Luisa Plaja: Teen Book Reviews

As my blog has been a bit Witchblood obsessed recently I thought it was time to review some books! Amazingly since January I have managed to start the Goodreads challenge and initially I started out giving YA Dystopian books a try. I really loved Earth Girl by Janet Edwards, but then I read another similar sci fi space orientated one which wasn't half as good... reviews to follow shortly. In between reading these I've also read a couple of grown-up books ie the book club/prize winning types which interestingly I can't even remember the names of right now and to mix it up a little I've read a couple of teen lit books by the lovely Luisa Plaja which I'm going to review right now!

Luisa is a Brit based author like myself and has her own website here and also runs the teen website Chicklish. Luisa has written five books: 'Split by a Kiss', 'Extreme Kissing', 'Swapped by a Kiss' and 'Kiss, Date, Love, Hate' which are all published by Random House and most recently 'Diary of a Mall Girl' published by Curious Fox.

In January I read Kiss, Date, Love, Hate and even though I didn't get on with the protagonist I tore through the book and put it down with a smile on my face.

 

Lex Murphy's group of friends have all dated, hated, ignored and lusted after each other for the last few years. If only there was a way of matching people perfectly to avoid all the unrequited love, dumping and drama!

Then Lex's friend George is give a mysterious Sims-like game by his software-testing dad which involves building character profiles in the categories of Life, Looks and Love. Lex and George populate the game with avatars for all their mates, making a few 'wishful thinking' adjustments to the settings - and find that the next day these tinkerings have come true! But how long can this new calm, loved-up atmosphere continue...?

 

 Review:

 I haven't read many young teen girls novels, but occasionally I'll pick one up for some light entertainment. The novels I would compare Luisa's too would be those of Louise Rennison. The teenagers in these books are all believable and suffer with the same anxieties and ideals. What makes this story different is the fabulous plot idea! I love the idea of a trial computer game where you input all your details and manipulate real life. It brings up fun situations of course and comedy moments but also adds some interesting moral dilemmas. As I said before I didn't get on with Lex, I found her too irritating and self obsessed, but unlike with some other books it didn't detract from the story and I still enjoyed the book.  Four pink girly stars from me!

****

Last month Luisia released her newest novel called 'Diary of a Mall Girl' so after enjoying 'Kiss, Date...' I thought I'd give it a whirl.

 

 

Fifteen-year-old Molly actually lives in the residential wing of her local mall, and mysterious twins Jewel and Jasper have just moved into the flat upstairs. As Molly grows closer to them, she becomes more determined than ever to find out their secret and so do her other friends. Will their prying spoil Molly s chances of happiness?

Show More

Show Less



 

 Review:

If anything I enjoyed 'Mall Girl' more than 'Kiss, Date', mainly because I loved the main girl Molly and the twins were great too. The plot in 'Kiss, Date' is more unusual, where as this is more of a typical story of teen friendship, shopping and boyfriend dilemmas, but there was something extra with this book that kept me glued until I finished at 1am! This is a fun, fast read ideal for a rainy weekend curled up on your bed! Four and a half pink stars this time!

****

 

Show More

Show Less

All Fired Up And Nowhere To Go!

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy and I'll be honest, I've really struggled. It is hard enough making the decision to move your kids out of the area and away from their friends... You just want everything to go as smoothly as possible for them. And it looked like it was, we sold our house in the the first two weeks, found a dream house in a perfect village, with a lovely school. We had a moving date of May 3rd and I was starting to panic about everything that needed to be organised... And then with one phone call after Easter weekend everything changed. The first time buyers at the start of the chain have pulled out, which means our buyers are no longer in a position to buy, consequently we can't buy either!

After a week of feeling sick and not sleeping I've had enough. It's time for an attitude change. The kiddies are back in school after the holidays and I've had a long soak in the bath and decided to let it all go. My new mantra is:

What I can't control I will do my damnedest to forget about!

 

So the house is back on the market, and I'm concentrating on my writing. Have you noticed my word count bar? I've just written a wicked, murderous scene that takes my word count up over 8000 now. I hope to be finished in two weeks, then do edits and have it published before we go on holiday on May 17th.

 

 

As I'll be on holiday I'll need some promo help, so if you want me to release before my holidays, leave a comment below if you have a blog or FB page and can help me out with a review or just a cover/blurb post.

 

Here is an unedited teaser from the section I have just written:

 

 

Instinct told her to leap from the bed and in one lithe movement she was at the window dragging the material away from their frames, eager to find the source of the beating noise that was drawing her in.

