Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

Title: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight 
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Publisher: Poppy/Little Brown
Release date: January 2n 2012
Pages: 236
Genre: Young Adult contemporary romance
Source: Bought

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Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. She's stuck at JFK, late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon to be step-mother that Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's in seat 18B. Hadley's in 18A.
Twists of fate and quirks of timing play out in this thoughtful novel about family connections, second chances and first loves. Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight was the perfect book for me to read on my flight. It’s not the most deep, meaningful, or realistic story, but it’s cute and fun, and it kept me entertained on my own (obviously not as exciting) travels.

The story is cute and fun. Yes, the characters are somewhat basic and a little too perfect, but I didn’t mind, because they’re just so cute. Hadley and Oliver’s interactions are witty and entertaining, and I loved reading about them. I really liked how the cute romance is balanced with some darker topics, since we get to learn about both of their family lives. Both the light, fun stuff and the more serious topics kept the pages turning.

If you’re someone who gets hung up on little details, though, this book might drive you crazy, because there’s a bunch of small things that just don’t make sense. For example, why does Haldey have her big suitcase with her at the gate in JFK, but then goes to pick it up in wherever? And why does she live in Connecticut but just drive to JFK? And what’s up with the looong international phone calls and the genius idea to fly to another continent for a single day – don’t you have anything better to spend your money on!? Those little things bugged me, but they didn’t take much from my overall enjoyment of the novel.

Either way, this book was a cute, fun, read. I especially enjoyed reading it while I, too, was at the airport/on my flight, since Jennifer E Smith conveys the atmosphere of it all really well. If you’re looking for a quick, entertaining read and don’t care if not everything is realistic, this one’s for you!

Interview & Giveaway with Allison Rushby (The Heiresses Blog Tour)

Today we have Allison Rushby here for an author interview and a giveaway! This post is part of the blog tour for The Heiresses, hosted by Xpresso Book Tours. 

Where did you get the inspiration for The Heiresses?

This is extremely embarrassing, but I think it was actually from watching a Dr Phil show, years ago. I can't say too much as it will spoil the plot completely, but I saw a segment that involved a family and their genetic makeup and asked my husband (a medical specialist) about it all that evening. This led me to wondering how this family's scenario might have played out if genetic testing was not available to them, which is the case in The Heiresses, set in 1920s London.

What other novels in the New Adult genre would you compare The Heiresses to?

I think the obvious comparison is Anna Godbersen's The Luxe series, because of the historical setting and the saga-like plot. I love all her books!

What's The Heiresses about?

The Heiresses revolves around triplets Thalia, Erato and Clio. Estranged since birth, they are thrust together in glittering 1926 London to fight for their inheritance. They quickly learn they can't trust anyone in their new lives – least of all each other.

I had an absolute ball writing The Heiresses with all its dramatic highs and lows. I was even lucky enough to be living in Cambridge at the time, so had the advantage of being able to research in London whenever I needed to.

Who are your favourite authors?

My very favourite author is P.G. Wodehouse. So much so that for Christmas I received the five book The Jeeves Omnibus set because I'd worn my old five book set out! Some other favourites are Stella Gibbons and anything at all Mitford.

How long did it take to you to complete The Heiresses?

The Heiresses was a little different for me because it was contracted from only a short writing sample and a series guide. I wrote it very quickly, in under nine months (altogether, it's roughly 120,000 words). Usually I wouldn't be anywhere near this fast!

What was the hardest part about writing The Heiresses?

The most difficult part was the historical research. Although I love to read historical books and watch documentaries and historical dramas on TV, I hadn't actually written anything historical before. When I started writing, I found myself stopping after every second sentence or so to research this point and that point. After a while, I realised I had to write on and put little 'x' signs where I needed to research and go back later to do all my research in one session, or I'd never get anywhere! Luckily, I wrote The Heiresses while living in Cambridgeshire in the UK (I usually live in Australia), so could pop on a fast train and be in London in under an hour to research anything I liked. Being so close to London was an enormous bonus – from the London Transport Museum, to simply walking around Belgrave Square, it really brought the story to life for me. I even managed to crash the village set of Downton Abbey, which was a hugely exciting day, despite the fact that it snowed (Australians don't do snow well…)!

Why New Adult?

I think it's just a fascinating time in life -- a time that's difficult to bridge and often scarier than any other change you've been through. You don't necessarily feel like an adult, but you have sudden adult responsibilities (working, studying in the kind of way where no-one cares if you go to classes or not, maybe being a parent if you have children early…). Everyone has a different experience and everyone deals with that experience differently. There are endless story-telling opportunities! 

