One Week Of You: A Review and Giveaway

Last October I was privileged to host Lisa Williams Kline's cover reveal for her newest YA book, ONE WEEK OF YOU (Blue Crow Publishing, 2019).  At that time Lisa shared her path to publication and the book's backstory. Since then I've had the opportunity to read this well-written and engaging story (I didn't want it to end!) and am excited to share it with you.

REVIEW

For as long as she can remember, fifteen-year-old Lizzy has been a serious student who wants to be a doctor and isn't distracted by boys or any fun activities like cheerleading. But that was before Andy Masters--the newest and most popular guy who flirted with her; before she made the cheerleading team; and before she had to carry around a 5-pound bag of flour--her "flour baby"--as part of sex education in Health. 

From: http://www.themagrag.com/2012/02/flour-sack-babies.html

Despite Lizzy's old best friend's warnings that she is in danger of losing focus and her brother's concern over her constantly forgetting her flour baby, Lizzy can't stop from succumbing to what she describes as "AMSD: Andy Master Smiling Disease." The book is full of Lizzy's infatuation as well as her questions (Does he really like me?) which are so typical of young love. 

To increase the tension, the week of the flour baby is also April Fool's week, false fire alarm riddle the school, and Lizzy ends up in detention. She looks down at the other students in detention and gets angry with the teacher who accuses her of not being the sweet person she has portrayed to everyone in the school. In this mirror moment, Lizzy begins to see herself in a different way.

I know since I've had this crush on Andy I've morphed into this totally different person, and I've totally forgotten a lot of stuff and done handsprings on the soccer field during a school evacuation and gotten a few extra flour babies...Maybe it will kill my parents when they find out everything I've done this week.  

... I'm filled with fury, and then it turns into something else. I realize that up until this afternoon I've been judging everyone in this room. (p.80)

True to her investigative nature, Lizzy tries to figure out who is setting the fire alarms. She even wonders if Andy, as the high school reporter/broadcaster, initiated the fire drills to make a journalistic point. Is he a creep or a good guy? Her affection for him is tested on several occasions; she ends up feeling ashamed for lying to her parents and for her poor decisions during her first babysitting job.  

I'm always impressed when an author portrays and uses secondary characters well. After her downfall, Lizzy has a heart to heart talk with her parents. She confesses to feeling bad over how she treated a boy who irritated her. Her father's reply is a message teens need to hear:

Well, when I said to be nice to everyone, I guess I meant to be kind and cordial to everyone. That doesn't mean you have to be best friends with someone you don't want to be close to...You're allowed not to hang out with him. You're allowed to set boundaries. (p. 174)

Her mother chimes in with great advice that I hope girls (and women!) who read this book will take to heart:

"Someone who loves you will never ask you to compromise yourself." (p. 176)

Kudos to Lisa Kline for showing a teenage girl conflicted over her desires to want a boy to like her and concerns about giving up her self. This clean book for young adults realistically portrays sex education and is a welcome addition to the young adult genre that is heavily infused with poor parent-child relationships and characters experimenting with sex and drugs. 

And by the way--the ending is perfect!!

GIVEAWAY

I have a gently used paperback to give to one of you. If you share this post on social media or become a new follower of my blog, I'll add your name twice. Just let me know what you do in the comments and please leave your email address if you are new to my blog. A winner will be drawn on April 4. 

ONE WEEK OF YOU- by Lisa Kline's new YA novel and a Giveaway!

Congratulations to Jo Lynn Worden and Julian Daventry who won copies of DRIVE from last week's blog post. 

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I am always honored when an author asks me to host their cover reveal. So, when Lisa Williams Kline asked if I was interested, of course I said yes! Her latest book, ONE WEEK OF YOU, (Blue Crow Publishing, February 2019) stars 15-year-old Lizzy who has to carry a flour baby for a week for her health class. During that time there are three prank fire drills and evacuations at school. In just one week, Lizzy realizes that adulthood brings complicated responsibilities. 

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Lisa Williams Kline

Here Lisa shares some of the backstory of the book. 

CAROL: What prompted the story idea?

LISA: This story is fictionalized from two different real events. One year in high school my daughter had to carry a bag of flour for a week in her health class called a “flour baby.” I thought this was an interesting way to address human sexuality that had some comic potential. 

