Book and a Beverage [174] – Kasey from The Story Sanctuary

Welcome back to BOOK AND A BEVERAGE!

In case you don’t know the deal about Book and a Beverage, it’s a very simple yet fun feature: We read books, we drink beverages, we take pictures of them and then I share your photos and a little about you to the blogging world!

Give a big welcome to Kasey from The Story Santuary!

Name & Blog Name: Kasey @ The Story Sanctuary
Tell us a little about your blog! I started The Story Sanctuary in 2013 because I wanted to create a place where readers could find information about new books and what kinds of content they contained. I was a pretty sensitive reader growing up, so I wanted to make a site that would list information about violence, profanity, or sexual content without being judgmental about why those things are included in a book. I’m a solo show at present, so I only read/review about 150 book per year, but I take suggestions from readers as much as I can.h other book lovers and share my passion for all things literary. My blog primarily features Young Adult fiction, and I share reviews, book lists, playlists, and more.
What’s been your favorite post you’ve written so far? My favorite post is about a costume my mom made for me as a birthday present last year. She took some of the stories I love most and incorporated them into a Steampunk Book Fairy costume. I wore it to YALLFest last fall in Charleston and to ApollyCon in March in Orlando.
Got anything special coming up we should know about? One of the ARCs I was super excited about getting is the third book in the Great Library series by Rachel Caine. I can’t wait to share my review, which will be posted in the first week of July.

Whatcha reading? The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia
Where did it come from? (Library, purchased, publisher, etc) I write reviews for an organization called Children’s Literature and they sent me a review copy.
Any special reason you chose to feature this book? Yes! I met Kami Garcia at ApollyCon in March and really enjoyed chatting with her. I already had The Lovely Reckless on my list to read of course, but talking with her about writing and her process made me want to read it even more. She is awesome.
What’s important that we should know about this book? Would you recommend it?c I think at first glance, this book looks like a typical good-girl-falls-for-bad-boy type of story, but there are some things that make it way cooler than that. Frankie, the heroine, has PTSD resulting from seeing her boyfriend beaten to death. She’s forced to move in with her dad, who’s an undercover cop and change schools to a public school in a rougher part of town. She makes friends with some kids into street racing, and finally starts to feel alive again after her boyfriend’s death. Then all these high stakes parts of her life– the unresolved murder, an open case her dad’s working, and her new racing friends begin to collide, and I feel pretty desperate to know whether Frankie makes it out okay! I’m on page 229 right now, and so far, I definitely recommend it.

Whatcha drinking? I am drinking iced coffee with a splash of coconut milk.
What’s your favorite thing to drink while reading? Yeah, okay, usually I’m boring and drink water while reading. Sometimes I’ve been known to live it up with a glass of red wine, probably Apothic Red. 🙂
Favorite beverage of all time. Go! You know what I LOVE and don’t get to have nearly enough of is Thai iced tea. That stuff is SO good. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite of all time, but it’s gotta be pretty close.

What are your top three books you would recommend to other people? Oh, man. Only three??? Hmmm. I’m gonna go with Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage because it’s one of the most amazing southern fiction books I’ve ever read, Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine because it’s one of the coolest re-imagined history/dystopian books I’ve ever read, and Freedom’s Just Another Word by Caroline Stellings because it’s a really fantastic story about music which follows a biracial girl in her search to become a great singer like Janis Joplin in 1970s Texas.
What’s your proudest blogging/reading/writing moment? I’ve loved getting to meet some of the authors whose work has inspired me and changed me as a person. That’s pretty cool. But I guess my proudest moment has been those times when my own readers come back to me to tell me they’ve read and fallen in love with a book they heard about on my blog. It’s hard to imagine anything better than that. 🙂
Anything else you’d like to share? Earlier this year, I became an author myself! After working with a number of indie authors interested in having books reviewed, I found myself saying the same things over and over as I tried to coach them through the process. A friend of mine suggested collecting the information and putting it together in an e-book as a guide for indie and small press authors looking to network with book review bloggers. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback so far. The book is called Reviews Wanted and is available at Amazon.