Ruthless Magic: Online book launch

Megan Crewe

author of multiple books of speculative fiction including her trilogies
Fallen World 
and
Earth and Sky

 

launches her new series

Conspiracy of Magic

with its first book

Ruthless Magic

Written by Megan Crewe

Another World Press

978-1-989114001

352 pp.

Ages 13+

May 30, 2018

on

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

8 a.m.- 11:30 p.m. (EST)

at

https://www.facebook.com/events/230095127572989/

The online launch which will take place throughout the day will include:
• games
• giveaways
• a virtual book signing (you can request a signed bookplate)
• live chat from 9:30-10:30 p.m. EST, and
• guest authors visits (30 minutes each):

Kristin D. Van Risseghem - 9 a.m.
Olivia Wildenstein - 10 a.m.
Nina Walker - 11 a.m.
Alison Ingleby - 12 p.m.
Tessonja Odette - 1 p.m.
Tiki Kos - 2 p.m.
Merrie Destefano - 3 p.m.
Cordelia Castel - 3:30 p.m.
Jesikah Sundin - 4 p.m.
Kristine Schwartz - 6 p.m.
K.M. Robinson - 7 p.m.
C.L. Cannon - 8:30 p.m.
Julie Hall - 11 p.m.

Get more details about the book at http://www.megancrewe.com/ConspiracyofMagic/ or read Megan Crewe's synopsis on her blog at http://www.megancrewe.com/blog/:

In the contest to keep their magic, the only options may be die… or kill.
 

Each year, the North American Confederation of Mages assesses every sixteen-year-old novice. Some will be chosen. The rest must undergo a procedure to destroy their magical ability unless they prove themselves in the mysterious and brutal Mages’ Exam.
 

Disadvantaged by her parents’ low standing, Rocío Lopez has dedicated herself to expanding her considerable talent to earn a place in the Confederation. Their rejection leaves her reeling—and determined to fight to keep her magic.
 

Long ashamed of his mediocre abilities, Finn Lockwood knows the Confederation accepted him only because of his prominent family. Declaring for the Exam instead means a chance to confirm his true worth.
 

Thrown into the testing with little preparation, Rocío and Finn find themselves becoming unlikely allies—and possibly more. But the Exam holds secrets more horrifying than either could have imagined. What are the examiners really testing them for? And as the trials become increasingly vicious, how much are they willing to sacrifice to win? 

A Mortal Song: Book launch (Toronto)

Join 

Megan Crewe 

author of

and

for the release of her newest YA fantasy

A Mortal Song

by Megan Crewe
Another World Press

978-0995216907

316 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2016

on 

Saturday, September 17, 2016

2-4 p.m.

at Bakka-Phoenix Books

84 Harbord Street

Toronto, ON

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The book is described by the author herself as follows:

Sora's life was full of magic—until she discovered it was all a lie. 

Heir to Mt. Fuji's spirit kingdom, Sora yearns to finally take on the sacred kami duties. But just as she confronts her parents to make a plea, a ghostly army invades the mountain. Barely escaping with her life, Sora follows her mother's last instructions to a heart-wrenching discovery: she is a human changeling, raised as a decoy while her parents' true daughter remained safe but unaware in modern-day Tokyo. Her powers were only borrowed, never her own. Now, with the world's natural cycles falling into chaos and the ghosts plotting an even more deadly assault, it falls on her to train the unprepared kami princess. 

As Sora struggles with her emerging human weaknesses and the draw of an unanticipated ally with secrets of his own, she vows to keep fighting for her loved ones and the world they once protected. But for one mortal girl to make a difference in this desperate war between the spirits, she may have to give up the only home she's ever known.

Retrieved from http://megancrewe.com/song/index.html on August 26, 2016.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Here's what you can look forward to at this book launch:

• Japanese snacks

• book swag

• reading and Q & A with Megan Crewe
and, of course,

• book sales and signing

Congrats to Megan Crewe on her newest YA fantasy!

