September 22, 2015
Blog Tour: This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee – Guest Post and Giveaway
Hello readers, and welcome to our Tour Stop for
This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee!
Mackenzi Lee stops by the blog today to share some Top Favs.
Check out the rest of the tour by clicking on the banner above.
Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!
In 1818 Geneva, men built with clockwork parts live hidden away from society, cared for only by illegal mechanics called Shadow Boys. Two years ago, Shadow Boy Alasdair Finch’s life shattered to bits.
His brother, Oliver—dead.
His sweetheart, Mary—gone.
His chance to break free of Geneva—lost.
Heart-broken and desperate, Alasdair does the unthinkable: He brings Oliver back from the dead.
But putting back together a broken life is more difficult than mending bones and adding clockwork pieces. Oliver returns more monster than man, and Alasdair’s horror further damages the already troubled relationship.
Then comes the publication of Frankenstein and the city intensifies its search for Shadow Boys, aiming to discover the real life doctor and his monster. Alasdair finds refuge with his idol, the brilliant Dr. Geisler, who may offer him a way to escape the dangerous present and his guilt-ridden past, but at a horrible price only Oliver can pay…
Read a sample from This Monstrous Thing HERE!
Top Favs with Mackenzi Lee
Top 3 Favorite authors (dead or alive) and why
Mary Shelley—because FRANKENSTEIN! Also let’s talk about the fact that this woman basically invented an entire literary genre when she was nineteen.
LA Meyer—Because his heroine, Miss Jacky, is my all time number one most favourite ever character. If you haven’t read the Jacky Faber books, we can’t be friends anymore.
Terry Pratchett—Sir Terry would be remarkable if he did one thing as well as he did, but he does all the things well—amazing world building, complex characters, snappy dialogue, hilarious one liners, and gut-wrenching moments of emotional depth. UNFAIR, SIR T. Save some talent for the rest of us!
Top 3 Favorite books that inspired you to write and why
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley—this one’s pretty obvious, I think. A book has to really be good to stick with you for years. It has to be even better for you to reread it five times in two years. And it has to be really good to want to write a book based around it.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld—Leviathan was the first steampunk book I ever read, and it was a fantastic introduction to the genre, which remains my most favorite. Without Leviathan, This Monstrous Thing would not exist!
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale—The Goose Girl was one of my favourite books when I was in middle school (I claim the hisptery honor of loving Shannon Hale before everyone else loved Shannon Hale), but in high school, I did what a lot of people do, which is stopped reading for fun. I was feeling a lot of pressure to be reading adult books and “classics” and I just wasn’t enjoying them. So I just stopped reading. Years later, it was picking up The Goose Girl in a second hand bookshop in England that made me remember how much happiness I used to get out of storytelling. It was the Goose Girl that made me read again, and brought me into the world of YA, and, tangentially, got me writing again.
Top 3 favorite techniques to overcome writers block and why
Play my ukulele—any sort of other creative activity often opens up different parts of my brain. I play the piano a lot too but my ukulele lives much closer to my desk.
My most common technique when I’m stuck is to write a scene from another character’s point of view of a scene beyond the narrative of the novel. This keeps me in the world, but moves me away from the problematic place in the narrative. Also it can just be fun—a lot of the time, when I’m stuck, writing stops being fun, and writing something just for yourself is just a really good time.
Take a walk or wash the dishes or just stand up and do something else, because usually the answer comes to me as soon as I walk away from the computer screen and stop trying so hard.
Top 3 musicians/bands/groups and why
Florence and the Machine
The Mountain Goats
Parsonsfield
Top 3 favorite movie moments and why
In Mad Max, when Furiosa uses Max as a tripod because FEMINISM
In Star Wars, when Leia says “I love you” and Han says “I know” because OTP!
In 500 Days of Summer, when the screen splits between expectations and reality, because basically that’s my whole life—building up ridiculous expectations.
About Mackenzi Lee
Mackenzi Lee is reader, writer, bookseller, unapologetic fangirl, fast talker, and perpetually-anxious badass. She holds an MFA from Simmons College in writing for children and young adults, and her short fiction has appeared in Inaccurate Realities, The Friend, and The Newport Review. Her young adult historical fantasy novel, THIS MONSTROUS THING, which won the PEN-New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award, as well as an Emerging Artist Grant from the St. Botolph Club Foundation, will be published fall of 2015 by Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.
She loves Diet Coke, sweater weather, and historical fiction. On a perfect day, she can be found enjoying all three. She currently calls Boston home.
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2 Comments
9/22/2015
I’m excited because I love books and it looks like a good book.
[Reply]
9/22/2015
Sounds like a great book! Thanks for the chance to win.
[Reply]