Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!
Showing posts with label extract. Show all posts
Showing posts with label extract. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Blog Tour: Kingsbane by Claire Legrand
Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Kingsbane blog tour! Kingsbane is the second book in the Empirium trilogy by Claire Legrand and I'm so excited to be sharing an extract from the book today for my stop on the tour.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!
Friday, 11 May 2018
Ace of Shades Blog Tour
Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Ace of Shades blog tour! Today I'm hosting an extract from the book and a chance for you to win a copy over on Twitter!
Intrigued? Don't miss your chance to win!
Intrigued? Don't miss your chance to win!
⭐GIVEAWAY⭐
— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) May 11, 2018
Win a copy of Ace of Shades by @AmandaFoody
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only #bookbloggers #aceofshades #blogtour #giveaway #winhttps://t.co/Buuyo0sV1O pic.twitter.com/r4ekixlndO
Make sure you check out the rest of the blog tour
Friday, 16 March 2018
Blog Tour: The House of Hopes and Dreams Extract and Giveaway!
Hi guys! Today I'm very excited to be hosting my blog tour stop for Trisha Ashley's brand new novel The House of Hopes and Dreams. I have an extract from the book to share with you and if it leaves you wanting to read more then you're in luck as I have 3 copies of the book available to win over on Twitter!
Intrigued? Don't miss your chance to win The House of Hopes and Dreams!
⭐GIVEAWAY⭐
— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) March 16, 2018
Win 1 of 3 copies of The House of Hopes and Dreams by @trishaashley
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only #bookbloggers #HouseofHopesandDreams #blogtour #giveaway #winhttps://t.co/5b1GXIIkYf pic.twitter.com/ivpG7fApkY
Make sure you check out the rest of the blog tour
Tuesday, 9 May 2017
The Night Visitor Blog Tour
Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on The Night Visitor blog tour! Today I have an extract of the prologue to share with you to give a taste of what you can expect from this brilliant book. Enjoy!
Prologue
Olivia
The Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London
Olivia huddled behind Arteries, Heart and Veins. Through the gaps between the tall specimen jars in the cabinet she could see the faces on the ground floor, looking up at Joy on the balcony. It was such a long way down.
The room was packed: all two hundred guests must have come. She couldn’t see their faces properly because the jars of hardened arteries and diseased heart tissue were acting as a screen and she didn’t want to look as if she was peering through them. She watched Joy’s animated profile instead. Joy was saying very kind things. Olivia felt sick.
‘Straight in at number two! That’s what we consider a triumph!’ Joy’s scarlet and gold earrings caught the light as she raised her champagne flute and cried, ‘A bestseller in its very first week. So, how about it? Shall we take it to number one?’ A cheer rang out through the museum; raucous voices lifted, echoed off the high ceilings and shivered through the glass display cabinets and medical oddities – faces torn by bullets and bombs, dissected limbs, diseased and malformed organs suspended in cloudy fluid. Bones, so gigantic that they must surely be from whales or mammoths, were displayed between the ground floor and this, the mezzanine. Under the clever, bleached lights they looked so curved and smooth-lined that they seemed more like sculptures than fragments of anatomy. ‘In case you missed it, there’s a table by the entrance where you can get the book for Olivia to sign,’ Joy said. ‘But that’s enough of a sales pitch from me. Let me hand you over to the woman of the hour, Britain’s favourite history professor, Olivia Sweetman!’ There was nowhere to put her glass so she held on to it as she stepped forwards. Joy squeezed her arm and moved out of the way. Olivia walked up to the Perspex-covered railings and looked down.
It really was too high – ridiculously so. What were the publicists thinking, putting her all the way up here for the speech? She would have been better off standing on the stairs or even on the ground floor with the guests gathered round her. But it was too late, all their faces were turned up, flushed with champagne and the energy of the night and this spectacle – her – standing alone in a yellow dress, glowing and supposedly triumphant. They were all waiting for her to speak.
