Book Review - Fallen Leaves by Tessa Emily Hall (+giveaway!)

Only seventeen more days until Tessa Emily Hall's newest novel, Fallen Leaves (the sequel to Purple Moon) releases! When JustRead said they  were doing a tour for this lovely book, I jumped at the chance, and I"m super excited to be reviewing this gorgeous thing.

4 Stars

Guess what? I accidentally read Fallen Leaves (the sequel to Purple Moon) without reading Purple Moon first. *all the bookworms gasp* There were some complications, so I ended up reading the second book first ... and really, really enjoying it!

From The Back Cover 

Selena Taylor thought her only worry this fall was starting her junior year at a new arts school in North Carolina, miles away from home. But when she finds out her mom could graduate from rehab sooner than expected—even worse, she could work for her former nothing-but-trouble boss—Selena's determined to create a new life for them. Back in her childhood Kentucky hometown.

Step one? Track down her dad and brother that she hasn't seen in eight years. Her anxiety is put to the test, though, when she unveils a truth that could threaten her dreams. Add to that an art competition that pushes her outside of her comfort zone and a girl who seems determined to come between Selena and her hopeful boyfriend.

Soon Selena must decide whether or not to continue her search for her dad and brother. But is there any hope that the ruins of her broken family could be resurrected? And how could God possibly have a purpose in the midst of these changing seasons?

View Fallen Leaves on Goodreads   ---   View Fallen Leaves on Amazon

Fallen Leaves, published by Illuminate YA, releases October 26th

Tessa Emily Hall writes inspirational yet authentic books for teens to show them they’re not alone—and because she remembers the teen life like it was yesterday (or a few years ago). In addition to being a frequent contributor to both online and print publications, Tessa’s debut novel was published while still in her teens. She’s the founder and editor-in-chief of PursueMagazine.net, a Christian teen magazine, and enjoys mentoring other young writers. She’s guilty of making way too many lattes and never finishing her to-read list. Tessa’s favorite way to procrastinate is by connecting with readers on her blog, email list, social media (@tessaemilyhall), and website: http://www.tessaemilyhall.com.

- Connect with Tessa - 

Website - Instagram - Twitter - Facebook - Newsletter - 

- The Setting. I have a problem, guys - sometimes I have a very hard time picturing settings in books. But it wasn't this way in Fallen leaves at all. Tessa really made you feel like you were there, I loved it. It was so easy to picture the entire book, all the descriptions were so perfect and colorful. I especially loved Brewer's Coffee Shop <3 <3 <3.  

- Selena. Selena was an amazing main character, I loved being in her head in this book. She has such an honest voice and was super easy to relate to. Plus, she has such an interesting life that I couldn't help but want to know how things turned out for her! There's so many first person POV novels out there, sometimes it's hard to find really good ones - but Fallen Leaves is one of them.

- The feel of the book. Fallen leaves has this SUPER Autumn-y feel, what with it actually taking place smack in the middle of Fall, and also having the cutest coffee shop as one of its main settings. Which makes it the perfect book to be reading right now, which of course means you should go snap it up the minute it releases ;D.

- Was there any? I don't really think there was anything about this book that I didn't like! I probably could have given it a full five stars, but everyone here knows that contemporary has never been my jam (and yet I always LOVE Tessa's books, so that definitely speaks for how epic of an author she is). It was a very, very good book.

Fallen Leaves was a lovely story that I really enjoyed (and read it one sitting!) - and it's absolutely perfect that it releases in October, because it is the perfect book for anyone looking for an Autumn contemporary read. I would recommend it for ages 14+. I'll definitely be checking out more of Tessa's work, and I can't wait until she releases another book! <3

And like I said earlier, this review is part of JustRead's tour for Fallen Leaves - which means that there's a giveaway going on!

A signed copy of Fallen Leaves is up for grabs, along with some other fun, Autumn-y things, so definitely go check that out (you can find it at this link!).

And this post was only one of many for the tour, so you can click HERE to head on over to JustRead's landing page for the Fallen Leaves tour, and they'll have the links to all the rest of the posts there ;). (you can also find the Rafflecopter for the giveaway on the tour's landing page if the link I shared is acting up).


So I hope y'all enjoyed that review! If you're looking for a sweet contemporary read with a strong Autumn vibe, I would absolutely recommend Fallen Leaves (though, unlike me ... you might want to read the first book first, haha! ;D)

Keep being epic, my friends <3.

