GCC Presents: Kelly Parra!

My GCC buddy and fellow MTV Books author Kelly Parra has a new short story in an anthology, SOMETHING WICKED, that sounds just perfect for Halloween. Check it out! (Especially that gorgeous cover!)

About SOMETHING WICKED:

Sometimes, they aren't costumes.

 

They’re baaaack.

More nightmares brought to you by the authors of the young adult anthology Prom Dates to Die For...

Beware the Midnight Troll on your late-night stroll by Mari Hestekin. Swim at your own risk Under Loch and Cay by Jenny Peterson. A curse of spiders on campus means Arach War by Lena Brown. Through a Glass Darkly one could lose a soul by Heather Dearly. Supernatural Hunters turn to the sea in Mermania by Kelly Parra. Social media goes to the ghouls in Spectral Media by Aaron Smith.

Don’t miss this paranormal fun for tween, teens and adults!

Kelly Parra’s short story “Mermania” continues Teen Supernatural Hunters Jaz and Blake’s paranormal adventures. The duo debuted in “Darkness Becomes Him” in the young adult anthology PROM DATES TO DIE FOR as they battled a soul hungry dark angel. In SOMETHING WICKED a merman entrances Jaz and it’s up to her and Blake to rush against time before Jaz grows her own tail by the full moon!

About the Author:

Kelly Parra’s earliest stories were told with paintbrushes, but upon discovering the drama and forbidden love of romance and suspense novels, those paintbrushes were replaced with a keyboard. Now a multi-published author in young adult and romance fiction, she has created memorable characters such as a graffiti artist in Graffiti Girl, a psychic teen in Invisible Touch, and a tough undercover narc in her novel for adults, Criminal Instinct. A two-time RITA finalist, she divides her time between her novels, short fiction, and the adventures of motherhood, where she juggles her home life with two children, a tattooed husband, a sweet poodle, and a rowdy pit bull. Visit her website www.KellyParra.com.

The Interview:

Q: What inspired you to write this story?
Kelly: Hello Stephanie! Thanks for having me on your blog! Well, my story “Mermania” in the paranormal young adult anthology SOMETHING WICKED is actually the continuation of my other story “Darkness Becomes Him” in the PROM DATES TO DIE FOR anthology. I’m a fan of the show Supernatural so I thought it would be fun to write about teen supernatural hunters! And from there my characters Jaz and Blake were born.

Q: The main character of my first book, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, is the kind of girl I wanted to be (a rock star!), the MC of my second book has a lot more in common with teenage me. Is your main character someone you wish you could be, someone a lot like you, or your total opposite? How so?
Kelly: My main character’s name is Jax. She’s an orphan teen that is able to sense anything magical. So that’s not me! Haha. However, she may have some characteristics of when I was younger. I didn’t always fit in and was somewhat of a tomboy like Jax.

Q: In addition to writing books, I also write for a website for teens called Rookie, which has a regular feature called "Literally The Best Thing Ever," wherein we write about a thing that we think is super mega awesome (even if it is the type of thing that others might call a guilty pleasure, we believe there is nothing guilty about pleasure!) and explain why we think it is literally the best thing ever. It's generally a kind of unexpected thing, for example I wrote one about the soap opera, One Life To Live. I don't expect you to write a whole essay obviously, but can you briefly tell us what either you or your character (or both!) would say is "Literally The Best Thing Ever" and why?
Kelly: Well, if we talk TV, I would have plenty of  “Literally The Best Thing Evers”. So that would very tough! You know what I’ve always loved all my life? Creativity. Creativity is the best thing ever. I have always had to express myself in some way. It’s like a feeling that never goes away. In my youth it was through arts, drawing and painting, then it was poetry and photography, and then it was graphic design, and now its writing, digital design, and home and craft projects. Creativity makes me happy, whether I’m making something or enjoying someone else’s.

Q: What are you working on for us next?
Kelly: I’m the type of writer that always has a few projects in the works. At the moment I’m writing a young adult, a romance, and a short story collection.