What do you feel the major differences are between New Adult and Young Adult?

For me, it's all about bridging that gap between childhood and adulthood and the more I see people discuss New Adult, the more this is firmed up in my mind. I do think people focus too much on the sexual content of books when talking about the New Adult genre. For me, The Heiresses is New Adult because of how the girls deal with the sex they are having in the book (and, to be honest, there isn't a whole lot of sex) and how it changes them from girls into women, along with all the other happenings in their new lives.

So much New Adult work is self-published. Is there a reason you chose the traditional publishing route?

The Heiresses was a bit of a different publishing experience for me as my agent approached me and mentioned St Martin's Press was actively looking for New Adult ideas that could work in serial form. I had the basis of an historical idea that I'd been thinking about for years and the timing was great as Downton Abbey (set in a similar time period) was really taking off. Thus, The Heiresses began to take shape very, very quickly. I'd love to say all my ideas pull off so easily, but unfortunately that's not quite true (I sold my first chick-lit novel out of the slush pile and agent-less in 2000 and have many a manuscript in my bottom drawer)!

Most New Adult books seem to be set in college. Can you tell us more about writing historical New Adult?

As it happens, when I first had the idea for what would become The Heiresses (years ago), there was no such term as New Adult. The idea itself meant that the story required three 18-ish year-old heroines (they needed to be able to inherit money, be of marriageable age, live away from home and be generally young and fabulous in 1920s London etc.), so it simply happened to fall into the New Adult genre naturally. As for the world, I've always adored reading about London in the 1920s and it's a perfect fit for the New Adult genre -- the years between WWI and WWII were a very heady, unstable time to be young in England, with death looming and a 'live for the moment' motto.

What are you reading at the moment?

I'm actually on a short New Adult/Young Adult reading break (might have gorged myself a little there) and am reading Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is absolutely fascinating and horrifying all at the same time.

What are you writing now?

I've just finished a contemporary New Adult novel. While it's set in the present day, it's not college-based, but is about a charismatic modern artist and a young woman who becomes his muse. It's set in Paris, London and New York. My next New Adult novel will most likely be historical, though.

Do you have any advice for aspiring New Adult writers?

Read widely and write what you'd love to read. I think it always shows if you're writing something you're excited about, rather than trying to write to a trend. 

Thanks for the great interview answers, Allison!

Giveaway

As part of the blog tour, St. Martin's is offering 20 paperback copies of The Heiresses, open to US & Canada addresses. Enter using the form below!

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Make sure to check out all the other stops of the tour, and keep your eye out for the Heiresses, which has already been released.

The Heiresses by Allison Rushby
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When three teenage girls, Thalia, Erato and Clio, are summoned to the excitement of fast-paced London--a frivolous, heady city full of bright young things--by Hestia, an aunt they never knew they had, they are shocked to learn they are triplets and the rightful heiresses to their deceased mother's fortune. All they need to do is find a way to claim the fortune from their greedy half-brother, Charles. But with the odds stacked against them, coming together as sisters may be harder than they think.

Author Interview with Joy Preble (The Sweet Dead Life Blog Tour)

Today we have Joy Preble here for an author interview as part of the blog tour for The Sweet Dead Life!

1. I read that you used to be an English teacher - how did that influence you in your own writing?

Novel study certainly gave me a wide and varied background in the world of storytelling. I have a broad knowledge of world literature that makes me aware of the talented shoulders on which I stand and the basic  story patterns and tropes that exist and have been used.  But I would honestly say that my own writing had a larger effect on my teaching of lit! And teaching Creative Writing allowed me to teach myself on the job. So it mostly worked the other way! I do have to say that being a working writer did result in a healthy bit of skepticism of many of the rigid essay structures taught by some of my colleagues. I’d hear teachers lecturing about how students must have EXACTLY a certain number of sentences per paragraph or how they have to remove every single  ‘to be’ verb or some such other arbitrary nonsense that was directed with mostly good intent and I’d think, whoa! That is so screwed up! Even though I knew that their focus was to give non-writers a template.

2. Without spoiling anything, could you tell us what was your favorite scene to write in The Sweet Dead Life?

That’s a hard one because I adore every single scene in this book! But definitely one of my favorite scenes is the one where Jenna discovers that her brother Casey is actually now a guardian angel and even when she believes him, she still subjects him to a haphazard and funny series of tests to prove that he is indeed an ‘A-word.’

