Hot Key Books- Bloggers Event!

Wahey! My first ever meeting at a Publishers!

Thanks to my Dad and Hot Key Books, I was invited to their offices based in London to discuss their fantastic soon-to-be-released books, chat, and to have a nice lunch.

We arrived there on time, and were given a tour by staff around their office. It’s pretty cosy, with modern looking offices and computers with books everywhere! Stacked on shelves, on desks, everywhere were the eight brand new releases of Hot Key Books, as well as the Non Fiction area owned by a partner company.

I especially loved the in-office design studio, occupied by the illustrators and graphic designers who are amazingly talented; and put together all of the front covers! The studio was really cool- with giant book covers on canvases everywhere. It looks really professional, just like the rest of the office!

Over a little bit of lunch, everybody got to meet everybody else! I got talking to an awesome (Hunger Games Fan!!) girl the same age as me, and we sat together in the board room.

In the board room we were shown a really cool presentation about their first releases. They all sound really great, and all by brilliant, known and new authors!

Each of the three attending authors, (Sarah Mussi, who wrote angel dust, Sally Gardner and her book Maggot Moon, and Lydia Syson, who wrote A World Between Us,) each gave a little interesting talk as to why they wrote their book and what it is about when their book came up on the slideshow. As we were going through titles to be released in 2013 whom I am not allowed to tell a soul about a skype call popped up!

The caller was S.J Kincaid, an author for Hot Key Books who for obvious reasons couldn’t make it to the event because she lives in Chicago! But, all of us bloggers were lucky enough to receive a skype chat from the author of Insignia, a book which you can read my review of HERE, and one exciting thing was that this brilliant book has very recently been given movie rights by Fox! (So… watch out in the coming years, it’s sure to be a blockbuster soon!)

We asked loads of questions just like with the other authors, but this time the authors with us in person were asking questions too. S.J exchanged writing tips with us, told us the latest news on her sequel to Insignia, told and showed us what she writes on, and said thank you to me!

Yes, I was extremely excited today, because not only was this my first ever publishers event, but when I got there I found out that a snippet of my review was picked to be printed in the inside cover of Insignia! How cool is that? My first Event, and first Book review to be put in a book… (And a pretty awesome lunch) and all in one day!

After saying goodbye to S.J, we all went out to have a bit more to eat and got our goodie bags, full of lots of books to read! Instantly, I got the three books of the authors that were there and got them all signed, having a friendly chat with each author. Now I have Angel Dust, Maggot Moon, and A World Between Us, all signed! The authors were lovely to chat with, and here is a picture of me with the highly successful Sally Gardner!

(Left: I met Sally Gardner, Award Winning, Bestselling author!)

One thing though, we were told tales of another author (Gareth P.Jones) who wrote one book called Constable & Toop, but sadly he was at a music festival! I hope to see him soon at one event or another, because he writes songs and plays them on his guitar relating to every story he writes!

Overall, I had great fun at my first ever event, so many thanks to my Dad for taking me, the awesome Hot Key Books Staff for inviting me, The amazing authors who I got to meet, and all of the bloggers and reviewers I got to say hello to as well!

Here’s a quick list of the books published this year by Hot Key Books:

• A World Between Us (By Lydia Syson)
• Angel Dust (By Sarah Mussi)
• Constable & Toop (By Gareth P. Jones)
• Insignia (By S.J. Kincaid)
• Jepp, Who Defied the Stars (By Katherine Marsh)
• Maggot Moon  (By Sally Gardner)
• Shrunk! (By F.R. Hitchcock)
• The Cloud Hunters (Alex Shearer)
• Under My Hat (A collection of spooky stories by various authors including Neil Gaiman, Holly Black and Garth Nix. Edited by Jonathan Strahan)

Also, why not visit Hot Key Books at their website here?

The kindle version of “My Monster Burrufu” for FREE for five days (July 2nd through July 6th Mon to Fri).

The book has gathered amazing reviews all over the world and has a 4.9 out of 5 in Amazon.

It’s number 2 in Top Rated Best Children’s Books for Ages 9 to 12.

You can check out the Books and Writers JNR review right here.

And here are all the other links you’ll need – enjoy 🙂

· Amazon page
· Facebook Fan page
· Official website

By Martyn Bedford

published by Walker books

A gripping psychological thriller from a new name in YA novels.

Ever wake up in someone else’s body?

Alex has. One day he was coming home from a mates house and the next, he has woken up in an entirely different teenagers’ body in an entirely different place!

