Blog Tour ~ Author Interview: Elizabeth J. Kolodziej (Vampyre Kisses)

Hello guys! Today is the first time I'm participating on a Blog Tour, and I'm extremely happy. I had the amazing opportunity to be the first one and ask some questions to Elizabeth J. Kolodziej, author of the book Vampyre Kisses. Check them out!

Welcome Liz! Thank you for being here today :). Can you please tell us in a few words about your book Vampyre Kisses?

Vampyre Kisses is a story about a young woman, Faith, who finds out that she, is a witch and that this man, Trent, that she has been spending time with is a 400-year old vampire. Of course the way that she finds out isn’t the best way one could find out someone is a vampire, but what are you going to do? So there are gems that are stolen from the werewolf royalty and vampire master. Due to lots of circumstances Faith must learn how to control her powers in time to help her friends and get the gems back.

What/who was you inspiration for this book?

I actually have had a lot of inspirations for this book. There was no one thing. I have read so many books on vampires, witches, and werewolves and I guess after awhile I wanted to make my own. But the people around me, my friends, family, teachers, other authors, musicians, actors, they have all inspired me in so many different ways. In the end I wrote this book because I wanted to inspire others as much as those people have inspired me.

Who is your favorite character?

That’s a great question that I do not recall many people asking me! It’s funny but for this moment in time Kane is my favorite character. I think a lot of that has to do with how he has me write out his history and speak for him. The way he talks to me and the things I find out are just so much fun and interesting. Along with the fact that he is such a dick at times.

What was the hardest aspect of writing Vampyre Kisses?

The time that it takes was really the hardest aspect. I started writing this when I was around 19 years old. Well, when you are young the last thing you want to do is give up going out with friends to write. I think that is why it took me around 5 years to finish. Now that I am older I am better at working out schedules and such but no matter what you do you still give up a lot of personal time to spending writing a book. You have to really want to finish it.

If Vampyre Kisses was made into a movie, who would you cast?

Truthfully, I would probably cast nobodies. I have a lot of trouble seeing anyone has Faith or Trent, especially when it comes to looks. So it would have to be someone that in unheard of.

What's next for you? Are you planning to write more books?

I am actually working on the second book as we speak. I am really hoping to have the manuscript finished by the end of this year. Hopefully I can find a publishing house to take up the second book so I do not have to self publish again, which is difficult all in it self. But you will see more werewolf history in the second book and the same old characters much more developed!

Where to buy the book: http://amzn.to/9VrndO

My Site: www.vampyrekisses.com

Facebook.com/kweenkitten

Twitter.com/ejkolodziej

Thank you Liz, for stopping by! And thank you for reading this interview. Remember to visit all the other sites participating on this Blog Tour (Sept 1 - Oct 13) and enter the giveaway! You can win a signed copy of Vampyre kisses, a T-shirt and a sticker.

A quick chat with Ned Beauman

As promised, Ned Beauman has kindly answered some questions I sent him - I don't often do interviews here at Stuck-in-a-Book, mostly because my favourite authors are dead, but after reading Boxer, Beetle, I was keen to find out more... and since I'd already met Ned at an event put on by the lovely folk at Sceptre Press, I thought he wouldn't mind me asking. Over to you, Ned...

• So, we were both born in 1985… but while I’m writing a little book blog, you’ve gone and got a rather good novel published. What am I doing wrong and what are you doing right?

My mother gives some credence to Malcolm Gladwell's theory that you have to practise something for ten thousand hours to get good at it. I've also heard somewhere that you have to write a million words before you write your first worthwhile sentence. I don't know, but I did spend most of my school holidays since I was very young trying to write novels, and I'm sure that helped a lot. At university I finished one called The Martyr Street Theatre Company which I couldn't find an agent for, but then I started on Boxer, Beetle, and Lutyens & Rubinstein took me on after reading the first half. I finished it, they sent it out, and I got an offer from Sceptre immediately. Acquaintances often say to me, “Ned, I heard you wrote a book, that's amazing,” which I think is the wrong way to consider it. The writing isn't the impressive thing. Any literate adult can (and should) write a novel if they're willing to put in the time. But finding myself (at least provisionally) in a position where I can write fiction full-time is a rare miracle for which I'm incredibly grateful.

• Beetles, boxing and Nazis – on the face of it, not natural bedfellows. Did one of these come first, and the others follow, or were you always going to write about all three?

