I'm not usually one for historical fiction or dog stories for that matter, but I made an exception for Lara's Gift by Annemarie O'Brien, and it was definitely worth it. I first came across Annemarie's work when I took an online course she taught about YA writing. She was putting the final touches on the book at that time and it was fascinating to hear about her experiences as a debut author. The finished product, Lara's Gift, was worth the wait. This book will appeal to all ages, from the youngest children to the older reader. It's set in Russia during the earliest part of the 20th century, a period I can relate to as my relatives hailed from that time and place. I can attest to the accuracy of the language and history/culture that O'Brien evokes. Annemarie herself has spent plenty of time in Russia and speaks the language fluently, and it shows.

The story is about a girl (Lara) who ages from 10-14 in the book and tries to find her place in the world given that she's a young woman but has an affinity for breeding borzoi dogs, which is typically a man's job. She struggles to solidify her place within her family and within the local society as she goes against cultural expectations to follow her dreams. She grows up a lot in the book and is a very headstrong and likeable character throughout. Her parents want to support her, but don't always understand her, or maybe it's more accurate to say that they understand her but in different ways, and have diverging expectations of her. This is not a long book and an adult can easily read through it in one sitting, although it will take younger readers longer. It's also fascinating to read the material at the back of the book about what led Annemarie to this idea and how she developed it. And don't miss the image on the book jacket of Annemarie with her own borzoi - so cute!!

Zach was recently a finalist in his elementary school spelling bee. Here's what he had to say about the experience ...

"I was really scared at first, but then I did it for a couple rounds and then I noticed it was the same thing over and over again so I just stopped worrying about the spelling bee and then I noticed that I practiced the whole entire first page of my spelling bee practice words for nothing because they only told us the hard words and the rounds where like the same type of words like medium-hard. And I got sixth place. I thought I was pretty good at it."

And the poor little guy was the first speller and it was his first bee!!!

And she's done it! Brodi Ashton has brought the Everneath trilogy home to a satisfying (if bittersweet) conclusion in the final book of the series, Evertrue. Ever the storyteller, Ashton maintains Nikki Beckett's voice throughout as the narrator so the reader can share firsthand in her frustrations, despair, and the way she tries to maintain her good humor throughout. And through Ashton's unique turns of phrase, the reader can tell that she is having a good time with the storytelling too. Examples of the lovely tongue-in-cheek writing style that resonates with the earlier books are lines like ...

"First, your heart," he repeated. "Then, after we get it back, we'll talk about blowing stuff up. I promise."

And my fave ...

"We were out of time from the moment we began."

This book focuses very much on resolving the stories of the three main characters who form somewhat of a romantic triangle throughout the series - Nikki, Jack, and Cole. It focuses on them so much, in fact, that some of the other characters we learned to love in previous book kind of get short shrift here. We have very few appearances from the other folks from high school and the band members, and even Jack's brother Will doesn't have many scenes. The focus is very tightly on the main three characters. It doesn't matter, but I miss the others. They do appear, but don't have much to do. In some ways - and I may be wrong about this - I felt that the first book was really Jack's story, the second was Nikki's story, and the third is Cole's in the sense that each of the characters face their biggest demons (no pun intended, well maybe) in the book I characterize as "their" story.

Also unusual here is that Cole isn't really himself for much of this book, or perhaps if I can say it without giving away too many spoilers he's "more of himself" than in previous books. So some aspects of his cocky personality are demonstrably absent for much of the book, because this is really a story about Cole's character reaching a final resolution. Again, that's both good and bad. I miss the cockier aspects of his personality, but Ashton gives us something new, adding depth to the character and his relationships with Nikki and Jack. Maintaining the mythological aspect, Ashton also stays with the Underworld mythology, but adds in large aspects of the Hercules myth here which is new and very effective.

Overall, the book is more of a character/relationship study between the three major characters leading to a satisfying resolution. There's not so much of the wonderful world-building we saw in the second book, but there's a lot of terrific character development. The best test of a book is whether or not the reader could put it down, which I couldn't. I received it yesterday and stayed up late last night to finish it. Great job, and way to bring a trilogy home, Brodi!

While most of my interviews have been with writers of books for children and young adults, I recently had the opportunity to meet successfully self-published romance author, Isabel Morin, and to chat with her about her work, the romance writing industry generally, and self-publishing. Having had the opportunity to work with more traditional publishers, Isabel has stuck with self-publishing, and she shares some of her thoughts with us below. She also shares her views on how the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon has changed the landscape of romance publishing. Here's what she had to say ...


KC: I’ve just finished reading your first book (No Other Love), a historical romance. You also write contemporary romance. Which do you prefer writing, and why?

