Ellie Marney's Blog, page 11

#LoveOzYAbookclub July 2020 title announcement – PLEASE DON’T HUG ME

High Five to everyone, we made it halfway through 2020! To kick off the second half of the year, we are proud to announce our July 2020 title for #LoveOzYAbookclub will be PLEASE DON’T HUG ME by Kay Kerr.

A funny-serious own-voices story about what happens when you stop trying to be the person other people expect you to be and give yourself a go.

Erin is looking forward to Schoolies, at least she thinks she is. But things are not going to plan. Life is getting messy, and for Erin, who is autistic, that’s a big problem. She’s lost her job at Surf Zone after an incident that clearly was not her fault. Her driving test went badly even though she followed the instructions perfectly. Her boyfriend is not turning out to be the romantic type. And she’s missing her brother, Rudy, who left almost a year ago. 

But now that she’s writing letters to him, some things are beginning to make just a tiny bit of sense

Kay Kerr is a freelance writer and author based on the Sunshine Coast Queensland. PLEASE DON’T HUG ME is her first novel.

To order your own copy of PLEASE DON’T HUG ME you can use the code ‘loveoz’ at Boomerang Books to get free shipping.

I hope you enjoy this read for July. Look out for our author interview with Kay Kerr coming later in the month and join us anytime at the FB group.

Emm xx

#LoveOzYAbookclub June 2020 author interview: SARAH EPSTEIN (Deep Water)

Hello, bookclubbers 

#LoveOzYAbookclub June 2020 title announcement – DEEP WATER

Is it just me, or did May seem to take *forever*? (and also go really fast?) Weird time is something we’re all becoming familiar with over the course of this exceedingly weird year… I guess we’re all slowly getting used to it!

But what if time – and relationships, and people – start getting weird in your small country town after a boy goes missing? That is (roughly) the premise of DEEP WATER by Sarah Epstein, our June book of the month. It’s a small-town mystery with layer upon layer of weird just shimmering below the surface…and I challenge you to find the clues in time to solve the mystery yourself before the end of this book!

Here’s the synopsis:

Henry Weaver is missing.

Three months ago, thirteen-year-old Henry disappeared from The Shallows during a violent storm, leaving behind his muddy mountain bike at the train station.

Mason Weaver is trapped.

While Mason doesn’t know who he is or what he’s capable of, he knows the one thing binding him to this suffocating small town is his younger brother, Henry.

Chloe Baxter wants answers.

Why would Henry run away without telling her? One of Chloe’s friends knows something and she’s determined to find out the truth.

As Chloe wades into dangerous waters and Mason’s past emerges, a chilling question ripples to the surface: how far would you go to keep a secret?

This is Sarah Epstein’s second novel – her debut, Small Spaces, was absolutely riveting, and I think you’ll find this one just as good.

You can grab your copy of DEEP WATER at Boomerang Books, and use the ‘loveoz’ code to get free shipping! Alternatively, if you’d like to by in digital you can find the book here.

I hope you enjoy this new read for June! Keep an eye out for an interview with Sarah coming later this month, and happy reading

#LoveOZYAbookclub May 2020 Author Interview – SOPHIE GONZALES Only Mostly Devastated

Our Author Interview for May is from Sophie Gonzales. We asked Sophie five questions to hear a little more about her and the background for Only Mostly Devastated.

What made you decide to do a Grease retelling and have you always been a fan of Grease?

I’ve been a fan of Grease since the first time I watched it as a little kid (although let’s be real, I didn’t understand about 80% of what I was watching… but I definitely knew I liked the music!). With Only Mostly Devastated, what I wanted to do was address what I saw as a gap — we’ve had a million of the same set-up, very tropey and cliche’d rom-coms starring a white, straight cast. I wanted to take these set-ups and tropes and give them to a queer cast, to let them have their moment. Did the result end up being original? Nope, not at all — in fact, I was quite consciously aiming to create something very similar to the stories straight people were allowed to have over and over and over and over again before the tropes and plotlines were declared cliche. It was, in a lot of ways, my way of pushing back against the idea that heteronormative stories are allowed to just be, even if they’re unoriginal and only exist to be a little feel-good and cheesy, whereas queer stories must have a “reason” to exist, and to do something especially new or spectacular, to “add to the conversation”. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the queer experience doesn’t affect the plot and characters — simply being queer adds something “new to the conversation”, given how little rep there has been historically! But plot-wise, I went unapologetically cliched. The Grease jumping-off point seemed, to me, like the perfect place to start, but I think the story goes in a very different direction to Grease. It’s more an homage than a straight retelling.

