Category Archives: guest post

Popular

by Gareth Russell

YA Contemporary

About the Book

On the first day of September, 16 year-old Meredith Harper rules over the teen it-crowd of Belfast, Northern Ireland. But beneath the surface, Meredith’s complicated web of manipulative lies and self-serving intrigue are slowly beginning to threaten her social position and she finds herself being challenged by handsome Mark Kingston, the only guy in the school who’s always hated her.

In a world where nothing stays secret for very long, Meredith and her friends will need all their skills to guess who’s in, out, coming out, going up, going down, dating, cheating, lying and trying to cope….

Let the games begin!

What happens when people don’t like your characters?
Gareth Russell

We live in the age of being “nice” and woe betide the author who doesn’t provide young adults with role models and inspirational figures. If a character is mean, then they have to be shown learning a lesson or having a heart secretly buried beneath their ice-cold front. But the problem I have with that is that it’s not only unrealistic, but it also assumes that young adult readers are so young and impressionable that they’ll do whatever a character does in the book. I don’t think that’s the case, clearly. However, there is a fine balance that a writer needs to get right if they’re going to write a book that heavily features characters behaving “badly.”

I have had to deal with that challenge myself. The central character in my book “Popular” and its sequel, “The Immaculate Deception,” is a girl called Meredith Harper, a 16 year-old brunette from Belfast in Northern Ireland with superb self-confidence and a savage wit. Meredith is manipulative, self-assured, self-possessed and incredibly ruthless. One reader told me that she thought Meredith was number 2 on the list of fictional villainesses, right below Dolores Umbridge. However, the overwhelmingly surprising thing about a lot of feedback from “Popular’s” readers was how many of them actually liked Meredith. Not only did they like reading about her, but many of them were actually rooting for her. They want her to win and they’re okay with what she has to do to do it. Furthermore, many readers take a strong dislike to one of the novel’s ‘nicest’ characters, Blake. This is not what people think is supposed to happen in fiction, particularly young adult fiction, where readers are supposed to instinctively cheer for the nice guy and eagerly await the mean girl falling from power. But with “Popular,” that didn’t seem to happen.

Part of the reason why so many readers cheer on Meredith but dislike Blake is because we’re starting to realize that there’s a huge difference between being nice and being good. At one point, Cameron, who’s friends with both Meredith and Blake in the book, defends Meredith to her critics by saying that although she isn’t always good, she is a great friend. Meredith, Imogen and Kerry are loyal, even if they aren’t always nice. In contrast, there are plenty of characters in the book – and in life – who are so determined to be everybody’s friend that they end up being loyal to no one. It’s a difficult balance to strike, yes, but the fact that so many people seemed to side with Meredith maybe shows that people would prefer to have a friend who has their back, rather than someone who wants everyone to like them.

Another part of writing mean, bitchy or forthright characters is that there’s a special kind of joy that comes in being able to give them some of the best lines. Half the fun of reading a book with someone like Meredith, Blair Waldorf or Regina George in it is, I hope, that they say things that you wish you could say in real life. When Meredith shoots down a guy who’s hitting on her at a house party by saying she wishes his mother had been sterilized, I was thinking of a friend of mine who is always getting hit on by guys when she just doesn’t want to be. With everything being so politically correct today and everyone trying to avoid saying anything that could possibly give any kind of offence, it’s refreshing to read or write about characters like Imogen or Meredith who don’t let such things stand in the way of a witty one line.

However, there is a line. At what point does a bitchy character cross over into being downright hateful? The most obvious way, of course, is when they display some truly awful and offensive opinions – sexism, homophobia, racism. Particularly if they’re displayed in a very serious way, rather than a light-hearted way like they are in the characters of Sue Sylvester in “Glee,” Karen in “Will & Grace” or Jane in “The New Normal.” But there can also be a very clear line which I like to think is the difference between bitchiness and bullying. Crossing that line is when a character changes entirely.

Bullying is one of the most loathsome and objectionable things facing young people in our society and with the advent of cyber-bullying and the rise of social networks, it’s getting easier and easier to do it without getting caught. I think the people who do it are vile and I feel very strongly about it, as do thousands of other people. It was therefore so important to me that there should be a clear differentiation in the “Popular” series between those characters who didn’t suffer fools lightly (Meredith and Imogen) and those who were out-and-out bullies (like Harry Irwin in book 2, “The Immaculate Deception.”) Meredith and Imogen are not very nice to people who “get in their way.” They often behave meanly or inappropriately to their in-school rivals, like Coral Andrews, the hipsters’ queen-bee, but they would never start belittling or attacking someone they didn’t know. That’s the difference between them and people like Harry. They are better people.

