YA Guy Hosts... Vincent Morrone's VISION OF SHADOWS Blog Tour!

Today I'm hosting the blog tour for Vincent Morrone's YA paranormal romance VISION OF SHADOWS!

Given my interest in gender issues, I asked Vincent how it came to pass that he'd chosen to write this novel from a female POV. Here's what he told me:

Some people might find it strange that I decided to write a novel from the POV of a teenage girl named Bristol Blackburn. After all, I am not now, nor have I ever been a teenage girl, with or without psychic powers. (Okay, I may have dressed up as a cheerleader or a nun, but that was for Halloween, I swear!)

I knew that it would be a challenge, but it was one that I was eager for. The voice of Bristol was simply calling out to me. Her story needed to be told. Besides, every writer has to be able to get into the heads of characters with different POVs, whether they be male, female, androgynous or some other such creature that we’ve made up.

So I rolled up my sleeves and dug in. I’ve had plenty of experiences with women and girls. Between my mom, my sister, many of my close friends from high school, and my wife and two daughters, I’ve been around women and girls all my life.

Plus, I wanted to write a female character who was strong, despite her insecurities. And do so without making her act like a guy. Bristol’s character may have supernatural abilities, but she’s very human.

In the end, I don’t want people to read Vision of Shadows thinking this guy did a good job creating a female character. I want them to just fall in love with the person who really is telling the story.

Bristol.

More about Vision of Shadows

Vision of Shadows is published by Entranced Publishing. This blog tour runs from 30 December till 19 January, and you can view the whole tour schedule on Vincent Morrone's website.

Vision of Shadows (Vision #1)
by Vincent Morrone
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance
Release Date: December 30, 2013

Blurb:

Is Bristol Blackburn about to meet the love of her life...or her killer?

After the death of her parents, Bristol Blackburn's life is thrown into chaos and she's forced to move to Spirit, a small town where shadows are stirring. As she learns to navigate her new school and figures out how to keep her psychic abilities secret from her family, Bristol comes face to face with the boy who makes a regular appearance in her dreams: the gorgeous, possibly deadly, Payne McKnight. Soon she’ll find out if Payne will be the love of her life, or the end of it--and she has no idea which possibility scares her more.

And that's not even the worst of it. Strange shadows are haunting her dreams, and they're up to something that could put Bristol and the lives of everyone she loves in jeopardy.

You can buy Vision of Shadows on Amazon.

You can add Vision of Shadows to your to-read list on Goodreads

You can find more about Vision of Shadows on the Entranced Publishing website.

Want to chat with Bristol, the main character of this series? Well, she has her own Twitter account.

Vision of Secrets (Vision #0.5)

by Vincent Morrone
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance
Release Date: December 2, 2013

Blurb:

Bristol understands secrets. She's got plenty of her own, ranging from the annoying ghost that keeps showing up and attempting to sing Copacabana (badly), to the visions of a terrifying future that is getting closer each day.

Bristol knows secrets can kill. She's getting flashes of a boy racked with guilt over his secret. And a girl whose prank might lead to someone's death.

Vision of Secrets is a free prequel that introduces you to Bristol Blackburn before the explosive events in Vision of Shadows and lets you see how a young girl deals with her Visions of Secrets!


You can add Vision of Secrets to your to-read list on Goodreads

You can download Vision of Secrets for free from smashwords

About the Author:

Born and raised in Brooklyn NY, Vincent Morrone now resides in Upstate NY with his wife. (Although he can still speak fluent Brooklynese.) His twin daughters remain not only his biggest fans, but usually are the first to read all of his work. Their home is run and operated for the comfort and convenience of their dogs.

Vincent has been writing fiction, poetry and song lyrics for as long as he can remember, most of which involve magical misfits, paranormal prodigies and even on occasion superheroes and their sidekicks.

As they say in Brooklyn: Yo, you got something to say to Vincent?

Check out http://vincentmorrone.com/ where you can learn about Vincent and leave him a comment. You can also connect with Vincent on Twitter https://twitter.com/Vince524 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Morrrone.