The Clouded Sky: Book 2 of the Earth & Sky Trilogy

by Megan Crewe

Razorbill

978-0-670-06813-5

343 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2015

When YA author Megan Crewe introduced her newest trilogy with Earth & Sky last fall, I don’t think she could have anticipated the positive response she would get to it.  While still speculative fiction like her wildly-popular Fallen World series, Earth & Sky took us into true science fiction, with teen Skylar meeting and helping alien Traveler Win to procure the parts of a weapon that would destroy the time field generator that his fellow Kemyates had been using for millennia to experiment with Earth.  When we last encountered Skylar, she had agreed to accompany Win and other interplanetary rebels–leader Thlo with Isis, Mako, Pavel and Jule–on a spaceship headed to their space station home orbiting their devastated planet of Kemya. There, Skylar would assist the rebels in recreating the weapon–based on her memories and the parts she and Win discovered and the addition of the power source kolzo–so that it could be used to destroy the time field generator.

But, though she is trying to help, Skylar’s presence is not easily explained or even acceptable, until they contrive to have Skylar play the role of Jule’s pet, a common acquisition by richer Kemyates.  Win isn’t pleased but he accepts this as the means by which Skylar can evade the scrutiny of the Enforcers and still be safe, even allowing her the freedom to learn Kemyate and practise navigation simulations in the privacy of Jule’s private apartment.

However, two unexpected circumstances begin to alter Skylar’s contribution to the mission.  First, several mishaps suggest that there is a traitor amongst the group and Thlo charges her with making observations of the rebel group.  And then, unbeknownst to Win with whom Skylar had been becoming close but now sees only occasionally, Jule and Skylar become romantically involved.

Skylar is questioning everything she is seeing and hearing and experiencing.  And her increasing fluency with their language enables her to overhear much which would normally be kept from her.  She needs to know who is sabotaging the mission and putting herself and others at risk.  And who can she trust?  What about Win and what about Jule?  Skylar may be a teen trying to help save her world and put things to right but she needs to learn how to navigate more than just a jet-pod.  Does Win still care about her?  Is her relationship with Jule, Win’s nemesis, a consequence of her “pet” status, as is not uncommon between Kemyate owners and their Earthlings, or something special?

The Clouded Sky may refer to the hazy violet-red clouds that contaminate the air over the “vacant, dust-strewn wasteland” (pg. 343) that is the uninhabitable Kemya but it is even more applicable to the murkiness of truth and deception that Skylar must steer through if she is to accomplish her one true purpose: to stop Kemyate scientists from continuing to alter Earth’s history and to degrade the fabric of her world.  She is strong and focused and, though she allows herself to enjoy the closeness of an unexpected romance and of caring friendships with several rebel Kemyates, Skylar knows the dangers that lie within and outside, and that her role in everything is very tenuous.  But that’s how Megan Crewe writes it.  She keeps the readers wondering and worrying and expecting and disbelieving throughout the story, never giving any hints to her startling ending.  But Megan Crewe has always kept us on the edge of our reading chairs, and she does so again in The Clouded Sky.  And that final line will undoubtedly shock you as it did me.  Luckily, I’ve seen photos of the third book in the series, A Sky Unbroken, which will be out soon and I know Megan Crewe will be at this weekend’s Eden Mills Writers’ Festival so here’s hoping we know sooner, rather than later, the upshot of all that was Earth & Sky and The Clouded Sky.

Earth & Sky

I'm very pleased to be participating in the Earth & Sky Blog Tour organized by Vikki VanSickle at Razorbill to promote a new series by Megan Crewe, author of the Fallen World Trilogy.  Though taking her writing into a different dimension (both temporally and spatially), Megan Crewe has stayed true to her speculative fiction roots and to her young adult fans and I'm excited to share my review of Earth & Sky here with you now.

  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  

by Megan Crewe

Razorbill Canada

978-0-670068128

336 pp.

Ages 13+

Release date: October 28, 2014

We all have gut instincts that tell us when something is wrong, though we might never listen to those warnings, but when teen Skylar gets the feeling that something is "wrong, wrong, wrong", a refrain she gets in her head periodically, she's actually perceiving subtle changes in her environment that no one else seems to pick up on.  For example, when her law class visits the courthouse, she sees a bomb going off and everyone dying, including herself, but it doesn't actually happen.  Strange thing is that it did.  But through a time shift, it was prevented from happening this time, so Skylar could live.

