HAPPY JULY MY FELLOW BOOKDICTIVES! I hope y'all are having a good week. If you're like me, you're staying indoors and perfecting sunless tanning (who knew the term "pearly whites" could be applied to more than just your teeth lol) by reading, watching the World Cup (USAUSAUSAUSAUSA!), and enjoying all the fabulous summer sales on pretty much everything under the sun.
But here's something that won't cost you any money whatsoever: A book blitz of Perfected, which is a YA dystopian Cinderella story from one of my favorite publishers, Entangled Teen. You get a signed book AND a necklace if you win. It's totally worth it because, well, read this synopsis!
Perfected
Release Date: 07/01/14
Entangled Teen
Summary from Goodreads:
Perfection comes at a price.
As soon as the government passed legislation
allowing humans to be genetically engineered and sold as pets, the rich and
powerful rushed to own beautiful girls like Ella. Trained from birth to be
graceful, demure, and above all, perfect, these “family companions” enter their
masters’ homes prepared to live a life of idle luxury.
Ella is happy with her new role as playmate for
a congressman’s bubbly young daughter, but she doesn’t expect Penn, the
congressman’s handsome and rebellious son. He’s the only person who sees beyond
the perfect exterior to the girl within. Falling for him goes against every
rule she knows…and the freedom she finds with him is intoxicating.
But when Ella is kidnapped and thrust into the
dark underworld lurking beneath her pampered life, she’s faced with an
unthinkable choice. Because the only thing more dangerous than staying with
Penn’s family is leaving…and if she’s unsuccessful, she’ll face a fate far
worse than death.
For fans of Keira Cass’s Selection series
and Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden series, Perfected is
a chilling look at what it means to be human, and a stunning celebration of the
power of love to set us free, wrapped in a glamorous—and dangerous—bow.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18630496-perfected?ac=1
Praise for Perfected:
“Compelling, imaginative, and unique. I
couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!”
— Mary Lindsey, author of Shattered
Souls
Still not sold?
Here's an excerpt:
I sat in my room on the couch near the window staring out at the last bit
of gold staining the sky. I couldn’t place the feeling growing inside me. It
was as if the flavor of Ruby’s butterscotch and Penn’s music still lingered on
my tongue, a taste that was both bittersweet and totally divine.
This place was more beautiful than I ever could have imagined, but it was
more confusing, too. It felt as if a conversation was going on around me, but I
could only hear bits and pieces of it, and now I was trying desperately to
string those bits together to make a sentence that I could actually understand.
The room was growing dark, but I didn’t feel like turning on the bright
light of the chandelier that hung at the end of my bed. In the shadows, I
almost became a part of the room.
Miss Gellner had always admonished us to go to bed by nine o’clock each
night. “Sleep feeds beauty,” she always used to say. But I wasn’t at all tired.
Just as I was about to get up from the couch to crawl into bed, there was
a small tap at the door. Before I had a chance to respond, the door cracked
open, letting the yellow light from the hallway spill into the room. The
Congressman’s large body stood silhouetted in the doorframe.
“Ella?” he called, poking his head into the room.
I sat up straighter on the couch and arranged a content expression on my
face.
“Please, come in,” I said, pressing down the tremble in my voice.
The Congressman strode into the room and
sat beside me on the couch. The light was nearly gone from the sky and the only
bit of illumination in the room was the yellow rectangle of light in the
doorway. Sitting in the dark next to him felt too intimate, and I wished I had
at least turned on a lamp.
“How was your first full day in your new house?” the Congressman asked.
“It was lovely.” My face flushed at the lie, thinking of all the things
that had happened during the day that I knew I shouldn’t mention. Had he heard
about that woman, Rhonda, and her crazy rant? Or about my swim in the pool? Or
the forbidden piece of candy Ruby had given to me? I feared all of my secrets
were written on my face as clearly as the words in Ruby’s book of fairytales,
but the easy look on his face suggested he couldn’t see them.
“I brought you a little something,” the Congressman said.
I hadn’t noticed the small box he held until he placed it in my hands.
The box was flat and rectangular, covered in soft, white satin.
“Go on, open it,” he said.
I cracked the lid and stared down at the gold chain that glittered ever
so softly in the dim light. On the end of it was a round pendant. I lifted it
up and held it towards the light so that I could see that the gold pendant was
encircled with a ring of shining diamonds. Inside something was engraved in
loopy script.
“It’s your name,” he said, reaching out to run his finger over the
lettering. “And on the other side it has our address and phone number.” He
cupped the side of my face in his hand. “Let me put it on you.”
My hands shook and I turned away from him, lifting the hair from off my
back. The scooped back of my nightgown left me feeling bare, and without my
hair to cover me a chill brought goose bumps to my skin.
The Congressman reached his large arms around my body so the cold metal
of the pendant rested across my collarbone.
“Now you’ll never forget where you belong,” he whispered next to my ear.
I reached down and touched the front of the pendant. “It’s beautiful,” I
said, “Thank you for thinking of me.”
“You’re easy to think about, Ella.”
My name sounded peculiar on his lips.
His hand still rested against the bare skin of my shoulder, but he didn’t
attempt to move it. Leaning forward, he brushed his lips lightly against my
cheek.
When I
raised my eyes, the Congressman’s wife was standing in the doorway. In one
fluid motion the Congressman removed his hand from my shoulder and scooted away
from me.
“Elise, what wonderful timing,” he said, standing. “I just gave Ella her
new tag.”
He stood and flipped on the light to the chandelier, casting the room
with such bright, yellow light that I had to shield my eyes. Even so, I didn’t
miss the strange look that passed across the Congressman’s wife’s face.
“Wonderful,” she said, walking across the room to where I sat. “Let’s have a look.”
She only gave the pendant a passing glance before turning to her husband.
“It’s late. Don’t you think we should let Ella get to sleep?”
The Congressman nodded, smiling at his wife. “Goodnight, Love,” he called
behind him. A moment later the two of them closed the door, leaving me alone
under the bright lights of the chandelier.
STILL NOT SOLD???? You must be made of glass because this is, like, swoon worthy. But fineeeeee, here's a Rafflecopter giveaway. ;)
About the Author:
Kate Jarvik Birch is a visual artist, author,
playwright, daydreamer, and professional procrastinator. As a child, she wanted
to grow up to be either a unicorn or mermaid. Luckily, being a writer turned
out to be just as magical. Her essays and short stories have been published in
literary journals including Indiana Review and Saint
Ann’s Review. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and three
kids. To learn more visit www.katejarvikbirch.com
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