Lifestyle Of Me

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Blogtour: Dying Inside by Pete Wentz

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the DYING INSIDE by Pete Wentz, Hannah Klein, & Lisa Sterle Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Title: DYING INSIDE

Authors: Pete Wentz & Hannah Klein, Lisa Sterle (Illustrator)

Pub. Date: September 24, 2024

Publisher: HEADSHELL (an imprint of Vault Comics)

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 224

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/DYING-INSIDE

Scott Pilgrim and Wednesday combine into a teenaged Fleabag in DYING INSIDE, a supernatural, emo-fantasy thriller from the mind of FALL OUT BOY’s Pete Wentz, Hannah Klein, and Lisa Sterle!

Immortality is entirely overrated.

From Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, Hannah Klein (Everything’s Fine), and Lisa Sterle (The Modern Witch Tarot, Witchblood) comes the graphic novel about a chronically depressed girl who’s tired of fighting for her…death.

Today is Ash’s big finale. And by finale, of course, she means exiting the stage permanently.

Ash is a sixteen-year-old girl with more angst than Ian Curtis and Elliott Smith combined (her two idols). She’s apathetic and therefore believes death is the easiest route to relief. But nothing is more embarrassing than a lame death. Unfortunately, her meticulous plans — which include the perfect outfit, soundtrack, and method — are all ruined when the beautiful knife she buys off a webstore turns out to be charmed with a protection spell.

Now, Ash has to track down the witch who turned her clocking out attempt into the worst gift imaginable: immortality. Turns out, the witch responsible is another sixteen-year-old-girl named (get this) Liv. The two vow to undo the charm together and fight for Ash’s death…even as things get increasingly entangled with a strange new antidepressant called Somnia and her mom’s gross boyfriend, Greg (ughh).

DYING INSIDE is a musically immersive experience, featuring QR codes that lead the reader to:

original lyrics and poetry from Pete Wentz
an integrated playlist from Pete Wentz and Hannah Klein
never-before-heard music from Daisy Grenade
and more!

For fans of: It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth (Zoe Thorogood), Squad (Maggie Tokuda-Hall & Lisa Sterle), Light as a Feather (Zoe Aarsen), Book of Shadows (M. Verano), The Secret Circle (LJ Smith), Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill), the Shadow and Bone Trilogy (Leigh Bardugo), Vicious (V.E. Schwab), Bunny (Mona Awad), The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (graphic novels, prose novels), the Practical Magic series (Alice Hoffman), Anya’s Ghost (Vera Brosgol), the series Charmed, and the films The Craft, Booksmart, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Easy A, and Jennifer's Body.

CONTENT WARNING: This book includes discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation, and depiction of self-harm. While Vault hopes this book will help some readers feel less alone, its content may be triggering. Please only read ahead if you are safe and supported. If you are struggling, it's important to share your feelings with people you trust. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline number is 988 - call or text 24/7 for free and confidential support. You can also access online at: https://988lifeline.org/

Book Trailer:

Dying Inside with Pete Wentz:

About Pete Wentz:

Pete Wentz is the lyricist and bassist for multi-platinum selling, GRAMMY-nominated rock band Fall Out Boy. He owns the record label DCD2 Records which signed Panic! At The Disco and whose roster also currently includes CARR, Daisy Grenade, Games We Play, nothing.nowhere., and more. In addition to music, Wentz created the graphic novel Dying Inside with Hannah Klein and Lisa Sterle for Vault Comics imprint Headshell, launched his own jewelry and apparel line, and is an avid tennis player. Wentz originally hails from Chicago, IL.

About Hannah Klein:

Hannah Klein is a writer/director working in film, music, and (now) graphic novels. She's passionate about mental health, girlhood, and using gossip as a form of currency. She was raised in New York City, where she still resides with her half-hairless cat and the ghost that haunts her apartment.

Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

About Lisa Sterle:

Lisa Sterle is a Columbus, OH-based artist with work spanning from comic books to concept design to pop-culture-fueled illustration. Her work is often bright, expressive, and occasionally tinged with horror, marrying her two favorite themes: the beautiful and the grotesque. She has worked with HarperCollins, IDW, Image, Archie Comics, Vault Comics, BOOM! Studios, and many others. She is the co-creator of monthly comics Long Lost, Submerged, and Witchblood, as well as the creator of The Modern Witch Tarot Deck, a modern and diverse interpretation of the classic Rider-Waite tarot deck, and the illustrator of the graphic novel Squad with writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

2 winners will receive finished copies of DYING INSIDE, US Only.

Ends October 22nd, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

9/23/2024	Bookish In Bed	Excerpt/IG Post
9/24/2024	Lady Hawkeye	Excerpt/IG Post
9/24/2024	Comic Book Yeti	Excerpt
9/25/2024	Book Review Virginia Lee Blog	Excerpt/IG Post
9/25/2024	Daily Waffle	Excerpt
9/26/2024	Two Chicks on Books	Excerpt/IG Post
9/27/2024	Fire and Ice Reads	Excerpt/IG Post
9/28/2024	bookloversbookreviews	IG Post

Week Two:

9/29/2024	by_hckilgour	IG Review
9/30/2024	Books With a Chance	Review/IG Post
10/1/2024	Onceupon_a_bookdream	Review/IG Post
10/2/2024	Lifestyle of Me	Review
10/2/2024	@callistoscalling	IG Review
10/3/2024	@evergirl200	IG Review
10/4/2024	@parkhopandpages	IG Review
10/5/2024	jlreadstoperpetuity	IG Review/TikTok Post

Week Three:

10/6/2024	@enthuse_reader	IG Review/TikTok Post
10/7/2024	Country Mamas With Kids	Review/IG Post
10/8/2024	Eli to the nth	Review/IG Post
10/9/2024	Two Points of Interest	Review
10/10/2024	@heyashleyyreads	IG Review/TikTok Post
10/11/2024	frayedbooks	Review/IG Post
10/12/2024	Deal sharing aunt	Review/IG Post

Week Four:

10/13/2024	Kim's Book Reviews and Writing Aha's	Review/IG Post
10/14/2024	@sparks_books	IG Review
10/15/2024	A Blue Box Full of Books	IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post
10/16/2024	Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer	Review/IG Post
10/17/2024	wiltedpages	Review/IG Post
10/18/2024	thefashionistfiles	Review/IG Post

Review: I really enjoyed this. Really fits the spooky season with witches and curses. I also made some connections in my head between Pete Wentz and Ashley Simpson who is his former wifey. The main characters name is Ash and she has black hair. She is currently married to Evan Ross.

Here is this wild connection that I made.

The beginning shows lyrics and it has the sentence "underground the pressure turning us from coal into diamonds." My favorite book/movie series is The Hunger Games. Peeta makes a joke about pearls and diamonds after Effie says that diamonds are made from coal. Evan Ross was one of the star squad in Mockingjay....

Pete Wentz-Ashley Simpson-Evan Ross-The Hunger Games!!!!

This book has absolutely no connection to The Hunger Games but I am buzzing about my theory.

Blog Tour: Hunterlore by Dana Claire

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the HUNTERLORE by Dana Claire Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Title: HUNTERLORE (Hunterland #2)

Author: Dana Claire

Pub. Date: September 24, 2024

Publisher: CamCat Books

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 299

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/HUNTERLORE-Claire

Silver bullets aren’t enough to protect your heart.

For Liam Hunter, monster hunting is a way of life—a family tradition passed down for generations. But when campers are murdered in the woods, their hearts ripped from their chests, Liam finds himself facing his most terrifying adversary yet—his own mother turned monster. Her pack of werewolves will test Liam’s limits, and his connection with the girl who still has too large a claim on his heart.

Olivia Davis is determined to uncover her own place in Hunterland and hone her newfound abilities. But when Olivia has a terrifying vision, she’s faced with a much larger uncertainty: her feelings for the boy she let slip through her fingers.

Together, Olivia and Liam must survive the deadly game of cat and mouse, or else risk becoming victims in a world where the monsters are the hunters. The clock is ticking. The game is on. And the price of failure may be their humanity.

