SPECTACLE by Jodie Lynn Zdrok Official Blog Tour, Excerpt & #giveaway @JeanBookNerd @jlzdrok @TTCBooksandmore ~ '

Hardcover: 368 pages

Publisher: Tor Teen (February 12, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0765399687
ISBN-13: 978-0765399687

Praise for SPECTACLE

"Clever and full of murder, Jodie Lynn Zdrok's Spectacle had my eyes glued to the pages as the body count rose, and mystery stacked upon mystery as our heroine closed in on a killer who seemed miles ahead of the Parisian authorities. Fans of serial killers and criminal investigations will find much to love, and fascinating passages about morgue tours will appeal to the morbid rubbernecker in us all." ―Kendare Blake, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series

“With a fierce heroine, grisly 19th-century murders, and a mystery that left me on the edge of my seat, Spectacle is an immersive, Parisian, YA From Hell that I absolutely devoured!" ―Gretchen McNeil, author of Ten and #MurderTrending

"Zdrok explores the universal fascination with death, set among the darker corners of 1887 Paris, and the very idea of the morgue viewings (to which parents brought their children) is chilling...Grisly, plot driven―and very creepy. Fans of historical thrillers that invoke the enduring spirit of Jack the Ripper will have fun." ―Kirkus Reviews

“Hints of the murderer’s identity are subtly and intriguingly folded into the story, and unresolved plot threads pave the way for future cases, during which Nathalie can discover more about her powers. The blend of history, mystery, and fantasy makes this debut novel a good pick for fans of Libba Bray’s Diviners series or William Ritter’s Jackaby books." ―Booklist

“The book seamlessly brings several threads together: the mystery of the murder and the horrors of the killings themselves; the beauty, bustle, and darkness of nineteenth-century Paris (the killer’s pursuit of Nathalie through the catacombs is thrillingly described); the bizarre but historically based practices of morgue viewing and blood transfusions for magic; and the destructive nature of family secrets and their generational effects. ...the tension amps up to a gasp-worthy climax.” ―Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“Zdrok has concocted an ambitious Victorian-era story. ...Intricately plotted, the story's pace burns slow before racing ahead to set up and topple assumptions about the true identity of the Dark Artist.” ―School Library Journal

A YA murder mystery in which a young reporter must use her supernatural visions to help track down a killer targeting the young women of Paris.

Paris, 1887.

Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin writes the daily morgue column for Le Petit Journal. Her job is to summarize each day's new arrivals, a task she finds both fascinating and routine. That is, until the day she has a vision of the newest body, a young woman, being murdered--from the perspective of the murderer himself.

When the body of another woman is retrieved from the Seine days later, Paris begins to buzz with rumors that this victim may not be the last. Nathalie's search for answers sends her down a long, twisty road involving her mentally ill aunt, a brilliant but deluded scientist, and eventually into the Parisian Catacombs. As the killer continues to haunt the streets of Paris, it becomes clear that Nathalie's strange new ability may make her the only one who can discover the killer's identity--and she'll have to do it before she becomes a target herself.

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SPECTACLE BY JODIE LYNN ZDROK EXCERPT

Greetings from our favorite café!
            I just finished eating a you-know-what and am settling in to write my article. Jean says hello.
            My day, what I recall of it, has been the strangest imaginable. I have something to tell you and will do so in a letter. I’m still shaking, so apologies for the penmanship.
            Much more soon, Nata.

As soon as she finished writing, she got up from the table, squeezed between a pair of sprawling potted plants, and dropped the card into a post office box.
            By the time she sat down, she regretted what she’d written. Too mysterious and vague. But she couldn’t very well say what had happened in that tiny space. Nor could she pretend it was just another summer day in Paris.
            I probably should have. Agnès is going to think I’ve gone mad.
            Nathalie studied the post office box, trying to calculate if there was any way her lengthy arm could fit into it, when she heard the word “morgue” from the table beside her. She glanced at the well-dressed young couple on her left and shifted position to hear them better.
            “A streetwalker, probably,” said the woman.
            “Not necessarily.” The man loosened his ascot tie. “She could be a foreigner.”
            “Or maybe the killer is a foreigner.”
            He paused. “It does seem rather German in its execution.”
            “Or Russian,” she said, sipping her wine. “They’re savages anyway.”
            “Those cuts were precise, not savage. He could be a surgeon of some sort.”
            Just then Jean came over to them, and they asked his opinion as to who the victim and killer might be. Lovers’ quarrel, he guessed. That turned into Jean sharing some of the talk he’d overheard at the café today, and the three of them gossiped so long another waiter had to “ahem” a reminder that another table needed more wine.
            People want to make sense of things, M. Patenaude had explained when he hired her. What they don’t know, they invent.
            What should I invent? I’ll say it was my imagination.

Some kind of vision? No, a hallucination from the heat. It must have been that. The uncertainty jabbed at her. Over.
            And over.
            And over again.
            Her eyes fell on the yellow blossoms wilting by the minute. No matter how many times she revisited the morning, she simply couldn’t recall buying them.
            “Anything else, Mademoiselle Baudin?” Jean appeared over her shoulder with a smile.
            Yes, can you bring my memory back? Oh, and I saw a murder scene take place. Backward. Let me tell you about it.
            That sounded like something Aunt Brigitte would say.
            “Just the check, Jean. Thank you.”
            Aunt Brigitte, who was in an asylum.

Photo Content from Jodie Lynn Zdrok

Jodie Lynn Zdrok holds two MAs in European History (Providence College, Brown University) and an MBA (Clark University). In addition to being an author, she’s a marketing professional, a freelancer, and an unapologetic Boston sports fan. She enjoys traveling, being a foodie, doing sprint triathlons, and enabling cats. She is represented by Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

WEBSITE: https://jodielynnzdrok.com/

TWITTER: @jlzdrok

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