Month: January 2013

All About Melissa Walker and SMALL TOWN SINNERS

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by Michelle AndreaniMelissa Walker phone

Melissa Walker was the first author to stop by We Have Words, and we’re so glad she’s back to celebrate the paperback release of SMALL TOWN SINNERS (out now)!

You’ll have a chance to learn more about the book (which is so lovely) later in this post, but first, we want to tell you about a contest Melissa’s running. All you have to do is snap a pic of the SMALL TOWN SINNERS paperback when you see it in the wild, and you could win a whoooooole lotta books! Read more about the contest over at Melissa’s blog.

And now, Melissa answered Mindi’s Very Important Questions:

1. At age eight, what did you want to be when you grew up? And at age eighteen? And while you’re at it, what about at age twenty-eight?

Melissa Walker: Eight: A vet. Eighteen: A writer. Twenty-Eight: Still a writer. Yay!

2. Which Breakfast-Club-style label would have best fit your teenage self? [Examples from the movie are brain, athlete, basket case, princess, and criminal, but feel free to make up your own!]

MW: I think Gossip would have fit best, which I’m not proud of. I really did sling a lot of it around, and I didn’t think about repercussions. LAME. I changed though. So that’s good.

3. Without giving away too much from your newest book, which character or scene from it are you the most pleased to have created, and why?

MW: Well, in Small Town Sinners, I’m most proud of the quieter scenes between Lacey Anne and her friends. The Hell House scenes were the ones I was excited to write–they get a little nuts–but the softer ones ended up being my favorites.

4. Which are your favorite movies to watch again and again?

MW: Anytime these movies are on, I will stick to the couch: Jaws, Point Break, Die Hard, Taken, Some Kind of Wonderful and this year I think I’d add The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

5. And, now, the most important question of all: Beatles or Elvis? Please support your answer. 😉

MW: Beatles, only because it’s easier to listen to a huge range of their stuff than it is to do Elvis for DAYS, especially if we’re allowing solo careers to mix in. But believe me, I’ve been to Graceland and if someone wants to do Elvis for days, I’m down.

Thanks, Melissa! 

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About SMALL TOWN SINNERS:

Sinners PBDoes falling in love mean falling out of faith? 

Lacey Anne Byer is a perennial good girl and lifelong member of the House of Enlightenment, the Evangelical church in her small town. With her driver’s license in hand and the chance to try out for a lead role in Hell House, her church’s annual haunted house of sin, Lacey’s junior year is looking promising. But when a cute new stranger comes to town, something begins to stir inside her. Ty Davis doesn’t know the sweet, shy Lacey Anne Byer everyone else does. With Ty, Lacey could reinvent herself. As her feelings for Ty make Lacey test her boundaries, events surrounding Hell House make her question her religion.”

Read an excerpt.

A few reviews:

“Walker has written a credible and tender evocation of the moment when a young person’s beliefs begin to emerge and potentially diverge from the teachings of a family’s religion…” —The New York Times Book Review

“A non-judgmental, nuanced, fascinating look at the teenage religious right… Walker writes an outstanding contemporary novel with a cast of characters who, far from being portrayed as hateful zealots, are relatable for readers of all faiths.” –Romantic Times

“Both tender and provocative… Walker creates an astutely balanced portrait of a conservative congregation’s in-your-face response to perennial issues of domestic abuse, teen pregnancy, and suicide, as well as of those who struggle to fit the prescribed Christian mold.” —Publishers Weekly

All About Lucienne Diver and FANGTABULOUS

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BY MINDI SCOTT

FangtabulousLucienne Diver’s Vamped series has received some rave reviews over the years, and I want to share with you a quick sample of those:

For Fangtabulous: “Another amusing romp in the series, this installment also sees its hardy heroine beginning to mature, adding further dimension to her character. Reminiscent of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, Gina never fails to deliver the goods.” —Kirkus Reviews

For the Vamped series: “Readers who appreciate Diver’s light, dry humor will welcome back feisty Gina and her hunky boyfriend, Bobby… a welcome lighthearted departure from gloomy vampire romance.” —Booklist

“Diver successfully creates a vampire teen who is active and assertive and has no time for angst. Gina has a biting, sarcastic voice that makes the Vamped books quick and entertaining reads.”—VOYA

I haven’t yet had the chance to check out this series, but the promise of dry humor and a sarcastic narrator definitely make these sound like something I’d enjoy! Happily for me, Lucienne Diver recently answered some questions about herself and her latest title, Fangatublous. There’s more information about the book and the author after the questions. 🙂

At age eight, what did you want to be when you grew up? And at age eighteen? And while you’re at it, what about at age twenty-eight?

