CONduct Series Blog Tour

Hey readers! I am part of the blog tour for Jennifer Lane's books With Good Behavior and the companion novel Bad Behavior. And there's a giveaway!

Here's an excerpt from With Good Behavior:

Excerpt from Chapter 19, "The Womanly Touch"

The announcer’s voice boomed over the sound system, and the first White Sox batter stepped up to the plate. His announcement was met with mostly boos in the Cubs-dominated crowd.

Grant asked, “Who made you a Sox fan?”

“My dad.”

Her soft, terse reply told him he hadn't succeeded in lightening the mood. “Oh.”

“I think he wanted a son,” Sophie said. “My mom had four miscarriages before me. Anyway, my dad would drag me to Sox games when I was little, but eventually I learned to love the game. Pretty soon I wanted to go more than he did, but then he started his company and got too busy for baseball.”

“Well, I’m never too busy for baseball,” Grant said, stretching out his lanky body. “Except when I have to work for weeks on end. Thank God for Rog giving us some days off.”

A hot dog vendor meandered down the aisle, already sweating in the hot sun. She was a petite little thing carrying a deep metal tray, and both Grant and Sophie were surprised by her volume when she belted out, “Hot dogs! Five dollars!”

As the ponytailed vendor paused at the row across from them, Sophie leaned into Grant and whispered, “That could be me. When I couldn’t find a job, Jerry told me to sell hot dogs at Cubs games.”

Grant raised his eyebrows in shock and muttered, “The horror.”

Sophie giggled, scoffing, “As if I’d work at Wrigley Field, the enemy’s lair!”

The vendor continued down the aisle and Grant proudly said, “Working on an architectural cruise is far superior to hawking hot dogs. Although I bet you’d get great tips here too.”

Still grinning, Sophie mused, “I wonder if guys ask her if her buns are warm?”

Grant snickered.

Comment below by December 13 for a chance to win an ebook of With Good Behavior or Bad Behavior. It will be the winner's choice. To enter the Grand Prize - a $25 gift card to Amazon or Barnes and Noble - each participant needs to comment on every blog post on the tour. See the tour button on my sidebar or click below:

Here are the participating blogs in the tour, please check them out!

After surviving the rigors of writing a psychology dissertation, the author known as Jennifer Lane has happily turned to writing fiction. She still maintains her psychology practice in Ohio, but please rest assured that she's not psychoanalyzing you right now. The tales of healing and resilience from her career have inspired her to write her own stories: The Conduct Series. With Good Behavior began with two cons trying to make it on the outside: running from the Mafia, joking about sexy vegetables, and just maybe falling in love. Bad Behavior, the next in line, reveals that it's not so easy to escape the past, but the plucky parolees once again strive to persevere. Jen is currently at work on the third and final installment of the series: On Best Behavior. She's found that whether writing or reading, she loves stories that make her laugh and cry. In her spare time Jen enjoys competitive swimming, attending book club, and hanging out with her sisters and their families in Chicago.

Author information:

Jennifer Lane, Author

Romantic Suspense featuring Healing and RedemptionWith Good Behavior (The Conduct Series #1) released July, 2010

Bad Behavior (The Conduct Series #2) released March, 2011
Summer Breeze Anthology (short story Swim Recruit) released July, 2011

Website: http://jenniferlanebooks.com

Twitter: JenLanebooks

Facebook: Jennifer Lane, The Conduct Series

Goodreads: Jennifer Lane

Blog: http://jenniferlanebooks.blogspot.com

Book Review: Legend by Marie Lu

Title: Legend
Author: Marie Lu
Genre: YA, dystopian
Published: Releases Nov. 29, 2011

The opening lines of Legend set the stage perfectly for what kind of book you're getting into. Here's the character named Day:

My mother thinks I'm dead.

Obviously I'm not dead, but it's safer for her to think so.

At least tiwce a month, I see my Wanted poster flashed on the JumboTrons scattered throughout downtown Los Angeles. It looks out of place up there. Most of the pictures on the screens are of happy things: smiling children standing under a bright blue sky, tourists posing before the Golden Gate Ruins, Republic commericals in neon colors. There's also anti-Colonies propaganda. "The Colonies want our land," the ads declare. "They want what they don't have. Don't let them conquer your homes! Support the cause!"

Already it's clear this world is not like ours; the United States is split into the Colonies and the Republic. I love the imagry of  the Golden Gate Ruins. It reminds me of the deteriorating wasteland of D.C. and Vegas in the Fallout video game series which takes place after a nuclear war.

The story vascillates between Day, a teenage boy wanted by the military-led enforcers of the Republic for vandalism and property destruction, and June, a highly trained savant who has essentially finished college by age 15. June is protected by military wealth due to her brother's service, while Day is a vagabond on the run. They live in opposite worlds, but their paths cross when June's brother is killed during a mission to apprehend Day. June is suddenly alone, her parents having been killed years earlier, and now no brother to care for her. A Republic Commander recruits her early out of school, and June's new mission is to find Day, her brother's killer.

Day is portayed by the Republic as a misfit criminal, but when June encounters Day during an undercover mission, she sees a different side. He's kind and protective. He steals plague medicine for his sick brother, and secretly delivers it without making contact with his mother, out of protection for her. Day lives on the streets and takes care of a younger girl he calls cousin; he'll risk his own life to keep her safe. He tells her of how the Repubilc kills citizens who don't pass the Trial, the test each 10-year-old must pass which assigns their lot in life. June is guarded and reluctant to believe Day. She does what she is trained to do and follows her commands. But soon, she starts piecing together details about her brother's murder, and she begins to doubt that Day is the killer. She questions everything she was brought up to believe about the Republic and who they protect.

Fans of The Hunger Games or Delirium will enjoy Legend. All three deal with a world controlled by military-style government seeking to repress the poor and exploit everyone else. It's not all bleak; June and Day have great chemistry without being sappy. Plus, Day is so freaking awesome you will want a movie version of this book when you're finished. Plenty of action moves the story forward whenever it starts to lag.  A few of the seondary characters feel a little one-note, but I enjoyed the leads enough to overcome some of the weaker aspects of the story.