Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel

INFINITE DAYS

by Rebecca Maizel

Young Adult
St. Martin's
www.RebeccaMaizel.com


5 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, August 6, 2010!




About the Book:

Throughout all my histories, I found no one I loved more than you...no one."

Those were some of Rhode's last words to me. The last time he would pronounce his love. The last time I would see his face.

It was the first time in 592 years I could take a breath. Lay in the sun. Taste.

Rhode sacrificed himself so I, Lenah Beaudonte, could be human again. So I could stop the blood lust.

I never expected to fall in love with someone else that wasn't Rhode.

But Justin was...daring. Exciting. More beautiful than I could dream.

I never expected to be sixteen again...then again, I never expected my past to come back and haunt me...





Read our Exclusive Interview with the Author!

1) Considering a book from the first word you write to the moment you see it on a bookstore shelf, what’s your favorite part of the process? What’s your least favorite?

My favorite part (besides writing) is discussions about my characters and their decisions with my agent and editors. I love talking about these characters like they’re real people, as though they are walking around the world and could, perhaps, call us on the phone any moment.

2) When you got that first phone call announcing you had sold a novel, how did you react? How did you celebrate?

The first thing I asked my agent was, “When can I quit bartending?” I celebrated with a dinner with my family, It was the best moment of my life.

3) Desert Island time. You can bring one person and one thing. What would you bring?

My dog, Louie (he counts as a person, right?) and a solar powered lap top so I can read books and listen to music.

4) If you could choose one dessert or snack food that you could eat as much as you want of (and never gain an ounce!) what would it be?

Chocolate covered oreos.
Can I pick two? Fried rice.
☺

5) If there was one thing about Lenah's life that you’d like to have in your own life, what would it be? What about the one thing about his/her life that you’d NEVER want to have?

If I could have anything the Lenah has, it would be her knowledge of herbs and flowers. She’s so well versed in botany and herbal medicine – I would love that.

I would never want to live with the things she’s done. I don’t think I could be as brave as she is and I wouldn’t want to live with that resting on my shoulders.

About the Author:

Rebecca Maizel graduated from Boston University and the Rhode Island College master’s program. She teaches community college in Rhode Island and is studying to receive her MFA from Vermont College. Visit the author's website at: www.RebeccaMaizel.com.

**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar. Comments left on the post, while appreciated, are not used as entry. Thanks!

Closed this Week

Hello everyone! Free Book Friday Teens is closed this week but will return next week with another great book giveaway!

In the meantime, check out our Fiction site at www.FreeBookFriday.com and enter to win a free autographed copy of 32 CANDLES, an exciting new novel by debut author, Ernessa T. Carter!

Queen of Secrets - Winners!

5 lucky winners will be receiving free autographed copies of Queen of Secrets by Jenny Meyerhoff

And here they are...

1) Kelsy Ketchum
2) Leah Nealon
3) Mary Lynch
4) Aurora Momcilovich
5) Jesmar Rivera


If you didn't win, but still want to read Queen of Secrets, you can order your own copies on Amazon by clicking here!


Or find it in our Free Book Friday Amazon Store!

Queen of Secrets by Jenny Meyerhoff

QUEEN OF SECRETS

by Jenny Meyerhoff

Young Adult
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
www.JennyMeyerhoff.com


5 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, July 23, 2010!




About the Book:

This year, Essie Green’s life is going to be different. She’s made the cheerleading squad and caught the eye of the captain of the football team. However, she didn't expect her estranged cousin to join the football team. Micah is instantly branded a freak for praying during games, and Essie doesn’t want anything to do with him. As the football team’s teasing of Micah shifts into hazing, Essie is forced to make a choice between the boy she might love and the cousin she barely knows.





Read our Exclusive Interview with the Author!

1) When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? Have you had other jobs along the way?

I knew I wanted to be a writer in sixth grade. One day I came to school and my teacher told the class that she wanted us to make our room look nice for parent’s night, so each person would have to write a poem. After it was written we had to bring it to her for her approval, then we’d be allowed to illustrate it and post it on the wall. I got right to work and wrote my poem in record time. When I showed it to her she asked me (not very nicely) if an adult had helped me write it. Huh? I thought. I’ve obviously been sitting at my desk the entire morning. How could I have had help? Instead of being insulted though, I took it as a compliment. (Still do.) That day I went home and asked my mom to get me a notebook. I pretty much wrote poetry non-stop for the next six years. (Yes. I was that girl.)

