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Tour Schedule
Week One:
2/24/2016- Princessica of
Books - Guest Post
Week Two:
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O P E N I N G H O O K:
I think that's what packed the pews--the pure curiosity of the thing. They didn't come for love or admiration. Nope. They came for the show. They came because it was big news. A juicy scandal that jolted our small southern town like spikes of summer lightning.
Hometown boy Matthew Walton was finally laying his wife to rest. By the time my mother's funeral began, it was standing-room only.
(Page 5, US e-ARC edition)
"I'm sure that in the course of your studies, you've likely read how there were some ancients who believed in lines of power that thread through the earth...that they often erected monuments where those lines supposedly crossed. Standing stones, cave markings, and the like. This cave was one of those places. Though we believe the language is far older, the closest translation of the carvings you see here is ancient Gaelic. Slighe a' Doillier," The Dim Road. We just call it the Dim."
~Lucinda, INTO THE DIM
What would you do if everything you believed....was a lie? Hope is grounded in science. She knows how the world works and why. When her mother goes missing and is presumed dead, Hope uses her brains to find a clue that points to the fact that she might not be dead. When her father ships her off to Scotland for the summer to meet her aunt for the first time, she'll discover that she was right to think her mother was still alive. But she never dreamed that her mother was trapped centuries in the past or that time travel was possible. The only way to save her mother is to trust people she's never met and step into the dim...
I heard of this book really early. Last May at BEA, a publicist I work with whispered about a book she'd just finished reading that she couldn't wait to tell me about later in the year. From what little she told me about it, I went online and added it to my TBR. The book world started buzzing about it when it came out with a cover that had everyone sitting up and taking notice:
I'm not normally one for time travel books, but I was so intrigued by the concept of INTO THE DIM. Also, let's face, it, time travel is BIG right now. Let's blame Outlander on that craze, mm'kay?
Not only is the book about time travel, it's also immersed in history. Rather than travel to the future, we instead travel to THE PAST. More precisely, to the time of Eleanor of Aquitane's reign. I also really love the way Janet B. Taylor doesn't romanticize the past. Sure, there's clean, crisp, fresh, unpolluted air. But it also stinks of mold, of rot, of sewage. Think about how everyone used to die young from disease. Sure, we have pollution now, but our environment is cleaner and safer in many other ways. Taylor weaves this into her story in a way that feels very natural, and showcases the fact that many other writers don't focus on these negative images, which was something about the setting that stuck with me throughout the book.
I also think it's really cool that the main character, Hope, has a photographic memory. She remembers absolutely everything, and can even quote books word for word. I liked the way she'd go through her mind like a folder and the imagery she used when describing how she brought memories forward.
But with great power comes great responsibility.Nothing is without a price. Hope has debilitating claustrophobia and other weaknesses brought on by the way her mind is structured, and it hinders much of what she does in life. In fact, the reason she didn't stumble onto the knowledge that time traveling was real sooner has a lot to do with her mental capacity to adapt to time. Time travel is dangerous to begin with, but even moreso for someone like Hope.
Not enough books deal with families. Hope is really close to her family despite the fact that she was adopted, and that her dad only became "her dad" when she was five years old and he married her mother. She's never fit in with her father's family, who shuns her for not having Walton blood, and she's shipped across the world to her mother's family after her mother is laid to rest. I love that Hope is willing to go through many dangerous obtacles in order to find her mother and save her. Too often, we don't see a story where the child wants to save the parent. It's always the parent saving the child. We need more parents in YA, and INTO THE DIM doesn't disappoint in this regard!
If you're looking for a book that's a mash-up of time travel, history, romance, friendship and intrigue, check out Janet B. Taylor's brand-new series that begins with INTO THE DIM. It officially came out yesterday, so you should be able to find it in bookstores everywhere!
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C O N T E N T R A T I N G S
Content Ratings: highlight between ( ) for details
Romance: PG ( kissing )
Language: PG13 ( Some swearing and mention of things such as rape and a joke about shagging )
Violence: PG13 ( Not super graphic, but there are some descriptive scenes such as a time traveler who comes back in two pieces )
Other: PG13 ( There is a scene where a girl is about to be raped before Hope saves her; there's technically underage drinking, but it's not condoning alcohol. The teens are in a century where the only thing to drink IS ale. )
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C O V E R D E S I G N:
I really like both covers!
Honestly, I think I like the first cover better. It feels more "fantasy" to me. But I also don't always like people on the cover, so I get that, lol. Plus, having a cover with an object on it will get more boys to pick up the book, so win!!!
Which cover do you prefer?
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O F F I C I A L I N F O:
Title: INTO THE DIM
Author: Janet B. Taylor
Release Date: March 1, 2016
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
Received: For Review
Find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
Received: For Review
Find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks
SUMMARY:
When fragile, sixteen-year-old Hope Walton loses her mom to an earthquake overseas, her secluded world crumbles.
Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic, but also a member of a secret society of time travelers. Trapped in the twelfth century in the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hope has seventy-two hours to rescue her mother and get back to their own time.
Along the way, her path collides with that of a mysterious boy who could be vital to her mission . . . or the key to Hope’s undoing.
Addictive, romantic, and rich with historical detail, INTO THE DIM is Outlander for teens.
Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic, but also a member of a secret society of time travelers. Trapped in the twelfth century in the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hope has seventy-two hours to rescue her mother and get back to their own time.
Along the way, her path collides with that of a mysterious boy who could be vital to her mission . . . or the key to Hope’s undoing.
Addictive, romantic, and rich with historical detail, INTO THE DIM is Outlander for teens.
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The 2013 winner of the coveted #PitchWars, Janet B Taylor, has four years' experience writing web content for a major television network fan site (CBS) that garners over a hundred thousand hits a day. Janet travels extensively to those places where her novels are set, often roaming around at night to commune with the famous historical figures about which she loves to write. She is a member of several writing organizations, including the SCBWI and the Historical Novel Society, and lives in a tiny town in Arkansas with her family.
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ABOUT...JANET B. TAYLOR!
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