IM: My first book was an historical and the rest have been contemporary, though I've started a couple other historicals. The main reason I haven't finished another one is the amount of research that goes into historicals. Research is fun and is an integral part of the writing process in that it can inspire new ideas, but it adds a whole other level of work. The smart thing to do is build a world and learn the history of a certain period and place and stick to that time and place for other books. Otherwise you have to start researching from scratch with every new book. I wasn't thinking along those lines at first, but I would if I went back to them. I had a great time writing "No Other Love," and I enjoy historicals because they add another level of fantasy and escape to reading romances. And you can never get too much of those.

KC: In No Other Love, your heroine Rose is caught up between the hunky Luke and the dastardly Nathan. Is it more fun to write good guys or villains?

IM: Nathan is the only villain I've written, but I have to say  I had more fun with Luke, since I was madly in love with him. I fall in love with all the heroes I write (or said another way, I write heroes I would fall in love with), which is what makes it so much fun. I'm getting the same thing out of writing them that a reader would get reading them (I hope!). But writing Nathan was interesting in its own way, since I didn't want him to seem like a generic villain. Working that out was a lot of fun.

KC: You started reading and writing romance novels before the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon. How would you say the success of that trilogy has changed the romance market, if at all?

IM: What a good question! It has certainly raised the profile of erotic romances, and I think romances in general are getting steamier. The success of those books made a lot of people in both the book and movie industries realize that there was an untapped market there. I was offered a contract by a digital romance publisher a couple of years ago (which I ultimately declined), and the editor said she thought that erotica was going to become mainstream. At the time I wondered what in the world she meant. I couldn't imagine that happening. And then a few months later it became very clear that it was already becoming a reality. I think it's great for the romance and erotica genres, which overlap considerably.   I hope readers go looking for more authors, because there are amazing authors out there who deserve more attention.

KC: You have been very successful as a self-published author, even garnering a Book Readers Appreciation Group honor for your first book. How would you describe the ups and downs of self-publishing as compared to traditional publishing?

IM: I love that I have complete control over my covers and that if I'm working on a book and it's just not coming together, I can generally leave it for a while and do something else, because I'm not under contract to anyone. The control over my own writing and what I put into the world is great. The marketing and publicity is harder, and it would be great to have a publisher do that for me. On the other hand, authors who are traditionally published have to do a lot of the same sort of marketing that indies do. Also I think indie authors who have been at this a while are savvier about publishing. I'm not super savvy, but I have friends who are and I keep up with what's happening and the best ways of reaching readers. I've been really lucky that I got off to a great start with "Tempt Me" and had more visibility than a lot of writers with their first books, for which I'm grateful. 

KC: What is your favorite recent romance novel? What are you reading now?

IM: I've recently been reading a lot of Anne Calhoune, an incredible erotica writer, and Ruthie Knox, who writes fabulous, steamy romances. The most recent Anne Calhoune book I read was the novella "Breath on Embers" and the most recent Ruthie Knox was "A Room at the Inn," also a novella. But both authors have a bunch of top-notch books, and they both do an incredible job of writing characters with depth and believable complications. They also write some of the best sex scenes I've read, which is saying something! I also just finished "Longbourn," a book by Jo Baker that tells the story of "Pride and Prejudice" from the servants' point of view. It's brilliantly done. 

When I asked Isabel what she was working on next, she told me the following. Remember you heard it first here!

IM: My next release is going to be a sequel to "Tempt Me" called "Keep Me." I haven't announced that publicly yet, so I guess this is it!  I'm not sure what the release date will be, but I anticipate sometime in March. I'll be giving more details on my website and blog as things firm up. You can watch this space for more: www.isabelmorin.com

Thanks for talking to me, Isabel. Good luck with the new release ...

Head Case by Sarah Aronson is not an easy book to read, but it's also not an easy book to put down. I read it in one sitting. It deals with a young man who has caused a car accident (driving after having a few beers at a party) and has killed an old man and the girl who was in his car. It's an important book for parents who worry about their kids, and for kids who don't take those worries to heart. Given the subject matter, the story could easily have become preachy, but it doesn't. This is largely because it's told in the first person from the point of an incredibly engaging narrator - the driver who is now paralyzed from the neck down. He considers himself to be a "head". He can talk, eat, and breathe, but that's about it.

The book covers the period immediately after the accident to several months out, as the young man (Frank) comes to terms with what he's done and what's left for him to do in the future. His voice is authentic and anguished, and very believable. Aronson perfectly captures both the character and the voice, and does so without relying on a lot of physical movement (obviously) which is no mean feat for a debut novelist, as she was when she wrote this book.

