Hardcover, 384 pages Expected publication: January 17th 2017 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Summary:Â
Seventeen-year-old Ruby is a fireblood who must hide her powers of heat and flame from the cruel frostblood ruling class that wants to destroy all that are left of her kind. So when her mother is killed for protecting her and rebel frostbloods demand her help to kill their rampaging king, she agrees. But Ruby’s powers are unpredictable, and she’s not sure she’s willing to let the rebels and an infuriating (yet irresistible) young man called Arcus use her as their weapon.
All she wants is revenge, but before they can take action, Ruby is captured and forced to take part in the king’s tournaments that pit fireblood prisoners against frostblood champions. Now she has only one chance to destroy the maniacal ruler who has taken everything from her and from the icy young man she has come to love.
I can hardly believe how fast the last two months have gone by. We are one week away from the #PitchWars agent showcase and I could not be more proud of our mentees!
As they say in Texas, my buttons are poppin’!Â
They have both done some MAJOR re-writing of their manuscripts. They’ve gone through several rounds of revisions, cutting/combining characters, setting changes, deepening their characters, clarifying motivations,  plot changes—SO many plot changes—Meghan even implemented an entirely new magical system. These ladies have worked their butts off in such a short amount of time, and I know it’s going to be worth it in the end.
We participated in some fun mini-interviews on Brenda’s blog:
COURT OF GLITTERING CRIMSON is Meghan Jashinsky’s YA Fantasy and is a dark twist on the PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER tale meets THE YOUNG ELITES that I’m co-mentoring with Lynnette Labelle. You can read our interview HERE.
THEN BEGGARS WOULD RIDE is Tracie Martin’s YA Literary Thriller and is reminiscent of THE WALLS AROUND US and THE DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD told as a prison confessional. You can read our interview HERE.
I know, right? Those sound amazing and they ARE!
The YA part of the showcase is on November 5th where these ladies get to present their manuscripts to literary agents and hopefully get a leg up on gaining representation for their work!
I’m so psyched for them and privileged I got to play a part in their writing journeys.
Hardcover, 368 pages Expected publication: November 8th 2016 by Sky Pony Press
Summary:
Two o’clock was missing.
In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely.
It’s a truth that seventeen-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork, but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.
And so they assign him to Enfield, a town where the tower seems to be forever plagued with problems. Danny’s new apprentice both annoys and intrigues him, and though the boy is eager to work, he maintains a secretive distance. Danny soon discovers why: he is the tower’s clock spirit, a mythical being that oversees Enfield’s time. Though the boys are drawn together by their loneliness, Danny knows falling in love with a clock spirit is forbidden, and means risking everything he’s fought to achieve.
But when a series of bombings at nearby towers threaten to Stop more cities, Danny must race to prevent Enfield from becoming the next target or he’ll not only lose his father, but the boy he loves, forever.
My Thoughts:
You’ve probably been hearing rumblings about this book for the last year… Just in case you were wondering if it lives up to the hype? It SO does! Fast paced, beautifully written, perfectly plotted! I loved this book! It comes out on election day, so make sure to grab a copy!!
So as I’ve mentioned earlier, I am a #PitchWars mentor this year and boy has it been fun!
All in all, we had 141 submissions and of these we requested 28 fulls. You can find the exact breakdown of genre on Lynnette’s blog post HERE.
I was a little nervous going into this because Lynnette and I have never worked together before and all of a sudden, we needed to go through a ton of submissions and find ones that we could both agree on. How were we going to deal with SUBJECTIVITY??
But we had a great baseline: we knew we wanted something dark and twisty (probably in the Fantasy genre) and we both LOVE books. Those two factors were MORE than enough and we had a blast going through all the submissions. I was even able to tap into my nerd and made a Trello board that had 8 designations for requested materials.
Half of our #PitchWars Trello Board
We were blown away by all the dark and twisty that ended up in our inbox and went through several “THIS IS THE ONE” wait, no, “THIS IS THE ONE” moments.
But then we came across Meghan Jashinsky’s A COURT OF GLITTERING CRIMSON and it was the first one that got an enthusiastic, YES from both of us. But we knew to make it more marketable, we needed to address the magical system which was going to be a big re-write.
We contacted Meghan before the submission period was over to see if she would even be open to making such a big change and she was. THEN came the part where we had to fight off other mentors from offering to mentor hers as well.
Long story short, we were able to snag Meghan’s manuscript and we couldn’t be more happy about it!
But that’s not where the story ends!
Lynnette and I had also loved Tracie Martin‘s THEN BEGGARS WOULDÂ RIDE, a YA literary thriller that has a voice that will keep you up at night. BEGGARSÂ was our #2 pick and we were campaigning hardcore behind the scenes to try to get other mentors to pick it up because it totally deserved some PitchWars love.
Then, the day of the big reveal, I found out I had won a wildcard spot and I could pick one more book to mentor if I so wished (or I could pass it on to another mentor). Due to Lynnette’s active editing business, she knew her schedule would only permit her to mentor one manuscript, but I felt so strongly for BEGGARS that I offered to mentor it myself!
SO there it goes!
I am mentoring both Meghan and Tracie for #PitchWars2016!
These books are high-concept, dark, gory, beautiful, and heartbreaking. You’re going to love them and I can’t wait to see these books shine!
Hardcover, 344 pages Published March 22nd 2011 by Philomel Books
Summary:
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously–and at great risk–documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
My Thoughts…
When I grow up, I hope I can string words together as beautifully as Ruta Sepetys. I mean, seriously guys. She’s an incredible writer! She’s also ridiculously kind as I was lucky enough to meet her earlier this year.
This book is beautiful and heart breaking and hopeful and tragic. I definitely recommend it!
They are also making this book a movie that comes out next year, but changing the name to Ashes in the Snow because anything with  Shades and Gray definitely has a much different meaning now thanks to a certain Twilight fanfic 🙂
Destiny Cole 