Week Two Day Five Book Boos: I Hunt Killers's Jasper Dent @barrylyga+ amazing #YA adventure books #giveaway

Okay so I know what you're thinking...Anyone who read this book knows the kind of guy Jasper Dent was and knows he had some pretty dark thoughts. I mean the guy fantasizes about hurting women, a talent he picked up from Dear Old Dad.(I never get tired of saying that!) Now that doesn't exactly make Jasper topping anyone's Top Ten Crush alert but I have to explain why it is I loved "Baby Billy Dent" so damn much!

Jasper had mommy issues. Jasper had flaws, Jasper had demons that he was battling everyday. He knew that without interpersonal relationships he would be forced to live alone with the voices inside his head telling him to do bad things that would send him over the deep end.

Week Two Day Two: Book Boos: Cover Reveal + Sterling and Tetra from The Mark of Noba + amazing #YA adventure books #giveaway

Today is the cover reveal for The Mark of Noba by GL Tomas. This cover reveal is organized by Lola's Blog Tours.

Week Two Day One: Book Boos: Yasmin from The Beast of Callaire @luxguardians + amazing #YA adventure books #giveaway

So we've finally reached the week I've been waiting for in our favorites. Do you ever just read a book just to see if you'll connect to the relationship between the characters?

Week Four of OUR Favorites, Day Five:Favorite Authors- Octavia Butler + Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

So we've officially reached the last day of our event. It's so sad to see we are on the very last day of showing the book blogosphere community all of our favorite works of art that highlight diversity.

We've showed some awesome book covers, highlighted some great digital artists who always manage to draw and paint diversely. We've even showcased some of our favorite book bloggers!

Our last week we highlighted authors. Some of our favorites included newbie to our list Sarwat Chadda, long time favorites such as Emlyn Chand, Barry Lyga, and most of all Ellen Oh.

But there's just one more author who's made a great impact in our lives, and I dont think authors of color, particularly ones who write in the SF/F, Horror or Speculative Fiction genres, would be anywhere with her.

Our last and final favorite:

Octavia Butler

Week Four of OUR Favorites, Day Four :Favorite Authors- ELLEN OH + Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

We're approaching our last two days of our Favorites Month and It's been just an amazing ride compiling a few lists of our favorites!

As we reach the event's end, we realize this list would not be complete without today's favorite:

Ellen Oh

I have to say I fell in love with Ellen waaaay before I read her books. I came across this thoughtfully honest post she wrote about "Why being a POC author sucks sometimes" and still, after a year of it lounging in my web history, It still manages to make an impact on me every time I read it!

As the creator of the #Weneeddiversebooks movement, she understands how important it is to have stories that represent all readers and that's all we ever wanted to do with this book blog! Yea, we may not have a lot of followers like the book blogs that review all the popular books but every time we get that one email from someone who says that they love our blog. It reminds us that Ellen's venture was more than just a hashtag, it was a Movement!

Week Four of OUR Favorites, Day Three :Favorite Authors- Sarwat Chadda + Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

It's so hard to believe we're nearly done with our favorites for the month!

 Each week has been a blast, and it'll be sad once the month is over, but hopefully anyone reading will have walked away with a bunch of new blogs, books and authors to take away from our event of Twinja Monthly Favorites!

Today holds especially dear to me. I've only recently discovered this author, through Libby's online searching(after being held captive by The Percy Jackson series). Upon looking for a series that dealt with Gods and Goddesses, but through the eyes of a character of color.

I've nearly devoured the series since then, and became an instant fan. I was so excited about this author's book, I wanted to tell everyone!

Which leads us today's favorite:

Sarwat Chadda

Week Three of OUR Favorites, Day Five: Diversity in Fantasy Art-The Mark of Noba/Alice Bessoni+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

So were on to Day Five, the last day!

Today's highlight we think is the one we're close to the most. Part of today's highlight is based off not only our own concepts, but the artist's efforts to create our concepts as well.

So we've talked about our "light" Science Fiction/Fantasy project "The Mark of Noba." If you don't know, it features two main characters who come from a world known as "Noba", where people have the ability to manipulate elements Water and Wind, as well as travel to different worlds and times.

What makes the main characters particularly cool, is that they have a rare relationship, a spiritual rite of passage known as "bonding", where they become spiritually linked to one another(which also heightens one's abilities). Upon searching high and low for an artist to commission the cover, we were lucky to find our go-to artist, whom is today's highlight!

"Alice Bessoni."

Week Three of OUR Favorites, Day Three: Diversity in Fantasy Art- KiraTheArtist + Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

Hooray for Hump Day!

So for Wednesday, it was between two artists. Both were women of color, who drew women of color beautifully!

 However, since we try to cater to younger audiences as well, as beautiful and tasteful as the art was(beautiful interracial couples, some showing their attraction to each other in sensual ways), we just wanted to cater to people who are sensitive to nudity and sensuality.

 Our next highlight draws tons of black women in fantastical settings, without gore or nudity, and she's much easier to access, as her online presence is much stronger, and she actually takes commissions for her work.

"Kira The Artist"

Image by Kira the Artist

Week Three of OUR Favorites, Day Two: Diversity in Fantasy Art-Peculiar Ink+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

So were on to the second day of Week Three of our favorites conceptual ideas of Diversity depicted in Fantasy/Sci-Fi art.

Some days will be a particular artist's work, or the conceptual mind behind the art...Or a little bit of both!

Today's Highlight:

Peculiar Inc.