Even though I wrote a lot, it took a while to build up the courage to submit things for publication. I even stopped writing fiction for a while when I didn’t get into the advanced fiction writing workshop in college on the first try. Now I know when I get a rejection I keep working and make the piece better! But back then, I took it as a sign that I shouldn’t be writing fiction at all. I spent the next decade teaching and doing freelance jobs for magazines and newspaper, mostly on parenting and education related-topics. See, I thought I wanted to write about teens. Then one day something clicked in me and I realized, no, I wanted to write for them.

2) Considering a book from the first word you write to the moment you see it on a bookstore shelf, what’s your favorite part of the process? What’s your least favorite?

For me, there are a lot of fun parts! I love, love, love the rush of getting a new idea, when characters and plot details and setting and back-story all fill your brain and you can feel what the book will be like in it’s ideal form. I hate the feeling I get further along into the process when I haven’t quite gotten the book to feel like that ideal book in my mind, and I’m not sure that I will ever be able to.

I love the feeling after revisions, after line editing, after copy editing after first pass pages and second pass pages when I think, “I did it. I actually wrote a book and you know what? I kind of like it. I think it turned out okay.” I hate the feeling I get when I get the ARC and start to worry, “What if there is some big major glaring error that no one noticed?” To this day, I have not read either of my finished books. I’m certain there would be things I’d want to change, and I don’t want to know what they are.

Last, I love hearing from readers who connected with my book. Who tell me that my book really meant something to them. That’s got to be, far and away, the best part of all.

3) When you start a new book, do you like to outline the entire story or fly by the seat of your pants? What about your characters? Do you figure them out entirely before you start writing or do they reveal themselves to you along the way?

I outline a little. I definitely try to think about where I want to be at the end before I begin. For example, if I want a character to reveal a big secret at the end of the book, then I know at the beginning I have to show her decision to keep the secret in the first place. But even though I do make myself a mini-outline, I’m not married to it. It usually changes as I write.

I also try to figure out characters a bit before I start (or maybe while I’m working on the beginning.) But for me, the process of getting to know my characters takes a long time. I’m still learning new things about them in very late drafts, things like personality quirks and back-story details. The big thing I like to know at the beginning is much broader: what is the essence of their personality? For Essie, in QUEEN OF SECRETS, it was that she was stuck in the place where on the one hand she wanted to grow up and start making her own decision; on the other hand she expected others to take care of her and handle things for her when they got hard.

4) What scene or bit of dialogue in the book are you most proud of and why?

I really loved writing all the scenes about the developing relationship between Essie and Austin. There is no better feeling than falling in love, the nerves, the excitement, the delicious shiver you get whenever you see the other person. I really hope I captured that well enough for readers and they get to feel like they are experiencing it with Essie. As I writer I definitely got to feel those feelings all over again. (And I learned that I love to write kissing scenes!)

5) QUEEN OF SECRETS is a great title! Who came up with it? Was it the original title or did it change along the way?

Thank you. My husband came up with it and it was one of many, many titles the book had along the way. When I was writing the early drafts the working title was The Book of Essie because the book is a loose retelling of the biblical story The Book of Esther. I was never really thrilled with that title though, so when it went out on submission I changed it to Girl in Waiting. It sold, but one of the first things my editor said to me was, “Are you open to changing the title?” I was. As my mother-in-law put it, Girl in Waiting made it sound like a historical novel about a pregnant teenager (definitely not what my book was about.) My mother-in-law then suggested I try to use the word secret in the title, since it fit with my book and is such a strong word. Eventually I came up with The Impossible Secrets of Essie Green. I kind of liked it, but the marketing department thought that sounded like a book for younger kids, and they were right. It was back to the drawing board again. But then one day my husband sent me an email with this title, and I knew QUEEN OF SECRETS was right!

About the Author:

Jenny Meyerhoff loosely based this novel on The Book of Esther. The author of Third Grade Baby, she lives in Riverwoods, Illinois. Visit the author's website at: www.JennyMeyerhoff.com.

**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar. Comments left on the post, while appreciated, are not used as entry. Thanks!

Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository - Winners!

5 lucky winners will be receiving free Autographed Copies of Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository!

And here they are...

1) Ashden Crawford
2) Vanessa Lam
3) Clarisa Cruz
4) Emma Brown
5) Caitlin McLennan


If you didn't win, but still want to read Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository, you can order your own copies on Amazon by clicking here!

Or find it in our Free Book Friday Amazon Store!

Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository by Melissa de la Cruz

KEYS TO THE REPOSITORY
(a Blue Bloods book)

by Melissa de la Cruz

Paranormal Young Adult

Disney/Hyperion
www.Melissa-delaCruz.com

5 autographed copies will be given away on Friday, July 16, 2010!!!

New York Times Bestselling Author!





