Hi everyone! I’m so happy to be part of this tour. My tour stop includes a guest post from the author Katherine Marsh and a giveaway! :)
JEPP, WHO DEFIED THE STARS
U.S.: October 9th (Hyperion)
UK and Australia: November 1st (Hot Key Books)
UK and Australia: November 1st (Hot Key Books)
FATE:
Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?
Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?
Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?
Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?
Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.
He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a strange and luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakeable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them, but it breaks Jepp's heart to see his friend Lia suffer.
After Jepp and Lia attempt a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe in a henchman's carriage, Jepp fears where his unfortunate stars will lead him. But he can't even begin to imagine the strange, new world—with its beer-drinking moose, brilliant and eccentric master, and long-buried secrets about his own identity—that he's about to discover.
Masterfully written, grippingly paced, and inspired by real historical characters, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is the tale of an unusual hero and his extraordinary quest to become the master of his own destiny.
Guest Post: Forgiveness and its importance to Jepp by Katherine Marsh
My new book, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars, is the coming-of-age story of an unlikely hero, a teenage court dwarf named Jepp. At 15, Jepp leaves his small town home to join the court of the Infanta Isabella, ruler of the Spanish Netherlands. But his expectations of court life prove to be very different than the realities. Jepp is humiliated, mistreated and his career ends with a spectacular tragedy that changes his life.
Jepp’s story really begins at this moment, when his faith in humanity and in himself is at its lowest point. Even though Jepp’s life may seem very different than your own, this moment of doubt and despair is a universal one. How Jepp recovers from this moment--how he rediscovers meaning in his life and faith in his purpose--is the story of my book, one that I hope will prove inspirational to readers.
One of the themes I wanted to explore as I wrote Jepp is forgiveness. I think everyone struggles at some point with how to forgive, especially as you grow up and become aware of your own and others’ imperfections (I know I did!). Over the course of the story, Jepp has to decide whether to forgive a number of people who have mistreated or failed him. Part of this process for Jepp involves developing a nuanced way of judging people—one that allows for bad and good to coexist in the same person. Another part of the process involves honing his sense of compassion—the ability to imagine himself in another’s shoes. For Jepp, like all teenagers, it’s particularly hard to forgive his parents because to forgive their errors is to allow them to be human, no stronger and better than himself.
But ultimately the hardest person for Jepp to forgive is himself. The tragedy that ends Jepp’s career as a court dwarf involves the death of a friend and leaves Jepp feeling he is to blame. Whether or not he is truly at fault is for readers to debate but Jepp struggles with self-forgiveness. Like many teenagers, he feels his journey from innocence to experience has ruined him, that his mistakes are irredeemable. It’s only when he accepts this journey as ordinary rather than extraordinary, when he realizes that “we are all sinners,” that he is able to forgive himself and find his own self worth. How he does this, and who helps him along the way, is bound to surprise the reader but I won’t say more. You’ll have to check out Jepp, Who Defied the Stars.
GIVEAWAY.
I am so excited to read this book:) Thank you for the giveaway1
ReplyDelete