We also see the way Frank's friends and the society around him react to what he's done - the divisions of opinion as to whether he's been punished enough for the wrongs he's committed or whether he deserves worse (death, a prison sentence etc). Aronson uses the narrative technique of having the characters comment on a website where people share (often heated) views about Frank and the accident. This reflects the varying attitudes in the town, even though the bulk of the story is closely told from the narrator's perspective.

The ending was moving and was the perfect conclusion to the story, even though some aspects of it were a little predictable. But that didn't matter because it wasn't the point of the book to have a "surprise" ending, but rather to illustrate teen and societal attitudes to issues like driving and drinking, and thinking you're invincible when you're not. The dialogue, emotion, and set-up are incredibly rich, but also extremely accessible. From the first line, the writing draws in the reader and doesn't let go. Beautiful and lyrical, yet raw and authentic at the same time. Really wonderful writing.

Okay - so I read The Cuckoo's Calling AFTER the unmasking of J.K. Rowling as the author (writing under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith). It was OK. I like a good murder mystery as much as the next reader. And this was exactly that. A good murder mystery. It wasn't groundbreaking and if J.K. Rowling hadn't written it (and garnered so much media attention with her accidental unmasking), I may not have picked it up at all. It keep me engaged until the end. The detective and his sidekick presented a new twist on the genre - I haven't seen a pair quite like this one before. There was nothing outstanding about them as characters, but they were engaging enough to keep me reading. The world of celebrity and the paparazzi was a nice choice for setting and made for an intriguing mystery. Some of the vernacular speech patterns, particularly of the lower class characters, became a little annoying at times, but they weren't terrible. I think the writing style here, for me at least, fell somewhere between Agatha Christie and Elizabeth George. The writing here is "almost literary" like George, but also has those tongue-in-cheek hints of the author taunting the reader about "whodunnit" (like Christie). And when the detective toward the end starts hinting strongly that he knows who the killer is, but the reader doesn't at this point, it's almost like a TV show "whodunnit" where the writer is goading us to try to best the detective, although he seems to have a LOT more clues than we do. Or maybe that's just sour grapes because I didn't guess the murderer.

My only real problem with the book was that it took quite a while to get going. The first third or so really repeated the same information over and over without getting into anything new, so by the time new characters and clues were flying the book felt kind of over-balanced. That said, this book does show Rowling's impressive versatility as a writer. I don't know how many writers who create wonderful children's fantasy can also turn their hand to good old fashioned murder mystery plotting. And my hat is definitely off to Rowling for keeping on writing and trying her hand at new things. It's a shame when terrific writers hit the jackpot with a series and then sit back on their laurels and don't do anything else. I'm so glad Rowling is still writing and is challenging herself with new projects. I hope she tries many more new things.

I am thrilled to be presenting an interview with YA author Mindy McGinnis on my blog. As readers will know, her debut novel, Not a Drop to Drink, was one of my favorite new books of 2013. I reviewed it previously here.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mindy at the Northern Ohio SCBWI conference last year which is when I first became aware of her work, and was pleased to find out she's continuing the Not a Drop Series with a forthcoming companion novel later this year (more below).

Here's what Mindy had to say when I asked her some questions about her work ...


KC: I loved your debut novel, Not a Drop to Drink, which deals with a dystopian future world with precious little water. Your heroine, Lynn, guards her pond with her life. It’s a unique take on a dystopian future. What gave you the idea for the book?

MM: I watched a documentary called Blue Gold, which is about a projected shortage of potable water on our planet due to overpopulation. It was a horrible thought - we all need water to survive, and it's something we can't make. I went to bed very grateful for the small pond in my backyard, and that night I dreamt I was teaching a young girl how to operate a rifle so that she could help me protect the pond. I woke up and thought, "Hey... I wrote a book in my head just now."


KC: As a character, Lynn is like a number of recent YA protagonists who have had to sacrifice emotion for survival. She has been largely starved of love and finds it difficult to trust anyone else, but eventually is forced to confront these emotions. What were the main challenges for you in writing a character like this?

MM: She's very cut off, by necessity. Feelings for other human beings is what will make her hesitate to pull the trigger, and she needs to do exactly that in order to survive. Mother has raised her without empathy, but as it's a natural human state it's something that grows in her once she branches out socially. I think the biggest challenge was writing someone who can coolly snipe a perfect stranger and still make her likable. Showing that she truly believed she had to do this in order to survive was the key.


KC: Some would argue that the YA dystopian market is getting overcrowded. How did you overcome this perception in your path to publication? Or was it not a problem in practice?

