FFBC: Welcome to the club, Half in Love with Death by Emily Ross

Half in Love with Death
by Emily Ross
Publisher: Merit Press
Release Date: December 18th 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction

Synopsis:

It's the era of peace and love in the 1960s, but nothing is peaceful in Caroline's life. Since her beautiful older sister disappeared, fifteen-year-old Caroline might as well have disappeared too. She's invisible to her parents, who can't stop blaming each other. The police keep following up on leads even Caroline knows are foolish. The only one who seems to care about her is Tony, her sister's older boyfriend, who soothes Caroline's desperate heart every time he turns his magical blue eyes on her. 

Tony is convinced that the answer to Jess's disappearance is in California, the land of endless summer, among the runaways and flower children. Come with me, Tony says to Caroline, and we'll find her together. Tony is so loving, and all he cares about is bringing Jess home. And so Caroline follows, and closes a door behind her that may never open again.

Inspired by the disturbing case of Charles Schmid, ‘the Pied Piper of Tucson’, Half in Love with Death is a heartfelt thriller that never lets up.

Hello Emily! We are super excited to host you in our FFBC. 

Favorite Book?

I have so many it’s hard to choose, but Mystic River by Dennis Lehane is one of my all time favorites. It’s so sad and dark with such moving and unforgettable characters. And it’s also a tight page turning mystery.

Favorite TV show? 

Mad Men. I’m really bummed that the series ended.

Favorite movie?

It’s a tie between Edward Scissorhands and Silver Linings Playbook.

Your Favorite Song?

The Water (Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling)

Favorite Food?

Mac and cheese, preferably with Buffalo Chicken.

Who is your perfect fictional boyfriend? 

I hate to admit this but it’s Heathcliff, even though I also kind of hate him. 

Favorite Quote?

“To hell with tomorrow. To hell with all problems and barriers. Nothing matters but the Spectacular Now.”  ― Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now 

What do you find yourself “Fangirling” over?

Kit Harrington. Jon Snow can’t be dead! 

If you could meet one author, dead or alive, who would it be?

I would love to meet F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby was one of the first books that made me realize I wanted to me a writer. Something about Fitzgerald’s lyrical style makes me want to put words on a page, and I bet he was a really cool dude.

What authors are auto-buys for you? 

I’ll buy anything by Gillian Flynn or Tana French. 

For those who have read not the book yet, can you tell us a little about Half In Love With Death? 

Half in Love with Death is a young adult thriller that takes place in Tucson in 1965. It’s the time of peace and love, but nothing is peaceful in fifteen-year-old Caroline's life. Since her beautiful older sister Jess disappeared, Caroline might as well have disappeared too. She's invisible to her parents, who can't stop blaming each other. The police keep following up on foolish leads and assume Jess is a runaway. The only person who pays any attention to her is Jess’s boyfriend Tony. Every time she turns around, he’s looking at her with startling blue eyes, telling her how they can find Jess together, how anything is possible if you believe it. 

Tony is convinced that the answer to Jess's disappearance is in California, the land of endless summer, among the runaways and flower children. Come with me, Tony says to Caroline, and we'll find her together. Tony is so loving, and all he cares about is bringing Jess home. And so Caroline follows, and by the time she learns the difference between truth and illusion, it may be too late.

Half in Love with Death is inspired by the case of Charles Schmid, ‘the Pied Piper of Tucson’.

If you could describe Caroline in 5 words, what would they be? 

Intelligent, curious, romantic, lovely, idealistic 

Is there a specific scene that you had the most fun to write? 

I really liked writing the scene where Caroline is in the car with Tony and Debbie Frank for the first time. Debbie’s snarky dialogue with Tony in this scene came very easily. I just had to step back and let her talk. And I had fun with Caroline as she sort of fumbles with her notes and tries to be a detective. 

What was more difficult to write, the historical aspects or the mystery? 

The mystery was much harder for me than the historical aspects. I had fun researching sixties references and looking at fashion and listening to the music from that era. But figuring out the mystery, planting clues, and figuring out the ending was a challenge. In fact I resisted working out the ending for a long time, and until I did that I couldn’t really make the mystery work. After I finally wrote the end, I had to go back to plant clues and to make sure all the threads hung together. It’s not the ideal way to write a mystery, and the next time I write one I will do more planning up front.

Follow the Half In Love With Death by Emily Ross Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Emily Ross's YA mystery/thriller HALF IN LOVE WITH DEATH is forthcoming from Merit Press(12/2015). She received a 2014 MCC Artist Fellowship finalist award for fiction, and is a graduate of Grub Street's Novel Incubator program. When not writing she works as a web developer and is the mother of two millennials. Find out more at http://www.emilyrosswrites.com/ or https://twitter.com/emilyross816.