3. What is the best writing advice you've ever received?

I’ve received lots of great advice but one of the best suggestions comes from my critique partner, author Kim O’Brien, who when I was writing my first novel, told me to break it down into writing 25 pages at a time. Because it’s scary to think about writing a 250 or 300 page novel. But 25 pages isn’t scary. And once you write 25 pages 4 times, you’ve got 100 pages! After that it feels easier... well sort of.

4. If you had to pair up your main character Jenna with any other character from any other book, who would it be and why?

Jenna and Tess Edwards from the Dreaming Anastasia series would probably burn each other out with their honest assessments of the world. I would hope they would both appreciate how brave and loyal they are.

5. What comes easier for you, description or dialogue?

In The Sweet Dead Life, dialogue always flows easiest, particularly for my narrator, Jenna. She is enormous fun to write and since I just finished the sequel, which will be out in May 2014, Jenna is firmly tucked in my brain. She has a very specific way of speaking and seeing the world and so her dialogue always comes fairly quickly.

6. How do you go about naming your characters?

Good question! It depends on the book. For TSDL, I look on line at certain local place websites that I will not divulge! But they are real places and I mix and match names for exactly the Houston, Texas feel that I need. So far it’s working. Plus I’m a huge fan of Nameberry. If you flip through lists like Hipster Names on Nameberry, you will seriously find most of the names currently given to characters in YA books you love!

7. What is one message you'd like readers from The Sweet Dead Life?

Hmmmm.... That family is what you make of it. That good and evil have some grey areas. And that the most unlikely people can become heroes when their sisters need them.

Thanks for the great interview answers, Joy!

Make sure to check out all the other stops of the tour, and keep your eye out for The Sweet Dead Life, which will be released May 14th.

The Sweet Dead Life by Joy Preble
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“I found out two things today. One, I think I’m dying. And two, my brother is a perv.”
So begins the diary of 14-year-old Jenna Samuels, who is having a very bad eighth-grade year. Her single mother spends all day in bed. Dad vanished when she was eight. Her 16-year-old brother, Casey, tries to hold together what’s left of the family by working two after-school jobs— difficult, as he’s stoned all the time. To make matters worse, Jenna is sick. When she collapses one day, Casey tries to race her to the hospital in their beat-up Prius and crashes instead. Jenna wakes up in the ER to find Casey beside her. Beatified. Literally. The flab and zits? Gone. Before long, Jenna figures out that Casey didn’t survive the accident at all. He’s an “A-word.” (She can’t bring herself to utter the truth.) Soon they discover that Jenna isn’t just dying: she’s being poisoned. And Casey has been sent back to help solve the mystery that not only holds the key to her survival, but also to their mother’s mysterious depression and father’s disappearance.

Review: Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook

Title: Nobody But Us
Author: Kristin Halbrook
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: January 29th 2013
Pages: 272
Genre: Young Adult contemporary
Source: Bought
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Bonnie and Clyde meets Simone Elkeles in this addictively heart-wrenching story of two desperate teenagers on the run from their pasts.
They’re young. They’re in love. They’re on the run.
Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger....
When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can’t run fast enough.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I was expecting Nobody But Us to be a light, fun read – something along the lines of Tokyo Heist or Pretty Crooked, a cute story with some crime on the side. But that is most definitely not what Nobody But Us is all about. It’s the story of two teens who grew up in dire circumstances, trying to escape but just running into more and more trouble. It’s heartbreaking, but I still loved it.

The characters are great. With alternating narrators, it’s always hard to make sure the two voices are actually distinct, but Kristin Halbrook did a great job with that. It’s easy to tell the two narrators apart, and they both have their own unique way of telling their stories. I can’t say I particularly liked either of them – there were times when I just wanted to shake both of them to realize how stupid they were being – but I definitely felt for them: it’s impossible not to, considering what they’ve been through. Even when I didn’t understand their reasoning, I couldn’t blame them because their pasts have scarred them and broken them in this way. I just wanted to hug them both and never let them go, to make sure nothing bad would ever happen to them again.

The suspense is great, too. I wasn’t expecting Nobody But Us to be such an action-packed novel, but with the two of them on the run from the police, it definitely has its share of action scenes. These scenes balance well with the emotional ones, making sure the reader keeps the pages turning. I especially liked how the novel doesn’t condemn any character for their actions – everyone in the novel has committed crimes and done bad things, but they’re not portrayed as bad people; it’s just the circumstances around them. Not knowing who was the good guy and who was the bad guy made the action scenes even more fascinating, and made me think about how things could possibly turn out in a way that wouldn’t be terrible for these characters.

