GYDO: Kasie West

Kasie West, Author of Pivot Point

It’s no secret, I love reading about people falling in love. So I thought it would be fun to explore some of the ways used in a few of my favorite young adult novels to build up to that all important ‘L word.’

Best friends. I love it when long-time best friends discover they have feelings for each other. Whether they tell each other right away and deal with the fall out, or the main character is just discovering her feelings and thinks she is alone in them, it’s fun to struggle along with them. The familiarity of the relationship and the two knowing each other so well, makes a fun story, sure to have my heart aching for them to finally figure things out because they belong together.

One of my favorite leading men in this type of story is: Jay (from The Body Finder)

“It was the same thing every day. There was nothing different from yesterday and the day before that. Nothing different from every single day since they’d met.

           

Except that now her stomach climbed into her throat as he grinned his stupid sideways grin at her and slid into the car.” –Kimberly Derting The Body Finder

The intriguing stranger. On the opposite end of the best friends discovering love is falling for the complete stranger…eventually. There’s something fun about discovering the details of a boy right along with the main character. The not knowing what his looks mean. The not knowing what his past holds. The mystery of it all is compelling.

My favorite intriguing stranger is: Wes (from The Truth About Forever)

“Now that he was right in front of me, I could see that he was tall and had brown hair that was a little bit too long. He was also strikingly handsome, with the sort of sculpted cheekbones and angular features that you couldn’t help but notice, even if you did have a boyfriend.” –Sarah Dessen The Truth About Forever

The cocky bad boy. Why oh why am I still drawn to the bad boy who is hot and knows it? I think it’s because I love seeing that confidence start to crack as the main character breaks down those walls. There is something about the vulnerability that lies behind all that bravado that gets me every time.

My favorite cocky bad boy? Jace (from City of Bones)

“He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Can I help you with something?’

Clary turned instant traitor against her gender. ‘Those girls on the other side of the car are staring at you.’

Jace assumed an air of mellow gratification. ‘Of course they are,’ he said. ‘I’m stunningly attractive.’” –Cassandra Clare City of Bones

The childhood crush reappearing. Ah, years of pent up feelings that come rushing back when a childhood crush suddenly reappears in the life of the MC. I love this. I especially love this when things ended badly or in a misunderstanding like with Cricket in Lola and the Boy Next Door. I love this book. I love Cricket.

“We take each other in. My mind spins as it tries to connect the Cricket of the present with the Cricket of the past. He’s grown up and grown into his body, but it’s still him. The same boy I fell in love with in the ninth grade. My feelings had been building since our childhood, but that year, the year he turned sixteen, was the year everything changed.” –Stephanie Perkins Lola and the Boy Next Door

The protector. Lastly, one of my favorite types of love stories is the girl falling for her protector. I love a strong love interest whose instinct is to protect, even if it’s begrudgingly at first. 

My favorite protector as of late is: Perry (from Under The Never Sky)

“The Outsider picked up his bow and quiver, looping them over his shoulder. ‘No talking once we cross that ridge. Not a word, understand?’

‘Why? What’s out there?’

His eyes, always bright, looked like green lights in the pale dawn. ‘Your stories are, Mole. All of them.’” –Veronica Rossi Under The Never Sky

Isn’t it great how many ways there are to fall in love? And I fell in love with all these characters again while I was putting this post together. I can’t wait to discover more favorites as I continue to read.

Pivot Point Blurb
(Check out her other 2013 release Distance Between Us) 
Addison Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, whenever Addie is faced with a choice, she can look into the future and see both outcomes. It’s the ultimate insurance plan against disaster. Or so she thought. When Addie’s parents ambush her with the news of their divorce, she has to pick who she wants to live with—her father, who is leaving the paranormal compound to live among the “Norms,” or her mother, who is staying in the life Addie has always known. Addie loves her life just as it is, so her answer should be easy. One Search six weeks into the future proves it’s not.
In one potential future, Addie is adjusting to life outside the Compound as the new girl in a Norm high school where she meets Trevor, a cute, sensitive artist who understands her. In the other path, Addie is being pursued by the hottest guy in school—but she never wanted to be a quarterback’s girlfriend. When Addie’s father is asked to consult on a murder in the Compound, she’s unwittingly drawn into a dangerous game that threatens everything she holds dear. With love and loss in both lives, it all comes down to which reality she’s willing to live through . . . and who she can’t live without.

