BLOG TOUR: The Year of the Great Seventh

Today's blog tour for The Year of the Great Seventh, by Teresa Orts is a little different from what I usually do. I read this book earlier this month and posted my review on its release day of July 6. You can read it here. Now, it's time for something fun! I'll let Teresa explain it to you herself. 

Welcome to the Year of the Great Seventh summer world tour!

We will be hopping from side to side of the globe helping Nate and Sophie find each other, but for that, we need you through the entire tour. Sophie and Nate need to meet at a secret location at the end of the blog tour, but since they don’t want anyone else to know where, they left the address in hidden code.

We will be giving you clues at each tour stop that will help you find the location. Also, at each blog tour stop, we will unveil a part of a picture that discloses the secret location.

These are the rules of the game:

• You’ll need to have read The Year of the Great Seventh to be able to follow the game, or at least, have some knowledge of what happens in the novel.
• You’ll need access to Google maps (Street View).
• At each blog tour stop we will reveal a sentence like this:

Sophie spent an afternoon at the (2676 S Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA—second word written on top of the main entrance door) Park with her friends.

• You’ll need to put that address into Google maps, and using Street View, you need to work out which word is missing. In this case, the answer would the following:

Sophie spent an afternoon at the SKATE Park with her friends.

• We are only interested in the first letter of the word: “S”.
• The next day, we will plot that letter into the four words that will hint the secret location, and we will give you the new sentence.  For example:

- - -   - - - - -   S - - -   - - -

• Additionally, there will be a photo of the secret location at each blog tour stop. At the first stop, it will be totally blacked out, but as we go along the tour, we will start unveiling different parts.
• When we get to the last stop, with the photo and the four words that we will have deciphered, you’ll be on your own to find the secret location.
• The first 5 people who send an e-mail to greatseventhtour@outlook.com with the correct solution will win a free hardcopy of The Year of the Great Seventh.
• We will only disclose the winners after the last stop of the blog tour, and will strictly follow the email entries by date/time received to award the books to the first 5 people who discover the secret location. Please remember to include your first name, last name, and address in the email.  We will not use this information for any other purpose.
• You can write comments on the blog post. We are okay with people helping each other; however, the first 5 people to send the correct answer win the books.
• If you change your mind about the secret location, you can send more than one email.
• There can only be one winner per address, and you can only win a maximum of 1 book per person.

Let’s hope we can help Nate and Sophie find each other!

Good luck to everyone!
Teresa Orts

Yesterday’s solution:

(Paul) showed Sophie a glimpse of what her life at NYU would be like, if she chose a normal teenager life over Nate.

Today we will do three different sentences:

Sophie’s NYU tour started in the (60 Washington Square S, New York, NY 10012 –you just need the name of the building).

(London, SE23 3AD, U.K. – the street that correlates to this zip code) was hitting on Cat Woman at Ethan’s party.

‘The salvation to both lies beneath’ meant the (106 Fulton St, New York, NY 10038, United States – second word on the building) of Armenia was supposed to side with Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium.

The picture of the secret location:

Blog tour schedule:

July 16, 2013               YA Book Addict

July 17, 2013               Pretty in Fiction

July 18, 2013               Reading Away the Days

July 19, 2013               Book Mark Belles

July 20, 2013               Le Vanity Victorienne

July 21, 2013               The Maniacal Bookworm

July 22, 2013               Book - Marks the Spot

July 23, 2013               Digesting the Words

July 24, 2013               Butterfly Feet Walking on Books

July 25, 2013               Book Divas

July 26, 2013               Nawanda Files

July 27, 2013               Coffee, Books and Me

July 28, 2013               The Dust Jacket

July 29, 2013               The Bookish Outsider

July 30, 2013               Just a Book Lover

August 1, 2013            So Many Books, So Little Time

August 2, 2013            Framed In Words

RELEASE DAY REVIEW: The Year of the Great Seventh (Tropic of Cancer #1)

The Year of the Great Seventh (Tropic of Cancer #1), by Teresa Orts
Published July 6, 2013
Publisher:  Drayton Press
Format: paperback - obtained from the author in exchange for an honest review
Genre:  young adult paranormal romance, mythology
To Buy:  Amazon

Rating:  3.5 STARS

(From Goodreads) Sophie has always felt out of step — an outsider, even amongst friends in her high school with all the hype about celebrity culture. Her life in L.A. seems to have been already written for her, but when her junior year starts, it all takes a drastic turn. When she crosses paths with the school's heartthrob, Nate Werner, they fall for each other in a way neither can understand. What they don’t know is that by giving in to their desires, they are unlocking an ancient Egyptian prophecy that threatens to return Earth to the dark ages.

To undo the curse, Nate and Sophie embark on an adventure that takes them across the country. But their quest is not only to save the world as they know it. It is also a fight for their very survival. Behind the scenes, there are those that are counting on them to fail.

Happy book birthday, Teresa! 

I read The Year of the Great Seventh in the span over the course of two days recently, and I can tell you that this book can logically be divided into a "before" and "after" section - "before" the trip to New York and "after" the trip to New York. It took me a day and a half to read "before." I finished "after" in a few hours. yes, The Year of the Great Seventh starts out a bit slow. But, when the action and intrigue picked up, so did the rest of the story, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. 

Sophie is a fish out of water in LA. She wants to be a historian instead of someone rich and famous like everyone else around her. She has a master plan - straight As and a scholarship to NYU. Then, Nate Werner bursts onto her scene - like, LITERALLY - and all of a sudden, her whole outlook on her future is thrown for a loop, along with everything she thought was real and legend. 

Sophie was pretty cool. She had all the qualities I like in my heroines. She was brave, not afraid to get her hands dirty, not one to have a man save her all the time, and best of all, she's smart. The independent smart girls are so much better to read about than the wimpy, vapid waifs who wring their hands and wait for a knight in shining armor to save them. 

Nate was also a well developed character. He was misunderstood, honorable, nice, and a bit of a bad boy. I really liked he and Sophie together - they seemed to fit pretty well. 

Mythology is one of my most favorite things to read about. I've always had a passion for it and an interest in it. In this case, we focus on Egyptian mythology. Orts did a great job researching all the history surrounding Cleopatra and Marc Antony's relationship and the time period in which they lived. There was also quite a bit about Nostradamus and his predictions. It was a complexly-weaved plot with a "National Treasure"-esque feel to it (and I loved that movie, so that's a good thing!). 
 

What brought The Year of the Great Seventh down a bit for me was the extreme case of insta-love. Nate pulls a very Twilight move by playing the I'm-no-good-for-you-so-you-need-to-stay-away-from-me card, and after having only one very brief interaction with him, Sophie is absolutely devastated. Like, starts failing her classes and lying to her friends and family devastated. 

As you might expect, there was a mythological connection between their attraction and what all else was going on, but it still reeked of teen insta-love, which is one of my biggest pet peeves in books. 

That being said, this was still a great book, especially if you love mythology like I do. If you would like to check it out for yourself, stay tuned. Later this month, Teresa Orts is hosting The Year of the Great Seventh blog tour (which I have a stop on!), and you'll have the opportunity to get your mythological treasure-hunting self on. Check out the banner to the right for more details, and check out all the tour stops when it's time. Hunt down the clues for a chance to win copies of The Year of the Great Seventh for yourself!