Week Two for OUR favorites, Day Five: Blogs and Bloggers, Last but not least "Disability in Kidlit"+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

Some of the best book blog sites online by far are the ones who bring up subjects, topics and discussions most might never think to consider having. When you're marginalized, you have no choice but to have these conversations, as they are the only way to truly shed light and kick stereotypes about marginalizations in the butt.

The first YA fantasy series Libertad and I wanted to release features a main character, who with time becomes a character with a disability. But not having a disability ourselves, there are A LOT of wrong ways to go about making a character with a disability.

There are several book or entertainment blogs that bring up characters with disabilities, many of which we've highlighted in March during our Blogoversary.

But the one we find the most beneficial has to be...

*Disability in Kidlit*

Week Two for OUR favorites, Day Two: Blogs and Bloggers, Next up *(un)Conventional Bookviews*aka Lexxie Lin+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

Up next! Ok so ,some blogs you follow for the book rec's, some you follow for the messages being put out there by the blogger themselves, others, well...Because they're just damn fun!

Our second honor goes to...

*(Un)Conventional Book Views*

Sorting through the excess that is the blogosphere, it's great to see the a book blog that takes an unconventional look at the way they review.

Originally from Europe, between sloshing through close to 150+books a year, (Un)Convential Bookviews, aka *Lexxie* brings up excellent discussions on her blog, on the state of sexuality amongst women, and young women in novels.

They are topics one should read if you get a chance. Slut shaming and robbing girls and women of their right to explore their sexuality the way they want to should be unacceptable, but has become so apart of our culture, very few don't even realize when they're doing so.

 

Week Two of OUR Favorites, Day One: Blogs and Bloggers, First up *Donnie Darko Girl*aka Jennifer + Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

So we all have them. Blogs and Bloggers that we follow religiously! Oh yes! We are not ashamed to say that we have a list full of sites that we stalk on a regular basis. In fact, we thought, Why not turn an event out of it. So that brings us to Week Two of our favorites month:

Favorite Blogs and Bloggers. 

Our first honor goes to a Blog/Blogger that we totally love and adore who goes by the pseudonym, *Donnie Darko Girl*

This blogger ranks high with us because I mean let's face it, She's pretty DAMN COOL! I mean would you look at her hair! 

Dope, right???

I think what we love most about this blogger is that she's so dedicated to the content that's on her blog. As a fellow book blogger, We know it can be difficult sometimes to by consistent with content and some days, you just don't feel like it. She's also pretty diverse with her choice of books that she reviews, so you can always look forward to all types of different reviews on her blog! There's nothing like a book blog reviewer that is totally limited to just YA, NA or romance!

 Not this blogger! Don't you love that!

We can always count on Jennifer to for awesome reviews, Stellar posts and tons of love! We hear she's also an aspiring writer, so with that larger than life online persona, we look extra forward to her future works!

Week One: Covers - Sixth Favorite! The Rivers of Zadaa by D.J.MacHale+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

 This week has been a blast! Book Covers, like it or not, have to be the funnest thing that draws you to a book. Yea a blurb can be something that draws you in but that's assuming only after the book cover excited you enough to pick it up!

This week's final favorite book cover is......

*Drumroll*

The Rivers of Zadaa, Book 6 of the Pendragon series by D.J. Mchale

Week One: Covers - Fifth Favorite! A Time To Dance by Padma Venkatraman+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

It's been a challenge narrowing down our favorite book covers to just six choices but every second has been fun! We had sooooo many options and we'd love to open up the floor for this topic again but until then we'd like to introduce our 5th favorite book cover:

 A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman

 

Week One: Covers - Fourth Favorite! Flirt-Portrait of Us+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

Are we on Day 4 already?Looks like it!So for those of you just tuning in, It's Favorites Month on Twinja Book Reviews and This post today is special, well because it's OUR BIRTHDAY. 

 Happy Birthday US!

Anyways so back to business! Next on our Favorite Covers week is a book I saw in Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and I just had to have it! The Flirt series is a series of books that captures first love. Isn't that adorable? The Portrait of Us by A.Destiny and Rhonda Helms is just one of the many books where the cover entirely influenced my purchase.

 What attracted to me to the cover? WHAT ELSE? An ADORABLE interracial couple on the cover!

Week One: Covers - Third Favorite! Tiffany Trent's "The Tinker King"+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

Okay! Day Three of this week's favorite covers! 

Next cover, I actually found out about the "Unnaturalists" series through a goodreads thread about women of color in steampunk. I wasn't sure about it, because no one ever mentioned "what" exactly the main character was ethnically(even though I suppose it would've been difficult since the ethnicity doesnt exist in our world). I bought the book and cast it aside.

UNTIL I saw the cover for it's sequel! Which is why it's one of my favorite covers. I started the book to get to the sequel, and was so glad I did. I ended up loving it and all it's confusion, but nothing pushed me to start the series better than "The Tinker King!"

Week One: Covers - Second Favorite! Josh Farrar's "A Song For Bijou"+ Ellen Oh's Prophecy/Warrior & Sarwat Chadda's The Savage Fortress/The City of Death giveaway!

 So we're now onto Day Two of our favorite covers week. 

I found this cover on Pinterest during the first wave of the #Weneeddiversebooks hashtag. Normally It's hard to say what draws me to a cover, but I know one thing is for sure: I love to see People of color front and center on book covers! Even better when it's an interracial couple or set of friends!

So today's highlight is......

 

August is Our Favorites Month!

So here's a tasty summer treat!