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Saturday, March 9, 2013

Review & Guest Post: Uniquely Unwelcome by Brandy Nacole


Young Adult Paranormal
Date Published: September 2012
 


Racquel is unique. The bloodlines of four of the most powerful beings in the Shadow World are
intertwined within her DNA. She has never craved attention. She just wants to be able to live
as normal life as she can. But she’s about to find that even though she’s uniquely unwelcome
wherever she goes, her abilities also make her the best chance the Shadow World has to stop a
threat to all the Shadow races.

Once arriving home, Racquel finds that greater evils exist and that the person she cares for most
in this world, her half-sister Addie, has been kidnapped along with other Shadow World beings.
Racquel finds herself facing horrible odds with those who would rather see her dead than alive.

As her journey continues, Racquel learns more about herself, what she is capable of, and that not
every being looks at her as an abomination. Coy, a human captive that Racquel saves from the
Vampires, starts showing kindness toward her. Racquel tries putting distance between her and
the human boy but as they spend more time together it becomes harder and harder for Racquel to
fight the affection she wants and needs.

But will Coy’s friendship and her new found discoveries be enough to help Racquel unravel the
strangest mystery that has ever plagued the Shadow World?

My Review
 
Uniquely Unwelcome lives up to its title, in being unique.  True, there are all the usual suspects - vampires, weres, shifters, faeries and witches but in this book, they don't intermix and are very prejudiced against the other paranormal races (I don't know if races is the right word, but it's all I have).  Harmony, who prefers to go by Racquel, comes from a long history of family members who intermixed with other races, resulting in her being a quarter each of vampire, shifter, were and witch.  As a result she is hated, feared and treated horribly by all races.  Because of her strange eyes, even humans feel weird around her.
 
After coming back from a trip to try to find others like her, and failing, she returns to more fear and supsicion as paranormals are going missing, including her own sister.  An older witch tells her that she has the key to getting her sister and all the others back because of her unique family background.  She has the powers of four different paranomals running through her, and she can find the others by using that to her advantage.  An old enemy, Ethan, decides to come a long so that he can keep an eye on her.  As a result, he begins to see what it is like to be Racquel.  He experiences the way that everyone treats her.
 
Along the way Racquel frees a human that the vampires have kept in slavery.  The human, Coy sees past Racquel's differences and they form a relationship.  Their relationship is very sweet, and gives the reader something positive to focus on in the wake of all the ugliness over Racquel's differences.
 
I really liked this story. It's a little slow in the beginning, but the pace then picks up and moves along very well.  I am really looking forward to the next book so I can see where Racquel's story picks up.
 
Tour Schedule
 
Virtual Book Tour March 1 - March 29

Mach 1 - Reading Addiction Blog Tours - Meet and Greet
Mach 2 - Kindle Obsessed - Guest Post/PROMO
Mach 3 - Lust For Stories - Review
Mach 5 - Fictional Reality - Review/Guest Post
Mach 6 - Pink Fluffy Hearts - Guest Post/PROMO
Mach 8 - Mom with a Kindle - Guest Post/PROMO
Mach 9 - Waiting on Sunday to Drown - Review/Guest Post
Mach 10 - Books and Their Worldly Realm - Review/Interview
Mach 11 - Owlnestly Reviews - Review/Interview
Mach 12 - Becky's Barmy Book Blog - Guest Post/PROMO
Mach 13 - Jesabella Reads - Guest Post/PROMO
Mach 14 - Musings of a Blodger - Review/Interview
March 15 - Paranormal Goddess - PROMO
March 16 - Books, Books, and More Books - Review
March 17 - Steph in Wonderland - Guest Post/PROMO
March 18 - Lov Liv Life Reviews- Guest Post/PROMO
March 19 - Snifferwalk - Guest Post/PROMO
March 20 - Whatever You Can Still Betray - Review
March 22 - Michelle's Paranormal Vault of Books - Review/Guest Post
March 23 - Lisa is a Bookworm - Review/Guest Post
March 24 - The Boundless Book List - Guest Post/PROMO
March 25 - Laurie's Thoughts and Reviews - Interview/PROMO
March 26 - A Bibliophile's Thoughts - Review
March 27 - Little Book Star - Review/Interview
March 28 - Paulette's Papers - Guest Post/PROMO
March 29 - My Cozie Corner - Review

 
About the Author
 
Brandy Nacole resides in Arkansas where her imagination runs wild. Her obsession is reading but her
passion is writing. She put her dream of becoming a writer on the back burner and went to college
to become a psychologist. Three years after endless classes in a field she only felt half satisfied with,
Brandy picked up her pen once again and wrote the outline to Uniquely Unwelcome. She finished out
her degree in psychology but traded her dream of writing for the degree and put psychology on the back
burner. Whenever she’s not reading or writing, Brandy is spending time with her family and friends,
throwing around crazy ideas, and laughing through the crazy moments.






 
Guest Post:
 
Why book covers are so important.
There’s this saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ but let’s face it, it happens. When searching for a book the first thing someone is going to notice is the cover. The cover can then draw that person into reading the synopsis. If the synopsis and the cover draw the reader in, they could possibly buy it or put it on their to-be-read list. 
 
My own personal experience with a cover design came with Uniquely Unwelcome. The first edition cover was a hand drawing of a girl looking up at an eagle. While it was a nice drawing, it just wasn’t up to par with other Fantasy covers. It became very apparent to me, especially after a few readers recommended that I change the cover, that a change was indeed needed.
 
Why did I decide to use a hand drawing? Well it was kind of a dream of mine. My husband is a great artist. He’s also my support system. Whenever I’m frustrated, stuck on an idea, or just at a complete loss, he’s there. I wanted to pay some tribute to his support and so I thought I would have him do my first cover. From there, I would go with the “traditional covers” but for my first publication I wanted to incorporate him in some way. 
 
My lesson from that, sometimes we have to let go of the smaller dreams/goals to reach the bigger ones. I felt guilty I guess you could say when I told him I thought it was best if we changed the cover. Being a great supporter like he is, he agreed. He was honored that I had tried and that I had even used his art to begin with. So together we picked out the cover for Uniquely Unwelcome and then again with Blood Burdens. 
 
So yes, books are judged by their covers. I’m not saying that every person does this, but most probably do. I’m happy with the new cover for Uniquely Unwelcome and have a paperback edition of both the first edition with my husband’s cover design and the newer edition so I at least have a small token of my little dream.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for being a part of the tour. Enjoyed reading your review :)

 
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