Author Bio

A stay-at-home mom of four children, three of them girls, ranging in age from 12to four, Kasie West hears lots of melodramatic versions of large-than-life events. She graduated with a BA in liberal studies, with a strong focus on linguistics and psychology, from Fresno State University. She lives in Fresno, CA.

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GYDO: Jennifer Rush

Jennifer Rush, Author of Altered

Here’s a secret (but not really a secret because this is probably not a surprise to any of you): I started writing way back in my early teens because I was boy crazy. When I was twelve or thirteen, I was obsessed with teen magazines, like Bop and Tiger Beat, and I’d pull out all of the posters and celebrity pictures and plaster them all over my bedroom wall until no wall remained.
I had a major crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Andrew Keegan, and Devon Sawa (anyone remember him in Little Giants?). I couldn’t watch their movies/TV shows enough, and I realized that I could stay with them as long as I’d like if I just wrote my own story, with my own cute boys.
I started writing vampire fiction (I devoured vampire books at this age). Then I read Sarah Dessens’s The Truth About Forever, and decided I needed to write my own Wes.
Growing up, I was never popular, or pretty. I certainly didn’t have a ton of male suitors. Reading, and later writing, was a way for me to live vicariously through my characters. I got to fall in love with multiple boys without any of the mess (you’re welcome, mom and dad). I was able to kiss a cute vampire. Feel the butterflies from a crush on a brooding artist. Fall for a bad boy (a demon, actually, but he was a super-hot-with-a-sensitive-side demon). 
But something changed, the more I wrote, and the more I thought about the girls telling my stories. I realized, not only could I feel a sliver of the crush on a cute boy, I could feel the empowerment of a strong female, or the rush of an athletic girl, or the passion of an artist.
I started focusing more on my female narrators. I wrote a runner—something I’ve always wanted to do, but have never been successful at. I wrote an artist, because I’d loved art growing up, but never felt I was good enough. I wrote a strong, peculiar girl with tattoos all over, and a best friend she’d die for.
I guess it comes as no surprise then, that Altered is told from the point of view of a girl who can kick major ass. A girl who is passionate, and creative, and kind and caring, but also courageous and strong and determined.
As my writing grows, I want to continue writing strong female characters, but also characters that are real, and complex, and interesting, maybe even weak at times. Because we are all weak at times. 
I hope in the future, that when people talk about my books, they say things like, She writes great female characters, and complex plots, and super hot boys. After all, I couldn’t possibly turn my back on my humble beginnings. :-)

Altered Blurb
When you can’t trust yourself, who can you believe?
Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who’s stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. 
Anna is torn between following Sam or staying behind in the safety of her everyday life. But her father pushes her to flee, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, at all costs. There’s just one problem. Sam and the boys don’t remember anything before living in the lab—not even their true identities.
Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.

Author Bio

Jennifer Rush lives in a little town on the shoreline of Lake Michigan with her husband and two children. She grew up wanting to be an Egyptologist, but realized she hated the desert and declared herself a writer instead. She won her first writing award in the fourth grade (a Mickey Mouse pencil was the prize) and has been crafting stories ever since. In her free time, she likes to read, Photoshop, and consume large amounts of caffeine.

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GYDO: Cristin Terrill

Cristin Terrill, Author of All Our Yesterdays

(Happy Book Birthday! All Our Yesterdays releases today!)

Fiction Freak:What's your most embarrassing moment?