About the Book:

Lavish parties. Passionate meetings in the night. Bone-chilling murders. Midterms. The day-to-day life of Schuyler Van Alen and her Blue Bloods friends (and enemies) is never boring. But there's oh-so-much more to know about these beautiful and powerful teens. Below the streets of Manhattan, within the walls of the Repository, exists a wealth of revealing information about the vampire elite that dates back before the Mayflower. In a series of short stories, journal entries, and never-before-seen letters, New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz gives her hungry fans the keys to the Repository and an even more in-depth look into the secret world of the Blue Bloods.

Won't you come inside?

Check out our exclusive interview with the Author!

1) If you could have dinner with one of your characters who would it be?

Lawrence would be fun I think, although we'd have to find somewhere he can smoke cigars. He reminds me of my first ever corporate boss, who was very grandfatherly and used to take all the young people in his firm to Le Cirque for Christmas, where we'd have this huge, decadent boozy, eight-hour nine-course dinner. Conversation flowed, as did the 500-year-old wine. I imagine dinner with Lawrence Van Alen to be something of that nature, at the Explorer's Club of course, where we would admire the elephant heads on the wall that he shot himself in the 1800s.

2) If your main character, Schuyler, could give one piece of advice to teenage girls/boys, what would it be?

Schuyler would tell all teenagers, girls and boys, to follow their hearts and not to shy away from happiness. Some things are just meant to be, and you can't fight it.

3) How do you come up with your character names?

I've always liked the name Schuyler, it's an old American name, and it's a little bit of an n insider one, where you have to know how to pronounce it correctly because you can't tell from the way it's spelled. One of my friends is from an old WASPy American family and his name is Schuyler so I stole it and gave it to my heroine. Bliss came from Blythe Danner, I always liked that name but I thought Blythe was too singular and everyone would imagine Blythe Danner. So I changed it to Bliss. I was doing some research and Madeleine Force was a socialite who went down in the Titanic, so of course she became my Mimi Force. I've always liked the name Jack, since the early 90s, and I'd written two unpublished novels with heroes named Jack so I was glad to finally have a Jack. One of my best friends growing up was named Benjamin, but we never called him that, just like no one ever calls Jack Benjamin. (My friend was called Jam.) I liked how Jack Force sounded, sort of like a superhero, with a lot of strength built in the name alone. Dylan was my rebel hottie crush in college, Kingsley came from Kingsley Amis. I steal names from people I know, or from other books. It's hard to find a good name that's evocative and original but doesn't careen too much into soap-opera territory.

4) Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository is a great title! Who came up with it? Was it the original title or did it change along the way?

Yes, the original title was The Repository Files but my awesome editor suggested Keys to the Repository, which was perfect!

5) Thinking back to the way beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

I think the important thing I've learned is that in the end, you always have to write for yourself. I always make sure I am proud of the story, and that I love it, and I am entertained by it, and that I pushed it as hard as I could. I'm my own harshest critic, so as long as it passes my test, then I'm okay with it. And then you have to learn to accept the reactions to your work as something you cannot control. I put the same heart, effort and imagination into all my books, but some books are more well received than others, and I am always surprised because it's never the one you expect. You can't predict anything, you can just work really hard and try your best, and then be satisfied because you have done that. I don't beat myself up about things I can't control. I can control how good the book is, and that's pretty much it. I can't control if people are going to like it or not. That's up to them.

For instance, with Revelations, I was kind of worried because the ending is a bit dark, with an unpopular pairing, so I was worried I would lose some readers, but I figured they would have faith in the story and keep with the series, and I was very moved when Van Alen Legacy did so well because it meant my readers were on board, and would wait patiently for the next installment. So that's awesome. For me, the most fun is living through the story with the characters. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing anymore. I love writing the Blue Bloods story, and it's kept my interest even though so much of it has been plotted years before, and sometimes I get impatient--for instance I can't WAIT to write Book 8. But I have to write Book 7 first, which is also exciting, and has this huge scene that I have been salivating to write for more than a year now...but oh...Book Eight!

About the Author:

Melissa de la Cruz is the author of many best-selling novels, including all of the books in the Blue Bloods series; the Au Pairs series; the Ashleys series; and Angels on Sunset Boulevard. She lives in Los Angeles, California. Visit her online at: www.Melissa-delaCruz.com.

**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar. Comments left on the post, while appreciated, are not used as entry. Thanks!

Other - Winners!

5 lucky winners will be receiving free Autographed Copies of Other!

And here they are...

1) Meghan Dondero
2) Lilla Braun
3) Kari Sutherlin
4) Kathleen Assalone
5) Rachel Wong


If you didn't win, but still want to read Other, you can order your own copies on Amazon by clicking here!

