Silent Starsong by T.J Wooldridge Blog Tour and Giveaway!

Eleven-year-old Kyra is meant to continue the Starbard's proud family legacy of interpreting the future from the stars' songs. Her deafness, incurable by the best medics, breaks her mother's heart and pushes her father to explore anything to help his little girl--including the expensive purchase of a telepathic alien servant to help Kyra communicate on a planet inhospitable to unfixable genetic defects. Marne's telepathy is too weak for his Naratsset culture, so he is sold into slavery and expects to die at the hands of human owners--until he meets a human child who begs her father to "save" him. Her kindness introduces Marne to a new world--one where he would risk his life to save a human from her own people's abuse and the stars' songs can touch even a deaf girl and a defective telepath.

When an intergalactic terrorist organization kills Kyra's father, driving her mother to madness, Kyra and Marne only have each others' friendship--until even that is threatened by the danger surrounding the Starbard heritage. But can the two friends, not good enough for either of their cultures or families, manage to keep each other safe when several different worlds threaten their lives?

GET YOUR COPY TODAY!

AMAZON † B&N

TOUR SCHEDULE:

July 14^th
Platypire Reviews (http://platypire.com) | Review
Reading Tween (Http://readingtween.blogspot.com/) | Excerpt 

July 15^th
I Feel the Need, the Need to Read (http://ifeeltheneedtheneedtoread.com/) | Review
Coffee, Books, & Art (http://sarityahalomi.blogspot.com/) | Book Highlight & Giveaway

July 16^th
Deal Sharing Aunt (http://www.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com) | Review
A Leisure Moment (www.aleisuremoment.com) | Book Highlight & giveaway 

July 17^th
Book Lovers Life (http://bookloverslife.blogspot.ie/) | Top Ten Post
The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia (http://hauntedorchid.blogspot.com) | Review 

July 18^th
Tanyas Book Nook (http://tanyasbooknook.blogspot.com) | Review
Books are Love (http://hello-booklover.tumblr.com) | Teaser

 T.J. talks about the cover & book



Top 10 Middle Grade Books!

T.J.'s Top Ten Middle Grade Books

Okay, this was a tough one for me because I edit middle grade books, many of which I would have loved to read when I was young, like (currently out) Darby Karchut's Finn Finnegan and Gideon's Spear, and Timothy Miller's Awoken and a number of others that aren't even out yet!

There have also been a number of other, current middle grade series that I love now, but for this list, I'm going to stick with the MG books I fell in love with when I was reading middle grade.  Also, despite the fact that Silent Starsong is science fiction, you'll notice that outside of L'Engle, there's a dearth of SF titles here. The SF books I read from 10-14 was not middle grade and definitely had some more adult themes/issues in them. Though these books had a lot of influence on me and are great books, I wouldn't feel right listing them on a Top Ten MG list.

... Also, forgive my cheating as listing some series as books. ;) Just TEN?! You couldn't pry books out of my fingers...well, you still can't. Anyway... I digress...

10. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery ... and the whole series. A non-speculative collection, but I was also adopted, I loved to read and write, and I got picked on a lot at school, so I had an immediate connection with Anne.

9. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell - Another non-SF/F title, and this one totally blew my mind. I still want a skirt of cormorant feathers.

8. Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce - coming-of-age with non-saccharine unicorns. :) Need I say more?

7. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg - because when I was going through "My parents totally don't get me I need to run away" phase, running TO a library makes total sense!

6. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein - Should be required reading for everyone.

5. Everything Goosbumps. R.L. Stine rocked my world.

4. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle - Okay, I know this one isn't technically middle-grade, but it's MG appropriate, I believe.

3. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis ... and the whole series. To this day, it's my second most-read series

2. A Wrinkle in Time ... and the rest of this series. Growing up a science geek and very religious, it meant so much that an author was balancing science, faith, family values, and magic!

1. A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeleine L'Engle - I adore this whole series, but I read this first because it had the flying unicorn on the cover. I love that these books still make sense out of order...and I love the magic of the poetry in this one! Also: UNICORN!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

T. J. Wooldridge is a professional writing geek who adores research into myth, folklore, legend, and the English language. Before delving full-time into wordsmithing, she has been a tutor, a teacher, an educational course designer, a video game proofreader, a financial customer service representative, a wine salesperson, a food reviewer, an editing consultant, a retail sales manager, and a nanny. While infrequent, there are times she does occasionally not research, write, or help others write. During those rare moments, she enjoys the following activities: spending time with her Husband-of-Awesome, a silly tabby cat, and two Giant Baby Bunnies in their Massachusetts home hidden in a pocket of woods in the middle of suburbia, reading, riding her horse in the nearby country stables and trails (not very well), reading Tarot (very well), drawing (also not very well), making jewelry (pretty well), making lists, and adding parenthetical commentary during random conversations. She also enjoys dressing up as fey creatures, zombies, or other such nonsense at science fiction, fantasy, and horror conventions.

Trisha’s SHP Middle Grade Books: The Kelpie, Silent Starsong

Visit Trisha online: Website, Facebook, Twitter: @novelfriend

a Rafflecopter giveaway