Cristin Terrill: Other than my entire middle-school existence? There are so many to choose from. The one that first springs to mind was my very first day of freshman orientation at college. It was already a very stressful day, because I was incredibly nervous and my mom, dad, stepmother, and 6 month old half-sister were there "helping" me move in. Halfway through unpacking I got a note to go to one of the rooms where they were doing administrative stuff. I got there and found out that they'd never received my vaccination records from my doctor, so I had to get a shot RIGHT THEN. I have a severe needle phobia (like, I usually pass out in the doctor's office just from being near all the needles) so all the stress made me immediately burst into tears. My dad looked at me in shock and said, "You're really serious about that needle thing, huh?" and I was like, "YEAH DAD, I REALLY AM." Meanwhile, I'm crying uncontrollably and making a total idiot of myself in front of about fifty of the brand new classmates I was so nervous about meeting. Luckily, I managed to stay conscious, but I still shudder thinking about that moment! 

What's been the most memorable moment that has something to do with your writing?

The night I first got an offer on ALL OUR YESTERDAYS. I was out to dinner with a bunch of my writers friends and ran outside into the bitter cold without my coat to answer my agent's call. She told me not to tell anyone we'd received an offer, so I had to go back into dinner and pretend nothing had happened. My two closest friends could tell something was up, though, so I told them what had happened in the parking lot after dinner was over. We basically just hugged and cried and laughed for like an hour.

What's your most anticipated 2014 or late 2013 read?

THE DREAM THIEVES, the sequel to Maggie Stiefvater's THE RAVEN BOYS. That was my favorite read of last year, and I'm so missing those characters and dying to see what they're up to!

What's your biggest pet peeve?

People who say "literally" when they mean "figuratively."

If you could learn a talent in a day, what would it be?

Hmm, I'd love to be able to draw or ballroom-dance or speak a new language, but I think I'd have to pick learning to play the guitar. I can play the trumpet and French horn from my many years of school band, but you can't just whip out your French horn around the campfire with your friends, you know? 

You can meet anyone, who is it?

William Shakespeare. I can pick someone dead, right? I have a master's in Shakespeare Studies, and I have so many questions I would love to have answered!

What YA character would you LOVE to meet?

Tough one! Well, Peeta is my YA boyfriend, so it would be good if we actually knew each other, but I would also kill to have a slumber party with Frankie Landau-Banks and THE DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE'S Zuzana.

Give us some random facts about you!

I've lived in twelve cities in two countries,

Judi Dench overheard me calling her creepy once, and I saw a flying saucer one night at my grandparents' house when I was fifteen. 

Favorite

2013 debut:

I'm reading MAID OF SECRETS by Jennifer McGowan right now and really enjoying it. There's also this awesome book I heard about called ALL OUR YESTERDAYS...

Series:

HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman

TV Show:

I'm a TV addict, so I don't know if I could choose. Some favs are Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica.

Website:

My life would not be worth living without Netflix.

Animal:

Dolphin. Or sea lion. Or sea otter. Basically any sea mammal will do.

Color:

Blue

Food:

French fries

Bookstore:

Book People in Austin, TX

Social Media:

Twitter, although I really love Tumblr too.

This or that

eBook or physical?

Physical. Ebooks are easier to read, but I like to be able to look at my books.

Paperback or hardback?

Hardbacks. They're prettier.

Twitter or Facebook?

Twitter! Facebook and I just never clicked, and I'm always on Twitter.

Dogs or cats?

The cat is my spirit animal, although I love dogs too.

Morning bird or night owl?

Night owl. I basically became a writer so that I would never have to get up early.

Junk food or candy?

Junk food. I'm not much for candy, but French fries or brownies or pizza? Love.

Contemporary or paranormal/fantasy?

Paranormal/fantasy. It has to be a really special book to make me want to relive high school!

One Direction or Justin Bieber?

Although I've literally never heard any of their music, I'll go with One Direction. I have a weakness for British accents.

NUTELLA OR NUTELLA?

I make these Nutella crepes that would BLOW YOUR MIND, MY FRIEND.