Sounds freaky to me and I can't even imagine why Skylar is not freaking out when a young man named Win shares all this information with her, although it is nice to have someone understand what she's been experiencing and not think she's crazy.

Every now and then, you go somewhere, or you see something, and you feel it doesn't make sense.  It should have been different somehow.  But there's no obvious reason why, and no one else seems to notice. (pg. 32)

Perhaps the freaky part is that Win identifies himself as a Traveler from his planet, Kemya, and tells her that beings from his planet have been coming to Earth for thousands of years and manipulating situations to learn more, using a time field generator that allows them to travel between the present and the past.  Problem is that there are some, like Win, who believe that this experimentation has to stop, especially since the world is becoming less stable with every shift.  Using a weapon, which their leader Jeanant has hidden on Earth, the group intends to take down the time field and let Earth be.  But the security team of Enforcers from Kemya is after them, determined to stop their plan.

Though he is breaking all protocols engaging with an Earthling, Win believes that Skylar's ability to tell when the past has been shifted could help them find Jeanant and the weapon parts.  Skylar agrees to helping, knowing that for "the first time ever, I might have the chance to set the wrongness right." (pg. 62) Using a very cool time cloth, which can function like a laptop and a time-machine, dropping them anywhere at any time (including visits to the Colosseum in 81 AD, China in 938 AD and twelve years earlier when Skylar's seventeen-year-old brother Noam disappeared), Win and Skylar begin a tenuous temporal and emotional journey.

Unfortunately, being very different beings, Win and Skylar cannot always understand the other's motivations, especially since they have personal agendas that they are reluctant to share fully.  But their growing appreciation for the trials each has endured and the companionship they enjoy is bringing Win and Skylar closer.  Now if they just could get all the weapon pieces, live through attacks by the Enforcers and an assortment of history's warriors, and start being more forthcoming with each other, there really may be a chance for them to make things right, all around.

I thought Megan Crewe's first series, the Fallen World Trilogy, was larger than life.  Its premise of a world falling apart with the explosion of a fatal epidemic that pits survivors against each other is overwhelmingly scary, and Megan Crewe's exploration of the human psyche and society's response to dire circumstances is very real.  In Earth & Sky, the surreal fate of the world is in question and Megan Crewe is still able to scrutinize how we might respond when faced with the option of doing the big good for everyone or just helping ourselves.  By extending the whole concept of social justice beyond Earth, Megan Crewe has taken a universal theme of meeting an obligation to society into the galaxy and suggests the possibility of aliens considering their role on other planets, and perhaps our's on theirs.  The fate of Earth may be up to Skylar and the aliens' time shift generator in the sky but the fates of Skylar, Win, and their worlds are safely in the hands of Megan Crewe and I trust that she'll restore some kind of justice in the sequels to Earth & Sky, having offered a smidgeon of promise–and romance–towards that end here.

  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  

See Megan Crewe's official book trailer for Earth & Sky here and check out more about her new series at http://www.EarthSkyTrilogy.com

Earth & Sky: Book Launch (Toronto)

Join 

Megan Crewe 

author of young adult speculative fiction

at the launch of the first book in a new science fiction series

Earth & Sky

by Megan Crewe

Razorbill Canada

978-0-670068128

336 pp.

Ages 13+

Release date: October 28, 2014

on

Sunday, November 2, 2014

at 1:30 p.m.

(note: this is the day after Daylight Savings Time takes effect!)

at

Story Planet and Intergalactic Travel Authority

1165 Bloor St. West

Toronto, Ontario

416-645-1049

There will be books sold and signed, 

interstellar refreshments served, 

swag to grab, 

and more!

*****************************

Cover Reveal: Earth & Sky

Young Adult author

Megan Crewe

whose

The Fallen World Trilogy

was reviewed here at CanLit for LittleCanadians

The Way We Fall

Hyperion Disney Group

308 pp.

Ages 12+

2011

The Lives We Lost

Disney Press

288 pp.

Ages 12+

2013

The Worlds We Make

Disney Hyperion

288 pp.

