FFBC: Welcome to the club, My Name is Milena Rokva (Alexandra Gastone #2) by T.A. Maclagan

My Name is Milena Rokva (Alexandra Gastone #2)
by T.A. Maclagan
Release Date: July 12th 2016

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Romance, Espionage

Synopsis:

After seven years living as Alexandra Gastone, Milena Rokva is now free to be her true self, if only she knew who that was or had time to find out. Milena is in a race against time to bring down Perun, the very organization that trained her as a spy. Perun is no longer content to use their network of sleeper agents to protect her homeland and is maneuvered to take control of the world’s energy markets, sending the globe into chaos.

Working with her surrogate grandfather, Albert Gastone, his CIA friend Brad and her old handler, Varos, Milena finds herself embroiled in an epic spy game teamed with friends whose endgames do not necessarily align with her own. The only person Milena can truly trust is herself.

Can Milena take down Perun, protect her fellow cadets and make a life for herself with her boyfriend, Grant, as well as the friends and family she’s come to love as Alexandra Gastone? Buckle in for a wild ride as the Alexandra Gastone duology comes to a close.

Follow the My Name is Milena Rokva by T.A. Maclagan Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

T.A. Maclagan is a Kansas girl by birth but now lives in the bush-clad hills of Wellington, New Zealand with her Kiwi husband, son and four pampered cats. With a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Ph.D. in anthropology, she’s studied poison dart frogs in the rainforests of Costa Rica, howler monkeys in Panama and the very exotic and always elusive American farmer. It was as she was writing her ‘just the facts’ dissertation that T.A. felt the call to pursue something more imaginative and discovered a passion for creative writing. They Call Me Alexandra Gastone is her first novel.

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Blog Tour: Sound (Salvage #2) by Alexandra Duncan

Sound (Salvage #2)
by Alexandra Duncan
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Release Date: September 22nd 2015

Synopsis:

SOUND is the stand-alone companion to Alexandra Duncan’s acclaimed novel Salvage, a debut that internationally bestselling author Stephanie Perkins called “kick-ass, brilliant, feminist science fiction.” For fans of Beth Revis, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica.

As a child, Ava’s adopted sister Miyole watched her mother take to the stars, piloting her own ship from Earth to space making deliveries. Now a teen herself, Miyole is finally living her dream as a research assistant on her very first space voyage. If she plays her cards right, she could even be given permission to conduct her own research and experiments in her own habitat lab on the flight home. But when her ship saves a rover that has been viciously attacked by looters and kidnappers, Miyole—along with a rescued rover girl named Cassia—embarks on a mission to rescue Cassia’s abducted brother, and that changes the course of Miyole’s life forever.

by Alexandra Duncan

I tend to listen to music when I’m editing, rather than when I’m writing, especially if it’s music with lyrics. I like lyrics, and I end up listening really hard to figure out what they are, rather than writing my own words. Sometimes, though, I’ll have Spotify or Pandora on, or I’ll be listening to the radio in the car, and a song will perfectly resonate with the book I’m writing. When that happens, I make a note of it so that I can listen to it obsessively later. That is what you’ll see below - songs I’ve listened to over and over again while editing, and that I hope you’ll like as much as I do. Here is a link to the playlist on Spotify, as well. 

1) “She Keeps Me Warm,” by Mary Lambert

Do you ever run across one of those songs that’s so beautiful, it makes you cry? This was one of those for me. It’s all about the first blush of falling in love, which is what is happening with Miyole and Cassia in Sound. The music video for this song, particularly the part where the new lovers inch their hands toward each other in the back seat of the taxi, inspired a lot of the sweetness and hesitancy at the beginning of Miyole and Cassia’s relationship.

2) “Neon Gumbo,” by Janelle Monáe

I love Janelle Monáe’s trilogy of Android albums. I play them on repeat all the time in my car. Most of her songs have a very strong narrative element already attached to them, but “Neon Gumbo” doesn’t. Instead, it has this evocative, pulsing, electronic sound that makes me think of radio waves traveling across space.

3) “Sorrow,” by Suffrajett

This playlist needs a few harder rock songs, and this one perfectly captures Miyole’s anger and grief about her mother’s death. Also, it is criminal that Suffrajett doesn’t have more of a following, so now you know about them.

4) “Arms,” by Christina Perri

Sometimes you fall for a song because of a single line. The line in this song, “I hope that you see right through my walls,” was one of those for me. Miyole has a lot of walls up around her. She’s been hurt before and is afraid to get attached to people, but through the course of the book, she reaches out, forms friendships, and falls in love.