~ Savannah Grace 

have you read any of Tessa's books?

which one is your favorite?

disclaimer: I received a copy of Fallen Leaves in exchange for my honest review

Updates and Opportunities + Havok Publishing is Live!

This post is a little outside the norm for me, but there's SO many things happening around the writing realm of the internet that I had to write up a quick announcements post of sorts. Trust me - this is going to be good.

Havok Publishing is LIVE!

What is Havok Publishing, you ask? Well, the imprint Havok of Splickety Publishing (which is, unfortunately, closing down soon) has broken away and will rise up like a phoenix from the flames to become HAVOK PUBLISHING on January first - but the brand new website is live TODAY and it looks phenomenal. And there's so many exciting things going down there! There's going to be stuff happening for both writers AND readers, so y'all need to scamper over HERE to check it out, because I'm not even going to try to explain how epic  this is going to be ;D.

But the most important part is that WE WANT YOUR STORIES! Havok Publishing is open for submissions right now - so please check out the submission guidelines and then send us your flash fiction, because we are super excited to start showing the world more incredible flash fiction.

And if you so feel the urge, please share about this call for submissions on social media! Havok Publishing is ready to wreak Havok and take over the world - er, show the world more amazing stories. ;)  

(also, I'm part of the team over at Havok Publishing, so if I seem a tad excited about all of this...that would be why ;D. Submit, submit! We're excited to see your lovely work!)

Project Canvas is holding their first contest!

And Project Canvas also has a release date! On November 15th this book of writing-related articles - written by writers all over the globe (including yours truly!) - will be released into the great wide wild. To celebrate, Project Canvas is holding The Handwritten Contest. It looks like it's going to be a ton of fun, but the deadline is October 15th - so if you want in, you'd better check out this link, pronto! ;)

The 7th Annual "Promising Beginnings" contest is running!

Okay but first of all - that prize though. A scholarship to either Mount Hermon or the SoCal writing conference? Yes, please! The deadline for this contest is the 30th of November, so hop on over to this link and check it out before it's too late. This is a contest you definitely don't want to miss out on ;).

Summer Storytelling is up for pre-order!

So if any of y'all are incredibly sleuth-y sleuths, you might have seen that I updated my "My Writings" page - and now there's a pre-order link to the beautiful Summer Storytelling book! Talented illustrator Kerilynn Wilson is publishing this beautiful book, which is a collection of lovely stories that she has illustrated, including Uncharted by moi ;). All the artwork inside this book is STUNNING and I can't wait to have a physical copy of all the gorgeousness. If you want to pre-order it, check out this link! 

Tons of exciting things going on in the writing world right now, y'all! I hope you join in on some of these, they're going to be a ton of fun (especially Havok Publishing, because Y'ALL, this thing is going to be insanely epic). It's going to be amazing!

Keep being epic, my friends <3.

~ Savannah Grace 

are you going to submit to Havok?

let me know your thoughts on these, my friends!

Highlights of September 2018

September was a more of a quiet month compared to the rest of the year - quiet, but still a very, very good month. And yet it also felt like it flew by in an editing-filled blur? ;D

Who wants to hear about it? 

First of all (and I'm still on cloud nine because of this one) - my parents surprised me on my birthday by telling me that I'm going to Realm Makers 2019! I'm beyond beyond excited to go back again next year (honestly, RM 2018 was one of the best experiences I've had in all of my life), even though I don't think it's quite sunk in yet that I'm really going back next year! ;D Will I see any of you there? (I dearly hope so!)

My sisters also put together a killer birthday present for me - they emailed and texted tons of my friends and relatives (even a bunch of my sweet Realmie friends!) and put together a massive montage of birthday-wish videos for me. It was an incredible present.

And art has been happening! I've been messing around with using oil pastels instead of lead or ink ... but they're just so smudgy. Very hard to use. We'll see what comes of that ;D. I've done most of my sketches this month with my mechanical pencil though, and I'm still loving that. I'm learning that when I run dry of writing inspiration, falling to my sketchbook seriously helps. Thus, since I was editing this month ... lots of sketching happened ;D.

