Sparked by Helena Echlin & Malena Watrous (Guest Post & #Giveaway)


Welcome to my tour stop! The authors are sharing about the characters
from their story, so check that out, and also enter the giveaway below...


Sparked
by Helena Echlin & Malena Watrous
YA Paranormal
Paperback & ebook, 336 Pages
October 3rd 2017 by Geek & Sundry

Summary

Fifteen-year-old Laurel Goodwin wakes up to find her older sister Ivy missing from their Airstream trailer in the Oregon redwoods. A recurring nightmare convinces her that Ivy was abducted, but no one takes her dream seriously, including her mom. Laurel, a loner, has to learn to ask for help, and Jasper Blake, a mysterious new kid who shares her love of old books, quickly becomes her ally. Together they find their quiet town holds a deep secret and is the epicenter of a dark prophecy.

Laurel soon learns that her worst enemies, mean girls Peyton Andersen and Mei Rosen, are developing powers that she needs to find and save Ivy. With time running out, Laurel realizes that power doesn’t always take the form that you expect. And once she learns to look beyond her snap judgments, she develops an unexpected gift of her own.

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Character Profiles

1. Laurel Goodwin has always felt second best to her beloved older sister Ivy. And Cascade High’s mean girls Peyton and Mei constantly remind Laurel how lame she is. The only thing she feels semi-decent at is writing. But when she turns in stories for sophomore English class, her teacher returns them covered in red ink. Laurel can always rely on Ivy to take her side—so when Ivy goes missing, Laurel is distraught, especially when Peyton and Mei develop special powers and she stays as ordinary and useless as ever. But maybe, just maybe, if she stops listening to the voice inside her head that says, “You can’t do it,” she’ll discover a power of her own.

2. Ivy Goodwin wants to be a fashion designer. But living in an Airstream trailer with Laurel and their mom, there’s no room for a sewing machine. She’s super close with Laurel, but lately she’s been nursing a secret. This summer at camp, something freaky happened. She started being able to move things with her eyes. Ivy wants her weird power to go away. But it’s like an itch that needs scratching, and sometimes she moves things with her eyes without realizing it. She’s threading a needle in mid-air when Jasper Blake, the new kid at school, catches her at it. Turns out he’s got a gift of his own, and he offers to help her learn to control hers, saying it might be dangerous if the wrong person spotted her. Too bad his warning comes too late.

3. Peyton Andersen is the biggest gossip at Cascade High. “Athletes felt a physical need to exercise. She felt the same need to spread rumors.” It started back when she was a little girl, when she overheard her mom whisper to her dad, “It’s a good thing she’s pretty, since she’s not very smart.” But she’s smart enough to know that the more dirt you have on people, the better you can control them. So when she sparks a gift for hearing people’s deepest, darkest secrets, she intends to put her new power to use and for something fun. She is soooo not interested in helping Laurel find her sister, thank you very much.

4. Mei Rosen is the star of every school play and dreams of a career in Hollywood (if only there were more roles for talented Asian actresses). Her parents adopted her from China when she was a baby, after their “real” daughter died in a car crash and she’s always felt like an unsatisfying replacement. Mei’s thrilled when her drama coach tells her she’s on the verge of a breakthrough, but terrified when her true power manifests. She can actually morph into people, and it’s beyond freaky when she’s in bed with her boyfriend and turns into someone else. She can’t control her gift, and worst of all, she’s really bad at turning back into herself.

5. Jasper Blake, the good-looking new kid in school, certainly sticks out among the thick-necked jocks at Cascade High. Laurel’s convinced a guy that hot has to be a jerk—or at least an idiot—until he starts bantering about Hemingway and Mary Shelley. When he helps to jumpstart her car, without any battery or jumper cable, she realizes that his green eyes are able to do more than light a metaphorical fire in her belly. But even though he soon becomes her ally in the quest to save her sister, every secret she learns about him is like a tunnel branching into deeper, darker tunnels, until she’s not sure if she can trust him at all.

About the Authors


Hello! We are both novelists, but if you’ve ever tried to write anything, you know that writing can be a lonely, angst-filled business. So one night over a cocktail or two, we came up with a solution: write our next book together. Malena already had an idea: a girl’s sister is kidnapped and she has to rely on mean girls with superpowers to get her sister back. We couldn’t resist seeing where that story would take us – a wild ride that includes a loner girl who wants to be a writer and a gorgeous boy who can shoot fire from his eyes but also loves to talk about books. And an ancient Zoroastrian prophecy. And pie shakes. (OK, so maybe we got a little carried away.)

We’ve both published solo novels (check them out here and here) and had no idea how co-writing would work out, but we pounded out the first draft in a white-hot frenzy of inspiration we called “the Vortex.” One of us would write a scene and send it to the other with a note: “My apartment is a pigsty and I haven’t eaten all day. #inthevortex.” We wrote the book we wanted to read as teenagers: a supernatural thriller with healthy doses of horror and humor. Oh, and of course there’s romance. You have to wait a long time for the only kiss in the book, but isn’t that the case with all the best kisses in books?


Tour-Wide Giveaway

Two (2) winner will receive a copy of Sparked by Helena Echlin and Malena Watrous (INT)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What do you think about the characters? Is this one on your list to read?

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