Evie has spent a lot of her life wondering what it would be like to live a normal teenage life and experience normal teenage things. But now that Evie has that life attending school, living with her vampire friend Arianna, and even working, a ‘normal’ life doesn’t sound as much fun as it used to.

When Raquel shows up one day to ‘visit’, she asks Evie to rejoin the force (IPCA: International Paranormal Containment Agency), promising that Evie wouldn’t have to do anything that makes her uncomfortable.

But Evie isn’t sure how to respond. She promised Lend that she wouldn’t go back and instead focus on their future together in college. But Evie accepts and decides not to tell Lend. Once she has accepted, Evie meets Raquel’s newest intern, Jack: a human who has lived for some time in the Faerie Realms and who can navigate through it without getting lost. Jack seems to be an annoying pain, but soon Evie realizes just how much she needs a friend like Jack: someone who just wants to have fun, even when things are really serious.

Things seem to be going much better for Evie since Paranormalcy has ended, though her ‘sister’ has died. Lend even makes her biggest wish come true and takes her to prom. But as always, things don’t always go as planned and Evie is pulled out of the dancing crowd by Reth (Evie’s ex-faerie-boyfriend). He is there to inform her that the two Faerie courts are going to war and that she is the prize.

Her world starts crumbling down all around her. Her relationship with Lend is on the line when she starts spending a lot more time with Jack. She meets her father, who hasn’t noticed that his daughter ever left and still thinks that she was ten or so, still ‘running around somewhere’. And now her old life at IPCA is quickly catching up with her.

I absolutely LOVED Paranormalcy, and I think the main reason why is because I had no idea what I was getting myself into or what I should have expected. I read no reviews, only the synopsis on the back of the first book, and while things didn’t go as I expected them to, I was under its trance and couldn’t get enough.

While I thought Evie and Lend were perfect for one another and I enjoyed following their relationship with one another, my favourite part of the book was that the story didn’t just focus on them. I read Paranormalcy for the action, the paranormal, and the mystery. I did enjoy the love story, but I was much more focused on the other aspects, and I’m glad that their relationship didn’t overshadow everything else the story had to offer. Paranormalcy did this well, and I was praying to all the Gods, that Supernaturally would do the same. It did.

The characters were fantastic, both the main ones and the smaller roles. I liked that Jack added a little bit of lightness and humor to this story because I felt like Evie needed that small stress reliever. She was always dealing with these huge life-depending problems, and Jack just made those parts a bit more fun for both Evie and the reader alike.

Overall, Supernaturally isn’t the same old boring paranormal read, which I’m sure we’re all starting to get tired of. There was a pretty big twist towards the end of the book that I can’t mention, but I am pretty darn excited to get to the third and final book! I hope to finally find out who Evie is and what secrets her past holds!

 I’m dying to see what Kiersten White has in store for Evie!

It’s been tricky finding time to blog lately. Ironically, that’s because I’ve been so busy cooking and gardening and writing fiction. March was always going to be a bit of a time-buster for me – it’s tomato season where I live and wow, have I got tomatoes. This weekend alone I turned 9kg of Romas into a delicious salsa my kids won’t leave alone. Nachos are the new vegemite toast right now.

I’ll post that recipe soon, along with the most incredible zucchini and corn relish that I recently discovered, pickled gherkins a couple of different ways, tomato sauce, chilli sauce, red chutney, and green tomato chutney, among other goodies that have been keeping me busy. But first…the garden.

A single day’s haul, including our first chilli, cucumber and capsicum

Zucchini. I’ve never grown it before this year. Why did no one tell me that one family of five probably only needs half a dozen plants at the most? I planted twenty. Yes, we’re totally zucchinied-out. I’ve been grating it raw into green salad, baking zucchini bread, zucchini slice, zucchini and haloumi fritters, zucchini muffins, and zucchini omelettes. I’ve made relish, I’ve blanched, I’ve frozen. And still, the plants keep producing…

Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini…

Beans. Climbing beans were one of the first vegetables I tried growing at home. After an aversion from being fed too many as a child, I quite like them these days. Mostly. This year I chose a different position in the garden, and while they’re growing and producing really well, they’re just not as sweet as previous years. Bummer. My chickens like them though!