Ages 12+

2014

has revealed 

the cover of her newest young adult book

Earth & Sky

by Megan Crewe

Razorbill Canada

9780670068128
336 pp.
Ages 13+
Release date: October 28, 2014

Here is a blurb about the book, as shared on YA Books Central:

Seventeen year old Skylar has always been haunted by the fleeting yet powerful feelings that something around her has gone wrong. Those impressions have never seemed to reflect anything real, and have only earned her stares and whispers behind her back. But after she meets a mysterious boy named Win, she learns an unsettling truth: We are not alone on Earth. In fact, visitors from beyond the stars are manipulating our planet and the essential fabric of our world; life as we know it is starting to unravel. And Skylar - and her heightened awareness - just may be the key to our salvation.

Giveaway too!

If you go to YA Book Central, where the cover was first revealed, 

there is a giveaway for Canadian and US readers here.

Good luck!

The Worlds We Make

Written by Megan Crewe

Disney Hyperion

978-1423146186

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February, 2014

At the conclusion of Megan Crewe's The Lives We Lost (reviewed here on May 28, 2013), a hapless group of young people were leaving inhospitable Toronto to attempt to deliver a vaccine to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia in the hopes that the CDC would be able to mass produce the vaccine needed to save those uninfected with the widespread and deadly virus. The group, led by Kaelyn whose father had produced the vaccine, consists of Gav, her boyfriend, who she'd met while fighting the virus in their island community; Leo, her former best friend who had just returned to the island after making his way from New York City; Tobias, a young soldier who rescued them from the island; Justin, a reckless fourteen-year-old who'd forced them to take him; and a new recruit, Anika, a former ally of the scary Wardens and their leader Michael.  But getting the vaccine to the CDC is far more difficult than just finding a vehicle and gasoline to get it there.  The group must outwit and escape the omnipotent Michael and his legions of Wardens who are determined to get the vaccine for themselves.  So begins The Worlds We Make, the conclusion to Megan Crewe's Fallen World Trilogy.

Heading south in an SUV stolen from Michael's well-organized and well-supplied gang, Kaelyn and her entourage continue to deal with incredible snow storms and the fear that Gav and possibly Tobias have become infected with the virus.  A flat tire lays them up in a small town, searching for a new tire and supplies, attempting to contact the CDC by radio and, worst of all, isolating the now delusional Gav from all but the immune Kaelyn.  Gav's death leaves Kaelyn reeling, though his message to her on a scrap of paper in his jeans compels her to keep focused on getting to Atlanta. 

The group's journey is essentially a series of driving episodes interjected with stops to search for supplies and encounters with individuals or evidence of those who are no longer around (having died or left). Mostly they are observers of phenomena from fire balls in the sky, to a suicide victim, a well-stocked hunter's cabin, a commercial pig farm where the animals were left caged to die, and isolated communities of people, sometimes welcoming, sometimes not.  Though they connect with a Dr. Guzman at the CDC who prepares for their arrival and analysis of the vaccine for production, their capture by Michael's Wardens suspends their travels and threatens their only goal and their lives.

While the plot is very directed i.e., the group endures different horrors as they attempt to reach the CDC, the story is bigger than the plot in The Worlds We Make.  It has more to do with the premise of creating a world we choose, not as we deem it to be as thrust upon us.  Sure the epidemic changed everything and everyone is reacting to that change.  Some don't change their ways at all and may remain safe or may become victims.  Some completely alter their behaviour, such as Michael who was formerly a policeman and now uses the knowledge he learned to successfully establish a criminal organization, based on fear and hostility.

Kaelyn begins to see their world as a new dynamic, based on survival and power, essentially without room for empathy.  Every choice they make now must be weighed against the potential for infection, attack and successful delivery of the vaccine.  Trust is a commodity in short supply.  Anika, the last to join their group, constantly looks ready to run.  Justin's bravado covers his insecurities related to his youth, his interest in Anika, and even his desire to make amends for his perceived lack of effort. Kaelyn is less able to edit her comments, never realizing the effect they have on others around her.  That is, until she comprehends that they see her as a leader, their leader, and she must not refrain from showing how much she values them just to avoid the hurt of losing them.