I was browsing the “Did you know...” section on Wikipedia when I came across a page about Anophthalmus hitleri (which is real) and a page about a nineteenth century Australian boxer who I won't name because many of the details of his life are spoilers for the book! It struck me that either one would make a terrific starting point for a novel, but then I realised I could save time by knocking them together. Most of the rest of the book emerged from trying to work out what those two things could possibly have in common.

• How do you feel about the word ‘quirky’ being applied to the novel?

I think words like 'quirky' become useless unless you bind them to a relatively specific meaning. And so 'quirky', to me, means films like I Heart Huckabees which are so eager to be distinctive that they end up as totally anodyne. I'm sad to say there's probably a bit of that in my Claramore chapters, but it doesn't apply to the novel as a whole.

• One of your central characters has trimethylaminuria, a genuine condition which causes the sufferer’s sweat, urine, and saliva to smell of rotting fish. How did you find out about trimethylaminuria, and why did you decide to use it?

Some friends of my ex-girlfriend's sister (try to keep track) had a kid who had trimethylaminuria. Novelists love physical externalisations of psychological traits because it means you can accomplish some of your early characterisation duties with nice straightforward visual description instead of a lot of abstract interior finessing which the reader can't picture. (Dickens does this better than anyone, of course, although a lot of writers might dismiss it as childish.) And trimethylaminuria is amazing because it's like a simple metaphor - 'I felt so rejected that I might as well have stunk of rotting fish' – made real. After I started the book there was a documentary about trimethylaminuria on BBC3, so I was worried it was suddenly going to be everywhere, but in fact almost nobody's heard of it and a lot of people assume I made it up.

• How much research, in general, went into the novel, and how did you go about doing it?

A lot of research. I consulted about fifty or sixty books, and I was on Wikipedia every day. I'm privileged to be a member of the London Library in St. James' Square, without which writing Boxer, Beetle would have been impossible (or at least very expensive, or very time-consuming).

• None of your characters are wholly likeable, and most of them are the opposite. Seth ‘Sinner’ Roach, for example, is more or less an unrepentantly selfish, cruel thug. Is ‘likeability’ something you think about when writing?

I disagree with that: Sinner's trainer, Sinner's sister, Evelyn's maid, and Evelyn's second husband (if you can remember who that is) are all good souls. But, yes, most of my protagonists are vile people, and I think this because the protagonist of any novel derives quite a lot from its author. I'm not saying Ned Beauman is necessarily a vile person, but the fact is that no one is wholly likeable to himself or herself. If she is (default use of female pronoun derived from my philosophy degree) she is either inhumanly self-satisfied or slightly mad. On the other hand, one of my models for this book was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and Chabon's protagonists are truly loveable. A novel with such sympathetic heroes should be a bit insipid, but it's not at all. I don't know how Chabon accomplished that. I would love to know.

• Dull question, but needs to be asked - which authors have influenced you in your writing?

Limiting myself arbitrarily to ten: Ballard, DeLillo, Fitzgerald, Gibson, Greene, Nabokov, Pynchon, Updike, Waugh, Wodehouse. And also the criticism of James Wood, even though I disagree with the bulk of it.

• Regular Stuck-in-a-Book readers will have noticed your surname, and put two-and-two together… yes, you are the son of Nicola Beauman, who runs blog-favourite Persephone Books. I’ll be shot if I don’t ask – what do you think of Persephone, and have you read many of their books?

Asking me what I think of Persephone is like asking me what I think of a brother or sister! Well: I love hanging out in the shop on Lambs Conduit Street, and of course I'm very proud of my mother for having accomplished it all, from scratch, almost single-handedly, without compromise – but if someone said to you, 'Of all the out-of-print books in the world, select the hundred that Ned would be least interested in reading', you couldn't really come up with a more accurate list than the Persephone catalogue. But my mother knows that and is perfectly happy about it; the line's not aimed at someone like me. The only ones I've read are the few that I've helped her proofread, although I do of course plan to read her Elizabeth Taylor biography.

• We’re always interested about what’s on your to-be-read pile – what are you reading; what have you just finished; what’s up next?

I tend to juggle several books at a time, perhaps because the internet has destroyed my attention span. But recently I've finished Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky by Patrick Hamilton, I'm now mostly reading Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford (The Good Soldier is one of my favourite books), and I'm soon to start Exiled in Paradise by Anthony Heilbut.

