#ReviewMonday with KM Lockwood: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Orchard Books 2000

192 pages in paperback

Illustration design by Isabel Warren-Lynch

Summary from Teachers@Random

Stargirl. 

From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of colour and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’ s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first.

A YA classic

I think that’s a fair title for this review - since readers have made trailers for this book and teachers have made notes. It’s been round long enough to count - yet it still has something to say to contemporary adolescents.

I actually have the bright pink copy with the silver Stargirl stick figure on it seen above. (There are other colourways). It’s not perhaps what you might expect from me - but it’s good to read different kinds of book. It shakes you up, makes you think again.

This one snuck right past my analytical and sceptical scanners. I’ve rarely been keen on High School set novels, finding them full of cliché and stereotypes, but this didn’t annoy in that way. It could be how convincing the Arizona setting is, or how the recognisable characters and dynamics are shown with a dash of poetry, or both. It is very American - some aspects of the sports played mildly puzzled me but it doesn’t matter to the story - it all adds flavour.

There’s something fable-like about it. It’s modern in that slightly out-of-ordinary-time way - not much in the way of contemporary references to date it too much. It’s funny and thoughtful and sentimental. There will be those of a more cynical cast who loathe it - but for those who enjoy needing a tissue-box beside them when they read, it’ll be a bitter-sweet treat. 

I would recommend Stargirl for almost anyone confident to read alone who is interested in what it means to ‘be yourself’ - and to fall in love. It’s short, it’s a quick read with touches of simple beauty and some important ideas to ponder. (And you don’t have to have the shocking pink cover!)

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 K. M. Lockwood lives by the sea in Sussex - see the pics on Instagram. She fills jars with sea-glass, writes on a very old desk and reads way past her bedtime. Her tiny bed-and-breakfast is stuffed full of books - and even the breakfasts are named after writers. You're always welcome to chat stories with @lockwoodwriter on Twitter.

Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

I stand at the edge of the crowded square, watching the executioners light the pyres. The two men, dressed for work in dark red cloaks and charred leather gloves, circle the narrow wooden platforms, their lit torches held high. At the top of each pyre, four witches and three wizards stand chained to a stake, bundles of wood heaped around their feet. They stare into the crowd, determined looks on their faces.

I don’t know what they did; they weren’t my captures. But I do know there will be no apologies from them. No last-minute pleas for mercy, no scaffold-step promises to repent.

Published by Orchard in UK. Little Brown in US

Published September 2015

Cover design by Thy Bui

Summary from Orchard Books website

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Grey doesn't look dangerous. A tiny, blonde, wisp of a girl shouldn't know how to poison a wizard and make it look like an accident. Or take out ten necromancers with a single sword and a bag of salt. Or kill a man using only her thumb. But things are not always as they appear. Elizabeth is one of the best witch hunters in Anglia and a member of the king's elite guard, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and bringing those who practise it to justice. And in Anglia, the price of justice is high: death by burning.

When Elizabeth is accused of being a witch herself, she's arrested and thrown in prison. The king declares her a traitor and her life is all but forfeit. With just hours before she's to die at the stake, Elizabeth gets a visitor - Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful wizard in Anglia. He offers her a deal: he will free her from prison and save her from execution if she will track down the wizard who laid a deadly curse on him.

As Elizabeth uncovers the horrifying facts about Nicholas's curse and the unwitting role she played in its creation, she is forced to redefine the differences between right and wrong, friends and enemies, love and hate... and life and death.

*****

Reviewed by K. M. Lockwood

This is an entertaining and fast-paced story of medieval witchcraft ideal for the mass market. It has an unusual take on reasons for the suppression of magic and presents the sexist double-standards of the time convincingly. It is however not the for the purist: it freestyles history like the film ‘A Knight’s Tale’.

If you just go with the pseudo- Tudor world of Anglia, you’ll enjoy the humour and action. Fun comes from the verbal exchanges of the characters with the odd bit of almost slapstick thrown in. It is a bit ghoulish - but in a stylised rather than over-graphic way for 13+ readers. It feels right to show the barbarity of this parallel 16th century world. Happily, it passes the Bechdel test with a brave heroine and her friends. There is a pleasing love interest - which will no doubt develop in the next books of the series.

As you can tell from the bold cover, there’s dark magic and peril involved. Curl up with chocolates and a candle to keep the spooks at bay when you read it.

Happy Christmas - Welcome to the Debut Celebrations

Firstly - MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!!

I hope you are all enjoying Christmas Day. I know this is a strange day to blog on as everyone will be celebrating with their families, but I kind of had to, in order to get in all the fabulous debuts from this year before we welcome and celebrate the debuts of next year. 