You can find and contact Vincent Morrone here:

- Website
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Goodreads

Vincent also participates in a group blog called YA Rush, which consists of YA and NA Entranced authors. You can find YA Rush here:

- Website
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Pinterest

There is a tour-wide giveaway for the blog tour of Vision of Shadows. Here is what you can win:

- 1 Vision of Shadows Pen
- 1 Vision of Shadows Calender
- 1 Vision of Shadows Pen & calender
- 1 Vision of Shadows Pen and calender in a Vision of Shadows canvas bag
- 1 Vision of Shadows Pen, calender in Vision of Shadows canvas bag and an e-copy Vision of Shadows

Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YA Guy Hosts... Jimena Novaro's BLUE RABBIT Blog Tour!

Today, YA Guy is distinctly honored to be hosting Jimena Novaro, whose debut novel, BLUE RABBIT, comes out on December 28th! A talented writer and a thoughtful reader, in today's guest post Jimena weighs in on gender bias and flawed characters. At the end of the post, there's a chance to win one of five free copies of BLUE RABBIT.

And now... Here's Jimena!

What a Bitch: Female Protagonists

Thank you so much for hosting me, Josh! Hello, readers of Josh’s blog--thanks for stopping by!

Sometimes it seems like male characters can get away with anything.

The world of fiction is full of men who win the admiration of thousands of readers and viewers through their charm, charisma, or some other likeability factor while committing some annoying or outright terrible acts. Sometimes it’s just basic layered characterization, as is the case with Thorin from The Hobbit, a complex character with a lot of darkness who makes some tragic decisions. Sometimes it toes the morality line pretty drastically, such as Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries, who spends a lot of time murdering, raping, and mind-controlling people and still has legions of fans.

On the other hand, finding a female character that people won’t call some disparaging thing or other seems hopeless. If she’s too assertive, she’s a bitch. If she’s too kind and accommodating, she’s a pushover. If she complains, she’s whiny. If she’s stoic and determined, she’s unbelievable. And if she’s sort of in the middle, she’s bland.

Sure, people complained about how whiny Harry was in Order of the Phoenix, but it didn’t exactly hurt the book’s or series’ popularity. On the other hand, take Fire by Kristin Chasore, which portrays the much shorter-lived (and less shouty) angst of the female protagonist and gets criticized for it right and left.

Sadly, the truth is that in real life, it can be a pretty similar situation. There are some nigh-impossible standards set for girls and women to follow in terms of looks and behavior. Just think of how many times a girl or woman is called a “slut” for leading a sexual life that, if she were male, would be perfectly acceptable.

So when I sat down to write my book and discovered just how flawed my female protagonist was, I started to worry. Would she turn readers off? Erika’s a high-maintenance, self-centered, self-righteous kind of girl. She makes some pretty bad mistakes that almost cost her friendships--and friends’ lives. One of her friends, Sandra, who gets almost as much page time as Erika does, is right up there with Erika in terms of flaws. All told, they’re both antiheroes.

Let’s consider that word, “antihero.” Who’s the first character fitting that description that pops into your mind? It’s probably a guy. In fact, I remember quite a few articles on writing romance that remind you that, while it’s okay to write a flawed hero, you shouldn’t make your heroine as flawed, because readers have less patience with heroines in general. And I don’t think that applies only to the romance genre.

I still think Erika and Sandra might turn some readers off, some of whom wouldn’t mind as much if they were boys. Sure, I wouldn’t jump at the opportunity of being their friend in real life, but I wouldn’t want to be Thorin’s friend, either, and I still love him as a character. I tried to portray Erika and Sandra as human beings with real flaws that got in the way of their lives, just like the rest of us, which gives them something to learn , something to struggle with, and possibly something to overcome. And isn’t that what characters are supposed to do, whether they’re male or female?

Thanks, Jimena! Now, readers, why not go ahead and add BLUE RABBIT to your Goodreads shelf? By doing so, you'll be entering a drawing to receive one of five free copies of the book!

About BLUE RABBIT

In Knoxville, Tennessee, there’s a bridge to another world.

When they first cross it, Erika and her friends feel like they’ve stumbled into a dream. Magical and mysterious, the other world becomes their little paradise, a place to explore and escape from their everyday lives. Until one night a boy from school, Mike, follows them to the other side--and he’s kidnapped by strange and powerful Creatures.