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FFCB Tours: Welcome to the club, Come Back to Me (Come Back to Me #1) by Mila Gray

Come Back to Me (Come Back to Me #1)
by Mila Gray
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: December 8th 2015
Genre: Young Adult, New Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Drama, War, Fiction, Death

Synopsis:

In this heart-wrenching tale of love and loss, a young Marine and his best friend’s sister plunge into a forbidden love affair while he’s home on leave.

When a Marine Chaplain knocks on her door, Jessa’s heart breaks—someone she loves is dead. Killed in action, but is it Riley or Kit? Her brother or her boyfriend…

Three months earlier, Marine Kit Ryan finds himself back home on leave and dangerously drawn to his best friend Riley’s sister, Jessa—the one girl he can’t have. Exhausted from fighting his feelings, Kit finally gives in, and Jessa isn’t strong enough to resist diving headfirst into a passionate relationship.

But what was just supposed to be a summer romance develops into something far greater than either of them expected. Jessa’s finally found the man of her dreams and Kit’s finally discovered there’s someone he’d sacrifice everything for.

When it’s time for Kit to redeploy, neither one is ready to say goodbye. Jessa vows to wait for him and Kit promises to come home to her. No matter what.

But as Jessa stands waiting for the Marine Chaplain to break her heart, she can’t help but feel that Kit has broken his promise…

Riley or Kit? Kit or Riley? Her brother or her boyfriend? Who’s coming home to her?

Chapter 1

Jessa

A whorl in the glass distorts the picture, like a thumbprint smear over a lens. I’m halfway down the stairs, gathering my hair into a ponytail, thoughts a million miles away, when a blur outside the window pulls me up short.

I take another step, the view clears, and when I realize what I’m seeing, who I’m seeing, my stomach plummets and the air leaves my lungs like a final exhalation. My arms fall slowly to my sides. My body’s instinct is to turn and run back upstairs, to tear into the bathroom and lock the door, but I’m frozen. This is the moment you have nightmares about, play over in your mind, the darkest of daydreams, furnished by movies and by real-life stories you’ve overheard your whole life.

You imagine over and over how you’ll cope, what you’ll say, how you’ll act when you open the door and find them standing there. You pray to every god you can dream up that this moment won’t ever happen. You make bargains, promises, desperate barters. And you live each day with the murmur of those prayers playing on a loop in the background of your mind, an endless chant. And then the moment happens and you realize it was all for nothing. The prayers went unheard. There was no bargain to make. Was it your fault? Did you fail to keep your promise?

Time seems to have slowed. Kit’s father hasn’t moved. He’s standing at the end of the driveway staring up at the house, squinting against the early morning glare. He’s wearing his Dress Blues. It’s that fact which registered before all else, which told me all I needed to know. That and the fact that he’s here at all. Kit’s father has never once been to the house. There is only one reason why he would ever come.

He hasn’t taken a step and I will him not to. I will him to turn around and get back into the dark sedan car sitting at the kerb. A shadowy figure in uniform sits at the wheel. Please. Get back in and drive away. I start making futile bargains with some nameless god. If he gets back in the car and drives away, I’ll do anything. But he doesn’t. He takes a step down the driveway towards the house, and that’s when I know for certain that either Riley or Kit is dead.

A scream, or maybe a sob, tries to struggle up my throat, but it’s blocked by a solid wave of nausea. I grab for the banister to stay upright. Who? Which one? My brother or my boyfriend? Oh God. Oh God. My legs are shaking. I watch Kit’s father walk slowly up the drive, head bowed.

Memories, images, words, flicker through my mind like scratched fragments of film: Kit’s arms around my waist drawing me closer, our first kiss under the cover of darkness just by the back door, the smile on his face the first time we slept together, the blue of his eyes lit up by the sparks from a Chinese lantern, the fierceness in his voice when he told me he was going to love me forever.

Come back to me. That was the very last thing I said to him. Come back to me.

Always. The very last thing he said to me.

Then I see Riley as a kid throwing a toy train down the stairs, dive-bombing into the pool, holding my hand at our grandfather’s funeral, grinning and high-fiving Kit after they’d enlisted. The snapshot of him in his uniform on graduation day. The circles under his eyes the last time I saw him.

