4 yummy frosted ginger cookies
Cover Love: I'm not sure. I don't hate it, but I don't love it.
I just don't feel it is very eye catching nor does it fit the tone of the book, however, I like it as a cover. I like the font and the huge, accusatory title.
Why I Wanted to Read This: I was in the mood for a suspense book and this one sounded like it fit the bill. Here's the synopsis from GoodReads:
It’s better to know the truth. At least sometimes.
Halfway through Friday night’s football game, beautiful cheerleader Brittany Montague—dressed as the giant Winship Wildcat mascot—hurls herself off a bridge into Atlanta’s surging Chattahoochee River.
Just like that, she’s gone.
Eight days later, Benny Flax and Virginia Leeds will be the only ones who know why.
Romance?: Not really. There are a lot of romances that happen or were already happening in the book (it's set at a high school), there just isn't any romance for or between our main characters.
My Thoughts:I really liked this book for several reasons. First off, it takes place at a boarding/prep type school. Although there is a dorm, there aren't a lot of "boarders" and they are kind of looked down upon by the local kids who attend the school. I like this reversal for a prep school type setting. Normally, the local kids are the ones looked down upon, rather than the boarders. Because of this setting the population of kids is pretty small, everyone knows everyone and the class lines area kind of blurred. Seniors are friends with lower class men and pretty much everyone knows everyone else!
The author writes from several different points of view during the course of this book, with Benny and Virginia being the main two characters. One thing I loved was how the author wrote about the perceptions each character had of the others. Benny constantly was devaluing Virginia in his head and she was constantly thinking about what a nerd Benny was. Neither of them truly saw what was going on with each other, nor were these perceptions easily changed. It just felt really true to teenagers and high school because sometimes its so hard to change your reputation. People don't want you to change who you are!
The mystery was also really well done, a lot of red herrings. I found the "who done it" to be a little implausible, but overall was keep interested the whole book. I also liked all the little kernels the author threw out there that didn't get answered. This book is titled "Strange Truth #1" so I am looking forward to learning more about Benny and Virginia in upcoming books. There is a mystery involving Virginia that is alluded to several times in the book that I am especially looking forward to learning more about. I really liked Virginia!
Overall, I liked the setting of a small. elite school and the mystery. The smallest thing that kind of bothered me was the ages of Benny and Virginia, they seemed a bit older and more mature than 15.
To Sum Up: Even though Benny and Virginia are 15 year olds, I feel that there were a few things in this book that make it too mature for my library. However, it's a great mystery and a fun read so I will recommend our high school librarians buy it for their collections.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy!
The girls are back! It's their last summer together before heading off to their various colleges and Jess (and her mom) have convinced the girls that a summer being counselors at Camp Lovejoy. Jess had gone there when she was younger, as had her mom and her aunt. Most of the girls were up for it, but Megan needed some convincing. She did have her offer of a fashion internship, but she has been reassured that she will be able to take advantage of it another time. So, here they are, piled in the minivan, driving through the pouring rain to New Hampshire.
The girls are excited because they have figured out that Jess and Emma are going to be co-counselors to the youngest girls, Becca and Megan will be co-counselors for the eight year olds, and Cassidy volunteered to be a co-counselor with another girl named Amanda to the nine year olds. But you know what they say about the best laid plans. It turns out that there has been a change. A counselor who had planning on coming to camp had a family emergency, and now Jess is moving up and Emma is going to be co-counselors with...Felicia! Felicia Grunewald, Jess' cousin. Immediately Emma knows that this is going to be one disastrous summer.
And summer certainly has its' bumps. The youngest campers are beyond homesick, Emma is still heartbroken over breaking up with Stewart, and Cassidy seems to be rubbing stalwart head counselor Marge Gearhart the wrong way. Plus there is Felicia with her sackbut (look it up!) to contend with.
The shenanigans you'd expect in a summer camp novel are all here, complete with a boy's camp across the lake, pranks and competitions. The girls bring their bookclub to their campers as a way to ease their homesickness. The book of choice this time is
Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
All in all this is a fun ending to a great series. The girls are put in the mothering role and rise to the occasion. Their parents make appearances midway through camp as well as through letters and phone calls. Readers will be able to figure out that Vogel Frederick was a camper herself, and many of the happenings at Camp Lovejoy were mined from her own experiences. I do have to say, I think that a few of the traditions that are at Camp Lovejoy would not actually fly at a camp today -- specifically the one involving the peanuts. That said, these things weren't make or break moments for me.