Or find it in our Free Book Friday Amazon Store!

Other by Karen Kincy

OTHER

by Karen Kincy

Young Adult
Flux
www.KarenKincy.com


5 Signed Copies will be given away on Friday, July 9, 2010!



About the Book:

Gwen Williams has been hiding a strange and fantastic secret: she’s a shapeshifter. Although society may tolerate vampires, centaurs, and “Others” like Gwen, there are plenty of folks in her small Washington town who don’t care for her kind. When a new werewolf pack moves into the area, tensions rise—and Others start showing up dead, including someone close to Gwen. Despite the methodical murders, the police are ignoring evidence that suggests a serial killer. In the midst of terrible loss and danger, Gwen—along with a mysterious and sexy guy who happens to be a Japanese fox spirit—risks her life to find the murderer. But Gwen is already the killer’s next target…





Read our Exclusive Interview with the Author!

1)What kind of research did you have to do to bring Other to life on the page?

First of all, I will admit to getting carried away sometimes and spending hours researching. For example, since werewolves feature into Other and most definitely the sequel, Bloodborn, that gave me a handy excuse to read as many books on wolf behavior as possible. I visited a wolf sanctuary near Tenino, WA to observe real wolves, although that gave me more insights into how captivity affects wolves than anything. As for the kitsune fox-spirits, I hunted down a rare out-of-print book about traditional kitsune folklore at my college’s library, then pored over the fascinating legends.

Often, my memories serve as research, but when that’s not enough, I revisit places or events. Like the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, WA, which stars in Other as the backdrop for a fight scene. True fact: as a kid, I visited that fair for my birthday nearly every year. I ate elephant ears, watched the draft horse show, and won blue ribbons in the photography competition. Now when I visit the fair, I can’t help thinking of—a teeny tiny spoiler—werewolves. I wholeheartedly swear by the old adage, “Write what you know,” and would like to add that you can always learn what you don’t.

2) Your characters seem so alive and real...what's your secret?

Realistic characters come from real people. That’s my rather simple philosophy, anyway. Granted, you can’t copy and paste straight from your life into a story, but I will readily admit that my characters are Frankenstein patchworks of personalities I have encountered. My characters often do things that I can’t or wouldn’t, but that’s the best part. For me, reading and writing a great story is like being able to shapeshift into different lives, though of course I draw on my own experiences and emotions in order to portray my characters in a way that rings true. Reading books on acting techniques helps me get into character if I’m dealing with a challenge.

3) If your main character, Gwen, could give one piece of advice to teenage girls/boys, what would it be?

Understand yourself. Gwen hides her true identity while she struggles with the decision to reveal herself to her boyfriend and everyone else she knows. When she finally does, her old life falls to pieces, and she realizes that she was so busy acting out a personality for other people that she doesn’t know what she wants for herself. Anything more would be too spoilery, so that’s all for this question!

4) If there was one thing about Gwen's life that you’d like to have in your own life, what would it be? What about the one thing about her life that you’d NEVER want to have?

Obviously I would pounce upon Gwen’s shapeshifting powers in a heartbeat. Although that would mean that my schedule and organization would fly out the window while I, ahem, flew out the window as an owl, or ran around in the forest as a cougar, or tried out any number of interesting animal forms. As for an unwanted thing, I have to go with never, ever wanting a serial killer hunting down people like me in my hometown.

5) Thinking back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

When you write for publication, you’re writing as a business. For me, that means putting in as many constructive, organized hours as I would at any other job; cultivating a serene, egoless smile for critiques and editorial input; growling over taxes; learning how to market myself; maintaining an online presence and author’s persona, etc. That certainly doesn’t mean that the fun and creativity of writing have waned. If anything, being able to objectively step back and say, “This revision/cover change/new title will make my novel more appetizing to browsers in a bookstore,” wipes away any of the too-sensitive, “Don’t touch my baby!” attitude I may have had before, as a new novelist.

About the Author:

Karen Kincy (Washington) graduated from The Evergreen State College with a BA in linguistics and literature. The setting of her debut novel, Other, is based on her hometown of Snohomish, Washington. Visit the author's website at: www.KarenKincy.com

**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar of our website. Comments left on the post, while appreciated, are not used as entry. Thanks!

Lifted - Winners!

3 lucky winners will be receiving free Autographed Copies of Lifted!

And here they are...

1) Robyn Murphy
2) Carol Hawthorne
3) Ikie Malave


If you didn't win, but still want to read Lifted, you can order your own copies on Amazon by clicking here!

Or find it in our Free Book Friday Amazon Store!