All Our Yesterdays Blurb
Marina has everything. She’s got money, popularity, and a bright future. Plus, she’s best friends with the boy next door, who happens to be a gorgeous prodigy from one of America’s most famous families.
Em has nothing. Imprisoned in a small white cell in the heart of a secret military base, all she has is the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.
But Marina and Em have one big thing in common: they’re the same person.
Now Em must travel back four years in time in order to avert the terrible future from which she’s fled, and there’s only one way to do it. She must kill the person who invented the time machine in the first place: someone from her past. A person she loved.
But Marina won’t let them go without a fight.

Author Bio
Cristin Terrill is a YA author and aspiring grown-up. She holds a BA in Drama from Vassar College and an MA from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and has worked in the theatre on both sides of the pond. She now teaches creative writing to children and teens in Washington, D.C. 

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GYDO: Jordana Frankel

Jordana Frankel, Author of The Ward

Outlining: A Love-Hate Relationship

Oh, how I envy authors who can just write without an outline. Every time they pick up their WIP, it's like an adventure. I know! I tried with early drafts of THE WARD- and ended up with 125 pages of swashbuckling nonsense, no real plot though. I had one in mind, I really did, but I just sort of wove it in whenever it felt like it belonged. And by "wove it in," I mean that I just suggested that there may be a plot, if you kept reading. I knew this was bad, but I figured that if I kept truckin', I would figure out what the sitch was.

And the writing was so fun! I *never* knew what my main characters were going to do. They could kiss! They could punch each other! I was constantly surprising myself. They were constantly surprising me - and each other. It. Was. Awesome.

And then, by way of some really unforeseen variables and some obscene luck, I had an editor interested in the project. Of course, the plot needed work (read: needed a plot). And so I had to start thinking, and hard.

There was an outline. It was a sketch, but suddenly it gave my WIP "through signs" as Micol Ostow(former writing instructor and author extraordinare) said. And she was right. The outlining was a good, good thing.

But. BUT.

I went back to work on the WIP, and suddenly, no one was surprising me.

I felt like I was just writing them to do things, and they - goshdarned it - were LISTENING to me. NO! That's not how it's supposed to work. My characters THEY DO WAT THEY WANT.

And in a way, they were doing what they wanted. But it was also what I needed for them to do. In order for this WIP to actually function, they couldn't just be acting all willynilly. So I understood, I got it, but I had to admit, some of the starry eyes I had for them were, well, just less starry (wait, happy ending approaches).

Until I realized something.

They WERE still surprising me. It was just in an entirely different way. If I were writing them according to the outline, they would be so boring! Suddenly my MC was punching out a bouncer, getting punched back, going nuts in a waiting room. Nothing I had foreseen. The starry eyes were back. I needed to look for the moments and opportunities and allow my characters leeway to feel whatever they were feeling. And then act accordingly.

Basically, I realized that in order for me to keep the starry eyes I have for this project, I needed to constantly be learning something or surprised by my characters - in ways that the outline just can't provide. And if it did, if I had thought out all this stuff in advance, I would be sad. So even if some of what I write doesn't make it into the final ms - that's okay. I'm writing the things I need to write in order to stay in love with the book. And now, I'll even gloss over certain parts in the outline because I have a hunch that something awesome will happen if I let it.

And because it's also apropos depending on the day:

The Ward Blurb
Sixteen-year-old Ren is a daredevil mobile racer who will risk everything to survive in the Ward, what remains of a water-logged Manhattan. To save her sister, who is suffering from a deadly illness thought to be caused by years of pollution, Ren accepts a secret mission from the government: to search for a freshwater source in the Ward, with the hope of it leading to a cure.
However, she never expects that her search will lead to dangerous encounters with a passionate young scientist; a web of deceit and lies; and an earth-shattering mystery that’s lurking deep beneath the water’s rippling surface.

Author Bio

Jordana Frankel is a creative-writing instructor at Writopia Lab and a former marketing associate at the Book Report Network. She received her BA from Goucher College and an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University. She currently lives in New York City. The Ward is her first novel.