Back home, everyone thinks Erika and the gang are responsible for Mike’s disappearance. The dream has become a nightmare. How can they negotiate with these Creatures to rescue Mike and clear their names? And why are the Creatures fixated on Erika, who feels drawn to their world even as she senses the danger?

About Jimena:

Jimena Novaro always knew she would be a writer. It just took her a few years to realize that she wanted to do it full-time, and relegate things like going into outer space and being an opera prima donna to hobbies. She loves reading and writing science fiction, fantasy, and YA. A self-proclaimed geeky sort of nerd, she spends a lot of her time fangirling over her favorite shows, books, and bands and educating herself about super-important topics such as how to survive an arrow wound and whether or not you can shoot a gun in space. Sometimes she gets super serious and rants about some socio-political issue or other.

She’s a member of the awesome fantasy authors group Mystic Quills. You can find her free epic fantasy serial, The Withering Sword, on her website (a new chapter comes out every Sunday!). Her first book, Blue Rabbit, a YA urban fantasy, comes out this December! Find her here:

Website: http://www.jimenanovaro.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JimenaNovaro

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7170198.Jimena_Novaro

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JimenaNovaroWriter

YA Guy Weighs in on "Strong Female Characters"

In a brilliant post from the New Statesman, “I Hate Strong Female Characters,” Sophia McDougall analyzes the sexist implications of all the “strong” female protagonists inhabiting contemporary fantasy literature and film. Her argument--that confining women to “strength” (typically measured by their ability to kick some serious ass) deprives them of their full humanity--strikes me as convincing.

Being YA Guy, I’d like to extend her analysis to some of the “strong” female protagonists in current YA literature.

We have to start, of course, with the one who started it all: Suzanne Collins’s Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. She’s strong, no doubt, both physically and emotionally: she holds her family together through her mother’s depression, sacrifices herself for her younger sister, fights for her life and the lives of others (particularly Peeta and Rue) during the Games. Eventually, if unwittingly, she starts a revolution.

And it’s that “unwittingly” part that bothers me.

Strong as she is, Katniss both relies on and is manipulated by the male characters who surround her: Haymitch, Peeta, Cinna, Seneca Crane, President Snow. While she’s running around kicking butt, acting mostly on impulse (as in her deservedly famous William Tell moment), it’s the men who are plotting behind the scenes, whether they’re coaching her through her televised interview, figuring out a strategy to survive the Games, or attempting to double-cross her.

She’s strong. But they’re smart.

If Collins’s novel inspired a trend in YA dystopian literature, those who've followed her have tended to reproduce the dichotomy between physically active women and mentally active men. Consider, for example, C. J. Redwine’s Deception. The book boasts twin narrators: Rachel and Logan. She wields a sword. He builds machines.

Or look at Veronica Roth’s wildly popular Divergent series. In the first book, the narrator Beatrice (Tris) jumps off roofs, fights in the ring, and faces down a government-inspired revolution. But it’s her boyfriend, Tobias (Four), who calculates, figures, plans. They’re both Dauntless--but Tris is the only one who’s basically Clueless.

I’m exaggerating somewhat to make a point, of course. Still, I think this is worth noting: that while the authors of these books may believe they’re bucking convention by attributing physical strength to young women, ultimately they may be reinforcing the association of women with physicality, men with intellect. Even the notion (adopted from Collins's book) that female impulse can defeat male scheming seems to me to fall into problematic sexual stereotypes.

Why couldn’t it be the female protagonist Pia from Jessica Khoury’s Origin who’s the brilliant (if misguided) scientist? Why does the hybrid narrator Addie/Eva from Kat Zhang’s What’s Left of Me require the services of a male technophile to begin the process of liberation? Why can’t female narrator Zoe from Heather Anastasiu’s Glitch go to the surface, uncover the true history of her world, or foresee the future on her own, without needing her boyfriend, Adrien, to do much of the thinking for her?

Why, for that matter, did I feel the need to craft the female narrator of my own work-in-progress as a kick-butt action hero, while her male companion is the scientific, reflective type?

I hasten to add that I like all of these books (including my own!). Unlike McDougall, I don’t unanimously hate strong female characters. But as the father of a teenage daughter, I do hate the message the barrage of SFCs may be sending her.

And as YA Guy, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this issue, and your suggestions for books that fight against the trend.