Bring Me Their Hearts by Sara Wolf: Review + Giveaway!!!

Bring Me Their Hearts by Sara Wolf
Series: Bring Me Their Hearts #1
Published by Entangled Teen on June 5, 2018
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased by Reviewer, the Publisher
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Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N

Zera is a Heartless – the immortal, unageing soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly.

Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a Prince’s heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum; if she’s discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy her heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles.

Crown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him – every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him – until the arrival of Lady Zera. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The Prince’s honor has him quickly aiming for her throat.

So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all.

Winner takes the loser’s heart.

Literally.

A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing author Sara Wolf at her Katy Budget Books Bring Me Their Hearts release party. If you live in the Houston area, go and buy yourself a signed copy of BMTH! You can also order a signed copy to be shipped to you from their website.

 

First, I want to say that I was completely dazzled by author Sara Wolf (her nom de plume). She was clever, funny, down-to-earth, and a great conversationalist. Basically, she was as enchanting and entertaining as her Entangled TEEN debut. Here’s what I can tell you about SW in a nutshell–in her tween and teen years, she was the geeky, video-game-playing, Pokemon-fan-fiction-writing, sarcastic girl of everyone’s dreams–in at least a twenty-mile radius. She would NEVER enjoy running a book blog, and her alternate career would be as a pastry chef.

 

Now that we have established how awesome SW is, I will let you in on some of the writerly secrets she divulged at her signing! This may come as a surprise to you, but SW is a Pantster! She doesn’t use outlines or storyboards when she’s crafting a story. Rather, she just sits down and starts pouring what’s in her head on to her computer screen, and lets the story shape itself. SW had always wanted to write a fantasy trilogy, but she felt completely inadequate while working on BMTH. I, for one, am glad she persisted. As a successful self-published author, SW said she enjoyed the freedom that came with having complete creative control. That being said, she immensely enjoyed working with the team at Entangled TEEN.

SW wanted to let all the aspiring authors out there know that she used careertracker.com, mass emailed YA lit agents, made a lot of cold-calls, and endured 738 rejections before the fruits of her creative labor were recognized and given a chance. (This admonition made me love her even more.)

Now, on to my review of the book.

Obviously, I LOVED it. I do not typically read (or like for that matter)fantasy books. But BMTH achieved the perfect balance of world building, character development, action, feminism, bromance, and romance. The dark and witty dialogue is probably my favorite aspect of the novel, but the chemistry between Zara, the female MC, and Prince Lucien, the male MC, is charged with that oh-so-good-tension that make books like Twilight and Pride and Prejudice so popular. (#TwilightForever #DontHate!) (SW, I love you. If you read this, please don’t hate me for dropping those names.)

BMTH is fast-paced and surprisingly poignant. The reader is exposed to the dark and tragic past of Zara in addition to her dark and gruesome thoughts. Honestly, the book was darker than I anticipated, but it was nicely balanced out with moments of laugh-out-loud humour and sharp banter. In short, this book was on point or on fleck or whatever kids are saying in substitution of the phrase bad-ass now-a-days. Seriously, though–buy yourself a copy of this book, give it to a friend, keep it for yourself, request it from your library, and ENTER TO WIN A SIGNED COPY BELOW!

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