So from today through to New Years Day, it will be all about the Debuts of 2015.

Each one has answered questions about their debut and were willing to share them with us all. I thought it would be good for any unpublished authors to get a real idea of what debuting is really like. 

So sit back with your glass of mulled wine and mince pie and enjoy the first of the debut authors we are celebrating.

Tatum Flynn

Tatum debuted in April of this year with the first book in her MG series, The D'Evil Diaries, published by Orchard Books. 

The second book in the series will be published in January 2016.

So here is what Tatum had to say about her debut in 2015. 

****

What has been the easiest thing about being a debut author? 

Hahaha. There is nothing easy about being a debut author, apart from that one joke I wrote about monsters, which I quite like and which only took me about six hours to think up.

What was the highlight of your debut? 

​A tie between getting my book illustrated by the excellent Dave Shephard, as it had never crossed my mind that that might happen, and seeing art of your words is amazing - and my launch party, where I had the best time and which loads of lovely people came to, plus on that day I found out my book had gone to a second printing which made it extra celebratory.

What was the low point of your debut? 

Top tip for debut authors: you will feel unhinged by stress and nerves in the couple of months running up to your first release. 

​Especially if you are simultaneously writing or editing book two, planning a huge launch party, and doing a bunch of online promo. I was so frazzled I couldn't even read any books that were vaguely exciting. If you know everyone feels that way, though, at least you don't worry it's just you, and I promise things will quiet down afterwards :)

What kind of reaction have you had from readers? 

They haven't thrown things, which is nice. Actually I may be one of the few authors who likes Goodreads, as the very-much-not-in-the-thousands-or-even-hundreds of reviews I have there have almost all been lovely which makes me happy because I'm a deeply shallow person who's a sucker for flattery.

What was the best quote about your book that you received? 

It's a tie between book blogger Minerva Reads who said: Once in a while a children's book comes along that is so inventive, and witty, and different, that you want to hug it. which made me want to hug *her*, and your fine self who also said some rather nice things about my sense of humour and world building skillz.

***

Thank you Tatum for talking about your 2015 debut. Come back tomorrow to hear from another of our successful debut authors. 

The Big Break with Leo Hunt

I am pleased to welcome debut author, Leo Hunt onto the blog today, to talk about his Big Break into publishing. Leo's debut novel, Thirteen Days of Midnight, is published by Orchard Books in July. 

Your debut novel, Thirteen Days of Midnight is soon to be published, how does that make you feel?

Thrilled and terrified. The novel has existed in its final draft for about six months before publication, so there’s this air of terrible inevitability about the process. The die is cast. You have this psychic defense of ‘oh well I can always rewrite this part’ before the final text is set, but once you’re done then you’re done. I’m just really curious to find out what people think of it.

Can you give me a one line pitch for your book, so that my readers can get a feel for it?

16-year-old Luke Manchett inherits his estranged father’s ghost collection, ends up in big trouble.

How does it feel to finally have your name on a book?

Weird. Some reviewers refer to me as ‘Hunt’, which makes me feel like I’m being addressed by a 1930s schoolmaster. Both my grandmother and mother wrote novels for children which never made it to publication, so I’m happy to finally represent the Hunt dynasty in print.

Which character do you most identify with in Thirteen Days of Midnight and why?

Difficult question. Although the obvious answer would be the protagonist, Luke, I think I’m a better fit with his friend Elza. Luke’s quite sporty and (superficially) confident, which was never me at all. Elza is much closer to who I remember being at 16: feeling a little isolated, arty in a place where it can feel like there aren’t many other people like you. I think there’s a streak of arrogance in Elza, and she can be pretentious in that special way of teenagers, so there was some definite self-parody that went into her character as well. So I’d say Elza is the character I feel the closest kinship with, and she’s always fun to write dialogue for.

How long did it take you to write?

The first page was written on 25th September 2010, and the final draft was completed on 8th December 2014. So just over four years. I should point out that this wasn’t four years of constant re-writing; I was a full-time university student during this period of time, which limited how much work I could do. There were also long fallow periods where I didn’t work on the novel at all. The first draft took nine months, the final re-draft took just over three. Whatever I’m doing I try to hit 1000 words a day. I’m much faster at composing prose now than I was in 2010.

Was it easy to find an agent? 

Yes and no. I sent out eight queries before I signed with my agency. The first eight queries were mostly immediate rejections, and I think I’m still waiting on a few responses! I met my agent in 2011 when she came to give a talk at my university, and I was able to pitch my story to her in person, using the same line I answered question two with. She was interested, gave me her personal email address, and I was a known entity to her. I ended up signing a contract in 2012. There are so many manuscripts coming in to agents every week, and if you can give the agent a good pitch in person it will definitely help.