In the end, you have to trust your gut as a writer and trust that your readers will appreciate a darker sense of humour and what you’re trying to do with your characters and your story. Are the characters in “Popular” perfect? No, absolutely not. No-one is. Sometimes it’s just more fun to sit back and read about a character who’s a little bit larger-than-life and doesn’t care who knows about it.

About the Author

Gareth Russell was a student at Down High Grammar School in Northern Ireland before he went onto to study Modern History at Saint Peter’s College in the University of Oxford.

Gareth is the author of several plays and his first novel, Popular, was originally published in 2011 and has been updated for republication in 2012. Since 2011, Popular has been adapted for the stage on several occasions.

Gareth divides his time between Belfast, London and Connecticut. His accent is therefore best described as polymorphous, shifting with the greatest of ease from Northern Irish to English to American. This pleases him greatly. His first ever word was “shoe” and if he had to have dinner with one person from history, it would be Anne Boleyn.

Author Links:

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Always Me

by Kelly Riad

YA Paranormal

Book Description

By the summer, Tatiana “Nicky” Roman must learn to trust Xander Day if she’s ever going to discover the origin of her violent hallucinations. But centuries of being repeatedly murdered by him on July 17th are a little hard to forgive.

Over four hundred years ago, Xander thought the holy man’s prophetic words were as crazy as his eyes—that Alexander and Tatiana were destined to be together forever. But Xander misunderstood the mystic. He knows now forever meant forever taking the other’s life. If they never break the bloody curse holding them prisoners of fate, there will be only one outcome: death.

Believing in Destiny

by Kelly Riad

I’m not sure that I do.  I think that whatever it is that draws us to a person to begin with can sometimes be strong enough to continue drawing us to them over and over again.  I believe we affect and are affected by everyone we meet and whether it’s conscious or subconscious, change our world for them.  But I also believe a lot of power lies in making a decision.  You can decide to forgive someone and keep them in your life, you can decide to cut someone off; you can decide to be affected.  Nicky took control by deciding to forgive Xander, by deciding to not let outside influences shape her opinion of him.  And by doing so, she changed their destiny.  So, like much of the driving forces in life, I believe that destiny is within us, that we make our own destiny.

About the Author

Kelly Riad is an American writer who graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas with a degree in journalism.  Because’s she’s always been a lucky little brat, her life has taken her all over the world from the hot, humid streets of Hong Kong and the crowded markets of Cairo, to the cobbles of Vienna and the ruins of Rome from where she has shamelessly stolen ideas and material for her stories.

Finding Mia

by Rachel K. Burke

YA Contemporary

Book Description

Intelligent and fiercely independent, sixteen-year-old Mia Marchette has never had a childhood. After her father’s disappearance when she was six, she has alone borne the burden of her mother’s bipolar disorder.

When her mother is institutionalized after a failed suicide attempt, Mia is abruptly forced to live with the estranged father she has not known for ten years. She is shocked to discover that he has created a new, picture-perfect life for himself, and is now living with a stepmother and a half-sister Mia never knew she had. Together, Mia and her new family must face the bitterness, mistakes, and long-hidden secrets that threaten to destroy their precarious happiness.

Finding Mia follows Mia’s journey as she searches to find the unanswered questions from her past, leading to her own self-discovery.

Ultimately, this is a story of confronting pain and finding freedom, of letting go and learning to search for love in unexpected places.

Ten Facts about Finding Mia

1. Both towns where “Finding Mia” takes place – Duxbury and Hingham – are actual towns where I grew up in south shore Massachusetts.

2. Most of the teacher/student names in the book are a mash up of my own high school teacher/classmate names.

3. I came up with the concept for “Finding Mia” after I read Jennifer Weiner’s novel “In Her Shoes.” In Weiner’s novel, the main character’s mother suffered from depression and committed suicide when she was young. I found myself wondering what would have happened to the young girl had her father not been in the picture, and thought it would make an interesting story. Thus, “Finding Mia” was born.