‘Eva no!’ Sebastian’s voice carried across the room and simultaneously pulled at something deep inside. She took a glance out at the dying day on the street below, her eyes squinting in the dim light before pulling her gaze back to the man by the bed.  She knew where the noise came from now and her mouth watered pleasantly at the thought, but even as every emotion in her body willed her to smash the window, leap out and sink her teeth into those warm, pulsating creatures that wandered past oblivious, she could not. An iron leash held her tight and pulled her back to the man by the bed.

 



Holiday Chaos

In case any of you were wondering why my blog is being ignored recently I'm afraid I need to blame the kids again! I think when I started writing I never expected half the interest and success... which is amazing but consequently I thought writing books would fit in nicely with my kiddies, doing a bit here, a bit there! However as any of you who are writers out there know only too well this is sadly not the case! When I'm writing a novel I'm fully immersed and ideally need to write every day to keep the flow going (although I tend to write mon-fri and have the weekends with family). Now the kids are both at school this tends to work out well, and if I'm in the right frame of mind I can write 10,000 words a week and refresh myself at the weekend.

However as I have already explained I'm currently NOT in the right frame of mind... In fact I'm rather stressed out with this house moving business. I think I'm getting more greys lol! The good news is that it is actually moving fairly speedily considering these things normally take months and months. It even looks like we might make it into our new house before our holiday in May. Which means come June I can breath out and make a start on WitchHunt.

For now I'm writing my novella/short story, but even this has come grinding to a halt this week. Why?  I was doing so well, I had almost 6000 words down! The reason it has stopped is of course due to the school holidays... 2 weeks of kiddy chaos! It seems that the only way I can actually keep them from not warring, bickering or pestering me for snacks is to let my 8yr old daughter play Minecraft on my ipad and let my 5yr old boy play games on the CBeebies website on the PC... Where does this leave me? With peace and quiet, but no technology to write my story on! Drat!

And sorry but I'm just not an evening writer! So you're going to have to wait... 1week down 1week to go and then I'll be back in the game.

'Genevieve' - A WitchBlood Story

So as you guys know I am in the middle of a big house & area move so I just haven't got the time or emotional wherewithal to start writing 'WitchHunt' yet (but I do hope to have it out before Christmas!) Instead I thought I would write a novella / novelette telling the back story of Eva and Sebastian. I am aiming for £10-12k words and hope to have it written before I move house in May.

I don't know if you remember from Eva's chat with Jess in WitchBlood, but Eva was turned during the French Revolution which makes it a little bit horrifying. Also worth mentioning is that Eva doesn't have any 'extra' witchy powers, she doesn't have Jess's independance and these are both adults ;) So I'm thinking with the full-on vampy behaviour in this story it is going to be more a 'New Adult' fit... probably 16+ readerwise! Although this excerpt only contains some revolution atrocities... nothing else.

Here are some covers I have been working on. Personally I like the 2nd one, becuase I think she has the 'Eva' glint in her eyes and I think it fits well with the the rest of the series; but what do you think?

I have added the excerpt to my 'Excerpts Page' HERE.

Also to get you in the mood, here is an amazing song by Evanescence called 'Bring Me To Life,' which I am listening to right now as I am writing the scene where Eva decides she wants Sebastian to change her. Enjoy and please let me know what you think of the excerpt.

Short Stories, Novelettes & Novellas

I've never written a short story before... well apart from the ones I did at university and college, but since I began writing as a career... I can't put 'seriously' because it doesn't quite go with me, my personality or my subject matter! Writing about vampires and witches isn't 'serious' writing is it? It's fun! Anyway when it was recently suggested that I write a short story for a potential anthology I thought it could be a good idea to write about Eva's history, because she's an awesome character and doesn't get enough attention in the WitchBlood Series.

I thought I could probably write about her 'beginning' in about 10 - 12,000 words. Is this more than a short story I wondered? Yet I thought Novellas were longer so I had a little research and apparently what I am writing is a Novelette! For anyone interested here are the guidelines:

n Short story - 7,500 words or less

n Novelette - 7,501-17,500 words

n Novella - 17,501-40,000 words

n Novel - 40,001 or more words

Now personally I wouldn't be happy if I bought a novel and it was only 40,000 words. That must be only about 100 pages long! I'd say 60,000+ is a novel... but that's just my opinion!