The door buzzes. I jump. But I stay where I am, frozen halfway up the stairs. If I don’t answer the door maybe he’ll go away. Maybe this won’t be happening. But the doorbell sounds again. And then I hear footsteps on the landing above me. My mother’s voice, sleepy and confused. ‘Jessa? Who is it? Why are you just standing there?’

Then she sees. She peers through the window and I hear the intake of air, the ragged ‘no’ she utters in response. She too knows that a military car parked outside the house at seven a.m. can signify only one thing.

I turn to her. Her hand is pressed to her mouth. Standing in her nightdress, her hair unbrushed, the blood rushing from her face, she looks like she’s seen a ghost. No. That’s wrong. She looks like she is a ghost.

The bell buzzes for a third time.

‘Get the door, Jessa,’ my mother says in a strange voice I don’t recognize. It startles me enough that I start to walk down the stairs. I feel calmer all of a sudden, like I’m floating outside my body. This can’t be happening. It’s not real. It’s just a dream.

I find myself standing somehow in front of the door. I unlock it. I open it. Kit. Riley. Kit. Riley. Their names circle my mind like birds of prey in a cloudless blue sky. Kit. Riley. Which is it? Is Kit’s father here in his Dress Blues with his Chaplain insignia to tell us that my brother has been killed in action or that his son – my boyfriend – has been killed in action? He would come either way. He would want to be the one to tell me. He would want to be the one to tell my mom.

Kit’s father blinks at me. He’s been crying. His eyes are red, his cheeks wet. He’s still crying, in fact. I watch the tears slide down his face and realize that I’ve never seen him cry before. It automatically makes me want to comfort him, but even if I could find the words my throat is so dry I couldn’t speak them.

‘Jessa,’ Kit’s father says in a husky voice.

I hold onto the doorframe, keeping my back straight. I’m aware that my mother has followed me down the stairs and is standing right behind me. Kit’s father glances at her over my shoulder. He takes a deep breath, lifts his chin and removes his hat before his eyes flicker back to me.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Who?’ I hear myself ask. ‘Who is it?’

Follow the Come Back To Me by Mila Gray Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Mila Gray is the pen name for Sarah Alderson, author of Hunting Lila, Losing Lila, The Sound, Fated and Out of Control.

Originally from London she has lived in Bali for the last four years with her husband and daughter.

As well as writing young adult fiction under the name Sarah Alderson and adult fiction under the name Mila Gray, she also writes screenplays.

You can find out more at www.milagray.com and on facebook: www.facebook.com/sarahjalderson.

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FFBC: Welcome to the club, It's a Wonderful Death by Sarah J. Schmitt

It's a Wonderful Death

by Sarah J. Schmitt

Publisher: Sky Pony Press

Release Date: October 6th, 2015

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fantasy, Paranormal, Supernatural, Teen

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old RJ always gets what she wants. So when her soul is accidentally collected by a distracted Grim Reaper, somebody in the afterlife better figure out a way to send her back from the dead or heads will roll. But in her quest for mortality, she becomes a pawn in a power struggle between an overzealous archangel and Death Himself. The tribunal presents her with two options: she can remain in the lobby, where souls wait to be processed, until her original lifeline expires, or she can replay three moments in her life in an effort to make choices that will result in a future deemed worthy of being saved. It sounds like a no-brainer. She’ll take a walk down memory lane. How hard can changing her future be?

But with each changing moment, RJ’s life begins to unravel, until this self-proclaimed queen bee is a social pariah. She begins to wonder if walking among the living is worth it if she has to spend the next sixty years as an outcast. Too quickly, RJ finds herself back in limbo, her time on Earth once again up for debate.

RJ is a snarky, unapologetic, almost unredeemable, very real girl. Her story is funny and moving, and teens will easily connect with her plight. Prepare to meet the Grim Reaper, who’s cuter than you’d expect; Hawaiian shirt–wearing Death Himself; Saint Peter (who likes to play Cornhole); and Al, the handler for the three-headed hound that guards the gates of Hell. This cast of characters accompanies RJ through her time in the afterlife and will do their best to gently shove her in the right direction.

There are so many. But I’m going to go with a safe one: Harry Potter. And I’m going to just say the whole series because asking me to pick is cruel.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This is almost as bad as the book question, but I’m going to stick with Harry Potter.

Wow. I am starting to think I might be a fickle girl because I can think of so many. The ones racing around my brain right now are Bad Blood by Taylor Swift, The End by The Doors and What You Wish For by Guster.

 Bourbon Chicken with fried rice

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hogwarts.

Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. 

