Guest Post and Giveaway: Rachelle Rogers Knight! (T2T)

For today's stop on Rachelle Rogers Knight's Traveling to Teens tour for her new book, Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens (which I've reviewed earlier today), Rachelle has graciously stopped by my guest blog to share yet another of her suggestions for great summer reading! Welcome, Rachelle, to Steph Su Reads!

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Rachelle's Summer Reading Pick

The theme of the Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens Traveling to Teens Tour is "Great Summer Reading". For each of my guest posts on the tour, the blog host and I will both recommend a book we feel would be worthy of some sunny weather, summer reading.

If you are looking for an adventure with a fascinating leading lady and enough pages to last through a family trip in the car, a long plane ride, or some fun days at the beach, Graceling by Kristin Cashore is an outstanding pick.

To be 'Graced' means to have special powers. These are not Super Hero powers per se, more extra-human powers. A Graceling might be able to see as well as an owl at night, sense storms, swim like a fish, or in the case of Katsa, the amazing heroine of the story, fight an entire army and not get hurt. She has incredible endurance, doesn't need to sleep, eat or rest like a normal human and is insensitive to pain. Her compassion for others contradicts her Grace and guides the appreciation of her truly human nature, even if she accepts her King's bidding to kill on demand.

A Graceling is known not only by their extra abilities, but by their eyes; they are two different colors. Katsa has one green and one blue. These eyes are disconcerting to most she comes into contact with, alerting them to her abilities and bringing forth a prejudice that leaves Katsa with few friends.

Katsas' future is reshaped when a prince of another country comes to the Muddlin court (Katas' home). Po, the seventh prince of Leneid is also Graced with fighting abilities similar to Katsa. His gold and silver eyes mesmerize and befuddle Katsa to the point that she is comfortable with Po only when trying to beat him in the arena. What follows is a slowly developing, realistic romance between friends - albeit friends that attack and fight each other with enough force to leave an army dead. Po is also deeply compassionate and his influence on Katsa serves as a sculpting tool, softening her more deadly and angry edges, while allowing her skeptical heart time to learn about love.

If you dive into Graceling and are left with a craving for more adventure, the tale continues with the 2009 Cybil Award Winning novel Fire.

Graceling is mentioned on the following lists in the Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens reading journal:

• YALSA Teen Top Teen Award, page 33
• Amelia Bloomer Project, page 66
• Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, page 83
• Love Stories for 13-15 Year-Olds, page 91

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Steph Su's Summer Reading Pick(s)

Yeah, picks, plural. I'm going to go and link to my Great Summer Reads list that I compiled in the depths of winter for my 2009 Best Books Lists feature. But mostly I want to talk about a total summer beach read that I'm hoping I can get to reread one day in the future:

   

The Au Pairs series by Melissa de la Cruz

First of all, the covers are borderline scandalous, guiltily lovely photography, and SO up my alley as a result. *grins* Secondly, this is everything I want in a fun and addicting beach read. Lifestyles of the rich and maybe-not-quite-famous! Hot boy drama! Best friends drama! Family drama! Drama drama drama! All done in adorable sundresses and sandals. I'm aware I probably sound rather un-Steph-like right now, but A) I'm tired, and B) if you take these books too seriously, you'll have no fun. So check them out!

(Or just buy them for the covers, as I partially did. *grins wider* More of Steph being scan-dah-louss.)

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Giveaway info: Thanks to Rachelle and Sourcebooks, I'm giving away one copy of Read, Remember, Recommend for Teens to YOU, my lovely blog readers! All you have to do is CLICK HERE to go to my unique giveaway site on Rachelle's website, enter your email address, and you're all set! Each blogger on the tour has their own giveaway, so it would do you good to check out the blog tour schedule if you want to increase your chances of winning.

I'm not sure if it's international or not (you might as well try, right?), but it ends on Thursday, May 20, 2010. Good luck for your chance to check out this nifty journal!