• And what’s next from Ned Beauman?

I'm about half-way through my second book, which is called The Teleportation Accident. It's (predominantly) 1930s again, and it's about an Expressionist set designer from Berlin. There is a clue to the plot in my previous answer.

Summer "Beach Reads" Challenge Wrap-Up!

The Summer "Beach Reads" Challenge has ended and I almost completed it!

This challenge was hosted by Jessica of A Fanatics Book Blog, Raila of Books Out of the Bookshelves, Linna of 21 Pages, and Heather of A Bibliophile's Paradise.

My goal was to read 4 books:

1. Heavenly by Jennifer Laurens [REVIEW]
2. Penitence by Jennifer Laurens (almost finished!)
3. Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs [REVIEW]
4. Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti [REVIEW]

I was very confident that tonight I was going to finish Penitence and review it....but I forgot the book at my boyfriend's car and there is no way for me to get it until tomorrow :( So that means I read 3/4 books.

Box Clever

It's always exciting when you read something completely out of your comfort zone (if you should have such a thing) and you find that you absolutely love it. This happened to me months and months ago when I read Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman. Boxing, beetles, Nazis... none of these are on my hitlist of must-haves for books, and yet Beauman's novel is one of the most interesting and compelling that I've read this year. Sadly I didn't write my thoughts down at the time, and now that it's actually been published, I'm having to cast my mind far, far back to remember what I thought... with the help of Claire's review and Lynne's review! Sorry if I've missed others...

Boxer, Beetle flits back and forth between two time periods - in one, trimethylaminuria sufferer and Nazi-paraphernalia collector Kevin (also known as Fishy) is investigating the work of scientist Philip Erskine. Erskine occupies the other time period, in the 1930s, where he encounters Seth "Sinner" Roach. Sinner is a five foot tall Jewish man who, despite his stature, is incredibly good at boxing. Which catches the attention of a man interested in eugenics. Oh, and beetles. Hence the title - alongside investigating Sinner, and paying for the privilege of examining him over a period of time, Erskine is trying to develop a strain of very resilient beetles. As you do. Oh, before I go further, I have to mention the first line - which really grabbed me into the novel, as well as putting a smile on my face:

In idle moments I sometimes like to close my eyes and imagine Joseph Goebbels' forty-third birthday party.

Well, don't we all? I should add hear that Kevin isn't a Nazi sympathiser - nor, of course, is Ned. Kevin collects the memorabilia without having the slightest fascist leaning. Unlike quite a few of those roaming around 1930s London.

But East End London isn't the only place we see in the 1930s - Erskine whisks Sinner off to a country house, and the family of his fiance (I think... as I said, I read it a long time ago) Evelyn. Evelyn is a rather fab character, a composer of atonal, avant-garde music. She makes the mistake of asking Sinner whether he likes avant-garde music (remember, this is the working-class lad who likes beating people up, swearing and joining gangs):

"I'm quite sure you would," said Evelyn, "I can almost invariably tell." Evelyn was aware that she didn't compeltely convince when she made knowing remarks like this, especially to someone like Sinner with that gaze of his, but she didn't see how her repartee was supposed to gain any poise when she had absolutely nobody to practise on at home. If she tried to deliver a satirical barb at dinner her father would just stare at her until she wanted to cry. And Caroline Garlick's family were lovely but the trouble was they laughed rather too easily, rather than not at all - it wasn't quite the Algonquin Round Table. She was convinced that if she had been allowed to go to Paris she would have had lots of practice, and of course me lots of people like this boy, but as it was, if she ever met any genuine intellectuals - or any beyond their neighbour Alistair Thurlow - they would probably think she was hopelessly childish. For about a week she'd tried to take up heavy drinking, since heavy drinkers were so often reputed to be terrific conversationalists, but most of the time she just fell asleep.

This isn't, to be honest, the main tone of the novel. This humour, and this sort of almost Wodeshousian character, are drowned out by violence and antipathies and all sorts of terrifying things. Sinner is a pretty unremittingly horrible person. But Beauman's writing is so good, the pace so well judged, and the climax so dramatic that I couldn't help admiring this novel to the hilt.

It is difficult to get across my enjoyment of this, because I can't point to any of the characters or any aspects of the plot which appealed. If I were just to read a synopsis of Boxer, Beetle, I'd probably steer well clear. That's why I'm not going a 'Books to get Stuck into' feature today - I just can't think of anything along the same lines. So you'll just have to take my word for it, until you get your hands on the novel - Ned Beauman is a very talented writer, and if he can make this novel addictive for me, just imagine what he's capable of!