Alex is now popular kid Philip, or Flip as he is known, and read this book to find out just what happened to him! It was December when he was coming home from a friends’ house, and now it is summer and Alex can’t remember what has happened in-between. After trying to contact his friends and family, he finds out that his deserted old body is in a life threatening Coma. So how come Alex switched souls with another being of which he has nothing to do with? Embark on a journey alongside this strong-willed teen to solve this mystery! With the help of old and new friends, Alex is able to uncover the truth…

An awesome book, i think! It’s comical, and full of jokes which lighten up the otherwise sad and heart-rendering story. It’s thrilling, a new kind of book and i have never read anything like it before…

It is really well written, and I have no idea how the author could be so imaginative.

Anybody need a break from dystopian fiction and vampire books? This is a brilliant alternative from those genres!

By Veronica Roth, Published by Harper Collins Children’s Books (01.05.12)

After closing the INSURGENT blog tour, I am now closing the reviews week for #TeamDauntlessUK… Enjoy!

Fighting for survival in a shattered world…

The truth is her only hope.

The follow up to the bestselling Divergent, this sequel is bigger and better!

In Divergent, Beatrice becomes sixteen. Once a child is sixteen in her world, they must decide which of the five factions they must live in. Will they stay with their family and friends? Or will they move to another faction, in hope of a happier life?

When Beatrice changes from Abnegation to Dauntless, many events unfold. She fights for her life, and falls in love.

In INSURGENT, all of Dauntless and Abnegation factions have been scattered across the land following a brutal attack in the first book. Tris, with the help of Four, struggles to get over the loss of her beloved parents, and together, they find more friends and embark on a deadly mission to find out the truth of their world. Will they succeed? The evil Jeanine has a master plan to control all five factions, and she isn’t afraid to kill Tris, who stands in her way…

This book is brilliant! Right from the first page it was action packed, exciting and adrenaline filled. It may be pretty long at over 500 pages, but that didn’t stop me from ploughing through it as fast as I could. Every night I would be up thinking, what will happen next? What will happen to Tris? Will the factions be destroyed, or will everything be patched back together?  It has loads of twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat… this is the perfect teen’s book! It’s dark, dystopian, funny, and fast paced, i loved it!

As INSURGENT is due from Veronica Roth within hours now, I was over the moon to be invited into the #teamdauntlessUK Faction and to be the one to close the blog tour.

Here are the other previous stops on the tour in case you still have to backtrack and stop by their awesomeness:

25th April: Mary @ The Sweet Bookshelf    Casey @ Dark Readers

26th April: Raimy @ Read a Raptor    Laura @ Sister Spooky Book Fan Girl

27th April: Liz @ My Favourite Books

28th April: Jayde @ Ink Scratchers   Hannah @ Hannah Mariska

29th April: Andrew @ The Pewter Wolf

If you want to read my review of Divergent, then click here.

Dauntless: what does it take to be in this faction?

To be in Dauntless, you need to be brave.

When you are in this faction, every day you find yourself jumping from trains and zip-wiring from buildings!

When Tris decides to change to Dauntless, she really wasn’t aware of the adrenaline rushes and the exhilarating rides you get when you are a Dauntless member and you’re travelling.   Also, you need to be prepared, for anything.

Dauntless is the most violent, and free, Faction of all… anything can happen! Take Dauntless HQ for example, an underground cave with no barriers, nothing stopping you from falling to your doom. Plus, you need to make an impression… Everybody dresses the same in Amity, Abnegation, Candor and Erudite, the same kinds of clothes, same colours. So do Dauntless, but what makes them different are the accessories. Piercings, tattoos, and jewellery are must haves!

And finally, you need to be Fearless, there is an adventure round every corner when you are a Dauntless faction member!!!

And here’s some fan art to close off the blog week – Firstly, a silhouette of a DAUNTLESS person, by the barrier in the pit, watching the waves crash against the sharp rocks below. I thought this would be a great picture because it was one of the scenes in DIVERGENT that I really loved; and I could imagine this place really clearly.

Next: One of the most important parts of DIVERGENT: the part I which Beatrice thrusts her hands over the DAUNTLESS bowl instead of the ABNEGATION bowl, the smouldering coal representing her new faction mixing with her own blood…with a quote from the book of her feelings about choosing DAUNTLESS!

And finally, no article is complete without an idea for some Dauntless fashion! Here is my interpretation of a regular girls piece of Dauntless clothing…

Georgia