The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart & The Frog Princess Returns Blog Tour (guest post and giveaway)

I'm thrilled to have the joint blog tour for The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart and The Frog Princess Returns stopping by today with a guest post and giveaway...

The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart

by Stephanie Burgis

May 30, 2017

Bloomsbury USA Children’s

Aventurine is the fiercest, bravest dragon there is. And she's ready to prove it to her family by leaving the safety of their mountain cave and capturing the most dangerous prey of all: a human. But when the human she finds tricks her into drinking enchanted hot chocolate, Aventurine is transformed into a puny human girl with tiny blunt teeth, no fire, and not one single claw.

But she's still the fiercest creature in the mountains -- and now she's found her true passion: chocolate! All she has to do is get herself an apprenticeship (whatever that is) in a chocolate house (which sounds delicious), and she'll be conquering new territory in no time...won't she?

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Stephanie Burgis is a dual citizen of the US and the UK and lives in South Wales (land of dragons) with her husband, the author Patrick Samphire, and their children. The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart is Stephanie's first (delicious) novel for Bloombsury.

The Frog Princess Returns

(The Tales of the Frog Princess #9)

by E.D. Baker

June 6, 2017

Bloomsbury USA Children’s

Fans of E. D. Baker's The Frog Princess, rejoice! Fifteen years after the original, Princess Emma, Prince Eadric, and all the beloved characters are back for another magical adventure from popular author E. D. Baker.

Two weeks after Emma's birthday, Prince Eadric -- having been turned from a frog into a human again -- is still in Greater Greensward. One day, a beautiful princess named Adara arrives at the castle in Greater Greensward for a visit, claiming to be Emma's distant cousin. But Adara has other motives that threaten Emma and Eadric's blossoming romance.

Meanwhile, something is very wrong in Greater Greensward. Crops are dying, streams are drying up, and large sections of trees in the enchanted forest are withering -- all because the Fairy Queen has disappeared. Without her, there is no peace in the magical kingdom, and dangerous foes threaten to take advantage of her absence. Only brave, tenacious Emma with her knowledge of the land can restore order . . . but first she must set out on a journey unlike any before.

Brimming with lovable characters and page-turning magic, The Frog Princess Returns will bring a whole new batch of readers to E. D. Baker's highly acclaimed, wonderfully popular world of Frog Princess series.

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E. D. Baker is the author of the Tales of the Frog Princess series, The Wide-Awake Princess series, The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker series, and many other delightful books for young readers, including A Question of Magic, Fairy Wings,and Fairy Lies. Her first book, The Frog Princess, was the inspiration for Disney's hit movie The Princess and the Frog. She lives with her family and their many animals in Churchville, Maryland.

Never Irritate a Dragon

by Stephanie Burgis

When I run writing workshops for kids, there’s one exercise that I love to give. I ask each kid to create their own dragon (either by drawing a picture or by writing out a description, depending on their age) and then to answer a few key questions that include: (a) What is your dragon’s favorite thing in the world? and (b) What makes your dragon the most angry?

...Because once you have a dragon who’s just been made angry, you have a great opening to a story! And once you know what their favorite thing in the world is, you know exactly what they’ll fight hardest to win or keep.

In my novel The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, my dragon heroine, Aventurine, is as ferocious a young dragon as you can imagine. She’s fierce, brave, territorial, and determined to prove herself - and at the beginning of the novel, she discovers her very favorite thing AND her worst nightmare all in one when a tricksy food mage feeds her an enchanted hot chocolate.

Chocolate turns out to be an absolute revelation, her new overwhelming passion (and when a dragon discovers a passion, they’ll do anything for it)...

...but unfortunately, that enchanted cup of hot chocolate transforms her into a puny human with no claws, scales or fire. How is she supposed to prove herself and fight for her passion now?

Well. She may be a human on the outside, but she’s still a dragon on the inside, and she knows she’s the most ferocious creature anywhere she goes, no matter what anyone else might think of her. So when she arrives, barefoot, in the human city in search of chocolate, with no family or friends or any idea of human customs, she may seem like a hopeless case from the outside...

...but that big city has no idea what’s about to hit it! And neither does the particularly quirky chocolate shop that she’s about to discover. ;)

I had to access my own inner dragon to write Aventurine’s story. I hope that everyone who reads it (no matter what their age) will find some of their own inner dragon in it, too!

And I hope they’ll hang onto that part of themselves next time they’re in trouble...because everyone knows that it’s dangerous to irritate a dragon!

Win copies of The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart and 

The Frog Princess Returns!

(US/CAN only, prizes provided by and shipped from Bloomsbury)

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(M MG M) Guest Post- Stephanie Burgis

I want to thank Stephanie Burgis for participating in the March MG Madness with this awesome guest post! Be sure to check out my Review to learn more about Stephanie's MG book Kat, Incorrigible.

My Top 10 MG Heroines 

Stephanie Burgis

The heroine of my own novels, Kat Stephenson, is a girl who launches herself all-out into adventure, defying social conventions to perform scandalous magic, parley with highwaymen, and shock all her Regency-era peers...

...so in other words, I am an ENORMOUS fan of strong MG heroines! Aeicha asked me to write about my very favorite MG heroines, so here they are in no particular order: ten girls who made me sometimes cheer, sometimes laugh out loud, and sometimes even cry. I love them all.

