Blog Tour: Author Interview with Joanna Nadin

Today I have something a little different and incredibly exciting happening on Rebecca-Books as I am hosting Joanna Nadin as part of her blog tour for her new (and last in the series) book in the Rachel Riley series! I remember reading some of her books a couple of years ago and they were brilliant, she completely understands young people and I loved that. This book follows Rachel as she prepares to go to university, I'm so looking forward to reading this as I only went to university six months ago. 

Anyway, I'll stop rambling and hand you over to Joanna Nadin herself to answer some of my questions about her book and an end of an era...

Release Day: 6th March 

Publisher: Oxford University Press

1. Hi Joanna! Welcome to Rebecca-Books, it's brilliant to have you here to answer some questions. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your new novel? 

Well, I write books, mostly. And speeches, sometimes. I used to work for the Prime Minister, which, like, I KNOW. I so did NOT fit in on the corridors of power. In fact I once danced down the corridors of power (to Bat Out of Hell, it's a long story) and got caught by a Cabinet Minister. Not my proudest moment. Which is exactly the kind of thing Rachel Riley does. Though not in this novel as she's only seventeen and also she's currently banned from the Houses of Parliament over an incident on a school trip involving her best friend Scarlet and an illegal camera. Plus Scarlet's the one who wants to go into politics. Rachel is going to be an actress and live in a squat in Camden with a tormented poet or musician. If she gets into uni to do drama. And passes her A Levels. And does NOT get distracted by new boy Wilde and his giant sunglasses and leopard-print everything. 

2. This is the last book in The Rachel Riley Diaries series. How did you come up with the idea for the series originally? 

I started off trying to write something more serious i.e. an "issues" book, about broken homes or abuse or general tragedy. Only the thing is I didn't grow up in a broken home and abuse generally consisted of being forced to eat brown bread instead of white and tragedy was not being allowed to watch Coronation Street because it was both Northern and "common"; a double whammy of crimes in my mother's eyes. Which is when I realised maybe there was some comedy to had in the kind of wishing for a tragic life that I indulged in. So Rachel is, in fact, me. Her friends are my old friends. Her family is startlingly similar to mine (I never even got round to changing my brother James's name). Her appalling luck with boys is fairly similar to mine. Though at least she didn't snog anyone who kept pigs. Though she does, at one point, snog someone who has a habit of getting his thing out in class because she thinks he might be a genius underneath the idiocy. He isn't. 

3. What are the best and worst parts of writing for you personally? 

There really aren't that many bad bits. I mean, I get to spend the day footling around inside the head of a teenager, thinking about what I'm going to name my fictitious band, and wondering if Jack will actually snog me down the Duke on Saturday night. Working on your own can get slightly cabin feverish. But that's what Facebook is for. That's like hanging out in the school common room. Only without the saggy sofa with the Yazoo stain or the quarantined microwave or Fat Kylie trying spray tan a Goth. 

4. What advice would you give to aspiring young writers or those wanting to get into the publishing industry? 

Just write. Like playing violin, it's something you will only get good at by practising. So write every day. Even if it's a diary or a blog. In fact definitely keep a diary – it may come in handy one day for a teen novel. 

5. What is the best book you've read? 

That changes on an almost daily basis, along with my Desert Island Discs and who I thank in my Oscars speech (so going to happen one day). At the moment I'm on The Great Gatsby as I'm studying it again for my doctorate. But I'm also going to say Adrian Mole, as without him, there would be no Rachel. Those books gave me hope as a teenager – that I wasn't the only gawky, nerdy, unlucky-in-love thirteen-year-old out there. Which is what I hope Rachel does a tiny bit today. 

6. Are there any plans for your next novel? 

I write a lot of books. Some funny. Some serious. And I'm definitely in a serious phase now. So I have a YA thriller called Eden out later this year - set in drama school in 1988. Then a funny/sad/scary middle–grade book set in a tower block in Peckham out next year. And I'm just starting work on a YA high school novel about changing your identity. Kind of like Mean Girls crossed with The Great Gatsby crossed with Election. That could so work, right?

(Yes a Mean Girls/The Great Gatsby/Election high school novel can DEFINITELY WORK. I'm already excited for this!)

Follow Joanna on: Website | Facebook | Blog | Twitter

This is the first post in a five day blog tour stopping at some of my favourite blogs. Check them out every day this week!

6th March - Bookbabblers

7th March - Amy Bookworm

10th March - Book Angel Booktopia

11th March - What Danielle Did Next

12th March - Fabulous Book Fiend

Blog Tour: The Pineville Heist Trailer

When I was asked  by author, Lee Chambers, if I wanted to take part in the Pineville Heist blog tour, I jumped at the chance for a number of reasons. Firstly, FIRST EVER BLOG TOUR. And secondly, how great does this book sound?

