Unseelie King (The Kings Series #6) releases today!

About the book:

For thousands of years, two realms of unspeakable magic and mystery have existed in peace side by side. One is a land of light, of kindness, of dreams, and of color. The other is rendered in the gray lines of wickedness and seeped in the unbearable beauty of all that is forbidden. The first is ruled by the Seelie King. The other is ruled by Caliban… The Unholy.

Minerva Trystaine has always been the quiet twin, bullied by reality’s fierceness into a life of solitary sensitivity. What she witnesses, she feels. Living in a world that breeds one misfortune after another, she has had no choice but to sequester herself from outgoing life and any hope it might have otherwise offered her. She hides in her music, her hopes and dreams silent but for the harmony she gives them upon rare occasion, allowing them to be heard in perfect pitch by the rest of the world.

But when Minerva’s sister, Selene, is forced into a fantastical  realm of supernatural magic and mystery and taken as queen of the seelie kingdom, the twins are reunited with a world they can scarcely remember – but could never forget. They are Wishers. Born of furious magic and fueled by the need for justice, Wishers are the most feared magic users in the fae realms. For this reason, they were all but annihilated thousands of years ago. Minerva and her sister are the last of a slaughtered breed.

Just as Selene accepts her place on the seelie throne, Minerva struggles to come to grips with her changed world. But as she faces off with her lost-and-found identity, and with the unbelievable power swimming through her veins, she realizes she must also contend with the fact that Wishers are no more safe in this day and age than they were millennia ago. Someone wants her dead.

And the one man she should probably fear most, the one fae lord more dangerous than any other, the notorious and cruel Leanan King – just happens to be the only man in all the realms who can protect her.

The Unseelie King is the sixth book in Heather Killough-Walden’s acclaimed paranormal romance series, The Kings. Within its pages, a dark lord finds long lost hope in a beautiful, powerful soul, a lost spirit finds faith in tempting and forbidden magic, and a fierce and willful love finds the unbelievable strength to do what must be done to survive against overwhelming odds.

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About author Heather Killough-Walden:
Heather Killough-Walden is a California native currently living in Texas with her husband and child. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the Big Bad Wolf series, The Kings series, The Chosen Soul series, The Lost Angels series, the Neverland series, and the October Trilogy. Heather’s educational background includes religious studies, archeology, and law. She has traveled and lived all over the world but hopes to one day live in a town with a world-class hockey team. (Let’s Go Pens!) Visit Heather’s website at www.killough-walden.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter.

You can find Heather at   Website/Blog   Facebook   Twitter   Goodreads

Presented By

Blade Singer review and giveaway!

About the book:
Manuel “Manny” Boreaux, a troubled adolescent from Texas, is magically transported into the body of a goblin pickpocket in an alternate world inhabited by faerie creatures. Manny must quickly adapt to the danger all around him and try to find a way to get back home, a feat complicated by the pickpocket’s association with a notorious gang of thieves. But when Manny uncovers a plot to assassinate a young king, he must enlist the aid of an elf cavalier and a cat burglar to thwart a Sidhe witch’s scheme to ignite a civil war between humans and the Fae.

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Review:
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After checking out the blurb of this book, I decided to read it because of all of the fantasy creatures in it. Mixing magical creatures can be a dangerous thing for authors. So much can go wrong in the process, but in Blade Singer so much went right! The mix of trolls, goblins, elves, humans, etc. really helped create the feel of another magical world.

The first thing that surprised me in the book is that the main character is not white or black, but rather he has a Hispanic background. I loved this. There is a lack of diversity in many books (or maybe I'm not seeking out the diversified books), and for the main character to be Hispanic, it was exciting. It really didn't impact the main story line, but the authors wove bits of it throughout the story.

I loved that Manny was able to reunite with his parents in Aquitania. After their deaths, he was having a difficult time coping. Even though they didn't know who he was, he was still able to interact and grow their relationship.

It was interesting to see how Manny changed over the course of the book. In the beginning, he was a thief in the real world as well as in Aquitania. But when he arrived in Aquitania and saw that being bad was changing him into a goblin, he changed his ways. He tried to do the right thing, even if it was harder to do than the wrong thing. Perfect lesson for the middle grade kids that the story is geared toward.

As kids are learning this lesson, the authors keep it interesting. Manny and Adriana face lots of danger. From sword fights and spies, to being captured and being chased by "bad guys", the action throughout the book keep readers interested and eager to turn the page.

The story is told through a single point of view, Manny's. Although it would have been interesting to get other character's take on what was going on and what was running through their minds, the single POV allows readers to show how Manny's mentality changes. This was definitely the most effective way to show that.

Readers looking for the next great fantasy adventure should pick up Blade Singer. This is a story that I'd recommend to kids, teens, and even adults!

About the authors:
Aaron de Orive
A graduate of the University of Texas’ film program, Aaron de Orive began his professional writing career in the video game industry, serving as a lead or senior writer on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. He is also the creator of the fantasy role-playing game SHARD: World of the False Dawn. Blade Singer is his first novel. Aaron lives in Austin with his wife, daughter, and two very spoiled terriers.

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Martha Wells
Martha Wells is the author of a number of fantasy novels, including The Cloud Roads, The Siren Depths, The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. Her YA fantasy, Emilie and the Hollow World, was published by Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry in April 2013, and the sequel, Emilie and the Sky World, was released in March 2014. Two collections of Books of the Raksura novellas will be published in September 2014 and Fall 2015. She has had short stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, and Lightspeed Magazine, and in the anthologies Elemental, The Year’s Best Fantasy #7, Tales of the Emerald Serpent and The Other Half of the Sky. She has essays in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape Forever, Mapping the World of Harry Potter, and Chicks Unravel Time. She has also written media-tie-in novels, Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary and Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement, and a Star Wars novel, Empire and Rebellion: Razor’s Edge.

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