The second event took place several years later when there was a week in which there were three bomb threats in my other daughter’s high school. I was interested in the way the students handled that week. When I started writing this story, I thought, what if there were scary disruptions to the school schedule during the same week the kids had to carry the flour babies. I was partly interested in combining a somewhat comic story thread with one that wasn’t comic at all, and that has been one of the challenges in writing this story. It’s also a story of a first crush, and I based that on a combination of a couple of high school crushes of my own. And I have always been a forgetful person, and I incorporated that character flaw into my main character Lizzy. 

CAROL: Did you interview or research the book in anyway? If so, who did you talk to and how did you research it?

LISA: Yes, for example, part of my story involves student hacking of the school computer system, and I interviewed an IT expert on how the students could do this hacking. I also interviewed a teacher about school evacuations. I also had some teens read it and give me feedback about the voice. 

CAROL: I understand that you put aside the manuscript for awhile and then came back to it. Had the story changed in your mind in the interim? If so, how?

LISA: The story has evolved quite a bit over the time that I have been working on it. I put it away when I was working on the Sisters in All Seasons series. When I took it back out, I thought, hey, I think I can work on this again, there are some good moments here. Various editors and agents have all had suggestions for changes, and the story is quite a bit different than it was starting out. 

CAROL: What is the message you hope your readers will take away?

LISA: I wasn’t really thinking about a message when I wrote this book. I just wanted to tell a story that I hoped would be engaging. Many of my books end up being coming of age stories, and I think this one is too. I guess if there’s any message it would be to be kind to everyone. 

CAROL: Can you share some of your path to publication for ONE WEEK of YOU? 

LISA: While I’ve had an agent in the past, I do not have an agent now. I sent the manuscript directly to the editors at Blue Crow Publishing. www.bluecrowpublishing.com 

I queried Blue Crow Publishing and in a few weeks they asked for the manuscript. Lauren Faulkenberry wrote me about six weeks later, after she’d read it, with a revision request. In that revision, she wanted me to mostly ramp up the tension more and make a change to the ending. I worked on that revision for a little more than a month, sent it back, and after a few weeks she send me a publication offer. I was absolutely thrilled!

Lauren and Katie at Blue Crow have been wonderful to work with. After I signed the contract, Lauren wrote me an editorial letter in which she asked for more changes, such as fleshing out the setting more and describing the characters more fully. I also did another round of revisions for Katie. Blue Crow is an indie press, and the personal attention has been fantastic. I really feel as though Lauren and Katie were one hundred percent behind me and my book. So far it’s been a great experience. 

CAROL: Thanks for sharing all of that, Lisa. It's great to hear of an indie press that's working hard for its authors! And now for the moment you've all been waiting for (unless you cheated and scrolled down)--here is the lovely cover for Lisa's new book!

GIVEAWAY

Leave your name (and email address if I don't have it) to enter the giveaway of an eARC for ONE WEEK OF YOU. Enter soon! Giveaway ends October 18!

Fire, Color, One: An Audio Book Giveaway, Review, A Look at Flashbacks, PLUS Story Innovation

Congratulations to Rosi Hollinbeck, my California blogger counterpart, who won FUZZY on last week's blog.

REVIEW

FIRE, COLOR, ONE by Jenny Valentine is about as different from FUZZY, the book I reviewed last week, as you can get. Jenny Valentine's edgy young adult novel is a serious portrayal of Iris, a young woman caught up in the addiction of pyromania. With some language and an attempted rape scene, it might not be the book for every teen reader. But, it's also a story of healing, friendship, art, and found family. 

Plus, it's a story masterfully told through many flashbacks. (Disclaimer: since I listened to the audio book provided by Tantor Media, some of the quotes might not be as exact as if I had read the print version.)

"I wasn't ready, once I found him, to let him go."

That line from the book's prologue summarizes Iris's heartache and grief. Like a pretzel without beginning or end, this prologue is actually the end. From the beginning of the story, the reader knows Ernest, Iris's father, dies from cancer. What we don't know, is how she "lost" him.

Enter the masterful flashbacks. 

As the story moves forward. the reader discovers that Iris, her selfish mother (Hannah) and egotistical step-father (Lowell) have returned to England. You don't know where they came from or why Iris is unhappy until Iris reflects on the fact that, 

"...when the only person you care about is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and that person is not talking to you and you haven't had time to say goodbye and haven't had time to say I'm sorry."