All the authors that I have been meeting over the last year. I especially had a hard time keeping it together when I met Rainbow Rowell at BEA when she signed Fangirl for me and I’m signing at a book festival she’s going to be at. I can only pray that I manage to come off with even the smallest amount of cool factor left intact. 

I know it’s easy to get swept up with all the big name authors releasing fantastic titles but I highly recommend keeping your eyes on the debut authors coming up the ranks. Seriously, there is some wicked talent out there. I’ve had the pleasure to meet some of them and whew… I’m just happy to be a part of the talent pool.

Hello Sarah! We are super excited to have you in our FFBC tours.

Aww, thanks! But I think I am “superer” excited. This is going to be a fun tour!

RJ is a lot more complicated then she comes off at first. She starts out as your stereotypical mean girl who got a raw deal. Boo hoo, right? But as you dig in to her past, you see how much of her mean girl persona developed because of fear. She uses her quick sarcastic wit to protect her but sometimes, there are casualties. 

I think I would be terrified of the butterfly effect, but, if I was in RJ’s shoes, I would still do it. If it had been my time to go, then so be it, but if I had a chance to change a few things, from my teen years, I probably would. Now the mom in me is screaming NO WAY! Because if I change one thing, even in the interest of doing a good deed for humanity, then the kidlets (aka my two boys) don’t exist. And you don’t know this yet, but you do not want to be in a world where the kidlets don’t exist. 

There were so many little things that came together in the creation of IAWD. First, I had already written two complete manuscript but they just weren’t right. They were serious end of the world stuff and by the time National Novel Writing Month 2012 came along, I just wanted to write a book that made me laugh. I wanted to write something that was me: sarcastic and funny but still able to sneak in a grain of truth in the plot to think about later. Plus, with all the saving the world I’d been doing in the previous books, I just wanted to save the cheerleader. 

I think everything I experience affects my writing. Whenever I come across something that I love, I try to figure out what is it that I liked and then fold that in to my style. For example, Marcus Sakey, who is a phenom author, writes crime thrillers. I’m not a crime girl and honestly don’t have time to read a lot of adult fiction, but I did read several of his books and learned the art of building suspense, especially at the end of chapters. Movie and TV have influenced my dialogue so much, as well as describing non-verbal communication. I’ve been known to listen to teens talking so I can try to keep up with not just what they’re saying, but how they’re saying it. As a writer, I have an obligation to constantly trying to be as authentic as I can be.

“You can’t expect a seat at the concert if you don’t buy a ticket.” – Madeline Quinn.

The scene at The Gates where RJ first meets St. Peter and Al, the handler of the guard dog overseeing the Gates of Hell. There’s a lull in the new arrivals and so the duo pepper RJ with questions while playing cornhole. It’s got some great lines and you can see not only the competitiveness of these two pillars in the afterlife but also how much they like each other.

I Lived by OneRepublic

I highly recommend reading it in public. Actually, there are still a couple scenes that make me cry, so scratch that. However, if you are drinking Diet Dr. Pepper and eating Twizzlers, I will be with you in spirit. 

The next few months have a lot of travel promoting the book and then there’s the release of IAWD on Audiobook, which I am so excited about! And of course, writing another book. 

Thank you so much for everything, Sarah!

No, thank you! I am so excited to have FFBC coordinating this book tour! I know I’ve said it before, but it’s going to be so much fun!

Follow the It's A Wonderful Death by Sarah J. Schmitt Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Sarah J. Schmitt is a K-8 school librarian and Youth Service Professional for Teens at a public library who, in addition to planning a variety of events, enjoys opening up the world of books to reluctant readers. She runs a teen writing program that combines Skype visits from well-known authors and screenwriters and critique group style feedback.

Prior to immersing herself in the world of the written word, Sarah earned her Masters of Science in Higher Education Administration and Student Affairs from Indiana University where she worked with first year college students as they acclimated to college life. Sarah lives outside of Indianapolis with her husband, two kidlets and a cat who might actually be a secret agent. She is an active member of SCBWI, ALA and the Indiana Library Federation and is a regular participant at the Midwest Writer's Workshop. Her debut novel, IT'S A WONDERFUL DEATH, comes out Fall 2015 from Sky Pony Press.

One winner will win (US ONLY):

A SIGNED copy of The Heir by Kiera Cass OR a SIGNED copy of HOOK'S REVENGE by Heidi Shultz

A Handmade bracelet in RJ's favorite color: purple

A IT'S A WONDERFUL DEATH swag pack

A Funko Pop! Pocket Keychain (Game of Thrones Daenerys Targaryen)

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