MM: I agree that dystops are everywhere and people are more than likely sick of them. Luckily, DRINK evades the genre label because it's not a dystopian in the true sense of the word. There is no overarching evil government or rebellion or uprising... this is simply a survival story. That came through to the editors when this was on submission. At first I was worried that the backlash would be there, but I've had lovely reviews and readers are enjoying it, calling it a fresh take on a tired genre. That makes me feel pretty good.


KC: At least one of your reviewers has compared your story to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, but set in a dystopian future. How do you feel about that comparison?

MM: Awesome! I love Laura Ingalls Wilder, and survival stories in general. I think it's a good comparison, as a lot of DRINK deals with the everyday challenges that face Lynn. Chores. Work. Water. Wood. Survival. It's not all gunfights and heartbreak and drama. Somebody has to cook supper.


KC: I was thrilled to hear we can expect a new book from you this year that may be part of the Not a Drop to Drink world, although not necessarily a sequel to it. Is there anything else you can tell us about the new book?

MM: I'm excited that people are excited! :) I can't say much yet, but the book is titled IN A HANDFUL OF DUST and will be available September 23, 2014. It's not a sequel, but rather a companion novel.... and that's really about all I can say right now!


KC:  Who are your favorite YA authors today? What are you reading now?

MM: My favorite YA authors would be Margo Lanagan, Rick Yancey and Patrick Ness. I tend to the darker stuff. Also within my 2013 debut year my favorite titles were by Stephanie Kuehn and Kate Karyus Quinn. Like I said, the dark!

I'm not sure whether or not to say I enjoyed The Prey, the second book in the Hunt trilogy by Andrew Fukuda. The first thing that interfered with my enjoyment of this book was that I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator's voice just sounded too old for most of the characters and a little irritating with the young female characters in particular. He was great with the older male characters, but they were unfortunately the minority of characters in the book. So I kept feeling like the book was being told in the future with an older version of the narrator looking back rather than in the present with a young narrator. I read the first book in text version and enjoyed it more than this one, and that may be why.

The other thing I liked better in the first book was the world-building of the intriguing dystopian society where everything was backwards and the vampires were in charge while the humans were near wiped out. The social structures and vampire society were great in the first book. Unfortunately in this book the vampire characters/society don't feature much at all. This book focuses on the humans. The vampires feature much more peripherally, When they do appear, they are largely slavering monsters rather than the intelligent articulate characters from the first book. I believe there's supposed to be a better balance of vampire versus human characters in the final book and I'm looking forward to that.

I also found that the plot in this book spent too much time going around in circles. A lot of history was built up only to be reversed toward the end of the story. Some of the reversals were effective and surprising but others were annoying after spending so much time building up the lore of the mission society before demolishing it. Also, the young band of heroes spent a lot of time being generally tied up, locked up, and lied to, which became a bit tiresome after a while.

The ending saved the book in a big way by setting up a premise for the next book and providing some new surprises that I hadn't seen coming. I wish the rest of the narrative had lived up to the strength of the last few chapters. I suspect the third book will pick up where this one leaves off and be stronger for it. It's still an interesting and intriguing series, but I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first. I have higher hopes for the final installment and hope I'm right about it. Another case of the "book two blues" here.

I have to agree with another online reviewer who said that whoever designed the cover of Haven by Kristi Cook, the first in a YA vampire trilogy from 2011, didn't do the author any favors. I may be missing something, but the butterfly on the cover didn't seem to have anything to do with the book and it appeared repeatedly as an internal illustration ... I just didn't get the symbolism.

Having said that, the book is okay. It's another YA vampire trilogy that will probably appeal to fans of Twilight and other similar YA stories. The setting is fun (a preppy boarding school where the students all have strange "gifts") and of course there's the difficult-to-manage love affair between mortal girl and immortal vampire-hunky-guy. The book is like eating candy. You can tear through it quickly. It's fun and doesn't tackle any themes that are too serious or depressing. There's the inevitable romance but it's not particularly graphic and, in fact, in some ways there's a distinct lack of chemistry between the romantic leads, or at least there's very little lead-up to the relationship. They simply meet, are attracted to each other, face impossible odds, fall in love, and that's that.

Despite the fact that the book is fluffy and somewhat derivative, it did spawn two already-published sequels (Mirage and Eternal),neither of which I have read but both of which get reasonable to good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, so the series obviously has its fans. Don't pick up this book expecting it to rock your world, but it's a solid, light, fun read for those who enjoyed series like Twilight and Hush, Hush. (And there's even a cameo appearance by a werewolf!)