The reader discovers more backstory as Iris looks around her new sterile room and misses the California landscape, the posters on her walls, and Thurston standing at her window waiting for what they're going to do that day.

FLASHBACKS

Valentine's masterful use of simple flashbacks layer in vital backstory but keep the story moving forward. As a reader/listener I was never bogged down in the past. Rather, these flashbacks always informed what was happening in the present. 

In this way, the reader learns how and why Iris began to set fires. She says, "Some days inside my head there is nothing but fire." Imagining herself setting a fire relaxes her and provides an adrenaline thrill of excitement and a rush of release. Iris is not an arsonist; she doesn't want to harm anyone or anything. But she is an angry, hurt young woman.

Upon his request, Hannah brings Iris to her father's deathbed. Iris does not want to be near the man she believes abandoned her as a baby, but eventually bonds with him over art, music, and literature. As Iris watches her father draw near to death, she hears his story, her mother's story, and finally, the truth of her own story. Valentine fits these puzzle pieces together through one flashback after another. 

Towards the end, as Iris stands outside her father's bedroom door, she hears her mother talk about how dangerous she is as an arsonist. Iris has moved from not caring about her father, to being worried about what he'll think of her. "I knew there was nothing I could say or do to save myself."  As she listens to her mother's betrayal, it's excruciating for the reader who knows that inevitably, Iris will start another fire looking for the calm, peaceful, emptiness it gives her.  When her mother came to find her, "The next morning my fire was still smoldering. I was still angry. So is she." 

Valentine does an excellent job portraying Iris's troubled relationships with Hannah and Lowell. They are wannabe actors and their pitiful attempts at pretending to be people who they aren't is in juxtaposition with Iris's real emotional struggles and Ernest's serious physical struggles. Valentine's portrayal of Iris's grief after her father dies was authentic; it reminded me of how I felt when I lost a loved one forty years ago.

When the reader gets to the end (which remember, is the beginning) Ernest gives Iris a huge surprise--after his death. Even within this last twist, flashbacks are folded into one another.

STORY INNOVATION

Coincidentally, at the same time that I listened to FIRE, COLOR, ONE in my car, I listened to THE HOUSE GIRL by Tara Conklin on my phone. (Well, not exactly at the same time, but you get the idea.) Although this a totally different book (adult fiction with two POV: Lina is a white, modern lawyer; Josephine is a black runaway slave in Virginia before the Civil War) from FIRE, there have a lot in common. Both center on art and involve mothers who abandon their children in one form or another. There is a similar close POV (in FIRE it is first, in THE HOUSE GIRL it's a tight third) with well-chosen details showing the characters, their nonverbal language, and vivid settings. Like FIRE, THE HOUSE GIRL heavily uses backstory to propel the story forward. Much of this backstory comes from documents that Lina uncovers as she searches for a plaintiff in a civil rights reparations case. 

Conklin is as masterful as Valentine in weaving a story together. Both authors do not present books with a linear plot path of Beginning-Middle-End. The books reminded me of this recent article on Writer Unboxed in which Heather Webb wrote,

Story—and innovation—is king. To keep readers coming back to the blessed book, it’s imperative to stand out in all the noise. Maybe this is why writers are experimenting with stylistic changes. Readers are demanding something sensational that really grips them, and even changes their view of the world. Writers can’t sit back on their laurels. They must STRIKE OUT and be unique, as well as create a story that’s universal. (You know, because that’s so easy.)

There you have it. Two books which demonstrate exactly what Heather Webb described. 

THE NARRATOR and THE GIVEAWAY

Gemma Dawson, FIRE, COLOR, ONE's narrator, does an excellent job of bringing the characters to life. I'm always impressed when a narrator does both male and female voices and flips between different accents without a hitch. It was interesting that Iris spoke as if she was British, although she spent most of her life in the United States. Perhaps it was because she ended up coming home to her British father.

I am offering my copy of FIRE, COLOR, ONE to one of you. Please leave me a comment by March 11 with your email address if you are new to my blog. As always, if you share on social media, I'll enter your name in twice.  

For more information:

• Click on this Writer's Digest article about the difference between backstory and flashbacks.
• Jane Friedman on flashbacks.
• Weaving backstory to reveal character by Rachel Ballon.