5) “Je Pense A Toi," by the Duhks

There are a few quiet moments in Sound, and I feel like this song fits those times. I was driving home from work, when it came on the radio, and I fell in love with it. The band is French Canadian, and while the people of Miyole’s native Haiti speak a separate Haitian creole, there is a heavy French influence on the language. That kind of tangential connection can still be really inspiring when you’re writing or editing.

6) “Little Song Bird,” by Black Prairie

I wanted to include a creepy, solitary song on this list that would bring up the feeling of the abandoned space station Miyole and her friends come across in the middle of their journey. Black Prairie has creepy and solitary down.

7) “Black Rose,” by Eliza Rickman

The slow, driving beat running underneath this song, along with the simple, eerie tinkling make me think of what space travel would be like, especially in an old ship that might fall apart at any moment - beautiful, but unnerving.

8) “Cold War,” by Janelle Monáe

I had to put Janelle Monáe on here twice. Her songs have so many layers of meaning. In Sound, there are recurring themes about holding onto hope and resilience in the face of insurmountable odds and an uncaring world. “Cold War” resonates with those themes. 

9) “Cosmic Love,” by Florence + the Machine

What would a soundtrack be without an epic, tragic love song?

10) “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” by Death Cab for Cutie

And now for a quiet coda about devotion. No spoilers!

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Alexandra Duncan is a writer and librarian. Her first novel, Salvage, was published April 1, 2014, by Greenwillow Books. Her short fiction has appeared in several Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy anthologies and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She loves anything that gets her hands dirty – pie-baking, leatherworking, gardening, drawing, and rolling sushi. She lives with her husband and two monstrous, furry cats in the mountains of Western North Carolina. 

You can visit her online at http://alexandra-duncan.com/.

1 winner will receive a signed hardback of SOUND, a signed paperback of SALVAGE, and thiselectronic butterfly in a jar (US Only)

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Book Blitz: They Call Me Alexandra Gastone by T. A. Maclagan

They Call Me Alexandra Gastone
by T. A. Maclagan
Publisher: Full Fathom Five Digital
Release Date: May 20th 2015

Synopsis:

When your life is a lie, how do you know what’s real?

Alexandra Gastone has a simple plan: graduate high school, get into Princeton, work for the CIA, and serve her great nation. 

She was told the plan back when her name was Milena Rokva, back before the real Alexandra and her family were killed in a car crash.

Milena was trained to be a sleeper agent by Perun, a clandestine organization from her true homeland of Olissa. There, Milena learned everything she needed to infiltrate the life of CIA analyst Albert Gastone, Alexandra’s grandfather, and the ranks of America’s top intelligence agency.

For seven years, “Alexandra” has been on standby and life’s been good. Grandpa Albert loves her, and her strategically chosen boyfriend, Grant, is amazing.

But things are about to change. Perun no longer needs her at the CIA in five years’ time. They need her active now.

Between her cover as a high school girl—juggling a homecoming dance, history reports, and an increasingly suspicious boyfriend—and her mission in this high-stakes spy game, the boundaries of her two lives are beginning to blur.

Will she stay true to the country she barely remembers, or has her loyalty shattered along with her identity?

Books can show us visions. Have you ever found your mind beginning to imagine the characters you meet within the pages? Have you experienced a film projector of scenes in your head as you read about the girl who travels to the fifth dimension, or the boy who’s trying to graduate from being a wallflower? When you read, your mind naturally creates images, almost like watching a movie. Why not turn those images into a reality by making a movie poster? 

Full Fathom Five and T.A. Maclagan are hosting a movie poster design contest to celebrate the release of T.A.’s debut, They Call Me Alexandra Gastone, a novel heralded by Booklist as “An intricate, debut spy thriller…” The contest will run from July 7th to August 15th. 

One winner will receive a $100 gift card to the retailer of their choice, a book from FFF’s list of authors, and Alexandra Gastone swag! All participants will be featured on T.A. Maclagan’s blog and tumblr and the winner will be featured on the Full Fathom Five website! Artists may use any medium from crayon to photoshop.

T.A. Maclagan is a Kansas girl by birth but now lives in the bush-clad hills of Wellington, New Zealand with her Kiwi husband, son and four pampered cats. With a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Ph.D. in anthropology, she’s studied poison dart frogs in the rainforests of Costa Rica, howler monkeys in Panama and the very exotic and always elusive American farmer. It was as she was writing her ‘just the facts’ dissertation that T.A. felt the call to pursue something more imaginative and discovered a passion for creative writing. They Call Me Alexandra Gastone is her first novel.

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