Blog Tour- Legend by Marie Lu + Giveaway

"What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

Full of nonstop action, suspense, and romance, this novel is sure to move readers as much as it thrills."- summary from Amazon

Before becoming a full-time writer, Marie Lu was the art director at a video game company. She also owns the children’s brand Fuzz Academy. She was first inspired to write Legend while watching Les Miserables one afternoon, and wondered how the relationship between a famous criminal vs. a prodigious detective might translate into a more modern story. She graduated from the University of Southern California in 2006 and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Visit Marie at www.marielu.org

You can read a chapter sampler from Legend here, view the trailer, and also be sure to check the Legend Experience on Facebook! My review will be up tomorrow but if you're already dead set on ordering Legend, you can get it from Amazon!

Or you can take a chance and enter the contest for a copy of Legend and a Legend button! Leave a comment below by 9pm EST on Monday, December 12 for a chance to win that prize pack. But before you leave a comment, read Marie Lu's guest post that's all about Day, one of the two main characters in Legend!

Meet Day

Day, the teenage boy criminal in Legend, is a protagonist who has been in my head for a long time. Ever since high school, in fact. Back then, he starred in a fantasy manuscript I’d written called The Glass Sonata, where he was a teen rebel fighting against the slavery system of the world he lived in. Fast forward to now, and Legend’s Day is still pretty consistent with his original self—still sarcastic, still arrogant, still a flirt, with a slightly short temper and a notorious societal reputation.

Let’s start with some statistics on Day:

Birth Name: Daniel Altan Wing

Age/Gender: 15/M

Height: 5 feet, 10 inches

Weight: 147 pounds

Blood Type: O

Hair: Blonde, long

Eyes: Blue

Dominant Ethnicity: Mongolian

Secondary Ethnicity: Caucasian (or, in our modern-day non-Legend world, Russian)

I get occasional questions about why Day has blonde hair and blue eyes when he is clearly of mixed race. (His mother comes from a Russian lineage, while his father is of Mongolian descent.) Since dark hair phenotype is dominant over blonde hair phenotype (and ditto with brown versus blue eyes), shouldn’t Day have dark hair and dark eyes even though his mother has blonde hair and blue eyes? A great question! And the answer is this photo:

This is a young Mongolian girl, with naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. I can’t remember how I first ran across this photo, but I could not stop thinking about her afterward. Because I’m of Mongolian/Chinese heritage myself, this unique mix of physical characteristics was especially interesting to me. Since Mongolia and Russia share a border, and their people have a look somewhere between Caucasian and standard Chinese/Korean/northern-Asian, it made sense that the colors of their hair and eyes would be a mix as well. I don’t know why this never occurred to me before. I realized that Day’s Mongolian father likely carried a blonde/blue-eyed gene, and if crossed with the blonde/blue genes of Day’s Russian mother, there was a very reasonable chance of having a blonde-haired/blue-eyed son of half-Asian and half-Caucasian descent. And so, Day’s somewhat unusual look was born. (Okay, that got really technical. Still with me? Moving on…)

In Legend, Day actually has two names. His birth name is Daniel Altan Wing. His middle name, "Altan", is the Mongolian word for "golden", which conjures images of brightness, warmth, and daylight to me. His last name, "Wing", was similarly chosen--I liked it because it made me think of light and air, and open sky. Then there’s his nickname, “Day”, yet another reminder of all that is bright, unpredictable, and spontaneous. Day is also a name that makes me think of truth, the chasing away of shadows and lies, which is a constant theme throughout Legend.

As a character, Day lives in the moment: every day might either be his last or might bring him great fortune--every day is full of both infinite possibilities and extreme danger. As a teen living on the slum streets of Los Angeles, Day fights to stay optimistic instead of losing himself to darkness. In fact, Day's personal motto is: Walk in the light. By this, he means to seek the truth instead of losing yourself to what you are told, and to do the right thing, even when you are surrounded by evil.

Day is also wicked good at parkour (which, in Legend, is just called “running”).
[video of parkour tricks: http://youtu.be/SMppD-bUNWo ]

Hey—it’s a great skill for a teen criminal to have, right? I just couldn’t help myself. I effin love this sport.

And that’s the boy protagonist of Legend, in a nutshell!