Beans! And some basil, flat leaf parsley and spring onions

Celery. Yeah, I’m one of those weird people who actually enjoys drinking celery juice. So this year, fed up with buying them every single week, I grew them against the advice that they’re kinda difficult to have in the garden. All lies. Don’t believe it. Celery is easy-peasy. I didn’t blanch them (where you try to keep the stems white by growing the plant in troughs, or cover the lower part with pipe or newspaper)—I just stuck them in the ground, watered and fed them, and watched them grow. Very nicely, thank you! Besides juicing, I’ve been drying both celery and celery leaves in my dehydrator.

Who says celery is hard to grow?

Capsicum. Known, I believe, as peppers in other parts of the world. This is another vegetable we’ve grown before, but never in big numbers. Last year, I made a totally yummo red tomato chutney, and the secret ingredients in that were red capsicums and pickled gherkins. I’m serious! The capsicums are growing well, though not many have made it to the red stage yet as we’ve been picking and eating them green. Sooo sweet! Even Mr 6 Year Old Fussy Pants is stealing them to eat raw.

Baby capsicum

Gherkins. So, yeah, speaking of needing pickled gherkins for my tomato chutney, I thought it would be a good idea (hahaha) to grow and pickle them myself. The packet of seeds I bought only contained 25 seeds and, because I’d left it really late in the season, I decided to plant them all, guessing only half or less would actually germinate. Yeah. Wrong again, Mandy. I now have twenty-five gherkin plants fighting for space in a very small bed, growing up and out and climbing (ie. strangling) everything they get near. Both the plants and fruit are super-prickly, which makes it hard to get near without gloves. However – my gherkins have been producing so many flowers (and then gherkins) that the bees are flocking. Swarming. Both. This makes my allergic middle child a bit nervous, but the rest of my garden very, very happy. Gherkins need picking every day, so they are a bit time consuming, but the pickling side of things is pretty easy once you’ve done it a couple of times. I have dozens of jars in the pantry, pickling away, but will wait a couple of weeks for the taste-test before posting the recipes.

A Triffid? Close, but not quite. Gherkins taking over the world

Next up – Sweet corn (and the best ever way to cook it), chilli, cucumbers, raspberries, more strawberries, herbs, and tomatoes. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes…

Aura Borealis from See Steal Style Magazine blogs about Face Lace.

Face Lace first caught our eye during London Fashion Week, when they lent their creative flair to the Liz Black fashion presentation, and we simply couldn’t get enough of them.

Their SS14 collection includes beautiful and feminine stick-on eye and brow laces, as well as alluring statement masks.

Lace continues to be a major trend on the catwalks, which has been cleverly translated into the beauty arena with Face Lace.

 The designs do not fade, or smudge and can be applied in less than a minute, but look uber-professional.

Created by leading make-up artist Phyllis Cohen, who has also developed her own adhesive, the clever designs give everyone the chance to create professional make-up effects at home.

From her website:

Phyllis is a makeup artist who is famous for her intricate designs and staggeringly bold fashion feats.

Consider painting a desert scene which transformed from night to day, to full bloom, all on an eyelid, for a TV commercial, with no CGI.

This is the sort of thing Phyllis considers a normal day at the office! If you look at the detail in the fashion illustrations Phyllis did at the start of her career you’ll understand why. Read More

At sixteen years old, Evie isn’t the normal teenage girl. Yes, she’s human, but she’s so much more than that. At a young age, she was pushed from one foster home to the next, until she discovered her power. She has the ability to see through paranormals’ glamour—glamour being the shield that paranormal creatures use to travel in public without the humans around them seeing their real form.

Since discovering her power, Evie has been adopted into IPCA (International Paranormal Containment Agency), going on missions to hunt down and tag paranormal creatures. Even with the knowledge that she is protecting the human race, Evie does miss the normal things teenagers do like going to school, having a locker, and attending prom with some cute boy!

Evie has always done what her job and Raquel, her mom/boss, asked of her, and never once questioned what IPCA was really doing. That is until an invisible shape shifter breaks into the IPCA building disguised as Raquel. With no real idea or plan to escape, Lend explains that he was there to gather information for the people he was working with. Evie can’t help but stare at Lend, not because he’s a shape shifter, but because he’s cute…and the only boy her age she’s seen in a very long time.

