Amanda Hocking

It’s only a few more days until the final book in the My Blood Approves series is released! Since there was a gap between the release dates of the fourth book Wisdom and this book Swear, I thought it would be fun to do a quick recap to work as a refresher before you dive into the final book. This post will be covering the first four books in the series, so obviously it will be a giant SPOILER for the entire My Blood Approves series if you have not read it yet.

It’s not going to go into enough detail, however, to substitute reading the books if you have never read them, and I would not recommend reading Swear if you haven’t read any of the previous books – otherwise it will most likely be very confusing. This post is more intended for people who don’t have time to do a re-read or simply don’t want to – and also to highlight important parts for people that are doing a re-read. It’s basically like an extended written version of the “Previously On” recap they do at the beginning of TV shows.

I didn’t include the novella Letters to Elise because the recap/summaries are already super long, and it’s not strictly necessary to read the novella (although it does shed some light on a few things).

So with that, let’s begin at the beginning:

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As many of you may know, I create playlists to listen to while writing. The music included on the playlist is meant to capture the feeling and tone that I’m striving for with the book, and sometimes songs inspire entire scenes or are mentioned in the book. The final book in the My Blood Approves series was no different.

The full list of songs I listened to while writing Swear added up to 52 songs. I narrowed it down to the best 18 that fit the feel of the novel. My favorite song on the list is The National’s “Fake Empire,” which inspired a particularly sweet scene in the novel.

Here’s the YouTube playlist that includes all 18 songs on the playlist, plus a track list below. (more…)

It’s only seven (!!!!!) days until the final book in the My Blood Approves series comes out. I know these last few days seem to be taking forever – at least for me, I don’t know how you all are feeling. But if you’re chomping at the bit for hints about what is to come in Swear, you might want to check out my Pinterest board, which I created while I was writing the novel and pinned all kinds of inspirations.

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As I was preparing for Swear, I went through the first four books and the novella, re-reading them and taking notes to make sure that I had all my facts straight and the story was fresh in my mind. While I was doing that, I realized that there were a few facts that readers might enjoy that I never revealed in the series – like birth dates and middle names. So I compiled them all for you in some fun fact cards.

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THE GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED! Thanks to everyone who participated, and I’ll be having more giveaways in the future!

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