Participating in blog tours has become one of my favourite things to do this summer. This time around I joined the book tour for Jay Kristoff’s newest novel “Nevernight” hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. I’ve only reached midway through this novel and, so far, it’s unlike any YA thriller fantasy book I’ve ever read. The writing is exceptional and the plot is seemingly well-developed. I’m curious about what situation the protagonist will find herself in by the end of the book. Interested in knowing more about this novel? Check out the excerpt below and, if you’re really digging the writing, enter the giveaway to win a FREE copy!
Synopsis of the book:
The first in a new fantasy series from the New York Times bestselling author.
In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.
Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.
Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.
Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?
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Purchase a copy here: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Goodreads
An excerpt from “Nevernight” by Jay Kristoff:
“ Didn’t die, I see.”
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Old Mercurio watched her from the other side of the arch, tricorn pulled low, cigarillo at his lips. He seemed smaller somehow. Th inner. Older.
“Not for lack of trying,” the girl replied.
She looked at him then— stained hands and fading eyes. Old beyond his years. And though evidence to the contrary was crusting on her skin, for a moment, she found it hard to think of herself as anything more than a girl. Something weak and shivering, something six years in his tutelage had never managed to temper.
“I won’t see you for a long time, will I?” she asked. “I might never see you again.”
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“You knew this,” he said. “You chose this.”
“I’m not sure there was ever a choice,” she said.
She opened her fist, a sheepskin purse in her palm. The old man took the offering, counting the contents with one ink- stained finger. Clinking. Bloodstained.
Twenty- seven teeth.
“Seems the hangman lost a few before I got to him,” she explained.
“They’ll understand.” Mercurio tossed the teeth back to the girl. “Be at the seventeenth pier by six bells. A Dweymeri brigantine called Trelene’s Beau. She’s a freeship, not flying under Itreyan colors. She’ll bear you hence.”
“Nowhere you can follow.”
“I’ve trained you well. This is for you alone. Cross the Red Church threshold before the first turn of Septimus, or you’ll never cross it at all.”
“. . . I understand.”
Affection gleamed in rheumy eyes. “You’re the greatest pupil I’ve ever sent into the Mother’s service. You’ll spread your wings in that place and fly. And you will see me again.”
She drew the stiletto from her belt. Proffered it on her forearm, head bowed.
The blade was crafted of gravebone, gleaming white and hard as steel, its hilt carved like a crow in flight. Red amber eyes gleamed in the scarlet sunslight.
“Keep it.” The old man sniff ed. “It’s yours again. You earned it. At last.”
She looked the knife over, this way and that.
“Should I give it a name?”
“You could, I suppose. But what’s the point?”
“It’s this bit.” She touched the blade’s tip. “The part you stick them with.”
“O, bravo. Mind you don’t cut yourself on a wit that sharp.”
“All great blades have names. It’s just how it’s done.”
“Bollocks.” Mercurio took back the dagger, held it up between them. “Naming your blade is the sort of faff reserved for heroes, girl. Men who have songs sung about them, histories spun for them, brats named after them. It’s the shadow road for you and me. And you dance it right, no one will ever know your name, let alone the pig- sticker in your belt.
“You’ll be a rumor. A whisper. The thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. The last thing you will ever be in this world, girl, is someone’s hero.”
Mercurio handed back the blade.
“But you will be a girl heroes fear.”
She smiled. Suddenly and terribly sad. She hovered a moment. Leaned in close. Gifted sandpaper cheeks with a gentle kiss.
“I’ll miss you,” she said.
And into the shadows, she walked.
Enter the “Nevernight” Giveaway to receive a FREE copy!
5 winners will receive a finished copy of NEVERNIGHT, U.S. Only.
Learn more about the author:
Jay Kristoff is a New York Times and international bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy. He grew up in the second most isolated capital city on earth and fled at his earliest convenience, although he’s been known to trek back for weddings of the particularly nice and funerals of the particularly wealthy. He spent most of his formative years locked in his bedroom with piles of books, or gathered around dimly lit tables rolling polyhedral dice. Being the holder of an Arts degree, he has no education to speak of.
His LOTUS WAR trilogy was critically acclaimed in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, nominated for the David Gemmell Morningstar and Legend awards and won the 2014 Aurealis Award. Jay’s new series, the SciFi thriller THE ILLUMINAE FILES, was co-authored with Amie Kaufman. Book 1, ILLUMINAE, became a New York Times and international bestseller, was named among the Kirkus, Amazon and YALSA Best Books of 2015 and won the 2016 Aurealis Award and an ABIA Book of the Year award. ILLUMINAE is currently slated to be published in twenty-five countries, and film rights have been acquired by Brad Pitt and Plan B Entertainment.
Jay’s new fantasy series, THE NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE, commences with book 1, NEVERNIGHT, from St Martins Press/Thomas Dunne Books and Harper Voyager in 2016. A new YA series, LIFEL1K3 has also been acquired by Knopf/Random House Kids, and commences its publication in 2018. Jay is as surprised about all this as you are. He is represented by Josh Adams at Adams Literary.
Jay is 6’7 and has about 13,030 days to live. He abides in Melbourne with his secret agent kung-fu assassin wife, and the world’s laziest Jack Russell.
He does not believe in happy endings.
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Book Tour Schedule:
8/8/2016- MEREADALOT– Review
8/9/2016- Ticket to Anywhere– Interview
8/10/2016- The Young Folks– Excerpt
8/11/2016- Two Chicks on Books– Interview
8/12/2016- Mundie Moms– Review
View the full “Nevernight” schedule here.
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