Mundie Moms

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Harlequin Teen Panel

Harlequin Teen is looking for Teen Girls from the ages of 13-17 to give them some feedback on A LOT of YA stuff. Here's what you need to join:

How to Join: We are looking for girls from age 13 to 17 who live in the USA and who love to read young adult fiction books. We do need your parent’s consent—it’s a legal thing. Visit HarlequinTeenPanel.com to find out more about the Harlequin Teen Panel and how to join.


What do you do as a member? You’ll be contacted at least once a month via email with a survey or discussion about books and other topics. You should also know that we created our panel for market research only, which means I’m not going to sell you anything--ever--I’m only interested in getting your honest opinions.


Here’s what some of the members of the Harlequin Teen Panel have to say:


“I love to read; this is a great way to read books before they come out or even influence them” – Harlequin Teen Panelist


“So far I love being one of your members. The books are great and I have been sharing with my friends. They would also love to join.” – Harlequin Teen Panelist


Are you interested? Visit HarlequinTeenPanel.com/blog to join now!


If you have any questions at all please contact Cecilia at teenpanel@harlequin.ca.


Since we don't fit the 18 yrs and younger, we're not able to join, but if you're interested, be sure to visit their site for more information and to join! For those of us over 18, we can visit this site here www.tellharlequin.com

Book Review-Shadow Hills

By Anastasia Hopcus
Published by EgmontUSA
To Be Released July 13th, 2010
4 Stars- I enjoyed this book, go pick it up

An Unforgettable Thriller About One Girl's Connection To A Town With A Haunting Past

Since her sister's mysterious death, Persephone "Phe" Archer has been plagued by disturbing dreams. Determined to find out what happened to her sister, Phe enrolls at Devenish Prep inShadow Hills, Massachusetts- the subject of her sister's final diary entry.

Phe immediately realizes that there's something different about this place- an unexplained epidemic that decimated the town in the 1700s, an ancient and creepy cemetery, weird "townies"- and somehow she's connected to it all.

But the deeper she digs, the more entangled Phe becomes in the haunting past of Shadow Hills. Finding what links her to this town....might be a deadly mistake.

*SPOILER FREE* Shadow Hills is such an engaging read, that from the moment I started reading, I had a hard time putting it down. I was not only captured by the story, intrigued by the characters, but I was engrossed by the setting. The descriptions are so vivid that I had the urge for it to be fall and wanted to find the cemetery the story takes place around.

Shadow Hills is a good blend of mythology, mystery, and romance, mixed in with some suspense. It's the type of story you sit down to read, and before you know it, you find yourself thrust into the story and right beside Phe, the story's main character, as she's trying to find answers and piece together what happened to her sister. The story is more than just Phe. Shadow Hills has a story with in it's story. The more Phe looks for the answers, the stranger things become and soon she becomes so tangled into a world she didn't know existed.

To add to the story's mystery is a cast of unforgettable characters. Phe is the sassy, strong willed character who has an undeniable pull to Zach, the main love interest. Their chemistry mixed with Trent, the ultimate bad boy, and the other characters, leave me wanting to know more about them. Each character brings something to the story and adds an element to the history of Shadow Hills that Phe has just barely scratched the surface of.

Shadow Hills hooked me, took me on a ride and before I knew, it was over and it left me wanting more. Anastasia provided me with real characters, a vivid, luring setting and a story that left me thinking about it after I had finished the book. I recommend this book for 14 yrs and up. Be sure to pick up your copy next Tuesday when it's released.

There is an underage drinking scene and very mild language.
*Shadow Hills is one of our Book Of The Months on our MM forum this month.

Twitter Tuesday - Cassie Clare

So, let's talk about IT, Mundie Moms. And by "IT", I know that some of you already know what I'm talking about. The last few days, Cassie has been tweeting about a topic that seems to have a life of its own and simply won't go away.

- S P O I L E R A L E R T for C I T Y O F G L A S S -

The MMs Admin team thought that, perhaps, it was time to put this to bed, so to speak.

Here's the general theme of the questions that Cassie has been asked: Did Jace and Clary do IT (we're trying to keep this blog PG rated in case little eyes can read over their Mom's shoulder) at the end of City of Glass?

And here's a collection of Cassie's tweets. We've replaced a certain word with the phrase "you-know-what":

I've decided I've figured out what the problem is. The scene in question ends with them kissing on some steps. The next scene begins "After some time they came down the stairs and into the square, where a crowd had begun to gather." Obviously people feel that the crowd was gathering in order to watch them have acrobatic [you-know-what] on the staircase. It was very nice of everyone not to mention it when they rejoined the party! :D

Like I said before if the fact that J&C *haven't* slept together wasn't something that comes up in COFA, I probably wouldn't bother clarifying at all. But keeping that first scene and the next scene located firmly in a public place *was* something I did so people wouldn't think they'd had [you-know-what] -- obvs. didn't work as well I thought it would. :)

Cassie does give us a glimpse into, in particular, Jace's mindset at the end of City of Glass:


Q. "I actually thought Jace seemed strangely detached for some1 who could finally be all over his girl, because she was no longer *forbidden* ..."

A. It was actually an interestingly difficult scene to write, because while I don't really think of Jace as ever being "all over" anyone :D, certainly "unbridled joy that Clary is not his sister" is not a weird thing to expect. And note, Clary herself is concerned that he seems detached, and asks him about it. But he does explain - he feels completely lost as to who he is - and even the things he doesn't state out loud hang in the air: he's just survived a war, his little brother is dead, the man he thinks of as his father is dead, death and loss are all around them, mixed in with the celebration. The scene had to be bittersweet; unbridled joy just wouldn't have worked.

Q. "but then I assumed that's precisely why they still have relationship issues in CoFA, still working things out."

A. Not really; their relationship issues in COFA are of a very different sort. :D

So once and for all, nope, they didn't do it. Not at all. Not on the steps. Not during the fireworks. Nope. We here on Mundie Moms, truly hope that questions along these lines will stop. For us, the TMI series is not a coming-of-age story (like a Judy Blume's Forever-style-book) but it's more than that -- it's about finding yourself when circumstances are beyond difficult and having the courage and will to do what is right in the end. We hope that Cassie gets asked more questions about the Shadowhunter world, their biases, character studies, future plot lines -- truly anything but this.

Now, we really hope that this line of questioning is finished and we can all look forward to our favorite characters' further adventures in City of Fallen Angels as well as anticipate their ancestor's stories in Clockwork Angel.

Labels