Back to School Book Giveaway!

Hey Guys,

We're giving away YA books again all week in honor of everyone going back to school! Visit us at Author2Author and comment for your chance to win.

-Kristina

Meeting Rock Stars

(Cross-posted from Author2Author)

How lucky was I to be able to meet three of my FAVORITE YA authors this week? Yes, the fabulous Anderson’s Bookshop had Lauren Myracle, E. Lockhart, and Sarah Mlynowski in to sign their new book, HOW TO BE BAD on Monday night. How to Be Bad is an older YA about three girls on a road trip, all struggling with their individual reasons for needing the escape. And they throw in a couple of cute boys of course (must always have the cute boys). I have to say, I felt like an 11-year old girl at an American Idol show screaming for David Archuleta.



Ok, I wasn’t that bad. But I did sit in the front row about 6 feet away and hung on their every word.

And, they rocked. They started with an intro to the book—giving a set up about each of the three main characters in the book and which author was writing which character’s POV and how these characters came to be on the road trip to begin with. Then they each took turns reading from one of the chaps that they wrote (and even did fun accents).

(e. lockhart)

(Lauren Myracle)

(Sarah Mlynowski)

Following that they answered a zillion questions about the book and their other books. One of the interesting ones was how they wrote the book--all via e-mail. They did it chapter by chapter (kinda like when we were in school and would pass a story around--each adding on a line or paragraph or whatever. But with chaps. You never knew what the person in front of you was going to throw at you) with no plotting whatsoever. They said this was a fun way to do it but that it took mega revising afterwards. It sounds like it was a lot of fun (well, the writing, not the revising). One of the funniest questions was from a young girl who asked, "Are you guys going to write any new books?" To which Sarah answered, "Yeah, that's what we do." I had to cover my mouth to stifle the laugh. I don't think she meant to respond like that but it was funny.

After the Q&A, it was signing time and I was so excited to get to meet the ladies and have a minute to chat. Lauren even remembered me from commenting on her blog. They were impressed that I had my gigantic 39-week pregnant self there and I confessed that I secretly hoped my water would break during the signing so that I'd have a cool story to tell my kid later. They agreed that it would make an interesting addition to their vlog.

I just love going to signings and meeting authors and I learn so much about what I should and shouldn’t do in the future when I have signings. And seeing three of my favorite YA authors made the whole thing 10 times better.

(From L to R, Sarah Mlynowski, Me, Lauren Myracle, and the also pregnant, E. Lockhart)

A2A Chat

Hey Guys,
We're starting to do author interviews over at Author2Author (in addition to our regular daily blogging). This week we have an interview with April Henry, author of SHOCK POINT. Stay tuned for future interviews with Alexa Young (FRENEMIES), Marlene Perez (LOVE IN THE CORNER POCKET), Stephanie Kuehnert (I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE), Jen Bradbury (SHIFT), and more.





http://author2author.blogspot.com/2008/05/interview-with-april-henry.html

Hang out with me

Wanna know where I hung out as a teen? Oh come on, you know you want to. :-) We're doing a flashback with A2A: The Teen years this week and talking about our teen hangouts. I talked about mine today-- check it out.

Funny, Funny Stuff

Have I mentioned how much I love books set in England? I majorly, majorly love them! Before I got into young adult books I read tons of chick lit and most of it starred funny British women. Then when I started reading more young adult books I naturally also sought out the ones with the funny British MCs. Ok, so now I stumbled upon this HILARIOUS author, Sue Limb and these books:



Oh. My. God. This is funny, funny stuff. The main character in all of the books is this crazy but charming girl named Jess who just has the wildest thoughts like 24/7. Everything she says throughout the books had me laughing out loud. I've read a lot of funny books but these are some of the best for an awesomely funny MC.

In Girl 15, Jess has the hots for a super cutie, is struggling with jealousy over her gorgeous best friend, and also developing feelings for her hilarious guy friend Fred. Her dad isn't there but texts her funny messages, and she's dealing with her single mom and grandma. This is probably the best of the books and has one of the funniest scenes ever when Jess goes to a party with bags of minestrone in her bra.

In Girl Nearly 16, Jess and Fred are now together but pulled apart for the summer when her mom takes her and grandma on a trip to see dad. Dad has big news that Jess has to deal with and Jess is tortured with jealousy over her boyfriend being at home without her and wild ideas that he is hooking up with all kinds of girls (including her best friend). So freaking funny.

In Girl Going on 17, Jess is having romantic troubles when they are back at school and Fred decides he doesn't want to be a couple any more. Jess is trying to figure out the best way to share the news at school about her father being gay and deal with her mom's new dating life as well.

