Are you ready for even more YA releases? Read on for author interviews, great books, and scroll all the way down to enter to win our giveaway. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can go back and see the other books that release this week. You can also enter our giveaway a second time!
This Week’s Interviews
Putting Makeup on Dead People
by Jen Violi
- From Goodreads: In the spring of her senior year, Donna Parisi finds new life in an unexpected place: a coffin. Since her father’s death four years ago, Donna has gone through the motions of living: her friendships are empty, she’s clueless about what to do after high school graduation, and her grief keeps her isolated, cut off even from the one parent she has left. That is until she’s standing in front of the dead body of a classmate at Brighton Brothers’ Funeral Home. At that moment, Donna realizes what might just give her life purpose is comforting others in death. That maybe who she really wants to be is a mortician. This discovery sets in motion a life Donna never imagined was possible. She befriends a charismatic new student, Liz, notices a boy, Charlie, and realizes that maybe he’s been noticing her, too, and finds herself trying things she hadn’t dreamed of trying before. By taking risks, Donna comes into her own, diving into her mortuary studies with a passion and skill she didn’t know she had in her. And she finally understands that moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting someone you love.
How long did you work on this book?
Putting Makeup on Dead People first emerged as a short story in August 2005. The narrator, Donna, kept demanding more stories after that until she had filled a book that I submitted in 2007 as my MFA thesis at the University of New Orleans. At that point, Putting Makeup on Dead People consisted of short stories, all in Donna’s voice, the earliest one with her at age five and the latest with Donna in her late thirties. I kept revising this novel-as-stories for the next year and then started submitting the manuscript to agents.
How was your journey to publication? Long, short, how many rejections?
by - From Goodreads: Willow knows she’s different from other girls, and not just because she loves tinkering with cars. Willow has a gift. She can look into the future and know people’s dreams and hopes, their sorrows and regrets, just by touching them. She has no idea where this power comes from. But the assassin, Alex, does. Gorgeous, mysterious Alex knows more about Willow than Willow herself. He knows that her powers link to dark and dangerous forces, and that he’s one of the few humans left who can fight them. When Alex finds himself falling in love with his sworn enemy, he discovers that nothing is as it seems, least of all good and evil. In the first book in an action-packed, romantic trilogy, L..A. Weatherly sends readers on a thrill-ride of a road trip — and depicts the human race at the brink of a future as catastrophic as it is deceptively beautiful.
How long did you work on this book?
Alex and Willow have been in my head for a long time, especially Alex (twenty years, anyone…?) – though it was only recently that the perfect story for them came to me. Once I had the idea for Angel Burn, I knew immediately that this was it; I finally had the right plot for these characters I’d been in love with for so long! The actual writing of the book happened very quickly after that, probably no more than four months – it had been building inside of me for a long time, and just poured out. So, somewhere between four months and twenty years!
How was your journey to publication? Long, short, how many rejections?
I was very lucky not to receive that many rejections when I finally started submitting my work (which took me years to get up the courage to do!) – I think the 6th agent I submitted to took me on, and then maybe the 5th publisher who she submitted to. However, it still took three or four years for my first book to actually be published after that. Looking back, I think there was a real spark to my writing, which is what got me an agent and a publishing deal, but it was also at a pretty early stage- there was a LOT that I needed to learn about structure. My editor at that point, the legendary David Fickling here in the UK, essentially took me in hand and taught me the nuts and bolts of crafting a story. It took a while, but hopefully I got there in the end! I’ll always owe him a huge debt for that. (Thanks, David!)
What advice would you most like to pass along to other writers?
I’m assuming you mean writers who aren’t published yet! My advice would be to learn all you can about both the craft and the business before you submit your work. I often teach writing courses here in the UK, and I can always tell which writers immerse themselves in that whole world – they belong to writers’ groups where they swap critiques, they go to conferences where they meet agents and editors, and so on – and as a result their work tends to have a very polished edge; they’re also quite savvy about the business before they become published, which can only be a good thing! Also, READ YOUR GENRE. For instance, it’s amazing how many aspiring children’s writers I meet who haven’t read a book for children in thirty years.
What has surprised you most about becoming a published author?
I’m perpetually surprised that I can make a living doing something I love so much. Also, I was surprised to learn that public speaking will not actually cause you to shrivel up and die with fear, and that once you get used to it, it can even be fun. (All my family and friends are sick of Angel Burn by now, so having a captive audience to talk to about my favourite subject is great!)
by- From Goodreads: Agnes Wilkins is standing in front of an Egyptian mummy, about to make the first cut into the wrappings, about to unlock ancient (and not-so-ancient) history. Maybe you think this girl is wearing a pith helmet with antique dust swirling around her. Maybe you think she is a young Egyptologist who has arrived in Cairo on camelback. Maybe she would like to think that too. Agnes Wilkins dreams of adventures that reach beyond the garden walls, but reality for a seventeen-year-old debutante in 1815 London does not allow for camels—or dust, even. No, Agnes can only see a mummy when she is wearing a new silk gown and standing on the verdant lawns of Lord Showalter’s estate, with chaperones fussing about and strolling sitar players straining to create an exotic “atmosphere” for the first party of the season. An unwrapping. This is the start of it all, Agnes’s debut season, the pretty girl parade that offers only ever-shrinking options: home, husband, and high society. It’s also the start of something else, because the mummy Agnes unwraps isn’t just a mummy. It’s a host for a secret that could unravel a new destiny—unleashing mystery, an international intrigue, and possibly a curse in the bargain.
