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Reading books together is an incredibly easy and, not to mention, enjoyable way to be present and engaged with kids.

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Darlene Beck Jacobson has loved writing since she was a girl. She wrote letters to everyone she knew and made up stories in her head. She loves bringing the past to life in stories such as WHEELS OF CHANGE, her debut novel.

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Feral by Holly Schindler is a haunting psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you question everything you think you know.

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Feral by Holly Schindler. Harper Collins. 2014. Review copy from publisher.

The Plot: Two girls: one dead, one left for dead.

Serena is the dead girl, but it's her story that starts the book.

Claire is alive, having survived a brutal attack months before. She's the new girl in town, arriving at the same time Serena's body is found.

Claire finds herself drawn into the mystery of Serena's death: was it an accident? Or was it murder?

The Good:  The cats. Oh dear lord, the feral cats.

I thought I was going to say that the scariest scene was Claire's attack. A confident teen, walking home alone in the dark, chased and surrounded and beaten and left for dead.

But then I think of the feral cats, the ones that went after Serena's dead body and that scene, and the later scenes were the cats seem to come after Claire, and I think, no, that's the scariest scene.

This is a mystery, yes, about what happened to Serena. The reader, from the start, knows what has happened: "The body belonged -- or really, the body had once belonged -- to Serena Sims, a B average junior who loved her best friend, the sound of the rain, writing for the school paper, and her mother's chocolate mayonnaise cake with homemade icing, a family specialty. . . . Seventeen and dead: it was the worst kind of vulnerable." Serena is dead, but she is somehow still present, still feeling everything. And sharing all that, every bump and thump as her killer drags her body and dumps it. And then the cats come.

But there is only so much that Serena shares with the reader.

Then there is Claire: still recovering, physically and psychologically, from her attack months before. She is drawn to Serena's death for many reasons, one of which is that everyone else seems to believe that Serena's death is accidental. It turns out that Claire's new house was one that Serena lived in years ago; the first teens she meets are friends of Serena's; the local feral cat is the cat Serena fed.

As the story progresses, as Claire chases down the truth, Serena's ghost -- if that's what she is -- grows unhappier and unhappier with her own death, and more dangerous.

One more thing: the setting is fabulous. The town, Peculiar, Missouri,

How all this comes together was something I didn't expect, and made me go back and reread the first few chapters to see what clues were there. Part of me doesn't want to give away what that is, but part of me wants to give it away so you can understand when I say: Brilliant. You had me, you convinced me, and when I realized the truth of what was happening -- yes. That's true and real. Well, maybe not real, because at the end? I'm not sure what was real or not, what was Claire's fears, what was a haunting. But I do know this:

Damn, those feral cats are scary.


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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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As part of her blog tour for The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky, Holly Schindler is stopping by to talk to us about her book, writing, and other things!

Your previous novels have been YA-- what's the difference between writing YA and MG and why did you make the switch?

Actually, I started writing YA and MG at the same time. A bit of backstory: I got my master’s in the spring of ’01, and was encouraged to devote full-time attention to getting my writing career off the ground. I still wanted to do my part to pay my own bills, though, so I started teaching music lessons in the afternoons. And I was shocked at how familiar those kids seemed—as familiar as the kids I’d known when I was in school! They actually inspired me to try my hand at writing in the juvenile market; I dove in headfirst, trying both MG and YA at the same time. (The first books I published were YA, but I’d been writing MG all along as well.)

The main difference is that your characters have different abilities, which changes your plot to some extent. Something as simple as the ability to drive can change your book dramatically; a teen has access to a car, so they can go literally anywhere. An MG character has a bike—their “backyard” is much smaller than a teen’s. It changes the shape of the book.

Librarians are always on the look out for books with diversity--especially stories that feature characters of color that aren't about race, so it's worth mentioning that your main character Auggie and the mean girl, Victoria, are both African-American. However, this fact is very subtly coded in the text (and one reference to Auggie feeling like her skin looked like mud while Victoria's was fine imported chocolate) so readers might miss it. Can you talk a bit about diversity in middle grade lit, why you made your characters African-American, and why you wrote it the way you did?

My YAs began with concepts: in A Blue So Dark, I played with the idea of mental illness and creativity being linked; in Playing Hurt, I explored learning the difference between loving someone and being IN love. But THE JUNCTION began with a figure—Grampa Gus. I saw him as clearly as I’ve seen anyone in my life. When I first envisioned him, he was African American. But as I drafted the book, I knew I wanted a neighborhood to look every bit as diverse as the figures in Auggie’s yard. I wanted to show the different faces who were all in the same boat.

Your book deals with a lot of heavier topics--class, beauty, eminent domain, changing friendships, and missing parents, and deals with them well, but it's not a heavy book. Why were these issues important for you to discuss and what was your process for dealing with them without making the story a total bummer?

It’s funny—early critique of the book when I was attempting to shop it was that the original beginning chapters were a bummer. (I certainly didn’t think so, but I did go back and rework those opening chapters several times—even after the book was acquired—in order to make them feel lighter.) The trick is pulling the reader in early on so that they know it’ll be a delight to come to your book—not something they dread! You want to draw a reader back, make sure they will finish your book, be hungry for another read.