So here I am writing my first Novelette. The title currently is 'Genevieve, A WitchBlood Story'. I like to keep things simple LOL and I'm hoping to have it done before I move house and go on holiday in May! The only sticking point is that I'm stretching myself by doing something new and writing in 3rd person! As you all know my Witchblood Series books are written in 1st person which personally I find much easier to write in, as I'm directly in the character's head... but for this story I thought 3rd person would work better.

I'm considering posting the first section on here... Would you like to read it?

Next Big Thing Hop

So a couple of weeks ago my lovely friend and fellow writer Aurelia B Rowl tagged me for this blog hop which I believe was started by Litbridge consisting of an ever-growing chain of writer interviews spanning the globe! Cool huh? Anyway me being ditsy old me... I completely forgot I'd been tagged until yesterday when another writer friend of mine from America, Christiana Miller also tagged me! So a big hello and thank you to both Aurelia B Rowl who writes modern romance novels and the lovely Christiana who has written one of my favourite books Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead!

How it works is that I post my interview and then I tag five more writers... although this may be tricky as everyone I know seems to have done it already!

TNBT: What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?
WitchLove is the third book in the WitchBlood YA series following 18 year old Jess, a half witch / half vampire as she fights evil and finds love.

TNBT: Where did the idea come from for the book?
I'm not really sure... my warped imagination maybe? Once I began writing WitchBlood the characters just grew and plot lines developed organically.

TNBT: What genre does your book fall under?
YA (Young Adult). Paranormal. Fantasy... maybe New Adult as there is some romance. Age 14+

TNBT: What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie?
I have a whole post on this coming up soon on my latest blog tour but to make it quick : Emma Watson would play Jess, Dean Geyer would play Daniel, Mila Kunis would make a great Eva and maybe Zac Effron would play Luke.

TNBT: How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
With WitchBlood it took me about 10months, but I wrote WitchLove during NaNoWriMo so completed the final 3/4 of the book in 30days!

TNBT: Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I'd say my amazing fans who reply to my posts on my Facebook page, write me amazing reviews and are constantly asking when the next book will be written. They keep me writing!

TNBT: What else about your book might pique your readers interest?
I think a lot of my American fans love the fact that my series is based in the UK, and are also entertained by Jess travelling to the US in WitchLove. Equally I think my British fans like the fact that they are reading about British places... especially Northern UK.

If you want to learn more about me, here are my links:
Blog
Facebook page
Twitter

Now here are my authors for next weeks hop:

Luisa Plaja   

Rachel McClellan

Tom Winship

Roxy Kade

Carlyle Labuschagne

Getting in the Zone...

Monday morning and I sit down at my desk, my head is in pieces, my brain is mashed and writing is the last thing coming to mind, so I thought the title apt! Why you ask? Yes it's about the third most stressful thing you can do in your life (after death & divorce)... moving house!

So last week we accepted an offer on our house, which happened somewhat sooner than expected and I am totally thrilled about, but it meant Saturday was taken up with house viewings in Cheshire. My husband has said all along (when I've been stressing out about finding a 'perfect house') that we will know when we see it. He also said that it could be the house I wasn't expecting it to be... I don't like to say this too often in case it goes to his head... but he was SO right! As soon as we walked into this house we both 'felt' it. It also happened to be the one house out of the four that was my least favourite on paper! So I find myself sitting here in my freezing cold conservatory waiting, typing in a somewhat frenzied fashion whilst I wait for a phone call from my husband who is doing the negotiating today. He has just phoned to say he has made the initial offer... and now we wait some more!

I'd just like to say for the record that
1. I' not good at waiting &
2. I'm a control freak... So this kind of scenario is not in my comfort zone!

Coming back to the title... somehow I need to put all this out of my head and do something. The choice is between cleaning the house and writing. Hmm now normally writing would come first every time but today Im just not sure I can get in the zone. Apart from anything I haven't started WitchHunt yet and starting is the bit I find hardest, so srating now, whilst I've got so much going on in my already spaced out cranium might not be the best plan!

I do however have another project I'm considering. I have a friend in the vilage who is also a writer, Aurelia B. Rowl who recently suggested putting togather an anthology of short stories and asked if I would contribute something. I was thinking about doing a short spin-off about Eva and Sebastian in the French Revoloution era...what do you think? I've never written a short story before but it could be a useful way of getting my head back in the game. Would you like to read about Eva and Sebastian?

Also just a reminder that I have a six week blog tour running currently, hosted by Abby at
Bookshelf Confessions and if you are interested in my covers you can read about my cover decisions on Friday's guest post over at FromThe BootheelCottonPatch . You can see the rest of the tour and loads of new reviews by clicking the links on the Tour Page link at the top of the blog page or the poster.