For readers who enjoy The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith, The Awakening by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti, The Luminaries by Susan Denard, and the Teen Wolf and Supernatural TV series.

Read Book 1, HUNTERLAND now!

Excerpt:

OLIVIA

There are terrors in the night that have nothing to do with monsters, and I was determined to become one. But first, apparently, I needed to learn to defend myself.

I shifted my weight on the hard wooden bench we’d pushed against the wall, along with the rest of the furniture, to give Liam and Nikki space to spar in the center of the room. The basement had been meticulously transformed from a storage area into a small gym and studio apartment that played home to our Hunterland learning center, for all things monster related.

“Whoa!” My little sister Pepper covered her mouth, bouncing on the edge of the seat beside me as Liam ducked Nikki’s wild punch. Nikki staggered when her fist met air instead of bone but smirked anyway.

Our simple, small-town Wisconsin lives had changed a few months ago when Liam Hunter, his sister, Jacqueline, and their father, Jack Hunter, showed up to investigate a string of suspicious suicides in my high school. Well, there was also that bit about a vampire nest and my mother turning into a vengeful spirit. That had thrown us for an even bigger loop.

While the Hunter family helped sort it all out, Liam discovered my sister and I had some magical abilities of our own, and Pepper and I had been fast-tracked to join them as hunters of things that go bump in the night.

Which brought us here. Doc, Hunterland’s appointed leader and our current instructor, thought watching Liam and Nikki fight would make a good introduction to training. But each punch made me wonder if I’d withstand even a few seconds of a battle with either of them, despite my newfound healer abilities. All three of us were seniors in high school, but they felt years older than me, and watching them bob and weave only added to that experience gap.

Liam ducked again, and Nikki snarled as she regained her footing. Even when she missed, she did it with sex appeal, whereas I’d likely resemble a newborn baby deer discovering its legs. Nikki’s body language shifted from slinky feline to prowling lioness, and I saw the monster hunter within, brimming with the ferocity I knew I needed to find for myself if I planned to survive this new life I’d stumbled into.

“Wow, look at them go.” Pepper elbowed me in the side. “They look good out there.”

Or they looked like two ex-lovers trying to show each other up, which for all intents and purposes they were. And of course, right after the twins showed up, Liam started to pull away. Instead of the budding romance I had thought we had started last month, now we felt like strangers passing each other in the halls of our shared living quarters. I asked for time to get to know each other, start with a friendship, with the assumption we’d end up being more. But his response was silence and distance. My ego was too fragile to actually ask what in the hell changed. So here we were, acting as if nothing had happened and the last several months between us meant diddly-squat.

My stomach clenched as Nikki flipped her perfect, lithe body on the exercise mats. Liam wasn’t mine, and probably never would be at this point, but seeing the kind of girl he’d chosen in the past made me want to crawl into an oversized set of sweats and eat ice cream until I puked.

Nikki kicked Liam in the ribs and muttered something that sounded like “Sorry, love” in her annoyingly sexy British accent.

Pepper snorted. Her blue hair flopped over one eye as she leaned in. “That’s gotta hurt.”

I squirmed, unsure if she meant Nikki’s powerful blow to Liam’s kidney or the powerhouse-couple image the pair projected. As Pepper liked to point out every time I made doe eyes in the presence of our lead hunter, I’d been the one to push Liam into the friend zone first, so I had no cause to turn around and throw a jealous fit now that his old girlfriend had shown up.

Still, only a month ago . . . he’d been right there, sleeping next to me every other night, the two of us healing wounds we didn’t want to talk about with anyone else after we’d both lost our mothers in the worst possible ways. But maybe that was why I’d feared letting him in as more than an ally, someone who understood my odd abilities and who related to family trauma caused by the supernatural. If I’d let that relationship continue without a friendship first, I’d have risked Liam’s nomadic, closed-off lifestyle tearing us in two.

The air, already cloyed with sweat, thickened with the heavy scent of melted butter as Jazzy, Nikki’s equally beautiful but less obnoxious twin, plopped next to Pepper on the black painted bench. Her slender fingers were wrapped around a large, red bowl filled with freshly popped popcorn. She motioned for us to help ourselves to the snack.

