my waist. “Aren’t you overreacting? I’m sure the neighbors will forget all about this unfortunate incident if you let them keep their vulgar roses.”

“Those people are not who you should be worried about,” she says. “My accountant just called to ask if the six-thousand-dollar charge on my AmEx for video game equipment was a business expense. You stole my credit card, Simon. One more word from you and I’m dialing your probation officer.”

This is unexpected. The accountant must be new. The old one didn’t ask questions.

I’m fully clothed and sitting on the living room couch when my father gets home. He’s dressed in Easter egg colors and there’s a nine iron in his hand. Apparently I’ve interrupted a golf game. He walks straight through the room without even acknowledging me. A few minutes later, he’s back, and he’s got my new headset, gloves and booties. He drops them all in a pile on the floor.

I wince when I hear a crack. “Come on, Dad,” I groan. “Do you know how hard it was to get all that stuff? Only a couple thousand of those headsets have even been made. That one’s going to be worth a fortune someday.”

“This heap of crap cost six thousand, three hundred and fifty- six dollars?” he asks.

Not exactly—I bought two sets of gear. I only kept one for myself. “It’s not crap,” I say. “It’s the newest virtual reality technology. I was on a wait list for that headset—”

“So it’s a video game,” my father says. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t think he was that angry. But I’ve spent eighteen years with Grant Eaton, and I know all the warning signs. He’s about to blow sky-high.

“It’s revolutionary—”

“It’s over.” He lifts his nine iron over his head and brings it down hard on the equipment. He repeats the same motion at least three dozen times, until his face is bright red and he’s out of breath.

I’m finding it pretty hard to breathe too. My last chance to spend time with Kat is just a pile of plastic shards.

You can buy a copy of Otherworld here or from your local bookshop

About Jason Segel

Jason Segel is an actor, a writer, and an author. Segel wrote and starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and co-wrote Disney’s The Muppets, which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. On television, Segel starred on How I Met Your Mother and Freaks and Geeks. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling series Nightmares!  Otherworld is his first novel for young adults.

About Kirsten Miller

Kirsten Miller is the author of the acclaimed Kiki Strike books, the New York Times bestseller The Eternal Ones, and How to Lead a Life of Crime. Otherworld is the fifth novel Kirsten has written with Jason Segel.  kirstenmillerbooks.com

Giveaway

With thanks to the lovely people at Rock The Boat I have 1 x copy of Otherworld to giveaway to 1 lucky winner!

You can enter via my twitter here

UK Only

Ends 17/11/2017

Good Luck!

Blog Tour

You can catch up or follow the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops!

A huge thank you to Rock The Boat and Nina Douglas for having me on this fab blog tour!

Have you read Otherworld?  Did you enjoy?  What did you love about it?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of the post or tweet me on twitter using @ChelleyToy !

Happy Reading!

Guest Post – Riddles by Lari Don

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I am super excited to have the wonderful Lari Don on Tales today to celebrate the release of the final thrilling instalment of thie spellbinding Spellchasers trilogy!

The first two Spellchasers books left thousands of captivated readers waiting to discover what happens to heroine Molly and friends. Now, their fate is revealed in Spellchasers: The Witches Guide To Magical Combat which was released on the 17th August 2017 published by Floris Books!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And today I have the lady herself, Lari Don, with a faboulous guest post about riddles…..

Molly’s shape-shifting curse is getting stronger and more unpredictable. As they search for a stone that can curb the Promise Keeper’s powers, the team faces a blizzard of powerful threats. Can they bring balance to the magical world, defeat the creatures that pursue them and finally break Molly’s curse? Or will darkness triumph over friendship? Taking her inspiration from traditional folklore and legends, Lari Don has imagined the Speyside landscape of her childhood as a world of magic and adventure – complete with shapeshifters, witches and a variety of mythical creatures.

Riddles

I’ve always loved riddles.

I love words, but I also love maths. (I was the person who bounced out of maths exams saying ‘That was fun!’, thereby earning the eternal hatred of everyone in earshot…)

I love riddles because they use words, but they also have the logic and precision of mathematics. A riddle is like a maths problem dressed in a poem, leading beautifully and inexorably towards one and only one correct solution.

But if you don’t like maths or poetry, that’s fine. Because riddles also involve monsters and death!

In many of my favourite traditional tales, being able to answer a riddle (or sometimes ask a riddle) is the only way to save yourself from being eaten by a sphinx, or decapitated by an angry royal.

So, riddles can be fun to play with, but might also be a life-saving skill if you’re planning to star in any fairy tales or go on any quests…

I use riddles in almost all of my adventure books. The riddles in my first series, the Fabled Beast Chronicles, were asked by a variety of magical beings, including a ancient book, an Irish warrior, a mountainous dragon, and a committee of mermaids and selkies.

But in my most recent series, the Spellchasers trilogy, I wanted to get more personal with my riddles, not just have them as obstacles. So I included a sphinx in my team of young magical beings on a curse-lifting workshop, and I decided to curse him to lose his riddle. That gave me the chance to put riddles in the story, but also gave the riddling an extra emotional punch.

I create new riddles for the novels, partly because I enjoy making up riddles and partly because I weave the questions and the solutions into the fabric of the plot.

The answers to most of the riddles are connected, either directly or indirectly, to the wider narrative. But I also write the riddles with the character dynamics in mind, how they will discuss and debate and argue about the answer. Writing a riddle for a novel isn’t just about the problem and the solution, it’s also about the journey between the two.

I write all my riddles with my younger daughter. She is an incredible riddle master, with a very precise and sneaky mind. We start with the logic of the puzzle (it involves lots of lists and scribbling) then we craft the clues into a structure of a riddle – it doesn’t have to rhyme, but it’s nice if it has a bit of rhythm – and then we test the draft riddle on my older daughter, to see if she finds it too easy (cut out a clue), too hard (add another clue) or comes up with another answer entirely (in which case, we need to put in a line which makes that answer impossible… )

I also love to run riddle-writing workshops for young writers. (Though at the last workshop, the kids wanted to write a riddle about a spider, which was a difficult half hour for this arachnophobe…)  One of the greatest pleasures of sharing riddles with kids is that they are usually much better at solving them than adults!

So, now that I’ve written to the end of my sphinx’s adventure, the next problem to solve is: how can I weave riddles into my next adventure?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Spellchasers trilogy is available and out now

You can grab your copies here or from your local bookshop

About Lari Don

Lari Don is a full-time children’s writer and storyteller. She grew up in the North East of Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh. She writes in her garden shed, helped by purring cats and hindered by lurking spiders. Lari has written more than 20 books, including adventure novels, picture books and retellings of traditional tales.

You can find out more about Lari on her website – www.laridon.co.uk

Or why not follow Lari on her twitter – @LariDonWriter

Blog Tour

You can catch up or follow the rest of this fab blog tour at the following stops!

A huge thank you to Lari for a fab guest post and to Sarah at Floris Books for asking me to host.

Have you read any of the Spellchasers Trilogy?  Did you enjoy?  What did you love about it?  Do you love riddles?  I would love to hear from you!  Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of the post or tweet me on twitter using @ChelleyToy !

Happy Reading!

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