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GYDO 2013

IT'S TIME FOR GYDO AGAIN! WOOOT!!! We have an awesome line up and GYDO's going to be...a bit longer than last year! Also? Giveaways!

If you don't know what GYDO is, it's basically where I ask a whole bunch of debut authors from whatever year it is (sometimes the coming year) and ask them to write a guest post for me! If they can't, they have the choice of an interview, but a guest post is definitely my first choice.

GYDO started out because there were some amazing fall releases last year and school was starting up again! So I decided to do an author event that wouldn't take too much time, but would still be fun! If you want to see last year's posts click here.

Last year didn't have any giveaways, but this year I asked if the authors could donate some swag or books and they've been so nice! So, yep! You guys are getting a ton of giveaways! I'm sort of jealous! The majority are US, but there are also a lot of US/CA ones and even a few INT ones!

Have fun meeting new authors and possibly discovering new books!

Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle

Goodreads Blurb

For as long as she can remember, Wren Gray’s goal has been to please her parents. But as high school graduation nears, so does an uncomfortable realization: Pleasing her parents once overlapped with pleasing herself, but now... not so much. Wren needs to honor her own desires, but how can she if she doesn’t even know what they are?
Charlie Parker, on the other hand, is painfully aware of his heart’s desire. A gentle boy with a troubled past, Charlie has loved Wren since the day he first saw her. But a girl like Wren would never fall for a guy like Charlie—at least not the sort of guy Charlie believes himself to be.
And yet certain things are written in the stars. And in the summer after high school, Wren and Charlie’s souls will collide. But souls are complicated, as are the bodies that house them...

Oh you gorgeous, gorgeous, lying cover. When I saw the cover I imagined a sweet, possibly heartbreaking, story that I would love. Instead I got a romance that wasn't exactly my favorite and was more New Adult than Young.

I didn't really expect the rather...detailed sex scene that happened or the issues that ended up being mentioned. Namely from one Starrla character. Starrla really irritated for some reason. I think it was because she didn't really seem to have much depth. Yes, she was broken, and yes she had her issues. But beyond her issues and her pain, there honestly didn't seem to be anything else. It was like she was just written to drive a wedge between our two main characters, which she probably was. I just wish there was more to her than her bitchiness and cruelty.

Ah, but you want to hear about our main characters don't you?
Charlie wasn't exactly my favorite. He seemed a bit...obsessive with Wren and I found him a bit...awkward for the story. I really can't explain why, but something just nagged at me throughout the entire story. But he was otherwise a pretty sweet guy with a real voice. He cared about his family, his friends, Wren, and was definitely romantic enough to make one swoon. But I didn't really see him grow as a character--we were told he changed, but I wish we'd been shown this character development, however minor.
Wren was sort of the same, but she annoyed me a lot more. She never really treated Charlie right and she was definitely a bit clingy and needy. She did try to stand up for her parents, and I admired her for that, but she never really said what she wanted. She flinched back a lot and it definitely annoyed me. After so many years under her parents' thumb (who definitely didn't win any parent of the year awards) I felt like she should've been more...explosive with her feelings than the timid rebel she portrayed once. Twice?

The romance in this definitely had that insta-love feel to it and I just sort of hated it. I had no idea what they saw in each other. All I kept hearing was "You're beautiful." "You're gorgeous." "You're perfect." But beyond that? Why did they seem so in love? There was no basis of their love and there was almost nothing leading up to it besides their "touching of the souls." Wut?

I wanted to DNF this so many times, but I pushed on, wanting to see how it ended, which was rather abrupt for my tastes. The Infinite Moment of Us was rather disappointing and I honestly wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. Of course, I still want to read Myracle's Shine since it received so many rave reviews, but not this one, unfortunately.

But guys. Such a gorgeous cover. 

Pages: 336

Genre: Contemporary/Romance

Series: Standalone

Publisher: Amulet Books

Release Date: Aug 20, 2013

Rating: 1 star