Did you ever feel like quitting writing?

I’m happy to report it never crossed my mind. I thought it might take a lot longer than it did to get a book published, but I was very determined. I don’t see myself as an overly driven person, but this was something I knew I could do and would do. That said, it is extraordinarily tough to get published, and it’s possible that my faith just wasn’t tested enough. The story of Job comes to mind. If I’d gotten nowhere after twenty solid years of submitting work, I might well start thinking of quitting. It’s hard to know how you’d respond unless you’re in that position.

How many times did you have to edit your book before the agent was happy to send it off to publishers?

The novel went through one very serious re-draft, in which it was cut down from 100,000 words to a more manageable 60,000. This involved a lot of re-structuring, and the final draft still has the same chapter progression and plot that I instituted in this draft. After that I let it lie for almost a year because I was in the final stages of my undergraduate degree, and then it went through an intensive six-week editing program before my agent took it to the 2014 London Book Fair. So twice, but over quite a long period.

What was your first reaction when you found out that your book was to be published?

I remember feeling astonished, mainly because I was in a pitch-black low about the manuscript and didn’t think I’d done nearly enough work, partly because it was also final essay period (in retrospect I think I nearly died of overwork during that month). I ended up getting four offers and the manuscript went to auction, so maybe you’re always your own harshest critic. I was definitely surprised at the response to that draft.

Who was the first person you told about your book deal?

Mass text message to my family.

Tell us what a typical writing day would be like?

I rise with the dawn, take a brisk walk amongst my estates, and usually breakfast in the African Room. My manservant brings me the day’s papers, along with correspondence from fans, friends, enemies, lovers past and present, etc. I compose at an oak desk which overlooks my terrapin terrarium. Lunch is at twelve. After digesting for an hour I normally exercise, either by racing a horse on foot, yoga, star-jumps, or bare-knuckle fighting with a horse. A healthy body breeds a healthy mind. I spend the afternoon re-copying the morning’s work, then break at seven for dinner and billiards. After winning easily at billiards I can finally take out the scotch and drink myself into unconscious bliss. It’s not an easy life, but I wouldn’t wish for any other.

(I don’t have a particular schedule. As long as I produce 1000 words then I’m happy with the day. This can take an hour if things are going well, or much much longer if they aren’t.)

What advice would you give to aspiring and unpublished authors?

I feel like I could fill acres of space with advice, but I’ll try and keep it reasonably brief…

I would say you need to read widely. And I really do mean widely. If you are serious about being a writer and the craft you will never stop reading. Every writer, every book, good or bad, has something you can take from it, some quirk of voice, a literary technique, an idea you’ve never come across before. Even the most tedious, turgid, derivative novel can teach you something: it can teach you what not to do. Don’t be afraid of nonfiction, as life is often stranger and more interesting than anything anyone could invent. And I would add, please go outside your comfort zone. If you only read fantasy stories, pick up a novel about real people in the real world. If all you read is realism, please try a book with spaceships or dragons in it. If you’re only familiar with modern fiction then read something that was written back before our english language even existed. Your writing will never suffer for having a larger pool of influences to draw upon.

I’d say please remember that art is work, not divine inspiration, and ideas are actually the easiest part of writing a novel. The successful execution of the idea is what is difficult.

I’d say that to get into traditional publishing as it stands you’ll need an agent, and to get an agent you’ll need to be (a) good at your craft (your first draft of a first novel is unlikely to be good enough) and (b) you’ll need to know how to pitch your idea and send successful queries to agents. The Query Shark blog was very helpful to me in this regard.

I’d say be kind to yourself. Making stories is difficult work. There’s lots of self-doubt involved, and frustration, and getting published doesn’t ease any of that up (trust me). You have to be able to accept that you’ll make mistakes, and won’t be perfect, and that doubt is part of being a writer.

And finally I’d say that the only way you can truly learn about telling stories is by doing it. 

Summary 

When Luke Manchett's estranged father dies suddenly, he leaves his son a dark inheritance. Luke has been left in charge of his father's ghost collection: eight restless spirits. They want revenge for their long enslavement, and in the absence of the father, they're more than happy to take his son. It isn't fair, but you try and reason with the vengeful dead.