For more from Ned Beauman, pop back tomorrow - I'll be posting an interview he was kind enough to do with me... find out what inspired Boxer, Beetle, what Beauman's doing next, and a little about his famous mother...

From Dusk ‘Til Dawn Read-A-Thon: Final Update

From Dusk Till Dawn Read-a-thon is over! I didn't manage to read all I wanted, but still advance a lot on my reading.

My Goals:

- [Read] The Secret of Ka by Christopher Pike 

- [Read] Penitence (Heavenly #2) by Jennifer Laurens 

- [Read] The Intern (Sins07 #1) by Jess C Scott  (review here)

- [Advance] Good Old Dog: Expert Advice for Keeping Your Aging Dog Happy, Healthy, and Comfortable. 

I participate in a few challenges, the last one was from Bewitched Bookworms about your favorite angel....I answered Mathias from the Heavenly series.

So...I read 1 book, almost finished 1 book, didn't read 1 book and advance a few chapters on 1 book. I wasn't that bad!

What I learned from this Read-a-Thon?

- I like to read at nights.

- When I don't like a book, it's almost impossible for me to read it....I feel kind of irresponsible for not finishing a book, but I have so many other that I want to read, that I don't think I can keep  trying to read something that it isn't for me. What do you think about it?

Bank Holiday Baking!

Bank Holiday Monday is upon us, and I'm keen to get you all baking... especially across the Pond, because it was brought to my attention the other day that Americans don't have rock buns. Is this true? Or were my sources (one American and one Canadian) wrong? The rock bun - also known as the rock cake - is one of my favourite sweet things, and is the taste of summer for me. Our Vicar's Wife always made them in the summer holidays, you see. They look very simple - certainly couldn't be made to look fancy, however hard you tried - but have the most wonderful taste, a combination of flavours that I think is hard to beat.

I know a lot of my blog readers are much better bakers than me, so bear with me if you make these blind-folded everyday. As usual, with my recipes, I'm going to go back to basics - just so nobody is left behind.


With this recipe, you might well not have all the ingredients in the cupboard (see above) - especially if you don't bake that often - but PLEASE, I encourage you to go and get them, because rock buns are quick, really easy, and should be a staple in every kitchen, especially if you have children. And this is one where you can't miss out the different flavours - they all need to be in there. Here goes... (I should add that I've used this website to work out cup measurements - hope they're right!)

1.) Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6, and grease two baking trays. As I said last recipe, nobody EVER does this first, but... well, the option's there.

2.) Mix together 225g/8oz/1.75 cups of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt - and the Secret Ingredient. Well, it's not secret - but neither is it in the recipe book I have. Our Vicar's Wife uses this, and I think any rock bun without it would be sub-standard and barely worth eating! Ahem. Here it is:

Just pop a shake of Ground Mixed Spice in with the flour. You'll thank me later...


3.) Rub in 100g/4oz/half a cup of margarine - which does mean getting your hands messy, I'm afraid. You can try doing this with a wooden spoon, but it really won't work quite the same. Keep going until it's this sort of texture:


4.) Add in 50g/2oz/a quarter of a cup of demerara sugar, mixed peel, and currants. Wikipedia tells me that in the US demerara sugar is known as 'turbinado sugar', which I think is a hilarious name... The recipe can be done with regular caster sugar (which Wikipedia - isn't it useful? - tells me is 'superfine sugar' in the US) but demerara makes it *that* much yummier. Basically, use a brown sugar, crunchy if possible, but anything else you can lay your hands on will do.


I haven't given quantities for mixed peel and currants (you can use mixed fruit, if you can find bags of it, but sometimes these bags include cherries, and they wouldn't work at all) - it's very much to taste. Maybe a tablespoon of mixed peel, and two or three of currants? But it's definitely better to have too much of these than two little. Don't skimp on them! Oh, and I do hope tubs of mixed peel are available outside the UK...?

5.) Mix it to a stiff dough with an egg. You'll need to use your hands again - doing it with a spoon won't get the mixture to come together. You can add milk, if it won't make a dough with just an egg, but you shouldn't have to. It should look a bit like this...