This will be a treasured series for many, many years to come. I have had students read through all of them as well as the books that the girls read in their book club. We *never* have the full series on the shelf at once and this is a series that kids recommend to each other all the time. If your kid didn't take this book to camp, mail it on out!
It's difficult for any writer to get published by a traditional publisher, whether you write for adults or for children. That's why more writers than ever are turning to self-publishing. But before you jump on the bandwagon, especially if you write for children, it's helpful to find out more about self-publishing.
Check out the recent
post by guest blogger Sangeeta Mehta on publishing expert Jane Friedman's blog. Mehta, a former acquiring editor of children's books at
Little, Brown and
Simon & Schuster who runs her own
editorial services company, interviewed agents
Kate McKean and
Kevan Lyon for answers to key questions on self-publishing children's books.
Here are some highlights:
Kate McKean: “The anecdotal evidence I’ve seen, however, is that the more titles a self-published author has up, the more visibility they can possibly garner.”
Kevan Lyon: “I do believe that YA writers probably have an edge over middle grade writers in the indie publishing world.”
Kate McKean: “For picture book writers, the cost of producing the book is one hurdle, and distributing it is another bigger hurdle.”
Kevan Lyon: “Self-publishing a full-color print picture book can be very expensive with little room for a profit margin, especially without distribution.”
Click
here to visit Jane Friedman's blog for the complete post.
What do you think about the pros and cons of self-publishing? Please share your experiences.
Hope you enjoyed this post! To be notified of future updates, use the subscription options on the right side bar.
Molly Harper has been making up stories for as long as she can remember, and the stranger the better.
It worked—she’s turned her quirky sense of humor and magical characters into one successful book series after another. After working as a reporter and church secretary in her native state of Kentucky, she decided to try her hand at paranormal romance, landed an agent and has been writing prolifically ever since.
Molly is the author of
How To Run With a Naked Werewolf, A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses, and
The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires as well as many other paranormal romances. She also writes the Bluegrass series of contemporary ebook romances, most recently,
Rhythm and Bluegrass. A former humor columnist and newspaper reporter, she lives in Kentucky with her husband and children. Visit her on the web at MollyHarper.com or at SingleUndeadFemale.blogspot.com.
We were thrilled when Molly agreed to chat with us about her work, where she gets the ideas for her stories, and the television show cancellation that she is still mourning to this day.
Interview by Renee Roberson-----WOW: Molly, welcome! First of all, I want to point out how much fun I had browsing through your website, and I love that you include different music playlists inspired by your different books. I like to do that too when I’m writing fiction. And the Half-Moon Vampire Name Generator was a blast—I have now been christened Morgana, Princess of Darkness. We’d love to hear about what you were doing when you first found out an agent wanted to represent you. And did you pitch that first book as a stand-alone or as a series?
Molly: I was working as a secretary for a Baptist church at the time and when my agent, Stephany, called I ran out to the church parking lot. I didn’t think the pastor would want to overhear me discussing my vampire romance novels outside of his office. I pitched
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs as the first in a three-book series. I knew when I wrote the first title that I had much more to say about Jane. I just didn’t know it would go on for four books and even more spinoffs.
WOW: I love it. One of the things that first struck me was your impressive catalogue of books. Wow! Can you give us an idea of what your writing schedule is like? Do you have any fun "working from home" stories you can share with us?
Molly: I just started working from home in February 2012. I wake up around six, check my reader emails and try to take care of my social networking stuff. I get my kids up and ready for school, then run to the gym or jiu jitsu lessons. Then I write from 10 to noon, have lunch, and then back to writing until my kids get home around 4. If I have a deadline, I usually write during the evenings after dinner. I set a writing minimum of 2,000 words each day. I am just now getting my own office. I have written all of my books from a couch. I am really looking forward to having a desk!
I guess my one funny “writing from home” story involves my hair. I hit my rebellious phase late in life and have dyed the “underside” of my hair bright purple. I went to volunteer at my kids’ elementary school about a week after I dyed it and one of the little girls from my library group gave me the “deer in headlights” eyes.
“Miss Molly,” she gasped. “Did you know the back of your hair is purple?”
“Yes, sweetie,” I told her. “I dyed it last week.”
“Who told you that you could do that?” she asked.
“Well, I’m 35 and can pay for the hairdresser to dye it, so…”
“But won’t you get in trouble with your mom or your boss or somebody?” she asked.