How long did you work on this book?
The seed of the story came years ago when I was in college and a professor mentioned the practice of mummy unwrapping parties. I wasn’t writing fiction at the time, but I remembered thinking that somebody should write a book about that. So, many, many years later, when I was waiting on editorial for my first book, Shift, I was feeling restless and started toying with the ideas that eventually became the plot of Wrapped.
How was your journey to publication? Long, short, how many rejections?
This book was pretty uneventful. My agent showed it to my editor once we’d gotten through the rewrites on Shift, and she liked it and bought it and a sequel.
What advice would you most like to pass along to other writers?
Keep writing. Once you get through one book, take a short break, and then start something else. You learn something new every time to you write a new story.
What has surprised you most about becoming a published author?
Hmm . . . maybe that I’m even more shy now about telling people that I’m a writer. I know that sounds odd, but it has been one of the more surprising things on this journey.
Additional Releases
The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)
by Michael Scott
- From Goodreads: Alcatraz: Although their ally Dr. John Dee has been declared utlaga, Machiavelli and Billy the Kid will follow the plans the Elders have laid before them: they will loose the monsters of Alcatraz on the city of San Francisco, thereby triggering the end of the humani race. Danu Talis: The Shadowrealm that Scatty and Joan of Arc have entered is far more dangerous than they could ever have imagined. And they haven’t landed here by chance-the warriors were called for a reason. So were Saint-Germain, Palamededs, and Shakespeare. The group was summoned because they must travel back in time to Danu Talis and destroy it. For the island of Danu Talis, known in humani myth as the lost city of Atlantis, must fall if the modern world is to exist. San Francisco: The end is finally near. Josh Newman has chosen a side, and he will not stand with his sister, Sophie, or with the Alchemyst, Nicholas Flamel. He will fight alongside Dee and the mysterious Virginia Dare. Unless Sophie can find her twin before the battle begins, all is lost – forever. In the fifth installment of this bestselling series, the twins of prophecy have been divided, and the end is finally beginning. With Scatty, Joan of Arc, Saint Germain, Palamedes, and Shakespeare all in Danu Talis, Sophie is on her own with the ever-weakening Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. She must depend on Niten to help her find an immortal to teach her Earth Magic. The surprise is that she will find her teacher in the most ordinary of places.
Something Deadly This Way Comes (Madison Avery)
by Kim Harrison
- From Goodreads: I’m Madison Avery, in charge of heaven’s hit squad . . . and fighting it all the way. When Madison died the night of her prom, she knew her life would never be the same. Now she has a powerful amulet, a team of rogue angels by her side, and the ability to flash forward into the future to see the shape of destiny. And of course, now she’s finally with Josh—a perfect boyfriend who doesn’t even mind that she’s dead. But being dead has its disadvantages, too. Madison feels caught between the light and the dark, and between her real life and her timekeeper status. When Madison has the opportunity to get her body back—to be alive again—she faces her most difficult decision yet. If she claims it, she could return to being a normal girl—and have a chance at a real relationship with Josh. But would having the one thing she wants most in the world also mean giving up everything she’s worked so hard for?
by - From Goodreads: When sixteen-year-old Lark Austin is kidnapped from her Virginia hometown and left for dead in a snowy forest, she leaves behind two girls who are shocked by the loss of their former friend. At the same time Eve must face the hole left by Lark’s absence, she also can’t shake the guilt that Lark’s death was her fault. Meanwhile, Nyetta is haunted by Lark’s ghost, who comes through the bedroom window and begs Nyetta to set her soul free. Eve and Nyetta realize it is their responsibility to uncover why Lark is trapped in limbo, but only by coming together to find the missing pieces of themselves can they bring peace to Lark.
The Girl in the Steel Corset (Steampunk Chronicles)
by Kady Cross
- From Goodreads: In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one…except the “thing” inside her. When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch…. Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she’s special, says she’s one of them. The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her own special abilities and an unrequited love for Sam, who is part robot; and Jasper, an American cowboy with a shadowy secret. Griffin’s investigating a criminal called The Machinist, the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help—and finally be a part of something, finally fit in. But The Machinist wants to tear Griff’s little company of strays apart, and it isn’t long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she’s on—even if it seems no one believes her.
Giveaway
Ooh, we wish we could enter our own giveaway! We have an ARC and a finished copy of THE WARLOCK. We’ve got PUTTING MAKEUP ON DEAD PEOPLE, as well as a copy of ANGEL BURN. Please leave a comment on this post and fill out the form below for a chance to win. The contest is open to US residents and winners will be announced on Thursday!
Happy reading!
The Ladies of ACP