6.) Put it in rough heaps on the baking tray, and put it in the oven for 10-15 minutes. This mixture should make about 16 rock buns. They'll go into the oven looking like this....


...and come out looking like this...


Unlike a lot of biscuits, they won't really change consistency when they come out of the oven. And they should be brown on top - better slightly overdone than underdone, as the crunch is nice.


Please give this a go, you (and your kids) will love them!

In My Mailbox # 10

In My Mailbox is a weekly bookish meme hosted @ The Story Siren

Won/Gifts

- The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea M Campbell (thanks to Rebecca @ Elephants On Trapezes)

- The cutest bookmark ever! (thanks to my niece)

E-Books

• Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs (my review)
• The Intern by Jess C Scott (my review) (thanks to the author)
• Good Old Dog: Expert Advice for Keeping Your Aging Dog Happy, Healthy, and Comfortable (NetGalley)

For September Reading Challenge:

• It Started with a Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech
• How to Host a Killer Party (Party Planning Mystery #1) by Penny Warner
• The Accidental Werewolf (Accidental Friends #1) by Dakota Cassidy
• 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
• The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

 

Author Interview: Jess C Scott + Giveaway

Hello everyone! Please welcome Jess C Scott, author of the book The Intern, the first one in the Sins07 series. If you haven't read my review, please check it out!

Thank you so much for being here today Jess!. Can you please tell us in a few words about the Sins07 series?

No problem--thanks for the interview! Sins07 is a contemporary YA “seven deadly sins” series, that looks at universal issues from contemporary life. The series will feature lighthearted tales that explore each of the seven sins in order, beginning with lust. There's enough pain, misery, and suffering in the world -- so I thought I'd inject a dose of fun + humor, throughout this series.

How did you came up with the idea of sins?

A friend and I were watching an episode of The History Channel's "Seven Deadly Sins" program. "Hey," she said (during an ad break), "you should write a seven deadly sins series." I don't know why it never hit me, but I said "okay," and started to jot down some ideas right away.

Was it hard to write about lust in a YA book?

I got a lot of things (related to sex/uality) "out of my system" via my first two books (one is a blog novel @ www.eyeleash.wordpress.com), so I was able to write about lust in a non-explicit way this time. I think I had slightly more trouble making sure the pace and plot of the book "kept on going" (instead of getting dreary or hum-drum halfway) -- I did my best to stick to the outline I had for the plot.

Who is your favorite character from The Intern?

Possibly Jo.Zee (the dance instructor/"object of desire"). I drew a lot of inspiration from all over the place, with regards to his passion for dance. It was very fun and enjoyable to research on YouTube (for official music videos, clips of dance competitions/contests, as well as tutorials uploaded by non-professional dance enthusiasts).

What can we expect from the next Sins07 book?

After Lust, the next deadly sin is Greed -- I think I'll be featuring an heiress or a model, as the protagonist. There's likely to be an element of travel and adventure (as with the first book), though everything else is probably going to be quite different (I generally don't do the same thing twice -- I like challenging myself to keep things fresh and interesting).

P.S. The third book may feature a lead male character. I'm usually thinking of "the next two projects," once I've completed one.

Since The Intern is all about music and dancing, can you give us a couple of music recommendations?

It depends on the genre of music one likes, but I'll list some personal favorites -- Kylie Minogue (dance), New Order (electronica), Michael Jackson (pop/funk), Queen and Guns n' Roses (classic rock), Se7en (Korean pop). A vlog post has more info (http://sins07.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/hip-hop-dance-book/).

Anything you’d like to add before we finish?

Thank you for having me here today :) I think I'll end with a line from Jo.Zee (from a magazine article in the book):

"Remember to move everyday. A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement."

Website: www.jesscscott.com

Sins07: www.sins07.wordpress.com

GIVEAWAY

Jess is giving away an ebook of The Intern (yay!). For a chance to win, just leave a comment (with you email address) in this post answering her question: "What's your favorite type of music?". International, ends Sept. 15, 2010.

Extra entries:

+1 Comment on my review of The Intern by Jess C Scott.

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Hello there, hope you're all set to enjoy a Bank Holiday Weekend if you're in Britain - and hasn't the weather really made an effort? Ahem. Great answers on yesterday's post, keep 'em coming. And so many reviews and things to come next week - so many great books waiting for me to squeak about them! And Tara Books - I absolutely must talk about them this week. Watch this space...

