Author(s): Constance Cooper
Edition: ARC, 384 pages
Publisher: Clarion Books (An imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Publication Date: March 1, 2016
Source: Rockstar Book Tours
Buy: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Book Depository
The Summary
Yonie Watereye lives in the bayou. The water there is full of guile, a power that changes people and objects. Yonie, 16, makes a living investigating objects affected by guile, but in fact it’s her talking cat, LaRue, who has the power to see guile.
Yonie becomes aware that someone is sending harmful guile-changed objects to certain people, including herself. Her investigation becomes entwined with her hunt for the secrets of her mother’s past and leads her to discover dangers hidden within her own family.
In the suspenseful adventure that follows, Yonie and her furry sidekick face challenges that could end their adventuring forever.
My Opinion
Yonie is definitely a great heroine! She cares about people, shows compassion and tenacity, and just wants to help; a good character for young girls for sure. She as a strength about her all through the book that helps her push through different circumstances and still be okay. I really loved that about her, and made me really invested in her journey to find out more about her past. Of course, LaRue was fabulous! She, even while being a cat, gives off a definite big sister vibe. She is there to help guide Yonie and support her. she protects Yonie, just as Yonie protects her, creating a really deep bond between the two, which I loved and makes you sometimes forget that LaRue is a cat!
The world that is built in the book is fabulous. I love the whole idea of guile, especially because I was taught at a young age that objects hold memories of the people who posses them and can reflect those memories/emotions/whatever you want to call them. This is definitely seen within the different guile-effected objects that Yonie and LaRue encounter. The bayou itself is so full of life and different people, that you really start to see yourself in this world. I love such intricate and imaginative worlds and makes me want more!
There are a lot of twists throughout the book, some of which you can see and others smack you upside the head! I love a mix of genres, and Guile was a total mashup with the perfect amount of fantasy, thriller, and mystery thrown together. If you've been looking for a fresh new book, then Guile is a MUST-READ!
Final Rating
About the Author
Constance's fantasy novel Guile will be published March
1, 2016 by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Guile is
set in the Bad Bayous, where the water makes strange and unpredictable changes
to things (or animals, or people) that soak too long.
Constance's short stories have appeared in Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and various other publications. Her work has been podcast, translated into Swedish and Hebrew, and included in “Best Of” anthologies. She also writes sf poetry, and has twice been nominated for the Rhysling Award.
Constance grew up mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area, with one year spent in Surrey, England and a chunk of another spent in Newfoundland, Canada. She studied journalism at UC Santa Cruz, where she hiked to class through redwood forest, explored secret caves, and helped edit the college newspaper. Later she earned an MA in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, and stayed on in Philadelphia working on a linguistic research project before getting sucked into the brand-new world of website design.
After Constance met her husband, they moved to Edinburgh, Scotland for two years, where she morphed into a software engineer. Just as she'd acclimated to saying “beeta testing” and “proh-cessor,” she and her husband returned to the Bay Area to work for a natural language search company.
Now Constance lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children, and is enjoying ever-increasing time to write the kind of stories she's always loved. Her published science fiction so far has all been set on alien planets, and often told from alien viewpoints (including reptilian, mammalian, and crustacean analogues.) In writing fantasy, she's attracted to inventive, nonstandard settings, light touches of humor, and just pure adventurous fun. Constance's writing also shows the influence of her love for mysteries.
Giveaway
3 winners will receive a finished copy of GUILE
Giveaway is open to US ONLY
Giveaway is open to US ONLY
Tour Schedule
Week 1:
2/22/2016- Seeing Double In Neverland- Interview
2/23/2016- Here's to Happy Endings- Review
2/24/2016- Take Me Away To A Great Read- Guest Post
2/25/2016- 5 Girls Book Reviews- Review
2/26/2016- Curling Up With A Good Book- Interview
Week 2:
2/29/2016- A Dream Within A Dream- Review
3/1/2016- Twinning for Books- Guest Post