“I work from home, so I don’t have a boss. And my mom isn’t really surprised by anything I do anymore.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “OK, then.”
And off she toddled, assured that my hair wouldn’t get me fired.
WOW: You eventually transitioned from vampires to werewolves. Can you tell us a little about how you got the idea for your popular Naked Werewolf series?
Molly: There was a huge ice storm in January 2009 that knocked out power to thousands of homes, including my own. I packed up food, essentials, my infant and my preschooler and moved over to my in-laws’ house, where they had a gas fireplace. We slept on a mattress in front of the fireplace for two weeks while my husband worked twelve-hour emergency shifts at the police department. I was cold, exhausted and I could feel the walls closing in on me. After the kids went to sleep, I would sit down and write about my weird, claustrophobic feelings. I knew I wanted to write a book about werewolves and I thought, why couldn’t the werewolves be from a cold environment like Alaska? And why couldn’t the main character be a Southern girl who wasn’t used to living in those conditions? By the time the lights came back on, I had more than twenty pages of notes that became
How To Flirt With a Naked Werewolf.
WOW: I love it when writers can turn even the most difficult of circumstances into works of fiction. I know I was stuck in an ice storm about ten years ago and did nothing but wallow in my misery! You started out your career working for a newspaper in Kentucky. Did any of the stories you covered there ever find their way into any of your books?
Molly: Not so much specific stories, but the overall weirdness of the stories I covered. I covered school bus crash derbies. I covered the escape of a fully-grown brown bear that a man kept as a pet in his basement and was on “Bear Watch” for almost two weeks. I covered the arrest of a Florida man who faked his death by shark attack, hit the road and ended up working for a pizzeria right down the street from my office. That quirky charm oozed its way into my story-telling and heavily influenced the way I write about Half-Moon Hollow, the setting of my vampire stories. I often say that Half-Moon Hollow is my hometown with all of the normal people removed.
WOW: I love the story on your bio about the first book you ever wrote at age eight. Could you please share it with our readers?
Molly: I was always fascinated with my mom’s manual typewriter from college. When I was eight, I set up a little writer’s office on my parents’ couch (foreshadowing) and pecked out a short story about my class taking a trip around the world and losing a kid in each city. One boy fell off the top of the Eiffel Tower. Another girl fell into the canals in Venice. Mom was concerned, but entertained.
WOW: I read on your website that you are a big fan of vampire movies and TV shows. What are some of your favorites?
Molly: I wrote
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs because I was in mourning for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I also love “Angel,” “Lost Boys,” “Moonlight,” the original “Fright Night,” “From Dusk 'Til Dawn,” and the Keanu Reeves version of “Dracula.”
Don’t judge me.
WOW: Somehow I knew Buffy was going to come up in that answer . . . And as someone who is completely addicted to current CW show “The Vampire Diaries,” I also cannot judge! You’ve turned writing about the paranormal into a successful career. What advice can you give writers about writing paranormal romance?
Molly: Keep it grounded in reality. Yes, it’s great to write about fantastical creatures and magic, but your characters have to share common ground with the reader. I enjoy writing about paranormal creatures with everyday problems because there’s something weirdly funny about a vampire worrying about taxes and shopping for dental floss. I think that has allowed my readers to put themselves in my characters’ shoes and enjoy that skewed reality.
WOW: In the FAQ section of your website, you mention you speak to book clubs and schools "Advice For Writers." Can you elaborate on the section called "Don't Act Like a Lunatic?"
Molly: Almost every agent I know has a story about an aspiring writer doing something extreme, like sliding a manuscript under a bathroom stall to them or sending an absolutely insane response when their manuscript is rejected. Writing is a business. Yes, it’s a dream come true to have a book published, but it’s still a business. If an agent or publisher rejects your work, it’s not personal. It’s business. So behave in a professional manner and avoid becoming a cautionary tale that industry types tell over lunch.
Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and editor who also works as a blog tour manager for WOW-Women on Writing. She’s currently looking for blogs to promote Frances Caballo’s book Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers Who Want to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write. You can contact her at [email protected].
Marcella Berger is retiring from Simon & Schuster US from her position as vice president, director of subsidiary rights, after 35 years with the publisher.
Among the titles and authors Berger sold rights to are journalist Bob Woodward's books from The Final Days onwards, Good as Gold by Joseph Heller, Chronicles by Bob Dylan, Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Living History by Hilary Clinton and Contact by Carl Sagan.
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