GCC Presents: Mindi Scott

I am very excited to share this book with you, blog readers. My copy of it is set to arrive tomorrow and I can't wait to read it. LIVE THROUGH THIS by my Girlfriends Cyber Circuit sister Mindi Scott sounds like the kind of powerful, real read I like best. The following interview and look at the book will tell you why.

About LIVE THROUGH THIS:


From the outside, Coley Sterling’s life seems pretty normal . . . whatever that means. It’s not perfect—her best friend is seriously mad at her and her dance team captains keep giving her a hard time—but Coley’s adorable, sweet crush Reece helps distract her. Plus, she has a great family to fall back on—with a mom and stepdad who would stop at nothing to keep her siblings and her happy.

But Coley has a lot of secrets. She won’t admit—not even to herself—that her almost-perfect life is her own carefully-crafted façade. That for years she’s been burying the shame and guilt over a relationship
that crossed the line. Now that Coley has the chance at her first real boyfriend, a decade’s worth of lies are on the verge of unraveling.

In this unforgettable powerhouse of a novel, Mindi Scott offers an absorbing, layered glimpse into the life of an everygirl living a nightmare that no one would suspect.




About the author:


Mindi Scott is the author of Live Through This and Freefall. She lives near Seattle, Washington, with her
drummer husband. Please visit her online at mindiscott.com.

The Interview:

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

Mindi: I’ve written a letter for readers and posted it on my website explaining this in detail. The basic gist, though, is that I put off writing this book for years because I thought someone with more distance from the subject could do it better. One day, I realized that that wasn’t the case and that I needed to write this book.

Q: The main character of my first book, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, is the kind of girl I wanted to be (a rock star!), the MC of my second book has a lot more in common with teenage me. Is your main character someone you wish you could be, someone a lot like you, or your total opposite? How so?

Mindi: Coley and I have things in common, for sure. She’s going through a situation that is very loosely inspired by something that happened to me, so it would have impossible for us to have nothing in common. But with this in mind, I deliberately made sure that she had traits and skills very different from mine. She has blond hair (mine is brown), she’s a talented dancer (I’m the worst dancer in the world), she snowboards (I ski), etc. Despite my efforts to keep us separate, I suspect that people who know me well (or who knew me when I was younger, at least) will see a lot of me in her.

Q: If there was a soundtrack for your book what are five songs that would be on it and how do they relate the story?

Mindi: This is easy, actually, because there are a number of songs mentioned in this book! Here are five of them:
 “Asking for It” by Hole. This song has a line that includes the book’s title: “If you live through this with me, I swear that I will die for you.”

“Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Fergie. This is a breakup song, really, but the part that is significant in the book is the line about how she’s going to miss him.

 “Missing” by Everything but the Girl. This is another “miss you” reference.

“Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Coley has brown eyes and this song is mentioned in reference to that fact.

“Creep” by Radiohead. This has one of my favorite compliments of all time: “You’re just like an angel / Your skin makes me cry.”

 Q: In addition to writing books, I also write for a website for teens called Rookie, which has a regular feature called "Literally The Best Thing Ever," wherein we write about a thing that we think is super mega awesome (even if it is the type of thing that others might call a guilty pleasure, we believe there is nothing guilty about pleasure!) and explain why we think it is literally the best thing ever. It's generally a kind of unexpected thing, for example I wrote one about the soap opera, One Life To Live. I don't expect you to write a whole essay obviously, but can you briefly tell us what either you or your character (or both!) would say is "Literally The Best Thing Ever" and why?

Mindi: In the book, my character describes a day spent with a boy, a giraffe, and ice cream as the Best Day Ever. For me, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is Literally The Best Thing Ever because of Matt Lanter’s sexy, sexy Anakin Skywalker voice.

Q: What are you working on for us next?

Mindi: My critique partner, Michelle Andreani, and I are writing a novel together. We also have a blog that we (sometimes) update about our progress. http://we-have-words.com/

GCC Presents: Gretchen McNeil

My Girlfriends Cyber Circuit sister, Gretchen McNeil has a new book out called TEN, which I think any fans of YA horror or suspense will adore. Here are all the details!

