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Friday, August 11, 2017

Guest Post with Kristen Simmons, author of The Glass Arrow!

Hey everyone, today Kristen Simmons is on the blog with an awesome guest post in order to celebrate The Glass Arrow now being available in paperback! I hope you enjoy it!

The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons
Publisher: Tor Teen
Pub. Date: February 10th, 2015
Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository
Once there was a time when men and women lived as equals, when girl babies were valued, and women could belong only to themselves. But that was ten generations ago. Now women are property, to be sold and owned and bred, while a strict census keeps their numbers manageable and under control. The best any girl can hope for is to end up as some man's forever wife, but most are simply sold and resold until they're all used up.

Only in the wilderness, away from the city, can true freedom be found. Aya has spent her whole life in the mountains, looking out for her family and hiding from the world, until the day the Trackers finally catch her.

Stolen from her home, and being groomed for auction, Aya is desperate to escape her fate and return to her family, but her only allies are a loyal wolf she's raised from a pup and a strange mute boy who may be her best hope for freedom . . . if she can truly trust him.

The Glass Arrow: a haunting, yet hopeful, new novel from Kristen Simmons, the author of the popular Article 5 trilogy.


Kristen Simmons is the author of the ARTICLE 5 series, THE GLASS ARROW, and METALTOWN. She has worked with survivors of abuse and trauma as a mental health therapist, taught Jazzercise in five states, and is forever in search of the next best cupcake. Currently she lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, where she spends her days supporting the caffeine industry and chasing her delightfully rambunctious son.
Connect with Kristen: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

People often ask me if I think the worlds in my books could actually happen—if a moral regime could take over, eliminating the Bill of Rights, like in ARTICLE 5, or if women could lose their rights to their own bodies and independence, like in THE GLASS ARROW. Readers always pose this as a futuristic issue, and I understand why. I write speculative stories. Dystopian, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories. They’re fiction. I made them up.

The only thing is, I don’t see them as fiction. At least, not entirely.

To me, speculative fiction is just a lens in which I view the world—the current world. Not everyone can turn on CNN and make immediate sense of what’s going on out there. Sometimes seeing the issues people face—war, devastation, loss of rights, racism, and misogyny, to name a few—aren’t so easy to process. Sometimes it’s all we can do to say, “ That’s awful,” and then go about our normal day. But these things are happening, and if we don’t talk about them, if we don’t understand them, they fester. Or worse, we become numb to them, and just accept that this is the way the world is.

I learned pretty quickly when I was young that I understand the world differently than many people. I’m a reader. I’m the type who gets absorbed in a story. I become characters, and have their adventures, not always with them, but as them. Because of this, when things were difficult, I imagined myself handling life like my favorite heroes and heroines. I still remember being in college, homesick and alone on an exchange program, telling myself I had to carry the ring to Mordor before I could go back. It’s funny now, but it totally worked at the time.

It’s not new for me that when things come up in the real world I turn to my imagination to make sense of them. When I started writing, it became cathartic for me. A way to understand the things I couldn’t. So no, I don’t think the world of ARTICLE 5 may someday happen. For me, it’s happening now. Writing that book was how I made sense of a world where people lose their healthcare rights because of who they love, and get punished by the government for having a child out of wedlock. Writing GLASS ARROW helped me process what it was like being a girl, growing up in a society where women are valued on how they look, not how they act or what they know. Although PACIFICA, my next book, is about a pirate girl and the son of the president, searching the futuristic, trash-filled ocean for their missing friend, it helped me understand things I couldn’t otherwise make sense of, like racism, and classism, and the idea that it’s somehow okay to put people on registries and send them packing just because of what they look like or believe.

But in my stories, something else happens. My characters navigate these worlds as I navigate this one, but they fight the powers that oppress them. They strive to break free from tyranny and do the right thing. A resistance forms in ARTICLE 5, and Ember and Chase decide they can’t stand by any longer—they need to fight back. Aya in THE GLASS ARROW reclaims her worth as a woman, a person, and recognizes she’s so much more than the labels other people put on her. In METALTOWN, Colin fights for Ty, who has nothing, even if it means taking on men with more money and status than he’ll ever have. And in PACIFICA, Ross and Marin realize the bridge between people of different backgrounds isn’t just helpful, it’s necessary. That they need each other to survive, the way we need each other to survive.

These stories aren’t just my way of processing, they’re my way of not idly standing by. They’re how I fight back.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

FTC Disclaimer: Giveaway provided by Saichek Publicity, the people of Brittany's Book Rambles did not and will not receive any kind of compensation for this post.

22 comments:

  1. I LOVE the cover for this one! It is absolutely gorgeous. This sounds really different and interesting. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. The cover is amazing, and I hope you check it out. I also highly recommend Metaltown!

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  2. What a great guest post. I'm not familiar with Kristen Simmons' novels but hearing her describe the books she writes as her way of fighting back really makes me want to read them all!

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and definitely check out Kristen's books because she's amazing! Make sure all of her books are on your TBR ASAP!

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  3. Thanks for this giveaway and post! I have not heard about this book before, but it sounds like something I should check out!

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    1. No problem, good luck! I'm glad that I could put this book on your radar ^_^

      Good luck on the giveaway!

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  4. I still need to read this one! It has been on my TBR for quite a while now and I never knew that it was speculative fiction. I am even more intrigued to get to it now! :)

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    1. Same here, girl! But I'm sure it's going to be great especially since I loved her other book Metaltown.

      I hope you love it!

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  5. This is definitely on my reading list. Wow! This book will make me emotional as I read it, based on the synopsis. I'm huge into women's rights.

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    1. That's awesome! I hope you enjoy it ^_^

      Good luck on the giveaway!

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  6. Amazing post. I'm still dying to read this book, but from what I've heard of it, I think I'll love it. I'm also big on women's rights, and it seems like the author really handles that well.

    Thanks so much for sharing, Brittany!

    Amy @ A Magical World Of Words

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    1. Thank you! I think all decent human beings are big on women's rights, otherwise they have no heart imo.

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  7. I love the cover of this book and it sounds amazing! This was an amazing post, super interesting <3

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    1. Thank you, lovely! I hope The Glass Arrow is on your TBR ^_^

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  8. Hugs. Love this guest post. <3 I adore Kristen. And this book of hers was all kinds of awesome :D Thank you for sharing Brittany. Lovely post. <3

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    1. Kristen is such a sweetheart, and I love her so much! I'm glad you love The Glass Arrow! Thanks or stopping by!

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  9. I can't take part in the giveaway because I'm outside the US, but I'll be sure to check the book out! Also, I really liked the guest post and I actually have one of her books, Metaltown, perhaps I'll read it sooner rather than later ;)

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    1. Sorry about that! I will have more international giveaways in the future but the decision wasn't mine this time. I love, love, LOVE Metaltown, so I hope you check it out soon!

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  10. I really enjoyed this book when I read it. I need to read more by the author! Thanks for sharing this!

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    1. I'm so glad to hear that! I need to read this book soon.

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  11. Added to my TBR on goodreads. This is also added to my get wish list. I really think it`s a book that would be fun to read and discuss with my adult daughter and my teenage granddaughter!

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    1. Yay! And I agree, Kristen's books are always great for discussions ^_^

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