If you had Auggie's artistic talent what changes would you make to your house? (Personally, I'm all about colored glass in my windows!)

I’m with you on the colored glass! And the sidewalk—I’d love that, too.

If you could go back in time and talk to yourself when you were Auggie's age, what would your advice be?

Never, never, never be afraid to say what you think. Even when it goes against what everyone else is saying or doing.

What are you working on now?


My next MG—and my next YA, Feral, which releases on August 26! FERAL is my first thriller:

It’s too late for you. You’re dead.

Those words float through Claire Cain’s head as she lies broken and barely alive after a brutal beating. And the words continue to haunt her months later, in the relentless, terrifying nightmares that plague her sleep. So when her father is offered a teaching sabbatical in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out of Chicago, away from the things that remind her of what she went through, will offer a way to start anew.

But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire quickly realizes something is wrong—the town is brimming with hidden dangers and overrun by feral cats. And her fears are confirmed when a popular high school girl, Serena Sims, is suddenly found dead in the icy woods behind the school. While everyone is quick to say Serena died in an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it—for she was the one who found Serena, battered and most certainly dead, surrounded by the town’s feral cats.

Now Claire vows to learn the truth about what happened, but the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to discovering a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley. . . .

With an eerie setting and heart-stopping twists and turns, Holly Schindler weaves a gripping story that will make you question everything you think you know.

What are you currently reading?

The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing

What are you currently watching?

RAKE. THE AMERICANS. (Not really kid-friendly, eh?)

What are you currently listening to?

The SteelDrivers. Will Hoge (he’s my favorite, actually).

Thanks for stopping by Holly!


Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky Holly Schindler

Auggie likes her neighborhood and going to the dump with her Grandpa Gus, a trash hauler. But her school has closed down, and she and her friends have to go to a different one, in a neighborhood with a lot more money. Suddenly, the fact that Auggie and her friends don't have new things is a big deal. Suddenly Auggie's best friend would rather spend time with Victoria, who sneers at Auggie and Grandpa every chance she can. Victoria's father is on the town council and he's started the House Beautification Committee and everyone has to comply. Auggie has some grand ideas to make her house beautiful, but not everyone agrees with her idea of beauty.

I haven't read any middle grade in a while--my time on Outstanding Books for the College Bound really focused my reading on teen and adult, mostly adult, titles. This was a great re-introduction to the age range. Schindler really captures a lot of Auggie's confusion and the delicate politics of a 5th-grade classroom and changing friendships. I loved Auggie's voice and the brave face she put on. There is A LOT going on under the surface of this story, and some very BIG ISSUES are touched on--class divide between Auggie's neighborhood and the rest of town, eminent domain (the House Beautification Committee will never be happy with Auggie's neighborhood for spoiler-y reasons), the fact that Auggie lives with her Grandpa while her mom is out in California becoming a star. But despite these big issues, it's not a downer book. The story is told through Auggie's voice, and a lot is about her artistic vision for making her house beautiful, making it into its own work of art.

Also, I should note, Auggie's town is very diverse and Schindler writes race with a very sublte hand. Auggie and the mean girl, Victoria, are both African-American. But race doesn't play a role in the story.


Book Provided by... the author, for inclusion in her blog tour.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Need some inspiration this morning? Tired of waiting for things to happen? Take heart. This next story will knock your socks off, I promise. Read it and then catch up with Holly Schindler at hollyschindler.com or hollyschindler.blogspot.com. She also runs two group author blogs: YA Outside the Lines (yaoutsidethelines.blogspot.com) and Smack Dab in the Middle (smack-dab-in-the-middle.blogspot.com). If you have e-copies of her books, she will sign those as well, through Kindlegraph: http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/holly_schindler.

When I got my master’s in ’01, my mom invited me to stay home and devote full-time effort to getting a writing career off the ground (my lifelong dream). I figured it’d take a year or so to write a novel, then it’d sell (I was lucky enough to have placed poetry, short fiction, and literary critique in journals when I was in college, and was under the grand delusion that selling a manuscript would be a breeze for me), and in oh, two years or so, I’d have money in the bank, and I’d be off and running.

Okay, seriously. You can stop laughing now.

The truth is that it I spent the next seven and a half years writing and submitting manuscript after manuscript…after manuscript. In that time, my friends from college finished up PhDs, started teaching, doing research, became professionals. I often felt like all I had was a deep gash in the drywall where I’d spent months upon months banging my head against it. And rejection slips. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of them—more than a thousand in all.
Enter the holiday season of ’08. That’s when my YA, A BLUE SO DARK, was under submission at Flux. I spoke to Brian (Farrey, acquisitions editor at Flux) for the first time just before Thanksgiving, and though I tried to play it cool, I spent Christmas on pins and needles, tied up in knots, hoping that finally the acceptance I’d been working toward for so long would appear.