I totally recommend these books if you want a really great fun read!

Take a Break book Giveaway

Hey Guys,
Today is my day to give away a book at Author2Author and I'm giving away French Kiss by Aimee Friedman. Comment on this post for your chance to win!

From the Publisher:

“Two beautiful girls. One sexy city.

Endless opportunities for l'amour.

When Alexa St. Laurent falls in love, she falls hard. Can she keep her cool after meeting a French guy who's too good to be true and too hard to resist?

For Holly Jacobson, being in love with her boyfriend Tyler is as natural as breathing. But there's no denying that Alexa's Parisian cousin, Pierre, takes Holly's breath away...

On a whirlwind rendezvous in Paris, the City of Love, Alexa and Holly are about to discover that everything sounds sexier in French.”

Line Edits-- oh baby!

A while back I blogged about completing my first ever revisions for The Espressologist and how I thought the hardest part was behind me. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I was so cute and naive back then! :-) I got my line edits last week. And let me tell ya, line edits are HARD. Did you know that the "line" in line edits means every single line in your manuscript is marked up? Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a bit. It's more like every other line. :-) While it is a big task, it is also a gratifying one I have to say. Like, I'm working so much more this week on writing related stuff then ever. Whenever I get a spare minute I'm pouring over my edits and I can happily report that I'm now halfway through-- whoo hoo! I blogged all about the fun and mystery of line edits at Author2Author today if you want to know more.

Sharing the Love Book Giveaway- starts TOMORROW!

We're giving away books all week at Author2Author . Here's the scoop (I'm quoting Lisa since she says it so well.):

"In honor of Valentine’s Day next week, we’re hosting a contest where each day, one lucky blog reader can win a lovey-dovey young adult novel. Yep, we’ll be going to our bookshelves and selecting a new or a gently used, but like new, book and sharing the love, in more ways than one.

Here’s how it works.

Each day, we’ll blog about a book we are giving away. Simply leave a comment if you’d like to be entered to win that particular book.

If you’d like an extra entry, post about the contest on your blog, but make sure when you comment on our blog to enter for the contest that you tell us where to find your post for that extra entry. You only need to blog about it once, but when you are leaving a comment, refer to that entry each time, since we have five people doing five different drawings.

Entries must be received by midnight EST (9:00 PST) each day. Sorry, we will only be able to mail to US addresses.

Here are the books you have the opportunity to win!

Monday – IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ACCENT, by Caridad Ferrer
Tuesday – SOMETHING TO BLOG ABOUT, by Shana Norris
Wednesday – THE SECRET LIFE OF A TEENAGE SIREN, by Wendy Toliver
Thursday – THE BOYFRIEND LIST, by E. Lockhart
Friday – LOST IT, by Kristen Tracy

The contest begins Monday, February 12th - be there or be square. It promises to be a fun week, as we even have an interview scheduled with Shana Norris on Tuesday!"

Author2Author is ONE MONTH old today! (Remember celebrating each month anniversary with old boyfriends? Or was that just me? I even did cards. LOSER! :-) ) It's been a great month though and I think all the posts have been fascinating and fun. Today was my day to blog and I talked all about my deep secret Character Confessions. They are so scandalous that I can't repost them here. But you can go take a look if you want-- author2author.blogspot.com.

In other news, line edits on The Espressologist are almost finished! I should be getting them in the near future. Yikes! Why does that make me nervous? I know it is just another step in the process but since this is my first time I can only imagine what line edits entail. Hopefully it is just line after line of notes like "Brilliant!" "Amazing!" "You changed me entire life with this line!" Hee hee.

On the writing front, I am still finishing up Night at Claire's. My critique partners are done reading it so now I have to go back and fix all the problems and make it shiny and pretty. I also started a new YA (about 4k in) that we'll just call Perfect Kiss for short (My title is awfully long. That's not good huh?) so I'm kinda flip-flopping between the two. I'm not sure if I'll go on with Perfect Kiss or start something else new. I'm feeling awfully wishy-washy these days. But that could be a pregnancy side affect.

Random Fun Fact Gathered from Gossip Mag in Doctor's Office Today: Did you know that Victoria Beckham has received one yellow rose EVERY SINGLE DAY from her hubby since they got married in 1999? It's somewhere over 3000 roses. Do you think that is terribly sweet or that would get totally old? I get crabby after awhile and I can see myself being like dude-- lay off the stupid yellow roses! (side note: I DO love roses.). If you really want to be helpful, buy me an iced mocha for every single day we've been married. :-)