See how easy that was?

Grade: B+

To the FTC, with love: I received a finished copy of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children from the generous folks at Quirk Books.

To the FTC, with love: Another library fine find

Senior Brooke Dempsey is rich, beautiful, and one of the most popular girls at William O. Douglas High. Kathryn Pease, on the other hand, is not. Considering all their differences, a friendship between the girls never should have worked. But it did. Once. Back in junior year, the two music lovers bonded over their shared passion. With Kathryn, Brooke can be real, embracing her inner choir geek without fear of being mocked. Kathryn's surprised by Brooke's sudden attention, but thrilled when it turns her into an overnight A-lister, bringing her instant acceptance from a group of people who never gave her the time of day before. Riding high on the wave of her new-found popularity, Kathryn ignores Brooke's warnings about the fickleness of the in crowd. Until Homecoming night, when a spectacular betrayal shows her just how treacherous tango-ing with high school royalty can be.

A year later, Kathryn's dwindling in social obscurity once again. She goes out of her way to avoid Brooke, but there's one place where she can't hide from the wrath of her former friend - chamber choir. Especially now that the girls are competing against each other to win a prestigious vocal competition. Kathryn's in it less for the honor and more for the prize money and scholarships - without them, she won't have the funds to go to college. Brooke doesn't need the money, but she's anxious to prove herself to everyone who dismisses her dreams of singing professionally as a silly fantasy. Beating each other would just be icing on the cake.

As the contest creeps closer and closer, the rivalry between the girls reaches fever pitch, forcing them to confront each other about the closeness they once shared and the stunning betrayal that ripped their friendship apart. When all is said and done, only one question remains: Who is the better singer? Soon they'll find out. But as the competition gets underway, both begin to wonder - Does it really matter?

Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer, brings all the drama of high school to vivid life in a debut novel with surprising depth. It's a story that examines the ups and downs of teenage friendships without discounting them as frivolous or childish. By letting us inside the heads of both heroines, Wealer tells an impactful she said/she said tale that reminds us that friendships - like rivalries, like betrayals - are not always what they seem. And that truth will always set you free. Authentic and hopeful, Rival might not blow you away, but it will make you root for two girls with so much to lose, and so very much to win.

(Readalikes: The music part of it reminds me a little of Sing Me to Sleep by Angela Morrison. Other than that, I can't really think of anything.)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for language (2 F-bombs, plus milder invectives), sexual innuendo, and scenes depicting underrage drinking/partying

To the FTC, with love: I received an ARC of Rival from the generous folks at Harper Teen. Thank you!

Okay, now that you've done that, read on:

Me: Hi Angela! Welcome back to BBB. I know you address this in depth on your website, but tell me the Cliff's Notes version of how the TBS trilogy came about - how it started, what happened with the publisher after you finished the first book, how you ended up self-publishing the last two books, etc.

AM: Wow, that's a long story. I'll try. Michael's story was inspired by a dive tragedy I heard about scuba diving off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. I developed the story under the guidance of amazing mentors at Vermont College. Leesie came in to the picture when I sent Michael to live with his frail Gram who lived in my grandmother's house in the rural Washington town where I grew up. I sent him to my old high school. I let Leesie live on the farm where I grew up. Michael was devastated. Leesie couldn't keep her eyes off him. How could they help falling for each other?

It took me three and half years of revisions, editor's showing interest, more revisions, and rejections before I finally sold TAKEN BY STORM to Razorbill/Penguin. They signed me for two books. Michael and Leesie's sequel, that I'd mapped and started working on because they wouldn't stop talking in my head, was supposed to be the second book. Razorbill's publisher decided he didn't want the second book to be a sequel. They loved UNBROKEN CONNECTION's plot but wanted me to write it for different characters. I refused. UNBROKEN CONNECTION is Leesie's story and no one else's. So I emptied out my idea box, brainstormed with my editor, and wrote SING ME TO SLEEP (March 2010).

That was an incredible experience, I adore that book and feel honored Amabile Choirs and Matt's family cheered on my efforts, but Michael and Leesie were still talking in my head. I owed Razorbill my next YA novel to fulfill my option clause. My agent sent them an updated proposal for UNBROKEN CONNECTION. We heard nothing from them. I needed to write their story and my contract specified I submit a complete manuscript to fulfill the option, so I gave in and wrote it. A week before SING ME TO SLEEP, my editor called me to tell me her last day with Razorbill would be Friday. I lost my advocate at Penguin. I flew up to London, Ontario to celebrate SING's launch and Amabile's 25th Anniversary. The morning after their festival concert--where "Beth's Song" stole the show--Razorbill's publisher emailed me that they were passing on UNBROKEN CONNECTION. And then my agent decided to bail on me, too.