She took a deep breath. She longed to unfurl wings and soar off this edge, over their heads and away to somewhere remote and hidden where none of them would ever find her, but she forced herself to speak. ‘Thank you so much, Joy, what a kind introduction. And thank you, all of you, for coming tonight to celebrate the launch of my book.’ Her voice came out clear and calm even though the glass in her hand was trembling. She rested that on the barrier too. She was used to public speaking, to facing a crowd and being listened to, but it was different to be looking down at friends, family, colleagues, journalists, TV people, bloggers and critics with this awful, sickening secret pressing in her gut like a tumour.
‘I hope you can all hear me? It’s an awfully long way down and as some of you will know I’m not that good with heights.’ There was a ripple of laughter, voices called up in encouragement. ‘We’ll catch you!’ someone – a man – yelled from the back. She wondered if the people directly below her could see up her full-skirted dress. She crossed her legs.
‘OK! Well, it’s amazing to be here with you tonight in this wonderful Hunterian Museum to celebrate the launch of Annabel.’ She noticed David standing at the front. His face was a mask of neutrality. Jess was at his side, her bobbed hair held back by a hairband. She was holding his hand. There was no sign of the boys. Olivia smiled directly down at her daughter but Jess didn’t react; perhaps she was more interested in the grisly objects in the cabinets that framed the balcony.
‘It seemed fitting to have the launch at the Royal College of Surgeons.’ She gestured at the cabinets. ‘Isn’t this an extraordinary museum?’ She knew she was stalling, unable to bring herself to talk about the book. She scanned the crowd for Dom and Paul but she couldn’t see either of them. She had to control this sick panic inside her – she had to sound relaxed. She’d prepared the speech about Annabel and they were all expecting it. She could, she would, deliver it.
Olivia
The Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London
Olivia huddled behind Arteries, Heart and Veins. Through the gaps between the tall specimen jars in the cabinet she could see the faces on the ground floor, looking up at Joy on the balcony. It was such a long way down.
The room was packed: all two hundred guests must have come. She couldn’t see their faces properly because the jars of hardened arteries and diseased heart tissue were acting as a screen and she didn’t want to look as if she was peering through them. She watched Joy’s animated profile instead. Joy was saying very kind things. Olivia felt sick.
‘Straight in at number two! That’s what we consider a triumph!’ Joy’s scarlet and gold earrings caught the light as she raised her champagne flute and cried, ‘A bestseller in its very first week. So, how about it? Shall we take it to number one?’ A cheer rang out through the museum; raucous voices lifted, echoed off the high ceilings and shivered through the glass display cabinets and medical oddities – faces torn by bullets and bombs, dissected limbs, diseased and malformed organs suspended in cloudy fluid. Bones, so gigantic that they must surely be from whales or mammoths, were displayed between the ground floor and this, the mezzanine. Under the clever, bleached lights they looked so curved and smooth-lined that they seemed more like sculptures than fragments of anatomy. ‘In case you missed it, there’s a table by the entrance where you can get the book for Olivia to sign,’ Joy said. ‘But that’s enough of a sales pitch from me. Let me hand you over to the woman of the hour, Britain’s favourite history professor, Olivia Sweetman!’ There was nowhere to put her glass so she held on to it as she stepped forwards. Joy squeezed her arm and moved out of the way. Olivia walked up to the Perspex-covered railings and looked down.
It really was too high – ridiculously so. What were the publicists thinking, putting her all the way up here for the speech? She would have been better off standing on the stairs or even on the ground floor with the guests gathered round her. But it was too late, all their faces were turned up, flushed with champagne and the energy of the night and this spectacle – her – standing alone in a yellow dress, glowing and supposedly triumphant. They were all waiting for her to speak.
