Ask the Author Returns as TBR

After a long hiatus, my author interviews are coming back! This site will stay up as my author website and the archives for Ask the Author, but I'm relaunching the blog under a brand new name, TBR. With the relaunch, I'm shifting the blogs to a brand-new website which you can find here. You can …

Ask the Author: Sarah Kurpiel

Pineapple's entire routine is turned upside-down when new kitten Kiwi copies everything Pineapple does. But eventually Pineapple learns that having a friend makes everything better.

Ask the Author: Carol Cujec and Peyton Goddard

REAL is a middle-grade novel inspired by Peyton’s lived experiences. It features perhaps the first nonspeaking autistic narrator in middle-grade fiction, Charity. At the beginning of the book, readers can hear Charity’s thoughts and immediately know that she is a clever and funny girl. Unfortunately, that’s not how the rest of the world sees her. With no voice and no dependable way to control her unpredictable body, she’s seen merely as a label and feels poisoned by the pity stares and whispers of people around her. She’s not seen as a REAL person, except by her family. Because she has been kicked out of public school, Charity is attending a special-needs school with an abusive teacher who bullies the kids instead of trying to teach them. When her mother finally learns the truth about this so-called school, she fights to get her daughter into a public junior high. That’s where the story really begins. Charity is thrilled at the chance to finally learn and be included. She’s also terrified of being made fun of and excluded again. Her own cousin Mason who attends the school seems embarrassed to be near her. To make matters worse, a bully preys on her as an easy target. With the help of newfound friends, she will have to fight for her right to a real education.

Ask the Author: Sylvia Liu

In Manatee’s Best Friend, which comes out on August 3, Becca Wong Walker is a 12-year-old girl who must overcome shyness and the unexpected spotlight of a viral video to help save her manatee friends from boating dangers. While finding her voice, Becca also learns to make new human friends.

Ask the Author: C. Cimmone

TORN UP is about grief, surviving the day, and hoping you aren't ruining your life (or someone else's) as you navigate your way through it. We can do some pretty unsavory things when we are dealing with a huge, personal loss. In this book, I put it all out there - I am shameless in my account.

Ask the Author: Andrew Bertaina

My books is a collection of stories that are a mixture of the real and the fabulist. They range from 700 words to well over twenty pages. Thematically, the stories are linked by the desire of the narrators to find meaning in life, meaning in love, meaning in the ceaseless meandering of their minds. It’s a book that’s about restlessness, about wondering if the life we are living is the right one or whether we’ve made some crucial mistake along the way, missed a conversation or an opportunity that would have put us on a different path. A lot of the stories revolve around the difficulty of finding and remaining in a loving and supportive relationship while retaining a robust sense of self. The stories tend to be more in the realm of seeking than in finding concrete answers. I should mention here that some of them are humorous. The world may not be all that funny, but it certainly needs humor to keep it afloat, and I have some narrators who are interested in the dark comedy of negotiating existence.

Ask the Author: Darcy Woods

Sixteen-year-old Honor Augustine never set out to become a felon. As an academic all-star, avid recycler, and dedicated daughter to her PTSD-afflicted father, she's always been the literal embodiment of her name. Coloring inside the lines is what keeps Honor's chaotic existence orderly. But when she discovers her father's VA benefits drying up, coupled with a terrifying bank letter threatening the family's greenhouse business--Honor vows to find a solution. She just doesn't expect to find it on the dry erase board of English lit--"Nature's first green is gold." The quote by Frost becomes the seed of an idea. An idea that--with patience and care--could germinate into a means of survival. Maybe marijuana could be more than the medicinal plant that helps quiet her father's demons. Maybe, it could save them all.

Ask the Author: Payal Doshi

REA AND THE BLOOD OF THE NECTAR is the story about Rea Chettri, an introverted but curious girl from Darjeeling, India, whose life gets turned on its head on the night of her twelfth birthday. After a fight with her twin brother Rohan, Rea discovers that he has gone missing. Her Amma is distraught and blames Rea for his disappearance. So, she takes matters into her own hands. Ordinarily, Rea prefers her own company (often feeling misunderstood by others) but this time she asks her neighbor Leela for help. Together, they visit the village fortune-teller whose powers of divination set them off on a thrilling quest to find Rohan. In the shade of night, they portal into an otherworldly realm and travel to Astranthia, a land full of magic and whimsy. There, Rea and Leela meet Xeranther, an Astranthian barrow boy, and Flula, a pari, and with their help Rea must battle evil creatures, confront a ruthless villain, and find out why Rohan has been captured.

Ask the Author: Paulette Kennedy

Parting The Veil, debuting this November from Lake Union Publishing, is a suspenseful Gilded Age gothic romance featuring a headstrong American heiress, Eliza Sullivan, who arrives in rural England to collect an inheritance from a recently-deceased aunt and start a new life apart from her grievous past. At a summer solstice ball, she meets an eccentric viscount who lives on the neighboring estate, Malcolm Winfield. Despite the dark rumors surrounding Malcolm, Eliza is taken in by his melancholy charm. Drawn together by their similar, tragic pasts, they fall in love--lust, actually--and elope. Shortly after Eliza arrives at Havenwood Manor, her new husband's estate, mysterious things begin happening. Strange whispers in the shadows. Forbidden rooms. And Malcolm's mercurial moods, as changeable as night and day. As Eliza delves deeper into Malcolm's troubling history, the disturbing secrets gain a frightening power, and Eliza begins to wonder if she's married man or monster. Discovering the truth may cost her everything.

Ask the Author: Kaia Alderson

Sisters In Arms tells the story of the African-American women who served in the U.S. Women’s Army Corps during World War Two. It follows two women who “Answer America’s Call” when their lives aren’t going as planned. Both wind up in the first Women’s Army Corps (WAC)’s Officer training class. They eventually become a part of the 6888th Postal Battalion, which, in real life, was the only all-Black WAC battalion deployed overseas during the war.

Ask the Author: Erin Callahan

Erin’s book follows the misadventures of a teenage girl who trains to become an escape artist (think Harry Houdini or Dorothy Dietrich). Her training and performances lead to several unlikely friendships. My teenhood certainly could've been worse but, looking back, I think I spent a lot of it just skating by and laying low, waiting for the day I could leave my high school and head to college. THE ART OF ESCAPING is about doing the opposite of that. Mattie, the main character, takes a chance on herself and finds her people in the process.

Ask the Author: Zack Smedley

TONIGHT WE RULE THE WORLD, is similar to Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK but with a boy protagonist: it follows the journey of a twelfth grade boy--Owen--whose life is upended when word gets out that he was sexually assaulted by one of his classmates. The book is presented in two timelines: one where we follow Owen's journey throughout school beforehand, and the other dealing with the aftermath/fallout among the local media, classmates, Owen's mission-driven father, and Owen's girlfriend.

Ask the Author: Claire M. Andrews

DAUGHTER OF SPARTA is a reimagining of the myth of Daphne and Apollo, in which they must work together to save Olympus and all of Greece. Nine pieces of power have been stolen from Olympus, and Daphne is tasked with traversing the dangerous and unforgiving world of ancient Greece in order to return them. They come across some of your favorite myths and legends from Greek mythology, and often turn those stories on their heads.

Ask the Author: Emma Theriault

Happily ever after is only the beginning as Belle takes on the responsibility of becoming queen and learns to balance duty, love, and sacrifice, all while navigating dark political intrigue and a touch of magic.

Ask the Author: C E Hoffman

Sluts and Whores is a short story collection full of magic, angst, and hope. It challenges damaging stereotypes of sex workers by placing a variety of characters into unexpected, and often magical, scenarios.