Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Given To The Sea (Mindy McGinnis), and Giveaway!! (US/Can)

Hi, YABCers!

Today we’re super excited to celebrate the cover reveal for Given To The Sea by Mindy McGinnis, releasing April 11, 2017 from Putman Children’s!!

Before we get to the cover,

here’s a note from Mindy about the 5 things you need to know about Given To The Sea!!

Top 5 Things You Need To Know About GIVEN TO THE SEA

1) A kernel for the idea of GIVEN TO THE SEA was planted a very long time ago when I was a child. I loved the TV movie of IVANHOE with Anthony Andrews. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe_(1982_film) There’s an amazing scene with Sam Neill and Olivia Hussey where she’s locked in a tower and he comes to see her. She thinks he’s there to force himself upon her and she gets up in the window and says she’ll jump if he comes a step closer. He’s a decent guy who means her no harm, so he manages to talk her down but it’s a very powerful scene. It stuck with me (even though I didn’t understand all the implications until I was older). Elements from that scene have found their way into SEA at various levels – the girl who doesn’t want to be touched, a boy in a power position who *could* take advantage if he wanted, a girl who’s pride is so strong she’ll die before she submits.

2) This is my first fantasy, and I went into it reminding myself that I had complete creative freedom. This is my own world in which I can do anything that I want. The life forms don’t even have to be carbon based if I choose. It came time to make up some woodland creatures and for the life of me the only thing I wanted to populate the woods with was huge feral housecats. So I took all my freedom of creativity and made big tabbies.

3) Likewise, I had this idea that writing fantasy would be easy because I get to make up all the rules, no research required. Not true. In a contemporary your audience already knows, in a sense, what the setting is. If I say the main character attends a poor public school, you get the idea and I don’t have to do all the world building – it’s implied. In  fantasy, nothing is a given, nothing is assumed. I have to do a lot of explaining… and keep that interesting. I’ve written post-apocalytpic, historical, contemporary, and now fantasy. Fantasy is by far the hardest.

4) Part of the idea for Khosa’s pre-disposition to dance into the sea is based on a book I read about Huntington’s disease, which is what killed Woody Guthrie. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington%27s_disease) It’s a hereditary disease that causes spasmodic movements that make it appear that the sufferer is dancing, however the movements are outside of their control. I wondered what it would be like to be trapped in a body you can’t control, headed toward the sea, while onlookers simply let you go because they think you are doing this willingly. *shudder*

5) The Indiri twins, Donil & Dara, are my favorite characters in the book. I know I’m showing my age here, but part of their creation comes from the dancing baby off Ally McBeal. I thought that was just about the creepiest thing I had ever seen in my life. But then I thought about a baby that could have that kind of body control, what it could learn early on about coordination and movement. That baby could become one heck of a fighter… and so a long time ago I had this idea in my head about a culture where babies are “born knowing” – able to speak, walk, process logic – all from birth. They don’t have to spend the first few years of their life learning how to feed themselves, or the alphabet. They’d be way ahead of everybody else.

Ready to see?

Scroll, YABCers! Scroll!

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Here it is!

Given To The Sea

Author: Mindy McGinnis

Release Date: April 11, 2017

Publisher: Penguin Teen

Khosa is Given to the Sea, a girl born to be fed to the water, her flesh preventing a wave like the one that destroyed the Kingdom of Stille in days of old. But before she’s allowed to dance – an uncontrollable twitching of the limbs that will carry her to the shore in a frenzy – she must produce an heir. Yet the thought of human touch sends shudders down her spine that not even the sound of the tide can match.

Vincent is third in line to inherit his throne, royalty in a kingdom where the old linger and the young inherit only boredom. When Khosa arrives without an heir he knows his father will ensure she fulfills her duty, at whatever cost. Torn between protecting the throne he will someday fill, and the girl whose fate is tied to its very existence, Vincent’s loyalty is at odds with his heart.

Dara and Donil are the last of the Indiri, a native race whose dwindling magic grows weaker as the island country fades. Animals cease to bear young, creatures of the sea take to the land, and the Pietra – fierce fighters who destroyed the Indiri a generation before – are now marching from their stony shores for the twin’s adopted homeland, Stille.

Witt leads the Pietra, their army the only family he has ever known. The stone shores harbor a secret, a growing threat that will envelop the entire land – and he will conquer every speck of soil to ensure the survival of his people.

The tides are turning in Stille, where royals scheme, Pietrans march, and the rising sea calls for its Given.

Click here to PRE-ORDER Given To The Sea!!!!!

Meet Mindy McGinnis!!

Mindy McGinnis is the Edgar-Award winning author of A MADNESS SO DISCREET, as well as the post-apocalytpic duology NOT A DROP TO DRINK & IN A HANDFUL OF DUST. Her first contemporary, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES will release on September of 2016, followed by her first in a fantasy series, GIVEN TO THE SEA in April of 2017.

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Given To The Sea

By: Mindy McGinnis

Release Date: April 11, 2017 

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS* 

One winner will receive a signed copy of Given To The Sea (US & Canada only).

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