Blog Tour (Review) and Giveaway–The Urban Boys

This is my stop during the book blitz for The Urban Boys by K.N. Smith. This book blitz is organized by Lola’s Blog Tours. The book blitz runs from 25 till 29 April, you can view the complete blitz schedule on the website of Lola’s Blog Tours.

The Urban Boys: Discovery of the Five Senses (The Urban Boys #1)

by K.N. Smith

Genre: Action-adventure/ Paranormal

Age category: Young Adult

Release Date: October 1, 2015

Print Length: 292 pages

Publisher: Two Petals Publishing

Blurb:
The Urban Boys: Discovery of the Five Senses is an action-adventure story about five teen boys who are mysteriously exposed to a foreign energy source that gives them extremely heightened senses. Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell become hypersensitive gifts that forever change the world. The story chronicles their effortless interrelations and later exposes the testing of their deep bonds. It introduces the reader to an array of supporting characters who alter the boys’ lives forever. The Urban Boys offers young and mature readers central themes of loyalty, responsibility, honesty, fear, and triumph, which become artfully integrated with cinematic-level action and high drama. The story twists, turns, and grinds through elements of paranormal and action-adventure in a diverse, exciting, edge-of-your-seat narrative!

Overview: The story’s small town of Danville Heights, a carefully crafted universe, contrasts with the dark, gloomy town of Sandry Lake, where evil abounds. Upon the boys’ mysterious incident with the energy source, they’re instinctively called to Sandry Lake to root out evil. Their senses guide them each time. However, secrecy about their mission, furious battles with evil thugs, extreme fatigue, and stress and pressure soon overwhelm the boys, but they must find a way to embrace their fate. A lurking, Dark Stranger seems to know their plight, and a strikingly beautiful, fearless girl lends way to heightened confusion. Shocking details about these two characters, and the evil antagonist, the dreaded Druth, twist and grind the story even further. Despite tension and fierce battles, will the boys hold it together long enough to fulfill their destiny?

Intriguing, intelligent, and full of action, The Urban Boys: Discovery of the Five Senses offers a memorable, emotion-packed, thrilling ride for young and mature readers alike!

You can find The Urban Boys on Goodreads

You can buy The Urban Boys here:

– Amazon

– Barnes & Noble

– Kobo

– iTunes

You can watch the trailer for The Urban Boys on Youtube

About the Author:

K.N. Smith is an American author and passionate advocate of childhood and family literacy programs throughout the world. She continues to inspire students of all ages to reach their highest potential in their literary and educational pursuits. Her creative, lyrical flair sweeps across pages that twist, turn, and grind through elements of paranormal and action-adventure in diverse, exciting, edge-of-your-seat narratives. K.N. Smith has over twenty years’ experience in writing, communications, and creative design. She lives with her family in California.

You can find and contact K.N. Smith here:

– Website

– Facebook

– Twitter

– Goodreads

There is a tour wide giveaway for the book blitz of The Urban Boys. These are the prizes you can win:

– a 25$ Amazon gift card

– 5 signed copies of The Urban Boys by K.N. Smith (U.S. only)

For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter giveaway below:

Click here for the Giveaway!

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Quick Reasons: intriguing concept; very flowery, purple prose; there was a LOT happening in this book; I enjoyed the interesting twist to “superheroes”; lots of yabba-yabba, but not a lot of “action”; meant to be fast-paced, but sort of dragged for me

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Huge thanks to K.N. Smith, Two Petals Publishing, and Lola’s Bog Tours for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review!  This in no way altered my read of or opinions on this novel.

This was, to say the least, an interesting book.  There’s an intriguing play on the five senses, and the “rediscovery” of them, that I found both entertaining and, at times, very confusing.  Don’t get me wrong here!  The prose is pretty–both poetic and flowery, the atmosphere and scenery leap to life from the pages.  Descriptions are detailed so completely, I could imagine myself in the middle of this story.  But.  At the same time, I found the purple prose to be, at times, a bit TOO heavy-handed.  Certain scenes tended to drag for me, because as a reader, jumping from the fight into “oh, look, foliage! and rain! and garbage!” felt oddly stiff.  While there’s a TON of action in this book, I didn’t feel, personally, as if a lot actually happened…because I kept getting bogged down by the writing.  What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that the prose just didn’t work for me.

That being said, I feel like this book could be AWESOME for the right readers!  The twist on superheroes and supervillains was both interesting and unique; I’ve never seen it done quite this same way before, and really enjoyed delving into this new-found battle between good and evil.  While I wish we were given, perhaps, a bit more world-building and a bit LESS focus on the scenic drive, I feel we have sufficient enough information throughout the read to piece the strings together, at least.  I also did appreciate the author’s keen eye for detail.  While I admit the prose was a bit TOO much for me, personally, I still found myself in awe at the sheer amount of detail and information the author was able to impart in each and every sentence.  Every sense was called into play, not only for the characters along their journey, but for myself as a reader.  It’s a talent I don’t feel many have, being able to immerse readers so fully in the story they’re able to practically taste what the character is.

Overall, while this book isn’t necessarily the right fit for me personally, I felt the story was entertaining, the characters were unique, and the prose was gorgeous.  I am intrigued by this world, and would love to know more about the magic occurring in this town.  I definitely recommend to lovers of coming-of-age stories, flowery prose, and different twists to the superhero/supervillain lore of old.  This was a quick, fun read; I am glad to have picked it up!