I'm so excited to welcome A.J. Vrana to my blog today! I've read A.J.'s debut The Hollow Gods a while back now and loved it so much that I blurbed it!
Here's what I thought: This dazzling debut pulls you in with its compelling characters and horrifying mystery and keeps you in its thrall until the final page. The writing sizzles with menace, and the dark mythology A. J. Vrana weaves from dreams and nightmares is unlike any I've ever encountered, in and out of books. A perfect story for contemporary fantasy readers who love their narratives razor-sharp and their secrets dark and deadly. What's the book about? Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret.

For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker—an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost alway…

​It's time for... ​YA ​book ​recs!

​This post comes to you inspired by something out of my personal life, in a way :)​ ​I've been promising to give my sister-in-law (a voracious reader and a bookstagrammer) my YA recs for ages. ​And ​here's me finally getting around to doing just ​that. And, of course, I've decided to shar​e my recs with all of you, too​.

​If you've been following this blog for a while you might remember that ​I used to have a permanent "recs" page​. But since I couldn't maintain​/curate​ it​ regularly,​ I decided to get rid of it ​(for now​)​. ​Plus, I tend to be extra careful with my recs​ these days​, as I have a ​VERY ​specific​​, subjective taste (as most of us do​ LOL​)​, ​so keep that in mind.

One ​more thing​: my sis-in-law gravitates towards fantasy/spec genre (which is similar to my taste) and she's already read some of my recent favorites (e.g. Four Dead Queens, All the Stars and Teeth, etc.)​ and she already has books li…

So my "traditional" yearly post in which I discuss my reading adventures and highlight those books that made the biggest impression on me is looooong overdue. No one's to blame but myself, I guess. Given how 2020 is unfolding, I'm having trouble focusing on stuff. I try to do one important thing per day that's my university work related and one thing a day that has to do with my writing career.

By the way, my big writing related "thing" yesterday was this wonderful digital launch of OASIS which was organised by the wonderful humans of Oz Authors Online (check out their digital events schedule and join in).

You can watch the recording of the live event now:



But I diverge:) So, I'm procrastinating writing this "my 2019 year in reading" post... But the truth is, my 2020 has been to a great start actually, and as I think back to the versions of myself which exist in the spacetime continuum of January, February or even early March of this year…

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team!But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are SIX contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the RED TEAM--but there is also a blue team, a gold team, an orange team, a red team, and an indie team for a chance to win a whole different set of books!

If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and s…

Updates time! It was an incredible (as well as a nerve-wracking) experience launching Oasis in the US. So many people to thank and to acknowledge - love you all, my readers, booksellers, bloggers, reviewers, fellow authors; and of course my agent (past and present) and my publisher. Here's a little re-cap of my January adventures so far...

What I was up to this year/month so far? I launched Oasis in Books of Wonder in New York! Sara Faring was my special in-conversation guest star! She had the BEST questions prepared! We chatted and giggled and chatted some more! I think we covered EVERYTHING, from Russian cults to the most obscure Easter eggs in my books (Lady in the Radiator, anyone? ANYONE? Hey, Derek Milman guessed that one, so there's at least ONE person out there who gets my David Lynch references - thank you, Derek! <3)

Here are some photos from my NYC launch (I don't seem to have a lot of photos on my phone! 😭 I need to do a better search and locate my photos …