The world that Megan Crewe has created is one of desperation and paranoia.  The bad is often highlighted because it is overwhelming and tragic, but there are slivers of goodness like freshly-baked bread and home-made sandwiches, hugs of reassurance, and a simple smile.  The strength of character with which Megan Crewe has imbued Kaelyn carries the reader, as well as the group, to a surprising resolution to create a new actuality where bad and good must come together to make something better.

The Worlds We Make: Book Launch (Toronto)

Join 

author Megan Crewe

for the launch 

of the final book 

in 

The Fallen World Trilogy

that opened with

The Way We Fall 

(Disney Hyperion, 2011)

 Reviewed here

and 

was followed by the second book

The Lives We Lost 

(Disney, 2013)

 Reviewed here

 The final book

The Worlds We Make

 by Megan Crewe

Disney Hyperion

978-1423146186

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February, 2014

will be launched on

Saturday, March 8, 2014

at 3 p.m.

at Bakka-Phoenix Books

84 Harbord St.

Toronto, ON

There will be books sold and signed, 

refreshments to consume, 

swag to grab, and 

Megan will happily answer and questions.

The Lives We Lost

Written by Megan Crewe
Disney Press
978-1423146179 

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2013

The first book in Megan Crewe's Fallen World Trilogy, The Way We Fall, ends with Kaelyn sighting her best friend, Leo, returning alone on the ferry to the island.   The Way We Fall is essentially a series of journal entries that Kaelyn has been writing to Leo who is attending dance school in New York City as a way to share her experiences about their island's ruin by a contagious virus that takes its victims from scratching, coughing and sneezing, to hysteria and delusions and ultimately death.  Though her microbiologist father had attempted to find a vaccine, he was killed senselessly by panic-stricken islanders.

The Lives We Lost begins with Leo's return and news that the virus has also ravaged the mainland communities and Kaelyn's discovery of six vials of vaccine that her father had synthesized before his death.  Determined to get the samples to Ottawa, probably the largest centre with medical and biotech facilities to help determine the vaccine's formulation, Kaelyn and her boyfriend Gav have loaded up an SUV with gas, food and supplies to help get them there in the bitter winter conditions of December.  But rogue soldiers dropping bombs from a helicopter onto their island has all of their group loading up a boat with the supplies and heading to the mainland with their rescuer, a young soldier named Tobias.  Once on the mainland, the plan changes to Kaelyn and Gav using Tobias' army jeep and travelling to Ottawa with Meredith, Kaelyn's young cousin; Leo; Tessa, Leo's girlfriend; and Tobias. 

So begins a trek across a frozen, deserted land, rife with criminal survivors and the awkwardness of Kaelyn and Leo's reunion, especially after he kisses her.  While the tenuous nature of their relationship pervades Kaelyn's deliberations on their journey, the danger and uncertainty of finding help overwhelm their daily travels.  It isn't long before the group crosses paths with some people who learn about the vaccine (courtesy of Meredith's innocent comment), disabling their jeep and hunting them down, using two-way radios and armed with rifles.  Kaelyn and company manage to evade this group, ultimately entering Quebec, always on the lookout for rations, shelter from cold and blizzards and transportation. 

Their arrival at a former artists' colony brings them some comforts: showers, warmth, food and information.  Although Gav and Tobias are quarantined, being the only two of the group who have not been exposed to the virus or received the vaccine, the rest are welcomed to stay with the colonists who've organized themselves well to protect themselves from danger and looters.  But, a surprise visit by those who'd been hunting Kaelyn's group for the vaccine has them on the road again, this time leaving Tessa and Meredith at the artists' retreat, and reluctantly letting fourteen-year-old Justin join them.  Their destination: Toronto.

