Nightingale Book Tour

Nightingale by David Farland

Today I am re-posting my review of David Farland's suspenseful Nightingale as part of a book tour.  I highly recommend it.  Go get yourself a copy here.

Be sure and visit the other stops on the tour.

Nightingale by David Farland is the first book being published by the author's own forward-thinking publishing company. What do you think of the cover?  I don't know about you, but I'd pick it up just to get a closer look. :)

East India Press takes e-books in a whole new direction with enhanced multimedia--soundtracks, movie clips, author interviews and more. From the site: "East India embraces emerging technologies and new distribution methods, producing every novel in three forms:  as an enhanced multimedia experience, as a standard e-book, and as a limited edition hardcover."

Read my interview with David here.

Food to eat while reading: 

David Farland, Nightingale

Memory Merchant's Sour Cream Blueberry Pie

Memory Merchant's Sour Cream Blueberry Pie

Bron's life in Nightingale by David Farland is bittersweet. He doesn't dare enjoy the glimpses of happiness he has in his new life with Olivia in St. George. Instead, he holds on to the walls he has built for himself through years of foster care. Olivia breaks through some of those barriers as she uses her skills as a memory merchant to plant in Bron's mind her own memories of learning to play the guitar.

This recipe is unique because the author suggested it. I tweaked the original recipe (given to me by Farland's lovely wife Mary) to make the sour cream and blueberry fillings separate and swirling around each other like the competing factions in Bron's life.  While visiting family in St. George, Utah (the setting of the book) I was able to make the recipe and photograph the pie on the red rocks of the area.

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh

1 cup water

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon almond extract or lemon juice

unbaked pie crust (if you ask me nicely I will email you my mother's prizewinning pie recipe)

pecan topping (optional)

5 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons butter, softened

3 tablespoons pecans, chopped

In a small saucepan over medium heat, stir together the sugar and cornstarch. Add blueberries and water and cook until boiling, stirring occasionally. Let boil for one minute and then remove from heat.  Allow to cool completely.

In a medium sized bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. Stir in the sour cream, and almond extract or lemon juice. Keep in the fridge or freezer until the blueberries are cooled.

Pour the cream mixture into the unbaked pie crust. Add the blueberry mixture on top of the cream. Swirl the two together with a spoon, giving it a marbled look.

Prepare pecan topping by combining the flour, butter and chopped pecans.

Cook at 400' for 30 minutes. Remove the pie and sprinkle the pecan mixture on top, if desired. Cover the edges of the pie crust with tin foil to prevent over browning. Cook for an additional 15 minutes. Let cool in the fridge. Best served the day you make it.

Bron Jones was abandoned as a newborn. Thrown into foster care,he is rejected by one family after another, until he meets Olivia, a gifted and devoted high-school teacher who recognizes him for what he really is--what her people call a "nightingale".

But Bron isn't ready to learn the truth. There are secrets that have been hidden from mankind for hundreds of thousands of years, secrets that should remain hidden. Some things are too dangerous to know.

Bron's secret may be the most dangerous of all. 

My review:

*note, I reviewed a non-enhanced copy of this e-book, print only.

I instantly felt empathy for Bron, a teen who had been handed from foster home to foster home and who hasn't allowed himself to love or be loved.

The prologue drew me in and let me know that Nightingale is no ordinary book. In its digital pages I sensed the promise of adventure, sacrifice and an unexplored world. I wasn't disappointed.

What teen boy wouldn't want to be Bron? Handsome, wicked talented on the guitar, able to control opponents just by willing it to be so, and looking forward to the time when he will emit a scent that will draw every female for miles around. With its focus on action and adventure, Nightingale will certainly appeal to both the male and female teen readership.

The world of masaaks is interesting and unique. The memory keeping and leech aspects of the race (the ability to take will and even life from a victim and add vitality and years to the masaak) reminds me of the dedicates in Farland's earlier fantasy series, Runelords. I like the idea and it feels natural in a YA urban fantasy novel.