 

Your book has an awesome title. But what might it have been called, if it wasn’t called what it is now?

The title was weirdly easy to pick! I had very little notice we were taking the book out to editors, and my agent asked me to give it a name, so I scanned the hundred pages of material we had at that point and noticed the line “Here walks Ollie DiFiore . . . only mostly devastated” and that line jumped out to me as encapsulating what the story is about, and representing its vibe. I don’t know what it would’ve been called otherwise, as we never threw any other options around! Probably another line from the book? I got much luckier with OMD than I did for my newest book (title to be announced this week). It took over three months of emailing back and forth for us all to settle on *that* title!

 

What is a curious or unusual thing about you that most people don’t know?

Hmm… I believe in ghosts! Have definitely lived in more than one haunted house in my time. My roommate didn’t used to believe me, but then one day in my early 20s I found a necklace from an old haunted house I lived in (it was a beaded necklace. No one bought it for me, I just found it around the house when I was 8 and claimed it. Mum didn’t know where it came from), and I decided to start wearing the necklace again. A few days after I found it, I was packing for a trip to Sydney, and put that necklace on top of my clothes in my suitcase, along with an owl necklace. Both necklaces were the type that go all the way around, and are nice and long — no clasp, just an unbroken circle. Easy to get over your head. Anyway, I took a phone call around this time, and the call was creepy — it kept getting interrupted by what my sister described as a “demonic sound”, so we cut the call short. As I hung up, I decided I wanted to keep the owl necklace out to wear on the plane, but when I went to get it it was looped through the beaded necklace. Like two rings hooked together. This was physically impossible, as neither necklace had a clasp or opening point. I showed my roommate, and he agreed this was impossible. But we both saw it. In the end we had to cut one of the necklaces to separate them… and we chose to cut the owl necklace. I had no intention of cutting open a potentially haunted necklace and finding out what the fallout of THAT would be!

 

If you could have anyone, who would you cast in the smash hit Netflix adaptation of your book?

Smash hit Netflix adaptation!? Yes please!! This might be a boring answer, but I would love to see some newcomers!! It would be super important to me that there is no whitewashing and the casting is accurate in terms of race, and I’d love to see queer actors getting involved as well. If we’re playing dream cast, I’d love to see one of my celebrity crushes in one of the adult roles like Kristen Bell, Leslie Odom Jr, Idina Menzel, Lin Manuel Miranda…. someone like that, purely for selfish reasons, so I can sneak onto the set and become best friends with them. Is that allowed? In my fantasy it is.

 

If you could only take 3 books with you on holiday, what would they be?

Only 3!? Let’s go with my favourite book of all time, The Long Walk by Richard Bachman / Stephen King (it’s devastating to read but in a cathartic way), a new one I’ve been dying to read but haven’t yet (Maybe my copy of You Have a Match by Emma Lord!) and an old-but-new-to-me, like the Percy Jackson series, which I’ve heard is incredible but am yet to get to!

 

Thank you so much Sophie for talking to us, we look forward to hearing about your new title!

Xx Emmaly

#LoveOzYAbookclub May 2020 Title Announcement – ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED

Hello everyone, I hope everyone is well and coping okay with this crazy time. I hope you are getting lots of reading time in amongst working or schooling from home. I don’t know about you but I’m loving funny lighthearted rom-coms right now, so I am more than happy to announce the May Title for you all to enjoy

The book for May 2020 is ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED by Sophie Gonzales.

Summer love…gone so fast.

Will Tavares is the dream summer fling―he’s fun, affectionate, kind―but just when Ollie thinks he’s found his Happily Ever After, summer vacation ends and Will stops texting Ollie back. Now Ollie is one prince short of his fairy tale ending, and to complicate the fairy tale further, a family emergency sees Ollie uprooted and enrolled at a new school across the country. Which he minds a little less when he realizes it’s the same school Will goes to…except Ollie finds that the sweet, comfortably queer guy he knew from summer isn’t the same one attending Collinswood High. This Will is a class clown, closeted―and, to be honest, a bit of a jerk.

