Did you miss me? I know I threw that four years of querying post out there and then deserted the blog for a couple of weeks. My family went to the Lake of the Ozarks, and then I had a week of craziness catching up with some deadlines. But I’m back! So, I’m in the…
voice
YA Review: TRUST ME, I’M LYING by Mary Elizabeth Summer
I started reading TRUST ME, I’M LYING on the plane back from Alaska, continued in the summer school carpool pickup line, and then breezed through the last 40 percent in a single night. I probably would have read that first 60 percent much more quickly if I hadn’t been trying to catch up from vacation….
MMGM Interview & Giveaway: THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING by Krista Van Dolzer
Happy Memorial Day! I hope my fellow Americans are enjoying the day off. I’m thrilled to feature THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING on the blog today. It’s especially appropriate since The Writer’s Voice is in progress right now, and I was on Team Krista in 2012, the first year the contest happened. It was…
MMGM: THE TIME OF THE FIREFLIES by Kimberley Griffiths Little
I’ve been blindly pulling books out of my stash from the Scholastic Warehouse Sale (no peeking to see what’s next!), so I was especially delighted when I came out with Kimberley Griffiths Little’s THE TIME OF THE FIREFLIES. You see, most of my warehouse sale finds are books that either look interesting to me or…
YA Review: MISS MAYHEM by Rachel Hawkins
I binge-read all of Rachel Hawkins’ books last spring and absolutely loved the Hex Hall series. As a result, I perhaps didn’t give REBEL BELLE as much credit, although I did include it in a round-up of books you should check out. After a year without any new Rachel Hawkins books to read, MISS MAYHEM…
The Benefits of Reading Your Work Aloud Revisited
Yes, I have already posted on this topic–but it’s been two years. Honestly, sometimes it’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging long enough to decide to write on something only to find I already did. And in this case, when I looked back at my original post, I was actually pretty satisfied with what I…
When You Have Two POVs, Who Is the MC?
For my non-writer friends who follow the blog or maybe even some newer writers: POV = point of view MC = main character Now that we have that out of the way …. I read a post on Jami Gold’s blog earlier this week titled “Should Our Protagonist Be in the First Scene?” It was…
Revising One Character At A Time–Plus A Giveaway!
Revision time!!! Yes, that does deserve multiple exclamation points because I love to revise. I let this manuscript sit the self-imposed month before even doing a read-through. What surprised me as I was reading was that the part of the manuscript I struggled with the most as I was drafting actually isn’t half-bad. However, there…
MG Series Recommendation: The Books of Elsewhere by Jacqueline West
I had another YA book ready to review today, but I bumped it because I finished reading the final book in Jacqueline West’s The Books of Elsewhere series last week and I just have to gush about it. THE SHADOWS, the first book in the series, was one of the first middle grade books I…
YA Review: ILLUSIONS OF FATE by Kiersten White
I was a huge a fan of Kiersten White’s PARANORMALCY trilogy, and while I’ve enjoyed her last few books, they haven’t quite lived up to that series for me. Hey, when you really love something, that’s hard to do. However, her latest, ILLUSIONS OF FATE, captured that magic again–in more than one way :). The…
MMGM: THE BOY PROJECT by Kami Kinard
A couple of weeks ago I read a post on humor by author Kami Kinard and promptly requested three of the books referenced in her post. Ms. Kinard was actually promoting her second book, but as I hadn’t read the first in the series, I had to read it first and found it thoroughly delightful….
MMGM: A SNICKER OF MAGIC by Natalie Lloyd
Happy Memorial Day to my fellow Americans! I am spending the day at Six Flags with my family but didn’t want to miss out on posting an MMGM. Today’s review is on a title that kept jumping out at me, much as words do in the story itself :). So many people were recommending A…
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