My wonderful readers and all those fantastic YA bloggers out there didn't bail on me. They told me they wanted more Michael and Leesie. I had a book ready for them. So I swallowed hard, released it as an ebook, and then we released a print on demand version via CreateSpace.

Me: What do you, yourself, find so compelling about Michael and Leesie's story? Why did you feel so passionate about finishing it, even if it meant publishing some of it yourself?

AM: Their voices haunted me all the time. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with them talking in my head. And I was dying to find out what they were going to say or do next. I know their story is at last complete because they're quiet now. I miss them.

Me: This is a similar question, but why do you think readers - LDS and non-LDS - find Michael and Leesie so irresistible? What about their story makes them universally appealing?

AM: There's both a desperation and a beauty to the way they love each other. They aren't perfect--they hurt each other, forgive each other, make sacrifices for each other. They are teenagers, but I don't discount how truly they love each other. Romeo and Juliet were even younger, right? Shakespeare didn't discount how impossible it was for his couple to give each other up. I followed his lead. I suppose there's enough R&J in M&L--and maybe enough of everyone's first love--to make them appealing to all kinds of readers around the world.

Me: You wrote CAYMAN SUMMER in a very different way than you did the other books in the series. Tell me about that.

AM: As a thank you to my readers who encouraged me to release UNBROKEN CONNECTION independently, I decided to write Michael and Leesie's third and final journey,CAYMAN SUMMER, on a blog. My most devoted readers became my critiquers and editors. You can read three version of the manuscript--including the final revised version that we published--for free at http://caymansummer.blogspot.com/. It's also available as a Kindle ebook and on Amazon in paperback.

Me: How did writing a novel that way differ from writing one in the traditional manner? What worked better? What was more difficult? What did you learn from the experience?

AM: The blog journey became a thrilling collaboration. I tried to post a new scene every day. Knowing I had readers waiting for it was great motivation. Their comments fed the next scene I needed to write. They even named the new characters. I wish I could write every new novel like that. I felt sick to my stomach the first time I posted my rough scratches, but I came to love the interaction and owe those readers so much. The drafting process worked great on a blog. The revision process was hard to share. To complete the final revision, I had to go off-line for a few weeks.

Me: Michael and Leesie's story is all about compromise. You've been married for a long time - in your opinion, what can be compromised in a relationship and what can't? How did your personal beliefs influence Michael and Leesie's story?

AM: My personal beliefs are the framework for Michael and Leesie's story. Free of editors and publishers, I allowed them to surface even more in CAYMAN SUMMER. Some readers didn't like that. But most appreciated that my truths are the bones and sinews of my art. I can't clothe it in anything else.

Me: One of the things I admire most about your books is their honesty, especially concerning the realities of Mormon teens dealing with everyday struggles. Some adult readers, especially LDS ones, find this honesty too edgy for the teens in their lives. As an LDS parent (and grandparent!), how do you respond to that?

AM: They are honest, accurate, and I fought Penguin to keep them PG-13. Steamy, but not explicit. Sex, love, abstinence are all treated frankly. They are about an LDS girl dating a non-member guy. And she's not perfect. She makes mistakes. Half of the book is in Michael's point of view. He's not creepy, but he wants to love Leesie like he's loved other girls. And she has to make clear why she can't. And try to keep those boundaries. (Maybe that explains their "universal appeal"!)

They very well could be way too edgy. My original manuscript for TAKEN BY STORM had more relationship building and Michael grieving than steamy kissing scenes. We had to cut 30,000 words out of that manuscript. My editor chopped so many tender scenes. And I ended up writing more steamy scenes. Before TAKEN BY STORM released, I wrote several anguished blog posts. (See "Steaminess Issues," "Corrupting the Beehives," and "Mormon Mom Review") I think it's impossible to generalize. Whether my books are too edgy or exactly what an LDS girl needs to read, depends on the teen. I tell LDS moms to read them first and then discuss the issues raised with their daughters. My books are Standards Nights they won't put down. Dating a nonmember guy is a universal experience for LDS girls living outside of Utah. Too many LDS novels romanticize that. I've seen too many young women get their hearts broken or, even worse, leave the church because they fall in love with a nonmember guy. I made TAKEN BY STORM as honest as I could for them.