She took a deep breath. She longed to unfurl wings and soar off this edge, over their heads and away to somewhere remote and hidden where none of them would ever find her, but she forced herself to speak. ‘Thank you so much, Joy, what a kind introduction. And thank you, all of you, for coming tonight to celebrate the launch of my book.’ Her voice came out clear and calm even though the glass in her hand was trembling. She rested that on the barrier too. She was used to public speaking, to facing a crowd and being listened to, but it was different to be looking down at friends, family, colleagues, journalists, TV people, bloggers and critics with this awful, sickening secret pressing in her gut like a tumour.
‘I hope you can all hear me? It’s an awfully long way down and as some of you will know I’m not that good with heights.’ There was a ripple of laughter, voices called up in encouragement. ‘We’ll catch you!’ someone – a man – yelled from the back. She wondered if the people directly below her could see up her full-skirted dress. She crossed her legs.
‘OK! Well, it’s amazing to be here with you tonight in this wonderful Hunterian Museum to celebrate the launch of Annabel.’ She noticed David standing at the front. His face was a mask of neutrality. Jess was at his side, her bobbed hair held back by a hairband. She was holding his hand. There was no sign of the boys. Olivia smiled directly down at her daughter but Jess didn’t react; perhaps she was more interested in the grisly objects in the cabinets that framed the balcony.
‘It seemed fitting to have the launch at the Royal College of Surgeons.’ She gestured at the cabinets. ‘Isn’t this an extraordinary museum?’ She knew she was stalling, unable to bring herself to talk about the book. She scanned the crowd for Dom and Paul but she couldn’t see either of them. She had to control this sick panic inside her – she had to sound relaxed. She’d prepared the speech about Annabel and they were all expecting it. She could, she would, deliver it.
Intrigued? Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!
Monday, 25 July 2016
Watching Edie Blog Tour: Teaser Extract
Hello everyone, today I'm delighted to be kicking off the Watching Edie blog tour with an intriguing teaser extract!
After
Outside my kitchen window the long afternoon empties of light. I look at London stretched out far below, my dripping hands held poised above the sink. The doorbell rings, one long high peal; the broken intercom vibrates. The view from up here, it’s incredible, like you’re flying. Deptford and Greenwich, New Cross and Erith, then the river, and beyond that there’s the Gherkin, over there’s the Shard. From my top-floor flat here on Telegraph Hill you can see forever and as usual it calms me, soothes me: how big it is, how small I am, how far from where I used to be.
The doorbell rings more urgently – whoever it is putting their finger on the buzzer and holding it there. The night hovers.
At first I used to see Heather everywhere. Connor too, of course. From the corner of my eye I’d catch a glimpse of one or the other of them, and there’d be that sharp, cold lurch that would leave me sick and shaken long after I’d realized that it had been an illusion; just a stranger with similar hair or the same way of walking. Whenever it happened I’d go somewhere busy and lose myself amongst the crowds, roaming the south-east London streets until I’d reassured myself that all that was very far away and long ago. A small West Midlands town a million miles from here. And the doorbell rings and rings as I’d always known it would one day.
I live on the top floor of a large, ugly Victorian building, and there are lots of us squashed in here side by side, in our small, draughty little flats. Housing Association, most of us. And when I wedge my door open with a shoe and go down to answer the bell, past four floors of white doors marked with brass letters, the early evening sounds seep from beneath each one: a baby crying, a telly’s laughter, a couple arguing; the lives of strangers.
I’m entirely unprepared for what’s waiting for me beyond the heavy wide front door and when I open it the world seems to tilt and I have to grip the door frame to stop myself from falling. Because there she is, standing on my doorstep staring back at me. There, after all this time, is Heather.
And I have imagined this, dreamed of this, dreaded this, so many hundreds of times for so many years that the reality is both entirely surreal and anticlimactic. I see and hear life continuing on this ordinary London street on this ordinary afternoon – cars and people passing, children playing down the street, a dog barking – as if from far away, and as I stare into her face the sour taste of fear creeps around the back of my tongue. I open my mouth but no words come and we stand in silence for a while, two thirty-three-year-old versions of the girls we’d once been.