But after going on a mission to tag a couple of vampires, Evie barely escapes and comes back to find out that the vampires had somehow all died. Evie didn’t do it. So who did? Paranormals are dying quickly and Evie is the one who has to stop this!

Evie is having nightmares about a yellow-gold shadow and she can’t help but wonder what is going on. She soon discovers that she isn’t human at all and the person killing the paranormals is much closer than she could have ever thought!

I absolutely adored the characters in Paranormalcy. I loved Evie; she embraced her ability and enjoyed having it, unlike many characters in other YA genres that try their best to hide it and blend in. Besides that, Evie was totally kick butt, yet super girly and enjoyed dressing up and looking good.

Paranormalcy didn’t only include vampires, but many other paranormal creatures that pushed this book to the next level, such as trolls and hags.

The romance between Lend and Evie wasn’t too overpowering. It didn’t hide the rest of the story in its shadows, but was instead a light glow. You felt it, but it wasn’t taking up the entire focus.

Overall, Paranormaly had no slow parts and there was always something going on. I can’t say anything about the ending, but it was REALLY good! I hope you pick up Paranormalcy, and enjoy it just as much as I did!

My blog tour has begun. I’ll be adding each link into this post and pinning the post to the front page so you can check back and keep track of where I’ve been.

Day 1: An interview with Donna Maree Hanson – how is Peacemaker different from Parrish Plessis?

Day 2: Over at Fablecroft Publishing, I talk about how Joan of Arc influenced my thinking.

Day 3: Paula Weston hosts me for a chat about where I got my worldbuilding ideas for PEACEMAKER and genre-blending and genre-bending.

Day 3: Part Two: Skiffy and Fanty invite me to talk about my SUPERPOWER. Bet you can’t guess what it is!

Day 4: I chat with Fi from The Bookish Outsider about picking character names and why I like SF.

 Day 5: Nuzaifa over at SAY IT WITH BOOKS asks me about my crazy ready influences.

Day 6: Is a jaunt across to say hello to Diana Pharoah Francis to discuss how I turned a short story into a novel.

Day 7: Is down to Tassie to visit Miss Cackle, i.e. Kate Gordon, for a chat about the female body image in speculative fiction

Day 8: Over at Champagne and Socks I ‘fess up about my love for Westerns.

Day 9: Jason Fischer invites me to Fischblog to chat about my connection with the landscape.

Day 10: At Chris Lampard’s Sustainable Money blog you can read the character notes for the novel. See the comic artist’s sketch of Nate Sixkiller.

Day 11: Over at Mandy Wrangles’ foodie blog, I discuss my signature dish and the names of my main characters.

Day 12: The tour visits one of our beloved staff members, Lisa, at Turning Pages where she interviews me about Virgin Jackson and shares her book review.

Day 13: I talk with one of my BFF’s, Tansy Rayner Roberts, about Female Heroes and how I cried for a week.

Day 14: Shelf Inflicted asks me 12 questions. Thanks Dan!

Day 15: Over at Book Probe I talk to Braiden about the evolution of the story from comic to novel.

Day 16: And then it’s a fly by to Coeur de Lion where Keith Stevenson interviews me about Peacemaker and my upcoming projects.

Day 17: Then Lee at She Wolf Reads shares my top Eleven favourite SF movies and TV shows.

Day 18: Narelle invites me to Kitty and Cadaver to talk about the Peacemaker comic.

Day 19: At Tsana Reads and Reviews, Tsana interviews me about Dealbreaker (bk 2).

Day 20: Book Mood Reviews has me over for a chat about the origins of Peacemaker.

Day 21: The story behind the story of PEACEMAKER at Upcoming4Me.

Day 22. I love chatting with Crystal at Winterhaven Books.

Day 23. At Civilian Reader I confess to Dr Who and the Avengers give me nightmares.

Day 24. Kristin from My Bookish Ways runs a giveaway for Peacemaker, alongside our interview.

Day 25. The Qwillery asks me some interesting questions.

Day 26, I say hi to Molly Dee.