I've doodled a quote from each of Mary Weber's Storm Siren books, and it took me FOREVER to chose a picture to sketch along with this quote (from the third book). I finally chose to sketch the Realmie taco night, because why not? ;D

Come on, it's never too early for Romanov fanart ;D. I did that one right before the cover reveal (*cough* because I was overexcited *cough*), and then doodled Moana as well, because it was too fun to resist!

The writing front has been... well, I can't decide whether it's been 'pretty quiet' or 'exhausting', honestly ;D. It's been quiet in the sense that I haven't worked on much new stuff, and exhausting in the sense that I've been editing all month.

All. Month.

But I've FINALLY finished my current round of edits (yay!) - and I'm incredibly happy and thankful about this, because this was both one of the hardest and yet best of round of edits I've done so far (...confusing, I know xD). I've got a couple more rounds of edits to complete, and then it will be DONE. I'm planning to have the beta call posted in mid-October (so it's happening SOON!).

Oh, on another exciting note - Kerilynn Wilson posted the illustrated version of Uncharted! Her work is AMAZING, and there's so much blue! (y'all know I have an affinity for the color blue ;D) I loved seeing what she did with it, and absolutely cannot wait to get a physical copy of it!

Also NaNoWriMo is coming in one month. Am I ready NO.

Two of these books were assigned for school, four of them I chose to read - so while it was a slower month reading-wise, I also discovered a new trilogy that I ADORE, so I consider it a win ;D.

- The Storm Siren Trilogy by Mary Weber. This trilogy, people - THIS TRILOGY. I read The Evaporation of Sofi Snow and Reclaiming Shilo Snow right when they came out, but for some reason never finished the Storm Siren trilogy after I read the first book a couple years ago? But I decided to nab it again after I meet the lovely author at Realm Makers, and YOU GUYS. I honestly can't even express my thoughts on it here without going on for hours, so I'll just tell you that I LOVED this trilogy to death, and a review is coming soon ;D.

- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. So...I went into this book expecting to dislike it. Nothing against the book itself, but "classic" books normally don't sit well with me (for some reason I just find it hard to connect to them?) but THIS ONE WAS DIFFERENT. I literally couldn't stop reading it, it was such a good book. 4.5 stars to this one. (and maybe I'll think twice before refusing to read other classics now, haha!)   

The nominations round, voting round, and award presentation ;).

- Danielle at Life is Like a Book, R.M Archer at Scribes and Archers, Allison at The Little Bookworm, and Jane at Jane Maree did my Get To Know Me Tag: Writer's Edition! Go check them and out and give these epic girls some love <3 <3 <3. (also, if you've done the tag, let me know in the comments so that I can check it out and include you in my next wrap-up post!)

- The lovely Deborah O' Carroll and the epic Jane Maree both celebrated blogoversary's this month, so go pop on over to their amazing blogs and throw some confetti at them ;).

- Micaiah Saldana guest-posted an amazing story on the lovely Hanna Rothfuss' blog - make sure to go check it out! It's beautiful <3.     

- Danielle over at Snapper did an epic post on her writing process in GIFs, which was a ton of fun ;D.

- The amazing Rosalie over at Penprints did an equally amazing post about why The Lion King means so much to her, and I have been fully convinced that I need to see that movie!

- Victoria over at The Wanderer's Pen did an awesome post about how she juggles two jobs, writing, editing, social media managing, while still having a  social life (I am beyond impressed, y'all).    

- Paper Fury's Cait did an epic review of Blackbird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel, and I immediately scrambled over to my library to snag a copy, because this book is right up my alley.

- The incredible Kara Swanson started up a STUNNING author website! So y'all should definitely scamper over there and check out it, because it's absolutely gorgeous, my gracious <3 <3 <3

- The final Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindewald trailer released and I AM SCREAMING. Who else is excited for this move to finally release?

   Well, like I said - the beta call is coming! Hopefully sooner than later, because I have to get this thing off to agents (o.o). And then I have a couple book (and movie!) reviews planned, so that'll be fun. I also miiiight do a Q&A vlog (as a late celebration for my blogoversary, which was on Sept. 12 and which, yes, I totally skipped ;D) - maybe if you guys really want me to ;). We'll see what happens!


I hope y'all had an amazing September, and that October is just as good! Keep being epic, my friends <3.

~ Savannah Grace 

how was your September?

who's planning on doing NaNoWriMo?