4. Having no personal experience with bipolar disorder, I conducted extensive medical research for this book. I interviewed nurses from McLean Hospital, who were kind enough to send me additional articles and links to their in-house treatment programs. My mother, also being a nurse, helped with the medical research as well.

5. I was inspired to write this novel while reading “White Oleander” by Janet Fitch. I loved the mother-daughter relationship in her book, as well as her writing language. She was a huge influence to my writing style while I completed the novel. I’d highly recommend her book to anyone who enjoys “Finding Mia.”

6. Suzanne’s character was greatly influenced by my stepmother, Susan. Being a strong yet loving English teacher also, Susan treated my sister and me as her own after marrying my father, and I really needed a strong character similar to her for the story to work.

7. Evan’s character was influenced by my childhood love and close friend. Without giving away any spoilers, his issues and final outcome were also the same as Evan’s. Because it was such an unfortunate experience, it really helped to reflect and write about it years later.

8. If I had to select an actress to play Gretchen, it would be AnnaLynne McCord, because her role as Naomi in 90210 fits Gretchen’s character perfectly.

9. If I had to choose an actress to play Denise, it would be Michelle Pfeiffer, because her role as Ingrid in “White Oleander” fits the beautiful blonde bohemian image that encompasses Denise’s character.

10. I did, in fact, name Mia after my favorite Aerosmith song.



About the Author

Rachel was born and raised in Boston, MA. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.

She graduated from Bridgewater University in 2011 with a B.A. in Communications and Media Studies.

Rachel’s work has appeared in Prevention Magazine, Worcester Magazine and Starpulse News Entertainment.

Rachel Burke | Twitter | Facebook

Artists & Thieves

by Linda Schroeder

Mystery Action/Suspense

Book Description

Where there is art, there are thieves.

Mai Ling is both. Artist by day, thief by night, she recovers stolen art for Interpol. It’s a business, not a passion, until her beloved grandfather reveals a family secret that is also a destiny. He is duty-bound to return to China an especially precious bowl which belonged to his ancestor. Mai must steal it for him.

But Mai Ling is not the only one after the bowl. Four others plan to extract the bowl from a private California art collection. The rival thieves grasp and then lose the bowl until finally Mai is faced with the ultimate dilemma: save the bowl or save herself. Her duty to her grandfather gives her only one choice.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Monterey Peninsula and peopled with quirky characters, this stylish art caper entertains on every page.

USING REAL DETAILS IN AN IMAGINED SETTING

by Linda Schroeder

Writers fill their fictional world with details from their real world. That’s why we

believe their stories. I think this weaving together of the real and the imagined makes for

In Artists & Thieves, I consciously placed the character Angelo in Monterey’s

Cannery Row because it is a well known place. But the restaurant I invented for him is

straight out of my head. I called the restaurant Sardines because Cannery Row used to

be a cannery row, think John Steinbeck, not a tourist destination. And the main fish

packed in those old canneries were sardines. A reader doesn’t need to know that but it

helps with the pun:
“Sardines was packed. Angelo nudged his way into the bar area of the

performance space, reassured a little by the odd mixture of elegance and crap which its

owner, Max, had assembled. The metal and brick walls were bleak, the lighting

I don’t always consciously use details from a real place in a scene.

The other day I had lunch at a restaurant which is built around an old trout fishing

lake. It has fish water spouts on the eaves, fountains spraying cones of water in the

middle, and ducks. There is a long path which winds down from the parking lot. The

path is cool even on the hottest day because bamboo lines both sides of it, thick

bamboo, almost three inches in diameter.
As I walked down the path the other day I thought, Wait a minute. I know this

place. Well, of course, I know it, I’ve been here dozens of times. No, that wasn’t what I

felt. I knew the path from somewhere else. Then I realized that I had used this path as a

setting in Artists & Thieves. It popped into my head as I was writing a key scene

towards the end of the novel. The memory of this real place unconsciously provided the

perfect setting of a chapter.
The chapter is titled The Bamboo Grove. The main character, Mai, is in the

hospital with her grandfather who has been shot. I’ll just pull a few sentences here as

“Mai walked outside to the coffee stand. Came back in with coffee. Walked

outside for a muffin. Came back in. Sat. Picked up a magazine. Couldn’t read. Couldn’t

sit. Paced. Sat. Outside, wisps of fog flowed in currents of evening air. Mai wandered

away from the hospital down a path to a grove of bamboo which screened the cement

parking structure. The thick bamboo stalks offered a sturdy comfort. . . .The gently

curving path wandered through the bamboo. She walked slowly, feeling hopeful. . . .