The settings in Nightingale are masterfully painted and Farland transports his readers away from their daily grind. From small Alpine, Utah, to St. George, Utah with its red rocks and Tuacahn theatre, to the swamps of New Orleans, a palpable sense of place grounds the novel in reality. Readers are then free to make the fantastic jump into Bron's world.

I prefer to read books that have a female point of view and Nightingale is aimed at the YA male market, but I settled right into Bron's point of view. The violence and at times crudeness that come with a male protagonist are not on par with what I usually enjoy reading. They weren't overpowering though and I am certain, that Nightingale will appeal to the young ladies as well as the young men.

I enjoyed the first half of the book the most--the part that deals with high school and love interests and emotional stakes. The last third of the book bogged me down with violence and backstory about the malevolent half of the masaak population. I'll be anxious to see more of Tuacahn High School for the Performing Arts and Bron's emotional struggles in the next book in the series.

An exciting new urban fantasy with vivid settings and a unique twist on the paranormal, Nightingale is unlike anything I've ever read--you won't want to miss it.

I can't wait to see what the multimedia enhancements have to offer.

Farland has plans for three more books in the series: Dream Assassin, Draghoul, and Shadow Lord.

For more information about Nightingale and East India Press click here.

Read The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook for free!

The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook

Now you can read The 2011 Book Blogger's Cookbook for free! If you have been thinking about purchasing this fun and unique cookbook, now's your chance to take a peek and see if you like it.

Not only that, but between December 15th and December 17th you can download the cookbook for free for your viewing pleasure forever!

Click here to download it to your Kindle now!

A few more bookish items for your consideration:

Nightingale by David Farland is now out as an app for the iPad.  I've had a chance to preview this enhanced ebook and it is fabulous!  The comic style art, soundtrack and internal links combine to make an experience like none I've yet to see.  You can also purchase it through Amazon here.

There is a new essay contest for aspiring writers of YA/middle grade fiction. Below is the information from www.bookwish.com:

Win a literary agent or acclaimed author's feedback on your unpublished manuscript for young adult or middle grade readers. This rare opportunity is being offered to the six winners of an essay contest recently announced by the literacy charity Book Wish Foundation. See http://bookwish.org/contest for full details.

You could win a manuscript critique from:

Laura Langlie, literary agent for Meg Cabot
Nancy Gallt, literary agent for Jeanne DuPrau
Brenda Bowen, literary agent and editor of Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal winner Out of the Dust
Ann M. Martin, winner of the Newbery Honor for A Corner of the Universe
Francisco X. Stork, winner of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for The Last Summer of the Death Warriors
Cynthia Voigt, winner of the Newbery Medal for Dicey's Song and the Newbery Honor for A Solitary Blue

All that separates you from this prize is a 500-word essay about a short story in Book Wish Foundation's new anthology, What You Wish For. Essays are due Feb. 1, 2012 and winners will be announced around Mar. 1, 2012. If you win, you will have six months to submit the first 50 pages of your manuscript for critique (which means you can enter the contest even if you haven't finished, or started, your manuscript). You can even enter multiple times, with essays about more than one of the contest stories, for a chance to win up to six critiques.

If you dream of being a published author, this is an opportunity you should not miss. To enter, follow the instructions at http://bookwish.org/contest.

Interview with David Farland

David Farland author of Nightingale

Today I am pleased to welcome David Farland, a friend and mentor of mine and many others in the writing world.  Thank you, David, for stopping by.

Read my review of David's new release Nightingale. 

Nightingale focuses on a different audience than most of the stories  you write.  What made you decide to focus on young adult?

I've actually dabbled with a number of young adult and middle-grade novels.  I did one Star Wars young adult novel, four more tied to the Mummy series, another dozen middle-grad pieces for Star Wars, and of course my own middle-grade fantasy series.  Most of those were written back when I was writing science fiction under the name Dave Wolverton.