One aspect I didn’t enjoy as much was the romance. A large part of the novel relies on the relationship between Will and Zoe; they’re running away together, from their separate pasts, to build a new life together. But the romance just didn’t work for me. Will and Zoe have only known each other for about two months, and she’s 15, while he’s 18. I know those are very superficial things to judge a relationship on, but those factors made it hard for me to take their love seriously, and to see a future for the two of them together.

Despite my issues with the romance storyline, I really enjoyed Nobody But Us. With lots of action and suspense as well as heartbreaking emotion, Nobody But Us is a great contemporary for any kind of reader.

Interview & Giveaway with Megg Jensen (Shucked Blog Tour)

Today we have Megg Jensen here for an interview and a giveaway! This post is part of the blog  tour for Shucked by Megg Jensen, organized by Xpresso Book Tours.

Interview

1. Why did you decide to write a contemporary YA after spending the last three years writing high fantasy with the Song of Eloh Saga?

Shucked has been floating around my brain for close to seven years, but I always wanted to be known as a fantasy author, so I kept pushing Tabitha to the side. In January, she decided to grab a hold of me and not let go.

2. Why did you set the novel on a farm?

I grew up on a farm and have always wanted to write about life there. Shucked gave me a chance to do that. It was a lot of fun writing about some of the thing that were normal to me as a kid that aren’t normal to everyone else. I adore my farming community and loved incorporating that small town spirit into the book.

3. Why did you decide to write a contemporary YA after spending the last three years writing high fantasy with the Song of Eloh Saga?

Shucked has been floating around my brain for close to seven years, but I always wanted to be known as a fantasy author, so I kept pushing Tabitha to the side. In January, she decided to grab a hold of me and not let go.

4. Why did you set the novel on a farm?

I grew up on a farm and have always wanted to write about life there. Shucked gave me a chance to do that. It was a lot of fun writing about some of the thing that were normal to me as a kid that aren’t normal to everyone else. I adore my farming community and loved incorporating that small town spirit into the book.

5.  did you come up with the idea for the cover? I love it!

It wasn’t easy. I have a fantastic cover designer, Steven Novak (www.novakillustration.com). Usually he designs a cover, I say yes, and we’re done. This time I felt like the concept was a lot harder to nail down. He worked through four or five different version with me. I couldn’t be happier with the cover that you’re seeing now.

6. Tell me about the title, Shucked.

Haha, that was another toughie. From the beginning, the file on my computer for this book was Adventure. It wasn’t until I became serious about publishing it that I realized I needed a unique title. I went through close to a hundred different ideas, but none of them felt right. Eventually I settled on Digging In. I figured it was the best I would come up with. About two weeks before publication, I finally had that stroke of brilliance with Shucked. Not only does it scream farm (shucking corn), it also is representative of what happens to Tabitha during the book (having her emotional layers peeled away), and there’s always the street meaning, which you can look up on Urban Dictionary if you want. Lol

7. Will you write more contemporary novels?

I hope so! Right now I’m working on my next high fantasy, but Tabitha’s still in the back of my mind, begging for a continuation of her story. While Shucked easily works as a stand-alone novel, I think we all know that no one’s story really ever ends. There’s always tomorrow. 

Thanks for the great interview questions, Megg!

Giveaway

Megg was so generous to offer an ebook copy of Shucked and three bookmarks to one lucky winner! The giveaway is international, open to entrants ages 13 and older. It's open from now till May 15th. Enter using the form below. Good luck!



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Shucked by Megg Jensen
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Fifteen-year-old Tabitha has had the kind of life that would impress even the greatest adventurers. She's escaped a croc attack in the Amazon, walked the length of the Great Wall of China, and earned a black belt in taekwondo in Korea. She owes her worldly experience to her mother's career in archaeology, but when her mother takes on a dangerous new assignment, Tabitha is devastated to learn she can't tag along.
Instead, she's forced to live on a midwestern farm with her grandparents where she'll have to attend a full year of public school. It's Tabitha's greatest nightmare, because despite all her adventures, she has no practical experience with the one thing that frightens her the most - other teenagers.
Her math teacher is her mom's old high school boyfriend, she can't tell the friendly girls from the mean ones, and she develops a major crush on a boy she knows she can't trust. And just when she thinks she'll never get the hang of this normal teenager thing, an attack brings the danger of her previous life right up to her midwestern porch. Who could have ever guessed getting totally shucked would bring her face-to-face with her most exciting adventure yet?