Halloween, the night when the ghosts reach the height of their power, is fast approaching. With the help of school witchlet Elza Moss, and his cowardly dog Ham, Luke has just thirteen days to uncover the closely guarded secrets of black magic, and send the unquiet spirits to their eternal rest. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

To find out more about Leo Hunt:

Twitter

The Book Cycle with Lucy Coats

Today I am pleased to welcome Lucy Coats onto the blog, to tell us how Cleo went from being an idea to a finished novel. Cleo is published today with Orchard  Books. This is Lucy's first YA novel. 

Cleopatra is somewhere in all our consciousnesses. She's probably the most fascinatingly famous woman in history, barring Helen of Troy - and there are no actual historical facts about Helen. 

My journey towards writing about Cleopatra started one April afternoon, about three years ago. I was chatting to my agent at London Book Fair, and she mentioned briefly that an American publisher had told her that Angelina Jolie was making a film about the last female pharaoh (a project sadly now shelved indefinitely after the WikiLeaks furore over Sony emails). Might Cleopatra be someone I'd be interested in writing about for teenagers? As it so happened, I'd recently been reading the Stacy Schiff book the film was going to be based on, so the answer was yes (or at least, yes, I'd have a go). However, I knew that if I was going to write a successful book for YA readers, I couldn't write about the woman we all think we know. I needed to find another angle. 

The lightbulb moment was when I read that Cleopatra had seen herself as a living incarnation of the goddess Isis. Immediately my brain began to tick very fast, and ideas came tumbling out almost faster than I could think them. Because my great love is mythology, I started to wonder if I could write a story on the border where real historical met fantasy paranormal, if perhaps my version of Cleopatra had been helped towards the pharaoh's throne by a goddess of the Egyptian pantheon. What I discovered after a little research and digging was that there is almost no credible information about Cleopatra before she came to the throne. A hole in history is the best of all territories to work in, so I decided that her Isis-aided teenage path to the throne was the story I should write. 

Several discarded synopses later, I had a rough plan, and I dived into writing. That's how I always work. But there was a problem. I'd started writing in third person, and at just under 20,000 words in I realised it wasn't gelling for me. Writing was becoming a struggle, and I just wasn't connecting. Usually I can hear a clear voice in my head, but me being the omniscient narrator meant that Cleopatra was getting lost in everything that was going on around her, and I felt very distanced from her. At that point I nearly gave up. I tried to unpick what I'd written and rework it, but it was no good. It was pretty terrifying to have done all that work for nothing and it gave my writing confidence a knock. Could I even do this? Did I even want to (since I was writing the novel 'on spec')? But I gave myself a kick, took a deep breath, and binned the lot, planning to begin again when I had time. 

There was then a gap of several months while I wrote four books for my already-contracted (and therefore paid for) middle-grade BEASTS OF OLYMPUS series, but the Cleopatra book was always fermenting and bubbling at the back of my mind. By about April 2013 I had this teenager in my brain shouting at me to hurry up and write down her story. That was the moment Cleopatra became Cleo. As soon as I started to write that second time, I knew it was right, even though what was coming out scared me silly. My Cleo's voice is not historical-courtly-old-fashioned. It's incredibly modern (though I hope not anachronistic - no LOL or ICYMI!). It was a big risk to write her that way, but I wanted the teenagers of 2015 to be able to connect with her on the level of a girl their age. There are so many layers of legend laid over Cleopatra (mostly emanating from the Romans, who didn't believe any woman could possibly have done what she did without the aid of sorcery or witchcraft).  I decided to strip all that away. At the beginning of the story - the first two chapters are a sort of prologue - she is ten, later on, she's fourteen. She's just lost her mother. Her sisters want to kill her (history tells us that the Ptolemy family were a murderous lot). Her father has (as she sees it) run away to Rome. All that was fertile territory for showing her emotions, and for teasing out what she might have been like as a person - insecure, scared, wondering what Isis has in store for her (and occasionally complaining about it), friendless apart from her bodyservant, Charm - and much too intelligent for her own good. That bookish (scrollish?) intelligence also gave me the chance to write about the long-lost Great Library of Alexandria, and to make Cleo's first-love interest a hot librarian-scribe spy boy called Khai. (At first he was called Ash, but I soon realised that there are FAR too many Ash boys and girls in YA lit already!) I have to confess that I did start off making Cleo a bit older, because of the convention that the character must always be older than the intended reading target audience (a loose 13+). However, it niggled at me. It was historically inaccurate. She was eighteen when her father died and she took the throne with her younger brother. Her father came back from Rome three to four years before that... So fourteen it was, and damn convention.