I also noticed when perusing Netgalley that it's a galley on the site, so if this post doesn't persuade you to request this book, then who knows what will?
AND it's already been optioned for as a movie starring a certain Booboo Stewart, who plays Seth (one of Jacob's 'brothers' I have been told) in the Twilight Saga, to come out in 2013 (My Evidence) so this book has great things happening to it.
Sooooooo, let's take a look at the book trailer:

Seventeen year old Aaron stumbles into the aftermath of a five million dollar bank heist gone wrong. Hiding under a canoe, Aaron partially catches the murder of one of the robbers. In the chaos he sneaks away with the money and heads straight for the closest place of safety, his high school. Terrified, Aaron tells his shocking tale to Amanda Becker, his drama teacher, but it doesn't take long for one of the psychotic robbers to show up. In the locked down school the pair are relentlessly pursued in a quest to get the money back and wipe out the evidence.

For me it sounds a little bit like John Grisham's Theodore Boone series, with the solving of crimes in the plot. So if you enjoyed that series (like me!) then I'm pretty sure this book would be up your street - it sounds incredibly interesting and I hope this book does as well as I think it should. 

Goodreads  |  Author's Website  |  Blog Tour Website  |  Amazon  |  Netgalley  |  Twitter

Knee Deep - Jolene Perry

If I saw this book on the shelf, glanced at the cover, I would never have picked it up. In truth, I don't like the cover. At all.
But for me with this book, the words 'Don't judge a book by it's cover' sounds pretty right.
I was asked by Tribute Books to review this book as part of the Knee Deep book tour. I read the synopsis and was attracted to the book before I saw the cover. I got an e-book of this and I was on my way.
However, by the time I sat down to read this, I had completely forgotten what it was about so I dived into this book while on holiday completely oblivious to what this book would actually be about due to my memory. I had reservations, I can tell you.

Synopsis: Shawn is the guy Ronnie Bird promised her life to at the age of fourteen. He's her soul mate. He's more uptight every day, but it's not his fault. His family life is stressful, and she's adding to it. She just needs to be more understanding, and he'll start to be the boy she fell in love with. She won’t give up on someone she’s loved for so long.

Luke is her best friend, and the guy she hangs with to watch girlie movies in her large blanketopias. He's the guy she can confide in before she even goes to her girlfriends, and the guy who she's playing opposite in Romeo and Juliet. Now her chest flutters every time he gets too close. This is new. Is Ronnie falling for him? Or is Juliet? The lines are getting blurry, but leaving one guy for another is not something that a girl like Ronnie does.
Shawn’s outbursts are starting to give her bruises, and Luke’s heart breaks as Ronnie remains torn. While her thoughts and feelings swirl around the lines between friendship and forever, she’s about to lose them both.

Review: So, as one can tell, I wasn't exactly jumping with excitement to read this book and entered the book in quite a neutral state. 

On the surface (I guess it is really) this is one of those really girly novels. You know, where you can just literally sit down, read and relax for a bit while stuffing popcorn in your mouth or on a sun lounger in a foreign summery country sipping something fruity. However, after reading this, really it feels far from that. Sure, I would read this while on holiday and the plot is simple and understandable. There are no clever witty remarks that I have to think about for a while before I understand and most of all, it is something I don't have to think about - just read.
The thing is this is a book about abuse and domestic violence. Being a 17 year-old teenage girl, I have not experienced anything that Ronnie goes through in this book but Jolene Perry's writing gives a pretty good idea of what it is like. I found myself becoming more and more attached to Ronnie for her individuality, her wariness of the issue of sex and just the crap she has to go through. Ronnie felt to me very much like a teenager with her language, her mannerisms described and her thoughts such the embarrassment of telling her parents things.

This is a first person narrative and through that, I became quite attached to her, especially as she is my age. With what this is about, there are a number of ways this could have been written like from being preachy to the target audience of teenagers like 'Don't do this' or in a way where writers think every teenager speaks in text language and would have lost the intense mood of this novel. Instead, I found this an interesting read that certainly showed me ways abusive relationships can start and how they should be dealt with. The way the latter happens in this novel is quite shocking and I didn't quite expect it. I've seen some reviews that didn't like Ronnie's first person narrative but I think this was effective - it really gets you into her head on her reactions and thoughts.

I liked Ronnie because she was a different female teen protagonist. Although, I think any reader will hate Shawn by the end of this book, I did like how his descent to hitting Ronnie was shown, at the beginning, he was the stroppy, normally male teenagers but by the end, well, hopefully you'll see. 

I liked Luke, but to me, he was a bit on the cheese side. Some of his lines had me rolling my eyes like 'Meh, as much as I would like a future love to say that, it won't happen'. However, even throughout what happened to Ronnie, I never felt inclined to Luke, even though he plays a knight in shining armour role. There is this image of a player about him that is repeated frequently so when Ronnie starts to like him, to me, it felt insignificant as he was like this. I think this also stemmed from forgetting the plot so anyone who did have the plot accessible while reading may have had a different interpretation. 