Along with the rustle of the bamboo leaves, the bowl’s song played in her head. . . . ”

Since I study Chinese brush painting, I know that bamboo is a symbol in Chinese

thought for resilience. It survives the snow of winter, bends without breaking, and

remains green in the heat of summer. That image was perfect for this crucial moment in

the story when Mai needs to pull herself together and find the person who shot her

grandfather. Even if you as a reader do not share the knowledge of the symbol, bamboo

works throughout the chapter.
Sometimes I deliberately choose certain places for my characters to be,

sometimes the details of a place pop unexpectedly into my head as I write. Both ways

help create a good story. Artists & Thieves won the 2011 San Diego Book Awards in the

action/suspense category.

About the Author

Linda Schroeder divides her time between the bright sun of California and the high mountains of Colorado. She has a Master’s degree in English and one in Communicative Disorders/Audiology. In addition to her novel, Artists & Thieves, she has published a college text.

Her early interest in English expanded to include language disorders and she began a second career as an audiologist and aural rehabilitation therapist working with deaf and hard-of-hearing children and adults.

Currently, she studies and practices Chinese brush painting, celebrating the vitality and energy of nature. She follows art and art theft blogs and writes her own blog about art and sometimes includes reviews of novels. She is working on two more novels, a second Mai Ling novel about the Diamond Sutra, and a Sammy Chan art mystery about the forgery of a Goya painting.

You can visit her website at www.artistsandthieves.com.

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Blood Debt

by Nancy Straight

Touched Series, Book One

Book Description

Her whole life, it had just been the two of them. Before her mother’s last breath, she gave Camille the information she had craved her entire life: the identity of her father. Daring to contact him, Camille was welcomed by an entire family she never knew existed. But nothing comes without a price, as she discovers when her family claims a legendary heritage tracing back to a Centaur touched by Zeus.

As she learns the secrets of her Centaur bloodline, she is drawn into a forbidden love with Drake. Her family acknowledges her life may be the blood debt required to pay for her mother’s transgressions. The same person who once held her mother captive, and forced her into decades of hiding, now controls Camille. Her only chance is to seek a piece of her mother’s past that will win her freedom and the life she desperately desires.

A Guest Post from Nancy Straight

WHY CENTAURS ARE BADASS
Thanks so much for having me today, Carrie! I’m thrilled to be here, and have to confess, I laughed out loud when your topic was emailed to me.
As you know, anyone, human or non-human, can be a badass. I tried to take a systematic approach as to why Centaurs are badasses. Normally it has something to do with size, skills, experience and or attitude.

A traditional Centaur (half horse and half person) would definitely have size on their size. Most horses weigh in at better than eight hundred pounds and stand well over seven feet tall. But the Centaurs in Blood Debt are no longer in that form, they look human. So size may not be on their side.

A traditional Centaur’s sole purpose in life was to wage war. Much of the mythological lore described Centaurs as barbaric, more beast than man, and quick tempered warriors. But the Centaurs in Blood Debt are living among humans and have been undetected for over a millennia. With this knowledge I’d have to say that the warrior skills of the Centaurs in Blood Debt aren’t as sharp as they were a few hundred years ago when the Greeks first wrote about them.

So what makes the Centaurs in Blood Debt badass? Would you believe it’s actually the Centaurides who are badass? Centaurides, you ask? Yes, the female Centaurs.

The male Centaurs kept many of the warrior characteristics from the past, but it is the Centaurides who hold all the magic. Depending on their bloodline they are: telepathic (able to listen in on others thoughts), telekinetic (able to move objects with their minds), psychic (able to see the future), mediums (able to communicate with spirits), or subversive (able to plant false memories in others).

The Centaur Society in Blood Debt is a Matriarchy, where the Centaurides make the decisions and are the heads of their families. They are the leaders and revered by the population. Centaurides are outnumbered five to one, so there are a shortage of Centaurides to carry on the bloodlines. If a Centaur isn’t chosen by a Centauride by the time he’s thirty, he’s banished from the Centaur society and forced to make a life as a human. Can you imagine the power these Centaurides possess?

Centaurs are a dime a dozen, it’s the Centaurides who are badass!! Thanks again for having me today, Carrie!

About the Author