1. Aluna in Above World, by Jenn Reese. Aluna is a thirteen-year-old warrior - quite literally! Her fight scenes are breathtakingly vivid, I felt totally empowered just by reading about her and entering into her mindset - and then, oh, her romance (with a guy who LOVES her strength and power) is so sweet and funny, too.  It starts with her...okay, I won’t give any details. But basically, it’s awesome! READ THE BOOK! ;)

2. Miss Penelope Lumley in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, a series by Maryrose Wood which begins with Book One: The Mysterious Howling. Penelope is a very responsible young governess who is landed with a perfectly extraordinary set of pupils - they were literally raised by wolves! Her adventures with them are hilarious - I laughed out loud again and again as I read, and I cheered for Penelope as she stood up for her small, howling charges.

3. Zoe in A Crooked Kind of Perfect, by Linda Urban. Zoe wants to be a concert pianist and dazzle audiences in Carnegie Hall...but when her dad goes out to buy her a piano, he gets confused and comes back with something very different. This book had the same quirky, funny tone as the movie Little Miss Sunshine, and I loved it...especially Zoe’s courage in making the best of a bad situation and absolutely GOING FOR IT - with sometimes hilarious results.

4. Mattie in Hound Dog True, also by Linda Urban. (I love Linda Urban’s novels!) Mattie is completely unlike Zoe, but I loved her just as much. Paralyzingly shy, all Mattie wants is to fade into the background, staying carefully closed away from danger...but her bravery draws her into more and more contact with the people around her, and I actually cried at the ending of the book because it was so wonderful to see Mattie finally embracing her own dreams.

5. Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, by You Know Who. I do love Harry, but I identified with Hermione SO MUCH from her very first appearance in Book 1 (a geeky, bookish, brown-haired girl who always has to prove to everyone how smart she is...hmm, who could she possibly remind me of???), and by the last book, I just wanted to BE her. She grows up to be smart, strong, clear-eyed, sensible and brave, AND she’s passionate about civil rights even when everyone else sneers at her for it. As much as I think JK Rowling was right to end the series where she did, I love imagining Hermione’s magical adventures in later life (especially as hinted at by the epilogue of Book 7!).

6. Flora Segunda in Ysabeau Wilce’s Flora Segunda series. (The third book is finally coming out this spring, hooray!) I adore Flora’s verve, her sense of style, her stubbornness and her deep (sometimes conflicted) loyalty. I love watching her and her friends swagger around their fabulously weird and wonderful alternate-American fantasy world, Califa. I love her strong voice, the utterly unique way she describes everything. Most of all, I just love these books.

7. Neela in Vanished, by Sheela Chari. Neela wants to be a musician, but she’s also horribly shy. When her precious veena (a traditional Indian instrument) is stolen from a church in Boston, though, she finds her core of courage as she hunts down the stolen instrument, traveling from America to India and uncovering the legend behind the theft. I loved the mystery, I loved the international setting, and I loved the family dynamics (especially Neela’s relationship with her mother), but most of all, I loved watching Neela come into her own.

8. Allegra in The Mozart Season, by Virginia Euwer Wolff.

Allegra is another musician - hmm, that is a theme, isn’t it? Maybe I should explain here that I used to be a musician, too. When I first discovered this book, I was fourteen and determined to be a professional classical musician. I read this book with a shock of recognition - it was the first time I’d read about another girl around my age (Allegra is twelve) who was as serious and committed to music as I was. This book is about the summer Allegra spends preparing for her first finals in a major music competition, and even after I stepped off the professional music track myself, I kept on re-reading this book at least once a year.

It’s a quiet book, but it is beautiful. Allegra’s family is so vibrant and real, and her passion for music shines through everything. Even as she deals with the panic and stress and pressure of the oncoming competition - where she’ll be competing against adults - she’s also coming to terms with the complexity of adult life as it’s being revealed to her. It’s a coming-of-age summer, and it’s perfectly pitched...and I just love Allegra’s deep core of compassion and strength.

9. Anastasia Krupnik in the Anastasia series by Lois Lowry. I discovered these books when I was in middle school, and I just gobbled them up. I loved (and still love!) smart, stubborn Anastasia and her whole wonderful family - her poet/professor father, her artist mother, her precocious younger brother Sam. I identified so much with Anastasia, and I laughed and laughed at the farcical situations she ended up in.

I read every Anastasia book in my middle school library, and then last year, twenty years later and in a different country, I discovered an Anastasia omnibus on the shelf of a charity shop in Hay-on-Wye. I bought it with a little bit of trepidation - what if it didn’t work for me as an adult? I had nothing to worry about. I laughed and laughed all over again.

10. Catherine in Catherine, Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman. Catherine is a medieval girl ordered by her older brother to keep a diary in order to discipline her mind and learn to conform. It doesn’t work! She is irrepressibly stubborn, grumpy, rebellious, short-tempered...and incredibly lovable. This was such a fun book, and I adored being swept into her medieval world, complete with captive bears that must be saved, shaggy-bearded suitors that must be somehow disposed of, and older brothers that must be taught their proper place.  Just delicious!

What about you guys? Which heroines do you love? I’m always looking for more recommendations!

Be sure to stop by the March MG Madness home post and enter the big month long giveaway to win a box of MG books and swag, including a copy of the UK version of Stephanie MG novel! You can earn extra entries in the big giveaway by answering a question whose answer can be found in the guest post above...go HERE to enter

Find the author: Website / Goodreads / Twitter / Facebook

Purchase: Amazon / B&N

I'm an American writer who lives in Wales with my husband, fellow writer Patrick Samphire, our son, "Mr Darcy", and our crazy-sweet border collie mix, Maya. My MG Regency fantasy trilogy is being published in the UK as THE UNLADYLIKE ADVENTURES OF KAT STEPHENSON, starting with Book One: A MOST IMPROPER MAGICK, and is being published in America as KAT, INCORRIGIBLE. I've also published short stories for adults in a variety of magazines, anthologies, and podcasts.