It’s she who speaks first. ‘Hello, Edie,’ she says.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!
Follow author Camilla Way on Twitter @CamillaLWay
Watching Edie is available to buy in all good bookshops as of the 28th July
Thursday, 13 November 2014
The Walled City Blog Tour: Ryan Graudin Shares a Favourite Extract Plus Giveaway!
The Walled City is a book that I have been eagerly anticipating all year and now that it's finally out I am so looking forward to diving into it soon! To celebrate the UK publication day I've been invited by author Ryan Graudin's lovely publisher Indigo to take part in the blog tour and share with you one of Ryan's favourite passages from the book plus a giveaway for one of my lucky readers to win a copy of The Walled City! But for now it's over to Ryan!
Passage: “I don’t believe in ghosts. Not like my grandmother, who knelt at our ancestral shrine every dawn with smoking sticks of incense folded in her palms and offerings of rice liquor and oranges tucked in her pockets. I always thought it was stupid, wasting fruit and good booze on the dead. Those who were long silent and gone.
He haunts me anyway.
My brother comes to me in dreams. It’s the same nightmare I have every time I shut my eyes. The “night that changed everything” loops on repeat. My brother’s voice rattles and stings, unchanged through all these years of death.
“Don’t do this, Dai. This isn’t you.” He’s always reaching out, clawing the edge of my hoodie. Trying to stop me. “You’re a good person.”
Then comes the blood.
There’s always so much of it. On my arm. On him. It pours and gushes in an unreal way. Like the old cartoons we used to watch where the red spurted out like a fountain. I try to stop it, holding his hand as he slips away. His final breath curls out in the winter night like an English question mark. Bad punctuation. It should’ve been a period. A solid end. Not like this…
I wake up, heart gasping and chest aching. There’s no blood on the dingy white tiles of my apartment. Just the marks I drew—charcoal and straight. The marks I’ve been erasing, day by day, with a smudge of my thumb.
I sit up, blink the terror of sleep from my eyes.
The world is unchanged. My scar is still here. My brother is still dead. I’m still trapped in Hak Nam, and there are sixteen lines on my wall. Telling me that soon—oh-too-soon—my time will be up.”
Insider’s perspective: This is one of my favorite passages toward the beginning of The Walled City, and one of our first real glimpses into the character of Dai—a mysterious boy whose motivations are often hidden. As the reader can tell right off the bat, he’s a bit of a sacrilegious character. But this rejection of the past has a deeper root, as evidenced by his nightmare. He’s tortured by his own mistakes, and carries a lot of self-loathing. This passage also gives us a hint of what’s at stake for Dai. The charcoal marks on his wall, the ones he put there himself, are his countdown. He has sixteen days to escape the Hak Nam Walled City. Or else…
Favorite Moment: Without being too spoilery, one of my absolute favorite moments in the novel is when Dai’s final charcoal mark is erased. There is so much going on in that scene. Least of all the fact that Dai is not the person who erases it.
He haunts me anyway.
My brother comes to me in dreams. It’s the same nightmare I have every time I shut my eyes. The “night that changed everything” loops on repeat. My brother’s voice rattles and stings, unchanged through all these years of death.
“Don’t do this, Dai. This isn’t you.” He’s always reaching out, clawing the edge of my hoodie. Trying to stop me. “You’re a good person.”
Then comes the blood.
There’s always so much of it. On my arm. On him. It pours and gushes in an unreal way. Like the old cartoons we used to watch where the red spurted out like a fountain. I try to stop it, holding his hand as he slips away. His final breath curls out in the winter night like an English question mark. Bad punctuation. It should’ve been a period. A solid end. Not like this…
I wake up, heart gasping and chest aching. There’s no blood on the dingy white tiles of my apartment. Just the marks I drew—charcoal and straight. The marks I’ve been erasing, day by day, with a smudge of my thumb.
I sit up, blink the terror of sleep from my eyes.