Appear it did, just a few days after the new year. And literally two hours—I swear it’s true—two hours after I accepted the offer from Flux, the phone rang. On the other end of the line was an agent who was raving about a middle grade book I’d sent earlier that fall. With an offer of representation.

I accepted (Deborah Warren later sold my debut MG, THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY, to Dial, and is still my agent). After that initial phone call, though, in the winter of ’09, I just stood in my kitchen, dazed, wondering how it could have happened. Seven and a half years I’d been seeking a book deal, seeking representation. And in the course of two hours in one day, I had both.

The thing is, though, I can’t attribute that incredible day to luck or holiday magic. That day is the result of hard work. Period. That day happened because I really did read every sin

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Holly Schindler is here to talk about two of her novels, A Blue So Dark and Playing Hurt. They have really different feels (Playing Hurt makes me want summer back!--and A Blue So Dark has a much eerier feel--I love underwater covers lately).

Here's Holly to talk about each cover:

"While the covers of my YA novels—A BLUE SO DARK and PLAYING HURT—are both stock images, the end result is pretty night-and-day different, as is the content of the books (A BLUE SO DARK explores the possible link between mental illness and creativity, and PLAYING HURT features a romance between two former athletes.)

"The covers have two completely different functions. A BLUE SO DARK is a metaphorical cover; it speaks to the emotional content of the book. It’s a poetic representation of what happens in the book. PLAYING HURT is a literal interpretation.

"I love both covers—but of the two, PLAYING HURT’s my favorite, because I think it better steers the book toward the right readership.

"When A BLUE SO DARK was released, it was frequently purchased on Amazon by readers who also purchased paranormal titles..."

Read the rest of Holly's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.

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Today I'm giving a big welcome to Young Adult novelist, Holly Schindler--my first guest blogger!  Holly is the author of A Blue so Dark and the recent Playing Hurt.

My introduction to Holly and her books came through the children's writing network, Jacketflap.com.  A little later I found Holly at her web site, hollyschindler.com and at her blog, hollyschindler.blogspot.com.

Holly's books are are what I consider top-of-the-line young adult writing: a strong and realistic voice, sophisticated detail, unforgettable characters, and an authentic identification with her young readers.  In my opinion, it doesn't get much better than that!  Here's what Holly has on her book covers:


A BLUE SO DARK:
Fifteen-year-old Aura Ambrose has been hiding a secret. Her mother, a talented artist and art teacher, is slowly being consumed by schizophrenia, and Aura has been her sole caretaker ever since Aura’s dad lef

7 Comments on Guest Author, Holly Schindler (and a Super Give-away!), last added: 5/27/2011

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Andrea said, on 5/24/2011 1:02:00 PM

Great post! I loved the part about being an "ugly crier"!
[email protected]

A lopez said, on 5/24/2011 2:24:00 PM

I appreciated your honesty on how you connect with your characters.

Sunder Cameron Addams said, on 5/24/2011 7:14:00 PM

I hate most onscreen crying scenes and quite a few print crying scenes, too, for that very reason: "crystal tears spilled from her emerald-green eyes and slipped silently down her pale cheeks." Yeah, right. There are exceptions. In the TV show 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' Sarah Michelle Gellar is often an "ugly crier" (on the rare occasions when the title character cries), which I assume is deliberate on the writer's, director's and actress's parts, due to the ready availability of glycerin.

However, I'm concerned that perhaps I will never be a great writer:

"If you’re a crier—if you sniff at Hallmark commercials, or cry out in victory when the winner of Top Chef is named—you’ve already got a leg up on the competition. If you can empathize, you can be a great writer."

I get weepy about nearly anything having to do with dogs, you see, and I think canine literacy may be far in the future, so waiting for my audience to evolve is not a good plan. Any advice, Holly?

; )

LadyD said, on 5/25/2011 5:30:00 PM

Thanks for letting me know about the giveaway Valerie. I enjoyed hearing the writing tips from Holly on YouTube. It's wonderful to learn from you both. (Sorry for the above deleted post of typo errors.)

Claudsy said, on 5/25/2011 6:33:00 PM

Holly makes some excellent points and has given solid tips. One of the problems that many people never realize until they take the steps Holly suggests is that they aren't comfortable with their own thoughts and with themselves.

They feel too vulnerable and unaccustomed to dealing with their own heartbeat without the world crowding in unabated.

Thank you, Holly, for pointing out the only way for a person to really know what it is that's honestly crossing that mental viewfinder between the ears.

Thoroughly enjoyed the post and the tips. I love writing blurbs as practice for writing short. And emotions are there to be used, not bottled. Good points, Holly.

Nomar Knight said, on 5/26/2011 1:46:00 PM

Always a pleasure to visit your blog. Just wanted you to know that you've been selected for The Versatile Blogger award. You can read the details at my blog http://knightchills.blogspot.com/2011/05/n-knight-receives-versatile-blogger.html Congratulations! Thanks for always teaching me something new.

Erika said, on 5/27/2011 10:54:00 AM

That part about crying at the movies with the puffy lips was great. I'd love to read Holly's book.
erikadlugoATyahooDOTcom

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