The Hallowed Ones Blog Tour: Guest Post with Laura Bickle

So excited to be a part of this blog tour! I loved The Hallowed Ones so much. It is a perfect book. And I think that everyone should read it. It is that perfect. And I know you will all love it ;) What's not to love? Perfect writing, perfect story, perfect characters ;p It is a stunning novel. Cannot wait for the sequel :) Anyway. My blog tour stop is a guest post by the author, Laura Bickle. <3 And I must admit that I love this guest post :D It is awesome. And Laura is too amazing. Thank you, Laura, for letting me be a part of this tour :) My five star review of The Hallowed Ones. And details about the sequel. <3
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How My Amish Heroine is like Wonder Woman
By Laura Bickle

Katie first encountered Wonder Woman in the corner of Schmidt’s General  Store. Schmidt’s is a hangout for local Amish kids like Katie. It’s a gas station at the far edge of town with whitewashed walls surrounded by a gravel lot. Schmidt’s has Coca-Cola, magazines of all descriptions, and a vast and sticky array of chocolate confections. And there are three wire comic book racks in the back corner of the store, which is where Katie met the Amazon Princess. 

Katie has been following Wonder Woman’s adventures ever since she was old enough to read. Katie has collected every issue, hiding them in a box under her bed. They are her secret rebellion. She’s fascinated by the idea of Paradise Island…that there could be a place in which a whole society is completely cut off and independent from the World of Man outside. There are signs that time stopped on Paradise Island – the women wear Greek clothing that hasn’t been in fashion in centuries. Katie can empathize. Fashion has not changed for centuries for the Amish, and they hold themselves apart from the outside “English” world, refusing connections of electricity, phone wires, and automobiles.

And Katie feels a particular affinity for Wonder Woman as a person. She’s strong, powerful, but also gentle and innocent. It’s a strange mixture of characteristics that Katie admires.  Diana always manages to do the right thing to protect the people in her care. She knows right from wrong, even though her sisters and mother on Paradise Island would encourage her to be less involved in the affairs of the World of Man.

Katie is contemplating her Rumspringa, her opportunity to taste Non-Amish life before settling down and joining the Amish church forever. She understands why Princess Diana had to leave her safe island to see Man’s World…and to ultimately save it. That story resonates within her deeply.

Because Katie may be forced to make those choices in her own life. Her safe world is crumbling, and it appears that violence has overcome the land beyond her own Amish settlement.  She must decide whether to stay in her own safe oasis, like Paradise Island, or venture beyond to understand the threat facing the larger world.

Though Katie is a quiet, obedient girl, she has a strong heart and insatiable curiosity. Like Diana, she will go beyond the boundaries of her land to find the evil in the world beyond.  She will face it with strength and power and innocence, as no one else could. Except for perhaps her hero, Wonder Woman. 
 

THE HALLOWED ONES by Laura Bickle

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Graphia

Release Date: September 25, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-0547859262 

If your home was the last safe place on earth, 
would you let a stranger in? 

Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers are free to experience non-Amish culture before officially joining the church. But before Rumspringa arrives, Katie’s safe world starts to crumble. It begins with a fiery helicopter crash in the cornfields, followed by rumors of massive unrest and the disappearance of huge numbers of people all over the world. Something is out there...and it is making a killing. Unsure why they haven’t yet been attacked, the Amish Elders make a decree: No one goes outside their community, and no one is allowed in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man lying just outside the boundary of their land, she can’t leave him to die. She refuses to submit to the Elder’s rule and secretly brings the stranger into her community—but what else is she bringing in with him?

Gushing reviews about The Hallowed Ones ;) And more details below.  

"This is a book to make you fear the shadows--a horrifying and gruesome tale of faith, and things that blink red eyes in the night. I began reading in the daylight, and read on into the late hours, leaning close, biting my lip. I could not look away; I was obsessed. Katie is an unbreakable soul."

—Lauren DeStefano, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Chemical Garden Trilogy 

“What an eerily believable, unique story! I can’t stop thinking about it—or shivering.”

—Melissa Marr, New York Times best-selling author of the Wicked Lovely series 

“Readers will find it hard to put down this suspenseful, scary, compulsively readable adventure…”

—Kirkus Reviews 
 

THE HALLOWED ONES is available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Powell’s,  Books A Million, and The Book Depository.

A free excerpt of THE HALLOWED ONES is available here: http://laurabickle.com/the-hallowed-ones/?action=excerpt

For more info about Laura and her books, please visit her website at www.laurabickle.com. She’s also on Facebook and Twitter, usually exclaiming over cute cat pictures and nerdy things. (I adore following her. Laura is the best! <3) You can get more information about the blog tour over at Bewitching Book Tours :)