The world is unchanged. My scar is still here. My brother is still dead. I’m still trapped in Hak Nam, and there are sixteen lines on my wall. Telling me that soon—oh-too-soon—my time will be up.”
Insider’s perspective: This is one of my favorite passages toward the beginning of The Walled City, and one of our first real glimpses into the character of Dai—a mysterious boy whose motivations are often hidden. As the reader can tell right off the bat, he’s a bit of a sacrilegious character. But this rejection of the past has a deeper root, as evidenced by his nightmare. He’s tortured by his own mistakes, and carries a lot of self-loathing. This passage also gives us a hint of what’s at stake for Dai. The charcoal marks on his wall, the ones he put there himself, are his countdown. He has sixteen days to escape the Hak Nam Walled City. Or else…
Favorite Moment: Without being too spoilery, one of my absolute favorite moments in the novel is when Dai’s final charcoal mark is erased. There is so much going on in that scene. Least of all the fact that Dai is not the person who erases it.
Giveaway
Rules
To enter you have to fill in the Rafflecopter
Open to UK and Ireland residents only
End date: Thursday 20th November 2014
The winner will be drawn and contacted by email with 1 week to reply else another winner will be selected
Make sure you complete what the form asks of you - I do check! Any winner who has not completed an option will be disqualified
Stop by Serendipity Reviews tomorrow for the next stop on the blog tour.
Thursday, 19 September 2013
The Booking by Numbers Q&A
Today it’s time for something a little bit different...
Randomly the other day an idea for a fun Q&A came to me. I love doing bookish surveys and tags and have been seeing different ones around the blogosphere lately so I decided it would be fun to share my own! It’s a book Q&A about the books on your bookshelves with a bit of a fun twist! Here’s how it works.
Put the number of books on your bookshelf (or if like me you have hundreds of books break it down to 50, 70, 100 - however many books you’d like to play with) into a random number generator this could be via Random Org or simply by pulling numbers out of a hat. For each question draw a number and apply that question to the selected book from your shelf (or wherever you like to store your books.) For example if you pulled the number 11 you’d count across your shelf to the 11th book. It’s as simple as that!
I figured this would be a fun way to get a sneak peak at people’s bookshelves and learn more about the stories behind the books. I’d love to be nosy at what you guys have on your bookshelves so feel free to take part on your own blogs!
Booking by Numbers Q&A
Q1.) Have you read this book? If so what did you think of it?
Not yet. I will hopefully be reading it soon though as part of my Halloween TBR. I love this series and I recently learned that this is the last book. A few people have said that the ending isn’t really satisfying so I think that’s why I’ve been nervous to pick it up!
Book Number: 3 Book: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Q2.) Why did you buy this book? Were you recommended it? Was it a random purchase?
Book Number: 23 Book: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Q3.) Based on what you know about this book which other book blogger would you recommend it to?
EVERYBODY!!! I recently finished this book and I loved it so, so, much! To answer the question though I would recommend it to two bloggers Samantha from The Secret Life of a Bookworm because she recently read and loved Eleanor and Park and I think she’d love this one too. And Ellie from Musings of a Bookshop Girl because she really needs to read some Rainbow Rowell!
Book Number: 55 Book: The Essence by Kimberly Derting
Q4.) Who’s this books bookshelf neighbour?
Book Number: 34 Book: Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan
Q5.) How many books have you read by this book’s author?
I have all of Sarah’s books but I have only read Unspoken and Untold. I really love this series so I want to get on to The Demon’s Lexicon series one day. I’ve also read The Bane Chronicles: What Really Happened in Peru by Sarah Rees Brennan and Cassandra Clare so including that my grand total is at three.
Book Number: 16 Book: Angel Fire by L.A. Weatherly
Q6.) Do you have any special memories attached to this book?
Book Number: 12 Book: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)
Q7.) Is this book part of a series? If it is are you up to date with the series?
It will be eventually when the next book comes out. Am I up to date with it? No, seems as I haven’t read this one although it is on my Halloween TBR so all in good time!