I had just started the second bout of writing (now using the amazing Scrivener app, which has literally revolutionised my writing life), when I went to the SCBWI retreat. Into every writer's life a little serendipity must fall. During that retreat I went to a talk given by the amazing Lucy Christopher, which spurred me on to rework a passage I'd been having trouble with. That night I read it out to the assembled group. In the group was an editor from Orchard Books. She took me aside and said she'd like to see more. I only had about 13,000 words at that point, but after discussion with my agent, we sent it off, together with a synopsis for not one but two books. I kept on writing over the summer, slowly piecing things together, and in August I got the wonderful news that I had a two-book deal. Delivery was set in March 2014 for the first book, which went through several title changes before it became, quite simply, CLEO, because that was what we'll all been referring to it as from the beginning. Sometimes the most obvious solution is the one which works. 

A good chunk of the book was written in a friend's beautiful palazzo in Venice, and I was getting on really well, when writing disaster struck. About three-quarters of the way through, in January 2014, I got stuck. I knew where I was going, but suddenly I couldn't work out how to get there. I had a total panicky crisis of confidence meltdown and a bout of black depression. Depression is something many writers struggle with - and I believe in being up front about mine, which is longterm. It's part of who I am, an illness I have to manage, even though it isn't as visible as a broken leg or an appendix scar. When it strikes, I know to get help fast, so that's what I did. Up to that point, I'd aways been the 'pantser' kind of writer, having a rough plan, but not much more than that. I'd used mind maps for small scenes before, but not on a large scale. I'd also used a technique called 'creative napping' for years to solve writing problems. Once the depression was manageable and under control again, I took a long creative nap, and then constructed a mind map for the remainder of the book while my brain was still in that fuzzy creative space. After that, I did what I'd never done before. I immediately sat down at the computer and teased out the small plot clues in the mind map. It was a startling revelation - like unfolding of one of those tiny cubes that turn into a huge flannel and finding unexpected gold. Nine pages later, I had a really detailed plan, and I was able to write the end of Cleo's story in a way that worked. The fact that it ends on a massive cliffhanger is not going to please everyone - but at going on 85,000 words, it was the right place to stop for both me and the story, and I don't regret torturing my readers one little bit!

The publication process is, of course, very slow. So over the next year I worked with my editor, danced with joy when I saw the beautiful cover art, planned publicity, talked about the book to a lot of people - and most importantly, got on with researching and writing the sequel, which is called CHOSEN, and will come out in March 2016. How I finally wrapped up Cleo's journey to pharaoh is, of course, another book story entirely.... Expect more hot-Khai scenes, a good dose of gods and murderous sisters, some jars of ripped out hearts, a near-fatal trip to Rome - and a sprinkling of lecherous but fascinating Mark Anthony!

Cleo is published by Orchard and available to buy today.

Summary 

Her precious mother is dead - and it isn't an accident! The young Cleopatra - Pharaoh's illegitimate daughter - must flee the royal palace at Alexandria or die too. As her evil half-sisters usurp the throne, Cleo finds sanctuary at the sacred temple of Isis, where years later she becomes initiated into the secret Sisters of the Living Knot. But now Isis's power is failing, Egypt is in danger, and Cleo must prove her loyalty to her goddess by returning to the Alexandria she hates. She must seek out the hidden map which is the key to returning Isis's power - on pain of death. But will she be able to evade her horrible sisters? And will she find dreamy Khai, the über-hot Librarian boy she met as she fled Alexandria years before? Cleo's powerful destiny is about to unfold...

To find out more about Lucy:

Website / Twitter

The D'Evil Diaries by Tatum Flynn

High above the cavernous glass roof of The Poison Gardens, the crimson skies of Pandemonium swirled lazily over the city. Inside the greenhouse, the spiked black branches of the Nemesis Tree  swooped and darted like kraken tentacles searching for ships. The sap oozing from the Tree's trunk was bright yellow and smelled uncannily of mouldy trainers. Any creature unlucky enough to get too close would be swept up before being slowly crushed to death. 

Published by  Orchard Books in April 2015

Pages - 273

Illustrations by Dave Shepherd

Summary 

Twelve-year-old Jinx is hopeless at being evil. Which is a bit of a problem when you're Lucifer's youngest son. But when Jinx runs away from Pandemonium, the walled city he's lived in all his life, he bumps into dead girl Tommy - who's been sent to Hell for accidentally feeding her nasty uncle to a circus lion - and unearths a conspiracy that could up-end the entire underworld. 

Cue shenanigans involving carnivorous carousel horses, death-trap-riddled libraries and hungry quicksand. Now the fate of the realm rests in the hands of its most unlikely demon and a girl who shouldn’t be in Hell at all... 

*****

I'm actually not sure what I am most envious of - Tatum Flynn's incredible imagination or her hilarious sense of humour. I found myself reading this book, constantly thinking, why can't I be as talented at this author? 

