chronicallybookish | Author Q&A Recording- To a Darker ...

Author Q&A Recording- To a Darker Shore with Leanne Schwartz

Recording of the Chronically Bookish Book Club livestream for their April pick To a Darker Shore with author Leanne Schwartz

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1. About the Book
To a Darker Shore is a Dantean-inspired journey through hell starring not one but TWO autistic main characters. It’s an interrogation of monstrosity, religion, and belonging.
When her best friend is sacrificed to the devil, she'll go to hell and back for him. Plain, poor, plus-size, and autistic, Alesta grew up trying to convince her beauty-obsessed kingdom that she's too useful to be sacrificed. Their god blessed their island Soladisa as a haven for his followers, but to keep the devil at bay, the church sends a child sacrifice to hell's entrance every season—often poor or plain girls just like Alesta. With a head full of ideas for inventions, Alesta knows her best shot at making it to adulthood is to design something impressive for the festival exhibition so she might win a spot in the university—acceptance could guarantee her safety.
But Alesta's flying machine demonstration goes awry, a failure that will surely mean death. What happens is worse: Her best friend and heir to the throne, Kyrian, takes the blame expecting leniency but ends up sacrificed in her place. To stop the sacrifices forever, Alesta plans to kill the monster that killed her friend. Prepared to save her kingdom or die trying, she travels to the depths of hell only to find Kyrian—alive, but monstrously transformed.
There is no escaping hell or their growing feelings for one another, and the deeper they descend into hell, the closer they come to uncovering a truth about the sacrifices that threatens to invoke the wrath of not only monsters but the gods as well.

The Giveaway
This giveaway is open to all members of my Bindery community, and it will run from July 16th through 11:59pm pacific on Sunday, July 19th. To enter:

I will announce the winner on Monday here on Bindery, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
I've got giveaways planned for the next couple of months--mostly contemporary romance, but I'm hoping to pick up some fantasy and books with disability representation for future giveaways as well! Best of luck to all who enter, and even if you don't win, I highly recommend picking up TADS!

February Main Prompt: A Book by a Black Author
What I’m Reading: King of the Neuro Verse by Idris Goodwin (ADHD representation, lived experience)
February is Black History Month here in the U.S., and I wanted to honor that with this month’s prompt.
My Recommendations:

If you've decided what you're reading for either prompt, leave a comment!
And if you have Storygraph but haven't officially joined the challenge yet, you can do so HERE.
While reading books by disabled authors is not required for this challenge, it is encouraged, and all of the authors featured here are disabled, though they may not have the specific disabilities represented.
Thank you all so much for participating--I hope you enjoy your February reads!