Ollie has no intention of pining after a guy who clearly isn’t ready for a relationship, especially since this new, bro-y jock version of Will seems to go from hot to cold every other week. But then Will starts “coincidentally” popping up in every area of Ollie’s life, from music class to the lunch table, and Ollie finds his resolve weakening.

The last time he gave Will his heart, Will handed it back to him trampled and battered. Ollie would have to be an idiot to trust him with it again.

Right? Right.

I really hope you enjoy this book which has been marketed to be SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA meets CLUELESS in this boy-meets-boy spin on Grease. YAY!! You can grab a copy of ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED from Boomerang Books. You can get free shipping by using the code ‘loveoz’ when ordering. If you’d prefer to as an ebook you can find it here.

Keep checking out our Facebook group  #LoveOzYAbookclub, and we will have an author interview with Sophie Gonzales later in the month

Emmaly xx

#LoveOzYAbookclub April 2020 author interview – KATYA DeBECERRA (Oasis)

Welcome, again, to another author interview with bookclub! This month we have the fabulous Katya DeBecerra, with her sophomore novel OASIS.

Katya is a pretty amazing woman with a fascinating history: she was born in Russia, studied in California and now lives in Melbourne. Katya has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Melbourne, and now works as a social scientist (what’s that? you might ask – well according to this definition it’s “an expert in or student of human society and social relationships, or any subject within this field, such as economics or politics” so there you go).

Katya’s first book, What The Woods Keep, was a mix of mystery, fantasy and science fiction, and became one of Readings Books YA bestsellers. She is the co-founder and co-host of #SpecLitChat and a writing mentor with First Five Pages Workshop.

And here are her answers to our (as usual, slightly silly) questions for #LoveOzYAbookclub!

* Why this book? Why this story?

As a child, I was obsessed with archaeology. This obsession lasted all through my teen years and into my early twenties. I’d have ended up studying ancient history and archaeology in uni, but at that time in the small Russian town where I grew up there wasn’t a lot of opportunities or information in that regard. I went to study cultural anthropology instead (no regrets!), but archaeology has always remained my “first love”. It was just a matter of time before I’d write my archaeology book. A related bit of important info, I grew up on sci-fi books and adventure movies. Fast forward about a decade and a half, and these passions came together in Oasis. My second novel is my love letter to archaeology, adventure and survival stories and all those twisty sci-fi novels (Strugasky, Lem, Shefner!) I worshipped as a teen.

I started to write Oasis in 2014 during National Novel Writing Month and continued working on it while my debut-to-be (What The Woods Keep) was on submission to editors. Both books eventually found their perfect home with Macmillan. I’m so excited for Oasis to be finally published – it’s been a long wait but it was worth it.

* What other media inspired you during the writing of this book? Songs, TV, movies, other books…it’s all grist for the mill!

Oasis is pitched as Lost meets The Twilight Zone, which is a perfect way to describe its overall feel and intent. It’s an existential sci-fi thriller disguised as an adventure story. I’ll stop talking now…

I can’t really talk about my main literary inspirations for Oasis without sounding extremely spoilery (though, if anyone wants to know which two sci-fi books inspired me, they can reach out to me directly and I’ll share!).

I listened to lots of music to get myself into the right state of mind as I wrote and the revised Oasis. Here is my playlist – London Grammar, Ladytron… A song’s mood and the imagery it conjures up in my head are often more important to me than lyrics.

* Okay – what three hot books you would run in to save if your house was burning?

Whenever I visit my family in Russia, I return to Melbourne carrying luggage full of books. One of these books currently in my possession is a 1983 volume of novellas and short stories by Russian sci-fi writer Vadim Shefner. This particular book originally belonged to my grandfather. It’s a special feeling to turn these yellowed pages knowing that, years ago, he used to do the same.

Another special book on my shelves is the first collection of Joseph Brodsky’s poems which I bought as a gift for myself after graduating high school. I still remember that feeling of “this is something special, listen now” when I first heard Brodsky’s The Hawk’s Cry in Autumn recited on stage. The year was 1999 and, after years of exile and censure, Brodsky was at last included in the school program. Whenever I need to remind myself what it feels like to be human, I just open my little Brodsky paperback and read something aloud at random. Always works.