I'd imagine you've guessed by now that I really enjoyed this book. The world building was astounding. I can actually picture Hell in my mind and I hope if I  do something really bad and have to spend eternity there, it  will be just like the author imagined. Pandemonium felt like a really cool, yet evil place to hang out in.  I love all the distinctive areas within Hell, each with their own horror to unveil.

I had a fit of the giggles constantly while reading  this story.  Jinx, Lucifer's youngest son, is really funny. I loved the scene where he turned Count Dracula into a healthy, fun loving guy, who now works for the Milk Marketing Board! This was absolutely priceless. The rest of the characters were entertaining and enigmatic. I found myself really liking Lucifer! And 'Lucifer' and 'like' really aren't two words that you would put in the same sentence.  The relationship between Tommy and Jinx was really sweet, in a brotherly sister kind of way. I am so pleased  how Tommy's future turns out by the end of the book.

If I was to compare this to anything, it would be to the film, Little Nicky with Adam Sandler. Jinx has that same misfit quality to him. 

The plot of the story is very good, although I guessed quite early on, who was trying to break down the wall between Heaven and Hell. However, this didn't spoil my enjoyment of the story.

This book is the first in a series and I know it will be fabulous to return to Hell later in the year to see what these two mischievous  kids get up to. I really hope at some point we get to meet Persephone, Jinx's mum, as she was mentioned quite a lot in this book.

This is a really great debut novel as well as a good read for the Middle Grade market. I really think this book will be loved by both girls and boys. If David Walliams wrote paranormal, this is the style of book he would write. 

Where The Ideas Flow with Tatum Flynn

I am really pleased to welcome debut author, Tatum Flynn, onto the blog to show us where her ideas flow.

 I live by the sea in England, this is the view from my study (if I stand by the window and peer round the corner ;)

 Here's one of the bookselves by my desk (I have seven altogether and they're all overflowing)

You see, books even turn up in the bathroom...

​Sometimes I try to write when I'm away from home but there can be distractions...
​ 

I am in love with my desk - does that sound weird? ok that sounds weird but I don't care - I nabbed it on eBay a few years ago for a steal and it dates all the way back to Napoleonic times and is so beautiful. I like to imagine some French ambassador sitting at it and sending out Important Orders. Also, handy snack drawers.

And here's some of the junk sitting on it. The passport to Hell was a present, and I bought the Pop Rocks to celebrate getting my book deal (the pet vampire bat in The D'Evil Diaries has a thing for it) and left it there as a reminder. Peeking out at the back is my invitation to last year's Hachette summer party, which was an absolutely brilliant night, not least because I got to meet Cressida Cowell who is ridiculously nice. I have no clue where the devilish ducks came from...

Finally here is Friday, the person who actually writes my books. As you can see she's getting a bit fed up with not getting the credit.

Bio: Tatum Flynn lives by the sea in England with a cat called Friday and too many hats. She has a soft spot for the word ‘ramshackle’, and a vagabond past which involves piloting lifeboats in Venezuela, playing poker in Las Vegas, shooting rapids in the Grand Canyon and almost falling out of a plane over Scotland. Her debut, THE D’EVIL DIARIES, will be out from Orchard/Hachette on the 2nd April 2015, with a sequel, Hell's Belles, to follow January 2016. Find her on Tumblr (sometimes) and Twitter (far too often).

 

The Moment Collector by Jodi Lynn Anderson

A key is buried under the front stairs of 208 Water Street. Scorched on one side, was it in a fire? Who lost it, and when?

From me, it’s a clue, a piece of the past. Because the yard of this house is a graveyards of moments, and everything left behind is a reminder: sand paper, a bracelet, a love note, some letter, a match, a movie stub, a postcard.

Published by Orchard Books in August 2014

Pages - 256

Summary

There's a ghost haunting 208 Water Street. She doesn't know who she was, or why she's still here. She does know that she is drawn to Maggie, the new girl in town, and her friends - beautiful, carefree Pauline and Liam, the boy who loves her.
But the ghost isn't all that's lurking in Gill Creek... Someone is killing young girls all across the county. Can the ghost keep these three friends safe? Or does she have another purpose?

*****

Although I enjoyed this story, I found myself confused about it for nearly three quarters of the book. It wasn’t until I reached the end, that I truly understood what was going on.  From the first few pages, we know a killer is on the loose in the little town, but we never ever find out who it is. It felt as though a certain aspect of the story was set up in the beginning but unfortunately not carried through to the end.  I couldn’t see the point of making such a big deal about the murders if they weren’t integral to the plot.