While The Way We Fall reads as a series of shocking developments, The Lives We Lost emphasizes the arduous journey of Kaelyn and her group, looking for help and hope, forced to grow into their new lives because their former lives are gone, just as are so many of their loved ones.  Megan Crewe uses the unsettled winter weather, the unsophisticated characters and the fear of the unknown to keep the tension high.  The young people are never sure whom to trust or to what extent and what recourse they should follow whenever they cannot proceed as originally planned.  But they demonstrate the resilience and determination needed to achieve the greater good (i.e., get the vaccine replicated so that others' might survive); unfortunately, they learn that sometimes tough, even reprehensible choices must be made, whether to continue to strive for that greater good or just to survive, as we learn Leo did.  And yet Megan Crewe's characters could be anyone who finds themselves in desperate circumstances, drawing from their past experiences to help them maneuver through new situations: viral, fatal or otherwise.  With The Worlds We Make (Fallen World #3) due out in February 2014, readers will learn how successful they've all been in their endeavours.

The Way We Fall

Written by Megan Crewe
Hyperion Disney Group
978-1-4231-4616-2
308 pp.
Ages 12+
2011

There are many ways to fall.  You can fall down, fall in love, fall apart, fall asleep, fall at someone's feet, fall back, fall away, fall behind, fall flat on your face, fall short, fall afoul. And in Megan Crewe's first book in her YA Fallen World Trilogy, The Way We Fall, someone at sometime has demonstrated each type of falling.  On an island that succumbs to the wrath of an infectious virus, "falling" becomes the norm.

Through the journal entries of sixteen-year-old Kaelyn, ostensibly to her former best friend Leo who is going to school off the island, the reader is taken on a harrowing trek from health to illness to fear and death, with valiant efforts throughout to manage, if not eradicate, a contagion.  When the infection first hits, it is hard to differentiate it from a cold, with the typical coughing and sneezing.  However, when relentless scratching is evident, followed by displays of extreme expression of affection, distrust and hysteria, coupled with delusions, hospitalization is required. As the microbiologist on the island, Kaelyn's father becomes a central figure in the investigation of the virus, and Kaelyn, her older brother Drew, and Mom, an islander who manages the local café at the local service station, are among the first to wear masks and keep themselves home to avoid contact with others.

With the spread of the illness and deaths recorded from it, some islanders find their way off the island, though some, like Kaelyn's Uncle Emmett and her seven-year-old cousin, Meredith, are encouraged to wait until the mainland has secured a site to process them.  But, when the island is quarantined, the residents become reliant on the mainland government for food and medical and other supplies, a position that many protest, with consequences.  The reactions of the islanders as well as the mainlanders, including soldiers sent to offer protection, to the quarantine could warrant a study in fear.

While Kaelyn volunteers to notify residents of the quarantine and help get ill residents to hospital, Leo's girlfriend Tessa is recruited to help grow plants that may offer hope for treatment (a passionate gardener, Tessa has her own greenhouse).   A young man, Gav, who'd organized a group of guys into a Fight Club, had them "looting" from the grocery store and storing goods in a warehouse, arranging deliveries to those who couldn't get out, were ill, or had no support systems.  Through a series of interactions, including Gav coming by to teach them some self-defense, he and Kaelyn grow closer, offering each other support and affection in a troubling situation.

While I have shared very little about the sequence of events that lead to the story's end, probably because the plot and subplots are complex (but elegant), the reader will not be given much reprise from action and chaos of a community faced with more than a contagion; the mentality of those quarantined presents as much turmoil as the fatal infection itself.  The psychological responses of the residents to living with a contagious illness and in a quarantined situation vary from heroic and charitable to egocentric and even mercenary.  With a complex menagerie of characters, coupled with Megan Crewe's plotting and organizational style i.e., Kaelyn's short, dated journal entries addressed to Leo, The Way We Fall successfully keep readers interested throughout, appropriately earning it a nomination for this year's Forest of Reading®'s White Pine Award.  While the book offers some hope in its conclusion, don't expect everything to be resolved by the time the ferry finally approaches the island again; after all that falling, it will take a lot to help everything right itself ("in love" exempted).

Luckily, The Lives We Lost, Book 2 in the Fallen World Trilogy, came out just last month, and the title of the third book, The World We Make, has been announced for release in the winter of 2014. Megan Crewe can be assured that this reviewer will be pursuing those titles promptly, determined to learn more about Leo, Drew, Aunt Lillian, the underlying hostility between Drew and Gav, and the only positive fall - Kaelyn and Gav in love.