Thursday, December 6, 2012

GCC Presents: Eileen Cook!

I love everything I've read by Eileen Cook thus far, so I'm excited to feature her new book, THE ALMOST TRUTH, as a part of here Girlfriends Cyber Circuit blog tour!


About THE ALMOST TRUTH:

From the author of Unraveling Isobel and The Education of Hailey Kendrick, a smart, romantic novel about a teenage con artist who might be in over her head.

Sadie can’t wait to get away from her backwards small town, her delusional mom, her jailbird dad, and the tiny trailer where she was raised…even though leaving those things behind also means leaving Brendan. Sadie wants a better life, and she has been working steadily toward it, one con at a time.

But when Sadie’s mother wipes out Sadie’s savings, her escape plan is suddenly gone. She needs to come up with a lot of cash—and fast—or she’ll be stuck in this town forever.

With Brendan’s help, she devises a plan—the ultimate con—to get the money. But the more lies Sadie spins, the more she starts falling for her own hoax…and perhaps for the wrong boy. Sadie wanted to change her life, but she wasn't prepared to have it flipped upside down by her own deception. With her future at stake and her heart on the line, suddenly it seems like she has a lot more than just money to lose....

About Eileen Cook:

Eileen Cook is a multi-published author with her novels appearing in eight different languages. She spent most of her teen years wishing she were someone else or somewhere else, which is great training for a writer. Her latest release, Unraveling Isobel came out in Jan 2012.

You can read more about Eileen, her books, and the things that strike her as funny at www.eileencook.com. Eileen lives in Vancouver with her husband and two dogs and no longer wishes to be anyone or anywhere else.

The Interview

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

EILEEN: Most often book ideas come to me as a collection of unrelated things. A bit of an idea here, another piece there, until it sticks together as one idea. This process can take months or years. This is one of the few books where I can remember the exact second I had the idea. I was on the ferry and saw a missing child poster. At the bottom there was an age-enhanced photo so you could see what the person might look like now. I had the thought "How weird would it be if I looked like the age enhanced photo?" In that instant the idea of the book dropped into my head. I ran back to my seat and wrote it down as fast as I could. I spent another week thinking over some different details, but I started writing almost right away.

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?

EILEEN: With the exception of pulling a few pranks, I was pretty much a “good girl” in high school. My main character, Sadie, is a teenage con-artist. Her dad has been in and out of jail her whole life and she’s learned that if she wants her life to be different, she’s going to have to be the one to make it happen. She and I don’t have a lot in common, but I really admire her guts.

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?

EILEEN: First off we need a few songs that deal with the idea of missing someone. Partly because there’s a missing child in the book, but more importantly Sadie is trying to figure out who she is and what’s missing in her life.
Missing You by Black-Eyed Peas
I Miss You by Incubus
Sadie’s a con artist- so we need at least one good lie song.
Miserable Lie by The Smiths
The book also has some romance so we need a few love ballads to round things out.
The Way You Look Tonight- by Tony Bennet
Someone Like You by Adele

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?

EILEEN: I am addicted to David’s Teas. I’m not a coffee drinker (which is practically a crime in the Pacific Northwest), but I love tea. http://www.davidstea.com They have all sorts of amazing flavors, but a couple favorites are: Coco Chai Rooibos (coconut, ginger, cardamom and peppercorns) and Creamy Earl Grey.

Q: What are you working on for us next?

EILEEN: I am working on a new YA which is currently being called LOST TO BE FOUND, but stay tuned the title may change. It’s about a girl named Avery who decides to search for her birth mom as part of her senior project, but ends up finding out more about herself than she expected.

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