Out of all the characters in the book, Maggie was definitely my favourite. She was a bright young thing, who worked hard at her studies and did all she could to make her parent’s lives easier.  On arriving in town, she was soon befriended by Pauline, who annoyed the hell out of me. Pauline came across as flighty and immature. I felt that she used Maggie when ever she felt she needed a friend. It was pretty obvious from the start that Pauline would always win every outcome.

This story is told mainly in third person, apart from the sections where the spirit speaks in first person. Now I’m a big fan of using  a mixture of narrative points of view in one novel but I will be honest, I struggled with it in this book until the very end. By the time I reached the conclusion,  it finally dawned on me why it had been written in this way and completely made sense; however I felt that was a bit too late to appease my annoyance throughout the rest of the book. 

The ending was the saviour of this story. However I was quite shocked to discover the true identity of the ghost in the last chapter. This was an OK read with a really strong ending. If you enjoyed  A Certain Slant of Light, you would probably enjoy this one too.

Dead Silent by Sharon Jones

It had to be here.

The soles of his shoes squeaked from marble to wood as he ran between the choir stalls, swinging the torch beam like a whip that could beat back the night.

Published by Orchard in February 2014

Pages - 336

When Poppy Sinclair and her boyfriend visit snowy Cambridge, she doesn't expect to discover the body of a student - arms outstretched in the act of smearing bloody angel wings on the chapel's floor.
Suddenly, Poppy is faced with the possibility that the one closest to her heart might be the one committing the most malicious of crimes.
Dodging porters and police, dreading what she might find, Poppy follows the clues left by a murderer bent on revenge...
Long-hidden secrets are chillingly revealed, an avenging angel seeks forgiveness and red-hot vengeance must be quelled in the amazing new Poppy Sinclair thriller.

*****

I can’t help myself, but I really do love Poppy Sinclair. She really isn’t your average teenager. She overthinks everything and comes from the strangest mix of parents. On one side, she has her mum, who walks firmly on the Pagan side while her estranged father has found his calling within Christianity. Throughout this book, it is intriguing to watch Poppy’s internal struggle between Christianity and Paganism as she tries desperately to sit on the atheist fence, while events occurring around her make it very clear she won’t be able to sit there for long. Something is changing in Poppy and as she grows older it becomes more apparent which latent and unusual skills she has developed.

This book is set in Cambridge during the winter, just before Christmas and I found myself reminiscing fondly my days as a new adult in Cambridge. I felt the author captured the tone and the feel of the academic town and really brought it to life.  I was left with a yearning to revisit.

The prologue sets the scene perfectly and you realise straightaway that Poppy is about to be drawn into another murder mystery. Poppy comes across as the UK’s version of Nancy Drew, but with a few unusual added extras. It doesn’t feel contrived in any way that she is at the centre of a murder investigation again, which was one of the things I was worried about before reading it. She really does have an unfortunate knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In this book, we learn more about the relationship between Poppy and her father, and discover exactly why it appears to have unravelled so disastrously. We also witness the next step in the relationship between Michael and Poppy, as Poppy stands on the threshold of losing her virginity. I really felt the author dealt with this in an honest and mature way, which would hopefully help other teenagers discuss this situation before rushing into anything they might feel uncomfortable with.

With an array of quirky and colourful characters, I whizzed through the book at great speed, to discover which one was the murderer. And yet again, I was dumbfounded by the truth, after following a line of red herrings.

I thought this was a brilliant second novel, which really establishes Sharon Jones as a crime writing YA author. I really do hope there will be more novels with Poppy Sinclair in the future, as I desperately want to know what happens between Poppy and Michael.

Waiting on Wednesday- Dead Silent by Sharon Jones

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, started by Jill at Breaking The Spine, highlighting future book releases everyone is waiting on!

Dead Silent by Sharon Jones

Published by Orchard Books in February 2014

I loved Sharon’s debut novel! Poppy has already settled herself into my favourite characters category and I can’t wait to see what she gets up to in her next adventure.

Goodreads Summary

When Poppy Sinclair and her boyfriend visit snowy Cambridge, she doesn't expect to discover the body of a student - arms outstretched in the act of smearing bloody angel wings on the chapel's floor.
Suddenly, Poppy is faced with the possibility that the one closest to her heart might be the one committing the most malicious of crimes.
Dodging porters and police, dreading what she might find, Poppy follows the clues left by a murderer bent on revenge...
Long-hidden secrets are chillingly revealed, an avenging angel seeks forgiveness and red-hot vengeance must be quelled in the amazing new Poppy Sinclair thriller.