I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book - I neither loved it or disliked it. I guess you could say it was 'okay'. I had no major problems with this book and it flows, writing wise, very well with me wanting to know what Ronnie's reactions would be. This is quite a taboo subject so I am glad that another author has decided to write about this subject for teens. This way, I found many similarities to Dreamland by Sarah Dessen (review). 


I like the characters within this, especially Ronnie with her individuality and I'm sad it happened to her. Mindy was also another favourite of mine which I feel could have been included much more frequently. The writing was simple yet well-read and didn't have an annoying preachy feel. This is a book for teens about teens writing with teens in mind. Jolene Perry has certainly done her research on what teenagers are truly like, and I thank her for that. She adds a mature look at high school and older teenagers life that is obvious in her writing for me. A poignant and favourite quote of mine from the book was this, which I think sums up what relationships should be like for teenagers: 

'This kind of loyal dedication is what someone deserves as a wife that he's put years of work and trust into, not a young man who hasn't even started his own life yet, Ronnie. This is the time in your life when you should be able to fly free. If something doesn't suit you, or work out right, you jump to the next. It's one of the beautiful things of being young.'

I give it a 3.5 out of 5

Author's Website: http://www.jolenebperry.com/Jolene_B_Perry/Jolene.html

Pages: 176

Publisher: Tribute Books

Challenges: None

Thank you to Tribute Books!

This is part of the Knee Deep Blog Tour where bloggers post reviews, guest posts or interviews on this book. Keep up to date with the blog tour here: http://knee-deep-book.blogspot.co.uk/

Author Interview: Amy Lignor

And so continues the Until Next Time blog tour. Now, I admit I am not a huge paranormal fan, in fact I've never read a paranormal book EVER - mostly because the Twilight craze put me off them before I had chance to pick up a book of this genre. Considering that, this book really does intrigue me, it sounds different and well, the fact it's not copying or doing the whole vampire thing from the Twilight Saga, fills me with extreme joy.

So, I was quite excited when I was asked to join this tour so I could find out a little bit more about this new novel. Today I have it's author, Amy Lignor, to ask The 5 Questions on her next book, UNTIL NEXT TIME.

What made you write your new book, UNTIL NEXT TIME?

I am a big YA angel fan. I think the books that are coming out are really a great deal offun, but I was always wondering what a ‘fresh’ angel would do if they came here. In other words, I’ve read all about the ‘fallen’ and the ‘tormented,’ butI wondered what a being, that was actually born and trained to come down here and help, would end up doing and how they would end up surviving? Human emotions are so strong, and they range from everything to romance and happiness, to serious nightmares, like envy, anger, hate, etc. So for a pure innocent mind to head down here on ‘assignment’ and be faced with these realities, I wondered how they would handle it. I knew they would have a great deal of questions, and the romance aspects of life, as well as jealously and heartache could really make them want to head right back up there and say, “Forget it! These people are on their own.” Which made me really want to explore that and see how they’d handle it.

What did you enjoy the most about writing it?

It was so much fun because it’s really two lives in one book. I already know that there will be a ‘parting of the ways’ where fans are concerned. A group will like Emily and Matt, and agroup will like Liz and Daniel (which are the ‘assignments’ that the angel/warrior team take over.)  Emily and Matt have a job to do; they have the ability to help, save, judge, destroy,protect, etc., but it’s fun to see them fall in love and struggle with the ‘earthly’ lives they have to lead. For me, these four characters are interesting each in their own way. The only thing I really hope for is the fact that people ‘see’ that Emily and Matt, although being trained and mentored by archangels, are not overwhelmingly religious. This story offers inspiration, but Emily and Matt are really just ‘questioning’ everything while living out their human lives and trying to be everything to everyone. So, it will be interesting to see the ‘split’ between readers.

Describe the book in a sentence.

UNT is the story of a truly ‘divine’ team that must find a way to keep their faith in each other in a world that’s slowly ripping them apart.

What advice would you give to future writers - both in the writing and publishing process?

Don’t stop. I know I say this a great deal - most likely because with my company, The WriteCompanion, I help a great deal of debut authors get up and running and published. But working with all of these authors, I have to reiterate, not to give up!  This is a dream industry…when it works; but this is a hard industry to break into and there are rejections. In fact, your favorite authors were once rejected a great deal.What authors should always remember is, just because you get a rejection from an agent or a publisher does not mean that the next one won’t say, “Yes.”  So try not to get depressed and throw your manuscript into a filing cabinet somewhere. If you want this, don’t stop!

Are you working on anything else?

I have just completed Book II of The Angel Chronicles, and I am on story five out of seven for the Tallent & Lowery series. Tallent & Lowery is being ‘shopped’ around for a print publisher now that the first book, 13, has done so well in electronic formats. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one. J

Thank you Amy and to Tribute Books. 


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UNTIL NEXT TIME is the first book in the Angel Chronicles series, released 1st February 2012.