News & Media

A big thank you to Charlotte Magazine and Adam Morgan for listing Chrysalis as one of the best books by a Charlotte author in 2019. It’s an honor to be listed with so many other amazing books. If you haven’t checked out the list, click here! There are some amazing titles to add to your 2020 reading list. …

The Beast releases this week. Nico, Opal, Tyler, Emma, and Logan are now Torchbearers! What will happen to them? Did they truly defeat their fears? I cannot wait for you all to find out. The Beast releases September 24th! You can check out the article here.…

Thank you, Publishers Weekly, for the YALLWEST 2019 Photo Recap! If you didn’t get to go, or want to reminiscence on the fun you had, then this is for you. Click here to see all the YALLFun.…

The Iron Throne is no more. The show that changed television forever—and then fell on its face a bit at the end—has concluded with an episode that left most fans unhappy. I took an extra day on this writeup because I wanted the disappointed, annoyed, and/or openly hostile takes to have had their moment, so that I could try something shocking, dangerous, and maybe even appalling to you: to argue that the final episode, “The Iron Throne,” was actually pretty … good? *ducks*   Okay, hear me out. I’m going to try to convince you that some of the most controversial decisions made in the series finale do make sense, if you, like, want them too and squint hard enough. Here we go.   Bran the Broken was not only the best choice as High King of the Six Kingdoms, but was the ONLY candidate capable of gaining a peaceful consensus. This will get many people angry. Many people think Tree-Man Bran is perhaps the worst character on the…

Carnage.   Wow.   “The Bells” did, in fact, toll during the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones. But then Daenerys decided to, um, kill everyone.   After she’d won.   After King’s Landing had been taken efficiently and neatly, with minimal loss of life and during a full surrender by its people.   And she didn’t go after the head of the snake, either. Perched atop a flying, flaming, gleefully destructive Drogon, she gazed over at the Red Keep—her family’s ancestral seat of power dating back 300 years, currently in the clutches of her archrival Cersei Lannister—and made a hard pivot to burning women and children in the street. Cersei was not the target.   I admit to being surprised by this turn of events.   Game of Thrones has been seeding the idea of Targaryen madness percolating inside of Dany for a few seasons, so this twist wasn’t unexpected. Dany’s been slipping for a while. But…

A lot happened in “The Last of the Starks,” that’s for sure, and not all of it good. The show decided to reward many of its followers with some good old-fashioned fan service, but also revealed some of its persistent flaws. Since this week’s episode came right off the back of another crazy, zany, exhilarating #YALLWEST Book Festival, House Reichs is a bit worn out, so I’ll just hit the high (and low) notes.   “And we shall never see their like again.” Man, that was one bummer of a mass funeral. But Ghost was back! And looking, well, pretty jacked up. I don’t think I’ve ever been madder at Jon Snow than when he didn’t go over and give Ghost a proper doggie tummy rub before sending him north with Tormund to live with the Free Folk (in order to lower the show’s CGI budget). Have these Winterfell kids learned nothing from watching this show? NEVER SEND YOUR DIREWOLF AWAY. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR DIREWOLF’S INSTINCTS. I have a bad feeling…

Well it certainly was a “Long Night.” Man. Wow. So much to unpack. I don’t have the space, stamina, or processing power to cover everything incredible that happened in last night’s LONGEST RUNNING BATTLE SCENE IN TV OR MOVIE HISTORY, so I’ll stick to the highlights and low light—literally, it was dark (again, literally)—of one of the greatest events ever to appear on television: the battle of Winterfell.   Arya got the Night King. This was … amazing. Arya, who battled all episode like a cross between Ronin and John Wick, got the word from Red Lady Melisandre that it was all up to her, and girl, did she deliver. Pouncing out of the night like a jungle panther—to protect Bran, who inexplicably decided to play with birds all episode rather than, you know, HELP OUT—the Night King reacted just in time to catch her flying assault. But you got sloppy, ice zombie. Some deft knife-hand switching, and that was that for the reign…

WHO’S READY FOR A HOPELESS BATTLE AGAINST AN INVINCIBLE ARMY OF THE DEAD? Everyone, apparently. Welcome to Winterfell, home of some truly downcast prognosticators. This episode—which is destined to be followed by one of the longest, costliest, and most soul-crushing battle sequences in entertainment history next week—felt like one long farewell scene with a dozen different actors. At this point, I don’t know who is going to die, so I’ll just be safe and say everyone. Literally everyone will die next week. But first, on to the highlights of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”, which, to anyone who watched it, is enough to make you start ugly crying right now.   Seeing the push again in the recap. Oy. Jaime Lannister. You really did shove Bran out that window. I would have been way less cool about things, but Bran seems to believe he’s the most important player in the coming battle between the living and the dead (???),…

THRONES THRONES THRONES THRONES THRONES THRONES THRONES THRONES.   Game of Thrones is back, the first episode was awesome, this last season looks like it’s going to be incredible, where do I even begin?   Let’s start at the start: a new opening credits sequences whaaaaaaaaat?!?!?! I was already way too excited to watch the show again, and this did nothing to calm me down. The astrolabe sequence now goes inside the castles, and we saw Last Hearth—things don’t go well there, alas—Winterfell and its crypts, and a cool dragon skull lurking under King’s Landing. So many clues about the episodes to come, I think. (I detected a serious emphasis on the weirwood tree in the Winterfell godswood. Just saying. Maybe Emo Bran will make it work somehow.) Also, there’s a GIANT HOLE IN THE WALL THAT THE CAMERA FLIES THROUGH. Goodness. Mercy.   So much good stuff happened in ‘Winterfell’ that I’m just going to hit the highlights…

ITS THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!!! TEAM RED FOR THE WIN!! Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! On this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 120 hours! Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are SIX contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the RED TEAM–but there is also a blue team, a gold team, a green team, and a purple team for a chance to win a whole different set of books!…