Chuck A Book with Sharon Jones

In the Chuck A Book hot seat today, I am pleased to welcome Sharon Jones, Undiscovered Voices winner 2012 and debut author of Dead Jealous.

1) The best book you have ever read.

Today it’s The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. 

Tomorrow it will be something entirely different. But if you’ve never read this classic then do. The chapter entitled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is really quite beautiful. 

2) A book you loved from your childhood.

The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy. 

Before Harry Potter there was Mildred Hubble. She had terrible trouble staying on her broomstick, she got landed with the last moggie out of the basket, and was more likely to trip over her trailing laces than mix a potion correctly, especially with the scary Miss Hardbroom constantly looking over her shoulder! The Worst Witch was one of the first books I chose for myself from the Puffin Book Club. I read it so many times that it literally fell apart. I ended up spending a Saturday afternoon sticky-taping each and every page to its neighbour. Needless to say, I loved that book.

3) A book that made you laugh.

Too Hard!!! I suppose for me, this is where UKYA/Teen excels. Anything by Keris Stainton, Luisa Plaja or Keren David is bound to have me howling at a witty one liner! Yes, I know that’s cheating. 

4) A book you could not finish.

Shatter by Michael Robotham. 

The narrator’s constant references to the legs of the female characters made me feel physically sick. From what I could tell, I wasn’t meant to be sickened by it; in every other way he was a sympathetic character. He was after all the detective/hero! So there I was wondering whether it was just me being particularly sensitive when up popped two lines of dialogue I’d heard elsewhere… I have a ridiculously good memory for dialogue and this dialogue happened to be from my favourite TV dramas, The West Wing. President Josiah Bartlet: [trying to wake up his wife] Abbey... Abigail... Abbey, the kids are eating sugar.  Abbey Bartlet: Uh...  [wakes up]  Abbey Bartlet: Oh!  President Josiah Bartlet: How you doing? You know I gave the kids candy all the time, right?  Abbey Bartlet: Behind my back?  President Josiah Bartlet: Yes.  Abbey Bartlet: You bought their love.  President Josiah Bartlet: Well, it was for sale, and I wanted it. 

[Taken from: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0018939/quotes]

Now, all writers borrow (and as Sam Seaborn once said, after hundreds before him, ‘great writers steal’) but that conversation was taken from the mouth of one of my absolute favourite characters and a version of it put into the mouth of a letch. Afraid I lost it and consigned the book to Room 101!

5) A book that made you swoon.

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles.

Alex Fuentes - need I say any more??? When I was seventeen I went on exchange to a school on the outskirts of Chicago. Having grown up with US TV and having swallowed a lot of rhetoric about the US being the ‘melting pot’, I was shocked by how racially divided Chicago really was. I remember one day, on the way to catch the school bus, we passed two guys who lived on the same street but who were heading in the opposite direction. My host leaned in and whispered ‘they catch the bus out to the Latino school.’ I was like, WHAT? The school I went to in the UK wasn’t exactly racially diverse, but the notion that there was a Latino school really shocked me. I think my host really meant that they went to the Roman Catholic school… but still... 

Reading Perfect Chemistry brought all of it back. Yeah, it’s kind of Romeo & Juliet, and that’s been done to death. But there’s a reason why it’s a classic trop. Plus… Alex… sigh!

6) A book you can’t wait to read.

Argh!!! There are too many on this list. How to choose?! At the moment I’m desperately awaiting Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover. Hopeless was so amazing it moved me to write a fan letter… well, fan email.

7) A series you have read and loved.

The Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr.

I loved the world building and the characters. I reread from time to time, just to dip my toes back in that world. We all need a little fairy dust in our lives.

8) A book that made you cry.

Hopeless by Colleen Hoover 

A lot of books have made me cry - this is just the most recent! 

9) Your guilty pleasure book. 

Writing manuals! I know that’s not exactly what you were hoping for, but I usually start reading them around the time that I REALLY need to be writing… hence the guilt! One of my current favourites is Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris.

10) A book that took you out of your comfort zone.

Can I give a classification of books? Because dystopian books FREAK ME OUT! Whether it’s Slated by Teri Terry, Dark Parties by Sara Grant, Withered by Lauren DeStefano or Matched by Ally Condie. They have all given me nightmares. I can put up with no end of blood and guts, but tell me that the future looks like THAT and I become a quivering mess. In fact, I have a self-imposed ban on dystopian while I’m finishing my second book, because they take me too far out of my comfort zone to then be able to write! 

****

Dead Jealous is published by Orchards Books this week.

To find out more about Sharon Jones

Website/ Twitter