Ice Country (The Country Saga #2)
by David Estes.

Book Synopsis

Dazz, a hard-edged, fun-loving Icer, likes fighting, particularly while at his favorite watering hole. However, while recovering from a particularly bad break up, his decision to engage in a brutal pubroom brawl leads to a series of events that thrust him into a dark and mysterious scandal involving King Goff, the ice country ruler.

When his seven-year-old sister is abducted in the dark of night, Dazz pledges to do whatever it takes to get her back, embarking on a quest that threatens to rip apart the very fabric that's barely holding his shattered family together.
Along the way he meets a group of unlikely allies in the form of a travelling group of fire country natives. Can Dazz, when joined with his best friend, Buff, and new tan-skinned friends, defeat the King and his guards before it's too late for his sister?

My Review:

In this installation of David Estes' Country Series we meet Dazz and Buff, two residents of Ice Country that do their best to raise themselves, managing to be as responsible as you can expect 17 year olds to be when left to their own devices. The boys find themselves set upon a journey where they learn responsibility, leadership, teamwork, and just how badly their society is corrupted.

Fans of The Dwellers or Country series will not be disappointed with this latest addition to the story. Estes expands his dystopian world and introduces us to a culture that lives in the mountains where it is always cold and has snow, even in the summer.

In his usual fashion, Estes gives us an entertaining story full of engaging characters, including some familiar faces as several characters from Fire country make an appearance as well. Definitely well worth the read and a book that I am highly confident to recommend to young adults, as well as parents.

I give it

4 stars!

PRAISE FOR "ICE COUNTRY":
-"5 stars! David Estes creates captivating and original worlds that you love to get lost in!" Alexandria Theodosopoulos- Goodreads
-"Richly filled with new characters and story without leaving the old behind...a seamless transition into another side of a fantastic world." Kerri Hughes- Goodreads

Quick Facts

Release Date: April 4th,2013.

Genre: YA Dystopian.

Formats Available for Purchase: Paperback (only at Amazon) Kindle, epub and Smashwords.

Excerpt

It all starts with a girl. Nay, more like a witch. An evil witch, disguised as a young seventeen-year-old princess, complete with a cute button nose, full red lips, long dark eyelashes, and deep, mesmerizing baby blues. Not a real, magic-wielding witch, but a witch just the same.
Oh yah, and a really good throwing arm. "Get out!" she screams, flinging yet another ceramic vase in my general direction.
I duck and it rebounds off the wall, not shattering until it hits the shiny marble floor. Thousands of vase-crumbles crunch under my feet as I scramble for the door. I fling it open and slip through, slamming it hard behind me. Just in time, too, as I hear the thud of something heavy on the other side. Evidently she's taken to throwing something new, maybe boots or perhaps herself.
Luckily, her father's not home, or he'd probably be throwing things too. After all, he warned his daughter about Brown District boys.
Taking a deep breath, I cringe as a spout of obscenities shrieks through the painted-red door and whirls around my head, stinging me in a dozen places. You'd think I was the one who ran around with a four-toed eighteen-year-old womanizer named LaRoy. (That's LaRoy with a "La", as he likes to say.) As it turns out, I think LaRoy has softer hands than she does.
As I slink away from the witch's upscale residence licking my wounds, I try to figure out where the chill I went wrong. Despite her constant insults, narrow-mindedness, and niggling reminders of how I am nothing more than a lazy, liquid-ice-drinking, no-good scoundrel, I think I managed to treat her pretty well. I was faithful, always there for her--not once was I employed while courting her--and known on occasion to show up at her door with gifts, like snowflake flowers or frosty delights from Gobbler's Bakery down the road. She said the flowers made her feel inadequate, on account of them being too beautiful--as if there was such a thing--and the frosty's, well, she said I gave them to her to make her fat.
She was my first ever girlfriend from the White District. I should've listened to my best friend, Buff, when he said it would end in disaster.

The Author:

David Estes was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was very young. He grew up in Pittsburgh and then went to Penn State for college. Eventually he moved to Sydney, Australia where he met his wife and soul mate, Adele, who he's now been happily married to for more than two years.
A reader all his life, David began writing novels for the children's and YA markets in 2010, and has completed 14 novels, 12 of which have been published. In June of 2012, David became a fulltime writer and is now travelling the world with Adele while he writes books, and she writes and takes photographs.
David gleans inspiration from all sorts of crazy places, like watching random people do entertaining things, dreams (which he jots copious notes about immediately after waking up), and even from thin air sometimes!
David's a writer with OCD, a love of dancing and singing (but only when no one is looking or listening), a mad-skilled ping-pong player, an obsessive Goodreads group member, and prefers writing at the swimming pool to writing at a table. He loves responding to e-mails, Facebook messages, Tweets, blog comments, and Goodreads comments from his readers, all of whom he considers to be his friends.

Learn more about the author at: http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com

Tour Giveaway

Tour Wide giveaway: 5 e-copies of "Fire Country" (The Country Saga #1) and 2 e-copies of "Ice Country" (The Country Saga #2).
Rules:

There will be 7 winners.
The giveaway is open internationally.
Winners have 48hs to claim their prize since the moment they receive the email.
Do not cheat! :P

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember to check BOOK 1 in "The Country Saga": Fire Country.

Synopsis:

In a changed world where the sky bleeds red, winter is hotter than hell and full of sandstorms, and summer's even hotter with raging fires that roam the desert-like country, the Heaters manage to survive, barely.

Due to toxic air, life expectancies are so low the only way the tribe can survive is by forcing women to procreate when they turn sixteen and every three years thereafter. It is their duty as Bearers.

Fifteen-year-old Siena is a Youngling, soon to be a Bearer, when she starts hearing rumors of another tribe of all women, called the Wild Ones. They are known to kidnap Youngling girls before the Call, the ceremony in which Bearers are given a husband with whom to bear children with.

As the desert sands run out on her life's hourglass, Siena must uncover the truth about the Wild Ones while untangling the web of lies and deceit her father has masterfully spun.

AMAZON

SMASHWORDS

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