Me: Since scuba diving has such a large place in the series, I just have to ask: How/why did you start diving? What do you love about it? What (where?) are your favorite dive locations? And how do you feed the need to dive while living in this hot, dry desert? [Angela lives near me in Arizona's very arid Sonoran Desert.]

AM: My husband snorkeled when he was growing up. We got interested in scuba diving on a trip to the Bahamas when we booked a snorkel trip on a boat with real, live scuba divers. We bought SCUBA DIVER magazines and dreamed. When I stopped having babies, we got certified. Swimming is the only sport I actually like, so anything to do with the water I get excited about. I love how otherwordly the underwater world is. When you ride around on a boat, you have no idea what is hidden underneath the surface. It's like a secret planet, and only divers know how to get there. I love diving on Grand Cayman--especially the East End where Michael and Leesie are in CAYMAN SUMMER. The most spectacular dive we ever took was Little Cayman's Bloody Bay Wall. Best wreck? There's this amazing World War II wreck in the Red Sea that is still full of jeeps and motorcycles. Amazing. Surviving in the desert? We have a big, deep pool and my hubby and the kids fill up dive tanks and go in. We try to take trips where we can dive. This summer we're going to Bermuda for a family reunion. There's supposed to be good wrecks there.

AM: I signed with a new agent, Erzsi Deak at Hen & Ink, who I adore. We've been revising my books that had to sit on the shelf during my Penguin contract. Two very different projects. MY ONLY LOVE is a tragic historical romance based on my Scottish forebears. I turned my great, great, great, great grandmother's big brother into the hottest collier (coalminer) lad ever to come out of Scotland. It's set in the early 19th Century and written with a gloss of a Scottish brogue. That's in submission as we speak. I'm working on the finishing touches of a YA time-travel romantic suspense novel, SLIPPED. If you took Mad Max and Jane Eyre and stuck them in Medieval Europe, you get SLIPPED. My hero, Jag, is more like Mad Max's great-great-grandson. But he's just as hot. Maybe hotter. SLIPPED began live as a middle grade boys novel, but when I finished the first draft, Jag had turned out way too hot to waste on middle grade boys. I'm also collaborating on a musical stage adaptation of SING ME TO SLEEP with Harriet Bushman, the incredible composer who wrote the music for "Beth's Song" and "Take me Home." And, of course, I've got a couple new contemporary YA love stories I want to write. I'm eager to find new voices to take Michael and Leesie's place in my head.

Me: I know you're a voracious reader - what books are you loving right now? Which up-and-coming titles are you excited about?

AM: I got to indulge my taste for all things Bronte to research SLIPPED. I absolute adore JANE EYRE. There is so much spirit in that book that gets left out of the movie versions. And have you read VILLETTE? It is haunting. Right now I'm reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau's JULIE, THE NEW HELOISE. It had me in tears this afternoon--despite all the long philosophical passages.

Me: Wonderful! Thanks so much, Angela.

Desires of the Dead starts three months after The Body Finder ends. By now, 16-year-old Violet Ambrose has come to terms with her little "talent" of recognizing the imprints left behind by the dead. Sort of. It's not like she's ready to broadcast her freakishness to the world, but at least she's learning to control the sensations that cloud her mind every time she's near a dead body or someone who's been responsible for another's death. She's relieved that life's returning to normal, or at least this new version of normal. Violet may never get used to the fact that adorable Jay Heaton's no longer her best friend, but her boyfriend. Not that that's a bad thing.

Violet's tentative hold on normal shatters one day when she's wandering along Seattle's waterfront and hears the faint strains of a harp. From the way her body tingles with anticipation, pulling her toward the sound, she knows the music's not coming from the radio or a street performer. It's an echo. Violet's anonymous, phoned-in tip leads police to the body of a missing child. And grabs the attention of the FBI. An agent wants her help to find the little boy's killer.

As much as Violet wants to use her skill for good, she doesn't want it to take over her life. But ignoring the FBI agent's calls doesn't bring normal back. Someone's sending Violet disturbing messages, she's seeing a weird imprint at her high school, and Jay's spending more time with the new kid than he is with her. As if all that's not quite enough to deal with, Violet's being trailed by Rafe, a guy with "talents" that seem all too familiar. Overwhelmed by all the mysteries, she doesn't know where to turn, whom to trust. Only one thing is really clear: Violet's running out of time to figure it all out.

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for language (a handful of F-bombs, plus other, milder invectives), violence and some sexual content

To the FTC, with love: Another library fine find

Since the book is so hard to describe and I can't discuss it in detail without being spoilerish, I'll give you the summary from the back of my ARC:

The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming ...