Book Number: 1 Book: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
Q8.) Is this book something you’d typically read or is it out of your comfort zone?
Book Number: 26 Book: Dare You To by Katie McGarry
Q9.) Have you reviewed this book? If yes then share a link to it.
My review.
Book Number: 63 Book: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Q10.) Where did you buy this book from?
Okay, this is kind of creepy. I bought it from an independent book shop whilst I was on holiday in Cornwall. The creepy part is that it was roughly this time last year that I bought it! I also bought the sequel today. Weird.
Book Number: 76 Book: Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken
Q11.) Roughly how long have you owned this book for?
Years! Before I started book blogging, so it’s been sitting on my shelf for at least three years and I still haven’t read it! I read and loved The Darkest Minds earlier this year so I’ll have to get on to this one soon.
Book Number: 40 Book: Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay
Q12.) Share the first sentence of this book.
“In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret.” Okay this definitely has me intrigued! Will have to pick this up soon!
Book Number: 60 Book: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Q13.) What’s your opinion on this book’s cover?
Book Number: 87 Book: More Than This by Patrick Ness
Q14.) In a few sentences describe this book in your own words.
I haven’t read this one yet so this is going to be hard.
This guy dies, he remembers dying, yet he is still here. Is he a ghost? Is he really dead? Is he in the afterlife? The guy doesn’t have a clue what is going on. You probably won’t have a clue what’s going on. But in the end you will be amazed and in awe as one always is upon finishing a Patrick Ness book.
END
I hope you guys had fun reading this and don’t mind that I wanted to try something different today. It was so much fun to do!
Monday, 17 June 2013
Dare You To Blog Tour: Guest Post from Katie McGarry on Beth and Isaiah's Relationship
I'm today's stop on the UK Dare You To blog tour! And it gives me great pleasure to welcome a lady who I've wanted to get on the blog for a while now - the lovely Katie McGarry author of two of my favourite books Pushing the Limits and its companion novel Dare You To. Today I have a wonderfully insightful guest post from Katie all about Beth and Isaiah's relationship to celebrate the release of the amazing Dare You To. If you've yet to read Pushing the Limits or Dare You To you might want to stop by my reviews which I'll link to underneath for more information and to hear my thoughts on these incredible books!
When I sold my Young Adult novel, Pushing the Limits, to Harlequin Teen, they initially asked me to continue to write in the world of PTL and I happily agreed. I loved all my characters and couldn’t wait to jump back in. Plus, I knew exactly whose book I wanted to write next: Beth and Isaiah, the best friends and surrogate family of Noah in Pushing the Limits.
I suggested this to my publisher, and they said it was up to me, but they’d also be okay if Beth and Isaiah each fell for someone else rather than ending up together. I heard what they said, also heard the words that it was up to me, and happily set out to plot Beth and Isaiah’s story.
I thought I knew everything—how they’d slowly figure each other out and how they’d fall in love and I excitedly began to plot it all out in my mind. But then something strange happened. The character arcs that are so desperately important for a story weren’t happening.
Isaiah continually enabled Beth’s bad behaviour and continually put his heart on the line and Beth…well, Beth really cared for Isaiah.
Cared? I was writing a love story—I needed more than caring. And Isaiah. What was I going to do with this boy? Couldn’t he see that if he truly loved Beth, he’d tell her when she was making a wrong choice? Like, hey, see that train coming down the track? You might want to step off the rails.
It wasn’t working. The freaking story wasn’t fleshing out the way I wanted. Isaiah and Beth were not falling in love.
Gah. The nerve of these two.
I mean, I created them, right? I saw them falling for each other when I wrote Pushing the Limits. Why weren’t they cooperating?
So I did what I normally do when I’m stuck: I free wrote. I was going to prove Beth and Isaiah wrong. I was going to write a few scenes and they’d get their sorry butts back in line and fall in love even if it killed all three of us in the process.