Pepper dove right into the buttery bowl. Jazzy smiled with bubble-gum pink lips, exposing her bright teeth. She bobbed her chin in the direction of Liam and Nikki. “This is when the two of them are actually fun to be around. Hold on to your knickers, it’s about to get very entertaining. Nikki always says a good spar is just as satisfying as sex.”

I groaned loudly, and Liam looked up at the sound. Nikki took advantage, landing a quick jab to his chiseled jaw. His blue eyes sliced into me as if it were my fault she’d clipped him. Grimacing, he rounded back on her.

Her lips curled into an impish grin, and she threw her perfect curls over her shoulder. “I’m going easy on you, mate. It’s been so long since you’ve teamed up with real hunters, you seem a tad rusty.” She purred—yes, purred—the last few words.

Ugh, what is she even doing here?

Of course, I knew the answer. Her and Jazzy’s uncle, Doc—our current houseguest—had asked for their help in training my sister and me. But why couldn’t Doc do it himself? I’d thought hunters worked in smaller packs—the lonesome road of a supernatural assassin traveling on society’s knife edge. Why had so many congregated in my house? The vampire nest and vengeful spirits that had started this mess were gone.

I didn’t have those answers yet. But I couldn’t help but feel that with nothing to fight, the Hunterland gang were restless predators—and as a newbie, I was still prey.

Liam sidestepped to the right, evading a roundhouse kick so high, I wondered if Nikki could take flight. Her uncle, who was basically a supercomputer database of monster-hunting knowledge and lore, had mentioned she possessed a supernatural ability. Whatever it was, it probably trumped my power of premonition and status as resident healer. Just one more thing she had that I didn’t.

Including Liam Hunter’s attention.

Okay, yeah, pity party for one here. I didn’t say I was above sulking, did I?

“Are you sure you’re taking it easy on me?” Sarcasm soaked Liam’s words. “From the way you’re panting, I’d guess you’re either in heat or out of shape.”

Liam’s dig didn’t faze Nikki’s performance. Her leg kicked out and swiped Liam’s, sending him to the ground. She drove her fist toward his gut, but Liam rolled and scissored a leg around her neck, pinning her. Within seconds she tapped out, and not a moment too soon. My throat had dried, and my angst was elevated to gag-reflex level.

Liam extended his hand, and Nikki accepted, rising with his assistance. His full lips were drawn upward. He rarely allowed peeks behind his hardened badass exterior, but when he did, that smile was so beautiful, it landed a gut punch to the heart.

I stood to excuse myself and end the torment, but the thunder of barreling boots on the stairs made me pause.

“Liam.” Doc appeared, his wide-eyed gaze landing on each of us as he descended, fixing upon Liam last. He adjusted the maroon turban that matched his sweater. “There you are. You’re needed. We have a situation.”

My eyes trailed above him to my father, who followed. He stood dressed in full police uniform—odd considering this was his day off.

“What’s going on?” My gaze darted back and forth between Doc and my father.

Dad’s tired eyes found mine beneath lowered lashes. “We have a murder case. A Hunterland murder case.”

About Dana Claire:

Dana Claire is an award-winning author whose stories explore identity, fate, and destiny in the crossroads of romance and adventure. But her writing career didn’t begin when she published her first book, The Connection, in 2020. It started as a young girl when her mother, an elementary school teacher, inspired her to create imaginary worlds between the pages.

Dana’s love of romantic tension, the supernatural, and non-stop action has elicited positive feedback from many readers, as their online reviews reveal her flair for spine-tingling action and unforgettable characters. But it’s not just readers who love her; literary critics have also taken note, and Dana was given the Children’s Moonbeam award for The Connection in 2021, and the PenCraft Award in 2023 for War of the Sea.

Dana is now sharing her stories through speaking events and book signings, introducing more readers to the worlds she created. She lives in Los Angeles, CA with her adoring husband living her dream: writing books, telling stories, and changing the world, one reader at a time.