Over the years, a number of my students have had a lot of success in young adult--people like Brandon Sanderson, Brandon Mull, James Dashner, and Stephenie Meyer.

I finally decided that it was time for me to get serious about it.

Setting plays a large role in Nightingale--what research did you do  in St. George to provide such a sense of place?

For years I used to go to Saint George on writing retreats, and in 2003 we moved there.  My daughter attended Tuacahn, the school I use in the story.  So I went with a teacher and took a tour of the school.  Then I had my daughter read through the book and make more suggestions.  I also traveled to other locations, like the small town where Bron lived, and took pictures of the houses that I use as locations.  Even the swamps in Louisiana and hills in North Carolina are all based on places I've been.  But I took it one step further.  When I wrote about scenes, I wrote about them on the days that the scene occurred, in many places, in order to get the details right.  For example, when Bron goes out to watch a meteor shower, it happens on a day when I went out and looked at one.  If I talk about a storm one night, and smoke from wildfires the next, it's because those were prevalent on that night.

You have a police officer in your book named Rick Walton.  Is there any connection to the children's book author?

I love Rick, so I thought that I'd immortalize him.  But then he turned out to be such a nasty cop.  Guess we all have our dark sides. Rick Walton is an old friend, and when I was writing the character of Sheriff Walton, I had just been reading an email from him.  I decided that Rick needed to be immortalized, and since he's one of the nicest guys I know, it only seemed appropriate to turn him into a scoundrel.  Seriously, as I began writing about Officer Walton, I didn't realize just how nasty he'd turn out to be!

What are you hoping that readers will take away from Nightingale?

This is a novel that deals with a lot of things--feelings of abandonment, the pain of being a teen, the anxiety of dating, the struggle to be human.  My hope is that as people read my stories, they see themselves in my characters, and that at the end of the novel, they feel like they're better, stronger, more enlightened individuals for having read my work.

At the same time, I don't write books that very sweet.  I like books that make you "live" through them, where you laugh one minutes, are shocked another, and find yourself crying the next.

Somewhere along the way, I try to "discover" the deeper meaning of the story.  I don't set out to preach, simply to ponder facets of life that I might not have otherwise considered.

Tell me about your new publishing company. What is unique about it?

At East India Press, we're trying something that I haven't seen anyone else do.

Most publishing companies in the past have made their money selling books in hardcover and paperback.  In the past twenty years, audiobooks have come to make up a significant portion of the market.  In the past four years, electronic books have grown to the point that, if the last figures that I heard were accurate, more than 50 percent of all book sales are now electronic.

But the exciting new thing that's coming is "enhanced novels," books with color illustrations, animations, video clips, soundtracks, and annotations, along with possible videogames.  These books are interactive to a degree, more like a movie than a novel.  Such novels can be "updated" instantly, so that we can correct typos or add new features to the book, such as the ads for an upcoming movie.  So the enhanced novel is a sort of living document.

A few companies have started up with the idea of doing these, but we thought, "Hey, why not publish the book in all of those formats?"  My partner, Miles Romney, has a background in illustration, acting, singing and writing.  I've worked as a screenwriter, videogame designer, and novelist.

So we're doing enhanced books, e-books, audiobooks, a hardcover book, and a soundtrack--all based upon this one novel.  We're pulling the entire line of companies under one roof.

It's fun.  In some ways, we're the stodgy old publishers trying to make sure that we've got the highest quality hardcover available for book collectors, and on the other hand we're creating cutting-edge content.

Are you accepting submissions?

In the very near future.  I'm thinking that by the first on November, East India Press will be ready to take on its next project.

I see that you are having a writing contest.  What is the purpose of  the contest?

The East India Press Short Story Contest will do a couple of things.  First, it will help promote writing.  It may very well bring to our attention some young new writers who are immensely talented.  And last of all, we're hoping that it will create some name recognition for the newest publishers on the block.

What do you eat while writing/reading?

I drink diet Mountain Dew or water.  I find that if I eat, it makes me tired.