About TEN:

And their doom comes swiftly.

It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives – three days on Henry Island at an exclusive house party. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their own reasons for wanting to be there, both of which involve Kamiak High’s most eligible bachelor, T.J. Fletcher. But what starts out as a fun-filled weekend turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.

Suddenly, people are dying and the teens are cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?

About the author:

Gretchen McNeil is an opera singer, writer and clown.  Her YA horror POSSESS debuted with Balzer + Bray for HarperCollins in 2011.  Her follow up TEN – YA horror/suspense about ten teens trapped on a remote island with a serial killer – will be released September 18, 2012, and her third novel 3:59, sci fi doppelganger horror is scheduled for Fall 2013.  Gretchen's new YA contemporary series Don't Get Mad (Revenge meets The Breakfast Club) begins Fall 2014 with GET EVEN, followed by the sequel GET DIRTY in 2015, also with Bazler + Bray.

Gretchen is a former coloratura soprano, the voice of Mary on G4's Code Monkeys and she sings with the LA-based circus troupe Cirque Berzerk.  Gretchen blogs with The Enchanted Inkpot and is a founding member of the vlog group the YARebels where she can be seen as "Monday."

The Interview:

Q: What inspired you to write this book? 

Gretchen: My publisher wanted another horror/suspense novel from me after POSSESS and I wanted to do a throwback to the old Christopher Pike and Agatha Christie novels I loved as a teen. Voila!

Q: The main character of my first book, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, is the kind of girl I wanted to be (a rock star!), the MC of my second book has a lot more in common with teenage me. Is your main character someone you wish you could be, someone a lot like you, or your total opposite? How so? 

Gretchen: I think Meg is a lot like me in the she's cerebral, and constantly saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Though that's where the similarities end. Meg's much more introverted than I ever was.

Q: If there was a soundtrack for your book what are five songs that would be on it and how do they relate the story? 

Gretchen: I'm going to wuss out and pick only one, but it's a goodie, trust me. "Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes! I think the reason is obvious:

"I take one one one cause you left me and
2 2 2 for my family and
3 3 3 for my heartache and
4 4 4 for my headaches and
5 5 5 for my lonely and
6 6 6 for my sorrow and
7 7 for no tomorrow and
8 8 I forget what 8 was for and
9 9 9 for a lost god and
10 10 10 10 for everything everything everything everything"

Q: In addition to writing books, I also write for a website for teens called Rookie, which has a regular feature called "Literally The Best Thing Ever," wherein we write about a thing that we think is super mega awesome (even if it is the type of thing that others might call a guilty pleasure, we believe there is nothing guilty about pleasure!) and explain why we think it is literally the best thing ever. It's generally a kind of unexpected thing, for example I wrote one about the soap opera, One Life To Live. I don't expect you to write a whole essay obviously, but can you briefly tell us what either you or your character (or both!) would say is "Literally The Best Thing Ever" and why?

Gretchen: Right now I am completely obsessed with a shopping website called Mod Cloth – fun, retro inspired clothes from a huge variety of designers. Plus shoes. Plus tchotchkes. Like half my wardrobe in heavy rotation right now is from Mod Cloth, including most of the fun dresses I wear to appearances. It's reaching epidemic levels…

Q: What are you working on for us next?
Gretchen: My next book is called 3:59 and comes out Fall 2013. It's sci-fi horror about two girls who are the same girl in different dimensions, who discover that their worlds connect every twelve hours – at 3:59 – for one minute. When they decide to switch places for a day, all hell breaks loose. Literally.

After that I just sold a two book series, also to Balzer + Bray, for 2014 and 2015. GET EVEN and GET DIRTY are books one and two in the Don't Get Mad series about four very different girls who have formed a secret revenge society, getting back at bullies and mean girls who have terrorized their classmates, which all goes well until one of their targets turns up dead and the society is implicated in the death.