And I wrote some very amazing scenes. Some of the best I’ve ever written and I learned some very emotional, riveting, heart-twisting pieces of information about Beth and Isaiah. And those deeply personal tidbits—they told me things I had been trying to ignore. Something very foretelling about them and their relationship and I finally had to pull the cotton out of my ears and listen.
Beth and Isaiah are extremely complicated characters and their relationship is even more complex. Their hopes and dreams and emotions are intertwined like strands of hair in a braid and I craved for them to be happy.
Do they find happiness? Is it with each other? This is where I tell you that Dare You To is out now, and that I’m excited for you to find out.
Katie was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan. Writing has given Katie an excuse to pursue her passions. Research for her books has provided her with the amazing opportunity to train with baseball players, ride along in a drag car at ninety-six miles per hour and experience boxing and mixed martial arts.
Katie is the author of the full-length Young Adult novels PUSHING THE LIMITS and DARE YOU TO, and the e-novella CROSSING THE LINE. Her debut novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS, is a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction. Katie’s next novel CRASH INTO YOU will published by Mira Ink in December 2013.
Katie would love to hear from her readers - contact her via Twitter @KatieMcGarry
Get your copy of Dare You To here http://amzn.to/13zlsx6
Watch the book trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODIFjHaLmt0
Just Try and Make Them Fall in Love
A Guest Post by Katie McGarry
I suggested this to my publisher, and they said it was up to me, but they’d also be okay if Beth and Isaiah each fell for someone else rather than ending up together. I heard what they said, also heard the words that it was up to me, and happily set out to plot Beth and Isaiah’s story.
I thought I knew everything—how they’d slowly figure each other out and how they’d fall in love and I excitedly began to plot it all out in my mind. But then something strange happened. The character arcs that are so desperately important for a story weren’t happening.
Isaiah continually enabled Beth’s bad behaviour and continually put his heart on the line and Beth…well, Beth really cared for Isaiah.
Cared? I was writing a love story—I needed more than caring. And Isaiah. What was I going to do with this boy? Couldn’t he see that if he truly loved Beth, he’d tell her when she was making a wrong choice? Like, hey, see that train coming down the track? You might want to step off the rails.
Gah. The nerve of these two.
I mean, I created them, right? I saw them falling for each other when I wrote Pushing the Limits. Why weren’t they cooperating?
So I did what I normally do when I’m stuck: I free wrote. I was going to prove Beth and Isaiah wrong. I was going to write a few scenes and they’d get their sorry butts back in line and fall in love even if it killed all three of us in the process.
And I wrote some very amazing scenes. Some of the best I’ve ever written and I learned some very emotional, riveting, heart-twisting pieces of information about Beth and Isaiah. And those deeply personal tidbits—they told me things I had been trying to ignore. Something very foretelling about them and their relationship and I finally had to pull the cotton out of my ears and listen.
Do they find happiness? Is it with each other? This is where I tell you that Dare You To is out now, and that I’m excited for you to find out.
About Katie McGarry
Katie is the author of the full-length Young Adult novels PUSHING THE LIMITS and DARE YOU TO, and the e-novella CROSSING THE LINE. Her debut novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS, is a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction. Katie’s next novel CRASH INTO YOU will published by Mira Ink in December 2013.
Thanks for stopping by the blog today Katie! I found this post hugely insightful - I fell in love with Beth and Isaiah in Pushing the Limits! This provides a great inside scoop for readers curious about their relationship. Trust Beth and Isaiah to have minds of their own! I actually think them not co-operating really suits their characters!
Katie would love to hear from her readers - contact her via Twitter @KatieMcGarry
Get your copy of Dare You To here http://amzn.to/13zlsx6
Watch the book trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODIFjHaLmt0
Don’t miss the rest of the stops on the Dare You To blog tour, check out my banner in the sidebar for more information. Tomorrow the blog tour is stopping at Never Judge a Book by its Cover!
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