Lucienne Diver: At eight I wanted to be a cryptozoologist and discover definitive proof of the Loch Ness Monster and other cryptids. At eighteen I wanted to be a writer and an anthropologist. I have degrees in both. At twenty-eight—you mean just yesterday?—I still want to be a writer, but I want to be better and more successful at it than I was at twenty-seven.

Which Breakfast-Club-style label would have best fit your teenage self? 

LD: I’d have fit every geeky classification you could come up with: brain, geek, dweeb…. I was in honors and AP classes; I played Dungeons & Dragons; I was never any good at sports. I sang in the chorus but developed a psychosomatic illness every time I had to sing solo in front of people, so while I did theatre I quickly gave up on going out for the musicals. Hmm, maybe that makes me a bit of the basket case as well. Oh, yeah, this question is good for my rep. 😉

Without giving away too much from your newest book, which character or scene from it are you the most pleased to have created, and why?

LD: I won’t say who or why because I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but there are some scenes where one of the characters goes a little crazy. Those scenes were a lot of fun to write, and I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. Why those scenes in particular? I think because I doubted my ability to do them justice, so I feel that I stretched myself as a writer and it’s one less thing to fear in the future.

Which are your favorite movies to watch again and again?

LD: I’m lucky I have time to watch things once. Very rarely do I get to watch anything again and again, but lately if I do it’s not a movie, but select episodes of Sherlock, the BBC’s wonderful Holmes & Watson series.

And, now, the most important question of all: Beatles or Elvis? Please support your answer. 😉

LD: The Beatles! For one, I like their music better. For another, I read a People Magazine article years ago when I was stuck under the dryer at a hair salon about Elvis and his courtship and marriage with Priscilla Presley. It was enough to turn me off of him for life. (Although I have to admit that his song “In the Ghetto” makes me cry every time I hear it.)

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About the book:

Gina Covello and her band of federal fugitives are on the run after taking down a secret (and sinister) government facility. Strapped without cash or credit cards—a fate worse than death for Gina—the rebels must find a place to lay low. They roll into Salem, Massachusetts, the most haunted town in America and the only place they have friends flying under the radar. But within a day, Gina and her gang are embroiled in a murder mystery of the supernatural kind.

Someone—or something—is strangling young women, and it’s rumored to be the ghost of Sheriff Corwin, late of the Salem Witch trials. Is it the ghostly Sheriff or is someone on this side of the veil using the famous story as a cover up? Gina is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, and she needs to do it before a paranormal reporter on the scene exposes them for what they are…fanged federal fugitives.

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About the author:

Lucienne Diver writes the humorous, suspenseful Vamped series of young adult vampire novels for Flux Books, including Vamped, Revamped, Fangtastic and the most recent, Fangtabulous. Her short stories have been included in the Strip-Mauled and Fangs for the Mammaries anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (Baen Books), and her essay on abuse is included in the anthology Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperTeen). She also writes the Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series for Samhain (Bad Blood, Crazy in the Blood and the forthcoming Rise of the Blood).

Publisher: www.fluxnow.com
Author: www.luciennediver.com
Author’s blog: http://luciennediver.wordpress.com

Very Superstitious (aka The 1st Book I Read This Year Will Dictate Everything)

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by Michelle Andreani

So, I used to have this ritual: my first read of  a fresh year had to be a book I loved. The first published words I read in January had to be magic. And I know that’s kind of flashing my OCD membership card, but what better way to start a new year than with some good reading mojo?

To ensure true book love on January 1st, the book I read had to be one I’d already fallen in love with. I mean, new books were too unpredictable! What if I hated this new book? Or worse. What if it was a meh-fest and I didn’t even care enough to hate it? Are you kidding me? MY YEAR WOULD BE RUINED.
looking-for-alibrandi

But this year, something happened.

My library books were reaching their due date.

I was itching for something different.

And so, my first book of 2013 was brand new.

A risk!

. . .

Fine, it was a Melina Marchetta book. Not really a risk, admittedly, because it’s a statistical impossibility to read a bad Melina Marchetta book since “a bad Melina Marchetta book” is like, not even a thing. It was a (maybe strategized) cheat, for sure, to choose this one from the pile, but it totally counts as a new read (and you can’t take that away from me!). The book was Looking for Alibrandi. And I did love it. It made me laugh and tear up and most definitely swirled up some good reading juju for 2013.

So, yep, I broke my old ritual (have mercy). I didn’t start this year with the security of words I already know and love, but with shiny, exciting new words that I never saw coming. And that’s not a bad way to start fresh. 🙂

Now, tell me! What was your first read of 2013?