1.) The blog post - is my very favouritest brother's. He's been reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf (as part of a deal - I have to read one of the Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan. Each one in the series is the size of a hill.) We both set off enthusiastically in March. I read 550 pages (HOW can that not be the whole of a book?) but have 200+ left - Col is staggering towards the end of Orlando, and I thought I'd share his review of it - which is here (entry for August 25th). I wholeheartedly disagree with it - but it serves as nice proof that twins do not have the same tastes. Oh, and I should say that Colin's blog is nearly seven years old, so twice as old as mine...

2.) The book - I like Gallic Books - because they're so friendly, because they link to Big Green Bookshop on their website, and (of course) because of their range of books. So I was pleased to see further innovation on their part - their book The Baker Street Phantom by Fabrice Bourland (translated by Morag Young) is being offered as a complimentary copy to anyone who books into the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes Hotel, on Baker Street in London, during September. The novel is set in 1930s London, and I love the ingenuity of the whole thing.

3.) The link - is staying with Gallic Press, and throwing another Stuck-in-a-Book favourite into the mix - Peirene Press. I do so love it when publishers cooperate with each other, and realise that the world should be a friendly, book-fuelled place... and Gallic Press have got on board with that idea, as exemplified by their series of posts called 'Publisher Spotlight'. This one interviews Meike, the doyenne of Peirene Press.

Review: The Intern (Sins07 #1) by Jess C Scott

Title: The Intern

Author: Jess C Scott

Series: Sins07 #1

Release Date: August 17th 2010

Publisher: CreateSpace

Pages: 252

ISBN: 145368493X (isbn13: 9781453684931)

Age: Young Adult

Summary from jesscscott.com: A 17-year-old intern must choose between trusting an irresistibly suave dance instructor—or her instincts.

Good girl, bad boy, dancing...and lust.

When I first read about this book I was hooked with the hole idea of sins. The Intern is the first book in the new series called Sins07, and it's about Lust.

It has been a while since I couldn't relate to a character, but Suzie made that possible. She is a 17 years old girl, very much like me. The good girl. Intelligent, student of one of the best schools, always does the right thing. But inside, she likes other stuff...like dancing. So when she goes to another city for a internship with her partner, the boring and always safe Chester, she instantly grabs this as an opportunity to have an adventure.

Who haven't wished for an adventure? For good girls...a little adventure could change their life. She finally has the freedom to do what she likes, and that includes taking dancing lessons with the super hot and famous Jo.Zee.

Of course, a good girl in a unknown big city isn't always safe.

Suzie could be any girl. She may be very intelligent, but when she sees a hot guy, she can't think straight. Nothing is more important than having him on her hands. Hormones also join in, and it's a party. And when you're growing up and trying to figure out who you're, it can be a very confusing ride. Specially if your thoughts aren't so innocent but in real life, you have no experience.

At first I wasn't sure it was the usual good boy versus bad boy, because Josh Zee wasn't the topical bad guy. But of course then I started to see all of his flaws, and I wanted to kick him!. Chester is always the good one, and he was such a sweet guy, I wanted to hug him. I can understand why Suzie didn't saw him in a romantic way...but his feelings were so obvious. I wished the author would have focus more on him and the past between them to understand him better.

The writing style was good. Maybe at the beginning it was a little bit slow but after reading the first couple of chapters it gets more interesting and fast-paced, and in a playful way the author manages to make you feel the music and the dancing. Even when I'm not a fan of that kind of music (hip hop), I really wished to start dancing right away! Music can be so....liberating.

So...Lust. For some people, Lust may be one of the most dangerous sins....but who doesn't like a little danger in life? For other, it may be a synonymous for fun. But, is it going to last? Is it enough? Are you willing to pay the price? (I'm a little intense over here!) Definitely the author make you understand the way Suzie lusts for this boy, but don't worry, she may not be very naive in her head, but she's very shy. There aren't sex scenes or something like that, but Suzie is definitely dreaming with them, so maybe it isn't your book if you don't feel comfortable with teens thinking about sex.

Overall, it's a great book, and I enjoyed it a lot. It has this chick-lit feeling, and the end wasn't at all what I was expecting! (which is always good, because I like plot twists). Definitely going to be attentive for the next book in this series.

Rating:

More about this book at www.jesscscott.com, Goodreads, Amazon.

If you liked this review then be sure to come back this week for a chance to win the book and read an interview with the author.