This monster, though, is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth.

I know - it doesn't give you much to go on, does it? Suffice it to say, A Monster Calls is a book about a 13-year-old boy dealing with the shock and grief of watching his mother wittle away from cancer. It's about anger and guilt and sadness and coming to terms with the cruel blows life deals to all of us, even the very young. Conor's a sympathetic character, one whose feelings are so familiar they'll strike a chord with anyone who's ever experienced a loss, be it large or small. The story itself is told in a dark, compelling way that keeps readers guessing, even as it barrels toward a not unexpected ending.

As I mentioned, I didn't love the book like I wanted to. I liked it, though, and found it to be quite profound in its simplicity. Perhaps even more so because the idea for the short novel (novella?) actually came from British writer Siobhan Dowd, who died of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 47. After Dowd passed away, Ness was asked to develop Dowd's story idea into an actual story. Since trying to imitate her voice would have been a "disservice to her, to the reader, and most importantly to the story" (from Author's Note), he told it his own way. Enhanced with illustrations by Jim Kay, A Monster Calls becomes a familiar tale told in a new and different way. With its distinctive Ness polish, it's a book to be proud of, one that pays homage to a beloved writer whose life ended much, much too soon.

(Readalikes: Theme-wise, it reminds me of Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls; style-wise, of some of Neil Gaiman's stories)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for mild language

To the FTC, with love: I received an ARC of A Monster Calls from the generous folks from Candlewick Press.

While focusing on Sean distracts Payton from her problems at home, it doesn't erase what's happening to her dad. She still can't deal with that. It's only when things really start to fall apart that she's forced to face everything she's been avoiding. Now she'll have to focus on the one thing she's been trying to avoid all along: the truth.

Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt is one of those issue novels that doesn't necessarily feel like an issue novel. It's about an issue, yes, and a serious one, but it manages to stay upbeat and funny while still addressing a teen's very real feelings about her dad's illness. It avoids cheesy melodrama, dealing with Payton's emotions in a way that remains authentic and true. Since I can't say it any better than this, I'm going to sum it all up with a line I stole from Melissa's excellent review over at Book Nut: "[Sean Griswold's Head is] sweet without being cloying, a disease book without being issue-y. Gotta love that." See what I mean? And, for the record, I completely agree.

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for mild sexual innuendo

To the FTC, with love: Another library fine find

Although the two have never been close, Sheila McGann has always felt great affection for her older half-brother, Arthur Breem. She admires his quiet kindness, his even temperament, and his steadfast devotion to the Catholic Church. As a brother, as a person, as a priest, he's always been above reproach. Which is why Sheila's so shocked when Art's accused of molesting the young grandson of a woman in his suburban Boston parish. Despite the constant headlines accusing other priests of similar acts, Sheila refuses to believe her brother's capable of such a thing.

The accusation causes a rift in the already turbulent McGann Family. Tim McGann's so ravaged by alcoholism he barely remembers he has a stepson, let alone that Art's been accused of such a heinous crime. But the news shatters Mary, who's so pious she arrives thirty minutes early to every Mass so she can "say a rosary and frown at the late-comers" (182). She's always been so proud of her oldest son, the priest. Now, she can hardly show her face in public. Mike McGann's never felt comfortable with his half-brother and Abby, his wife, has never taken to the Church or the McGanns. The scandal adds fuel to both arguments, causing so much tension that Mike can't stand to be at home, a fact that leads to even bigger problems. Sheila's caught somewhere in the middle. She doesn't want to believe her gentle brother would hurt a child. However dysfunctional her family is, Sheila's sure they're not that far gone.

In an effort to prove Art's innocence, Sheila starts digging into her brother's life, examining every minute detail - the thoughts he so often keeps to himself, the actions that look so pure on the surface, the every intention of a man who has pledged his life to the service of God. Mostly, she questions Art's interactions with Kath Conlon and her 8-year-old son, Aidan. Art claims he was counseling Kath, trying to help her beat a fierce drug addiction. He says he looked after the boy like a doting father would. But is it true? Or did Art have a more sinister purpose, as Kath claims? As Sheila combs through the evidence, desperate to exonerate her brother, she finds herself confronting the deep, dark secrets her family's been concealing for years.

(Readalikes: Reminded me a little bit of Faithful Place by Tana French.)

Grade: C+

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for strong language, sexual content and depictions of illegal drug use

To the FTC, with love: I received a finished copy of Faith from the generous folks at Harper Collins and TLC Book Tours, for whom this review was written.