Blogaversary Day 11 - Win Swag from Rachel Morgan

The Faerie Guardian (Creepy Hollow #1)
by Rachel Morgan
Release Date: October 27th 2012

Synopsis:

Enter a hidden world of magic, mystery, danger and romance in thi
s YA fantasy from Amazon bestselling author, Rachel Morgan...

Protecting humans from dangerous magical creatures is all in a day’s work for a faerie training to be a guardian. Seventeen-year-old Violet Fairdale knows this better than anyone—she’s about to become the best guardian the Guild has seen in years. That is, until a cute human boy who can somehow see through her faerie glamor follows her into the Fae realm. Now she’s broken Guild Law, a crime that could lead to her expulsion.

The last thing Vi wants to do is spend any more time with the boy who got her into this mess, but the Guild requires that she return Nate to his home and make him forget everything he’s discovered of the Fae realm. Easy, right? Not when you factor in evil faeries, long-lost family members, and inconvenient feelings of the romantic kind. Vi is about to find herself tangled up in a dangerous plot—and it’ll take all her training to get out alive.

The Faerie Prince (Creepy Hollow #2)
by Rachel Morgan
Release Date: May 30th 2013

Synopsis:

Packed with spine-tingling intrigue and swoonworthy romance, the plot thickens in this YA fantasy from Amazon bestselling author, Rachel Morgan...

Guardian trainee Violet Fairdale is just weeks away from one of the most important occasions of her life: graduation. After messing up big time by bringing a human into the fae realm, Vi needs to step up her game and forget about Nate if she hopes to graduate as the top guardian of her year. Everything would be fine if she wasn’t forced to partner with Ryn, her ex-friend, ex-enemy, current ‘sort of friend’. They might be trying to patch up their relationship, but does she really want to spend a week undercover with him for their final assignment? On top of that, the possibly insane Unseelie Prince is still on the loose, free to ‘collect’ as many specially talented faeries as he can find—and Vi is still at the top of his list. Add in faerie queens, enchanted storms, complicated not-just-friends feelings, and a murder within the Guild itself, and graduation is about to become the least of Vi’s problems.

The Faerie War (Creepy Hollow #3)
by Rachel Morgan
Release Date: October 21st 2013

Synopsis:

Driven by action, suspense, and a strong heroine, this deliciously detailed, bestselling YA fantasy will keep you turning the pages right up until the epic conclusion...

Violet Fairdale is in big trouble. Her home is gone, her beloved forest lies in ruins, the guy she gave her heart to has deserted her—and she doesn’t remember any of it. The powerful Lord Draven is taking over, brainwashing guardians into fighting for him. No one is safe from the evil spreading throughout the fae world.

As alliances are forged between the remaining free fae, Vi struggles to reclaim her identity and figure out where she belongs in this new world. When someone from her past shows up, life gets even more complicated. He brings with him a long-forgotten weapon and an ancient prophecy that places Vi at the center of the fight against Draven. With the future of the fae world at stake, can Vi carry out the prophecy’s instructions before it’s too late?

Hi Rachel! Thank you so much for celebrating our blogoversary with us. We loved the Creepy Hollow series and we are really happy to have you on our blog today.

To be honest, it was those two words, Creepy Hollow, that popped into my head first. The rest of the series (the magical forest, dangerous creatures, guardians who protect humans) all developed from those first two words.

The magical realm is real, and sometimes the dangerous creatures who inhabit that realm cross over to the human side. That’s when things get messy. Enter the guardians: faeries who train to protect humans against these hidden dangers. The Creepy Hollow series follows Violet, a trainee guardian close to graduating at the top of her class. But everything goes wrong after one of her assignments—a cute human boy—manages to see through her faerie glamour and follows her back into the faerie realm.

Violet is a tough, no-nonsense kind of girl who keeps her true feelings hidden deep below the surface. She’s lost enough people in her life to know that getting close to people means opening yourself up to getting hurt. On the other hand, she’s been lonely for a long time, so when Nate comes along with his smile and his jokes and his ridiculous questions about the fae realm, Vi might not be able to stop herself from falling for him. One of the best things about her is her loyalty to those she does care about.

Nate played chess competitively at school until he got old enough to figure out that it wasn’t the “cool” thing to do! Ryn would never admit it to his friends, but he’s made up a few stories to help his little sister Calla fall asleep at night—and she thinks he’s pretty good at storytelling.

Oh man, that’s tough. I’m tempted to say the ebook covers, but then I pick up one of the print books, and they just look SO BEAUTIFUL and MAGICAL in print … So … the print covers? I think?!

My favorite is the middle book, The Faerie Prince. I like the way the two main characters learn to forgive each other, depend on each other, and ultimately, love each other. There’s quite a lot of character growth.

I had quite a few favorite scenes (*cough* magic carpet *cough* boat ride *cough*), but possibly my most favorite scene to write was the big confrontation/fight scene between Vi and Ryn in the last quarter of the first book. They’d been hating each other for years, and there was so much misunderstanding and hurt between them, yet they’d never had the opportunity to get all their feelings out. That was was that scene was about. It was filled with so much passion, anger, action, exhilaration, energy … It was awesome to write!

I felt like it was one SERIOUS accomplishment to get to the end of my first trilogy! I felt elated, but also sad. And tired. And then … I felt like there might be more … ;-)

I actually picked some actors recently for a guest post I did. Here’s who I found:

Vi – Victoria Justice

Ryn – Brant Daugherty

Nate – William Moseley

Tora – Helena Mattsson

A series of “clean NA” romantic comedy novels, The Trouble Series. You can read more about it here.

Rachel Morgan was born in South Africa and spent a large portion of her childhood living in a fantasy land of her own making. After completing a degree in genetics, she decided science wasn’t for her—after all, they didn’t approve of made-up facts. These days she spends much of her time immersed in fantasy land once more, writing fiction for young adults.

When she isn't writing, she's reading (duh!), catching up on addictive TV series, and baking things that almost always include chocolate.