* Your hot take on what you think the hot trends for YA fiction will be in 2020:

I just hope it’s not vampires… Oh wait. *shrugs*

* Your fave line of poetry is…

“The birds of paradise sing without needing a supple branch” – from one of my favorite Joseph Brodsky’s poems, We Lived in The City…

Thank you so much for having me – and my book! Xxx, Katya

Katya, you’re very welcome! Thank you joining us on bookclub, and good luck with OASIS! We’ll have a discussion post for this book in the next few days, and stay tuned for a ‘new title for May’ announcement by Emmaly on the FB group page very soon!

xxEllie

#LoveOzYAbookclub April 2020 title announcement – OASIS

Hello, lovely locked-down friends!

A quick word about bookclub in a time of coronavirus: I know we’re all coping with some wild circumstances right now – no matter your situation, living in quarantine isn’t easy. But while you’re stuck at home, Emmaly and I will do our best to keep you busy with book recs, new titles, online events or some other way of connecting with your favourite books. After a few hiccups, we’ve made sure that Boomerang Books is still offering us free shipping on bookclub orders. And if you think of anything that we could include in bookclub that would make your life easier, please reach out on the FB page and let us know!

Okay – onward!

This month’s title is OASIS by Katya DeBecerra – a story about mirages, deserts, and deadly illusions…

Alif had exciting summer plans: working on her father’s archaeological dig site in the desert with four close friends . . . and a very cute research assistant. Then the sandstorm hit.

With their camp wiped away, Alif and the others find themselves lost on the sands, seemingly doomed . . . until they find the oasis. It has everything they need: food, water, shade—and mysterious ruins that hide a deadly secret. As reality begins to shift around them, they question what’s real and what’s a mirage.

The answers turn Alif and her friends against one another, and they begin to wonder if they’ve truly been saved. And while it was easy to walk into the oasis, it may be impossible to leave . . .

The oasis saved them. But who will save them from the oasis?

This one looks exciting enough to keep us distracted for at least the next month! If you’d like to grab your copy of OASIS, you can get free shipping by using the ‘loveoz’ code when ordering through Boomerang Books. If you prefer to read digitally, you can find the ebook here.

Keep up with the conversation about this book at the #LoveOzYAbookclub FB group page – we’ll have an interview with Katya DeBecerra, author of OASIS, coming up soon

#LoveOZYAbookclub March 2020 author interview: ASTRID SCHOLTE (The Vanishing Deep)

Instagram Live Virtual Book Launch 26 March 2020

Hi everyone. On Thursday 26 March, Astrid Scholte was due to have her book launch in Melbourne for THE VANISHING DEEP after returning from her US tour. But with the way of the world at the moment, a virtual Q&A Chat with Astrid and The YA Room on Instagram was held instead. I would have loved to have gone to the launch to get my book signed, but it was great to still be able to hear from Astrid in the comfort of my own home. I have summarised the conversation with some of the questions asked here:

Q If you could bring back someone famous from history who would it be?

Walt Disney. I am a massive Disney fan and I would love to meet him and talk to him about where he got his ideas from

 

Q What was the planning process for The Vanishing Deep?

I started writing in 2017 after I had sold Four Dead Queens and it was in the editing process. I started out with the idea of having a loved one revived for 24 hours and what would you do with that time. The idea came from a Desperate House Wives episode where the character said they wanted their husband back for just 24 hours. After this I knew I wanted to write about sisters and that I wanted it to be set in a dead world.

 

Q Did the world building for The Vanishing Deep change during drafts?

I started with a concept, the ’24 hours to live’. Then I brain stormed different worlds and came up with the themes of death. I wanted it to be a dead world. And that the water is dangerous.

 

Q Did you know how it was going to finish at the start?

The ending changed 3 times during the editing process. I am not a plotter or a planner so there was a different ending of the book that was rewritten 3 times. I still have those other endings on my computer. I may release the alternative endings stay tuned.

 

Q What is your favourite book or movie about siblings?

My favourite is Frozen. I think one of the reasons it is so popular is because it’s about sisters. I also like Hocus Pocus. I have an older sister. I was born on her second birthday so we share a birthday. We are very close. But we are very different from Tempest and Elysea.

 

Q What are your next projects?

I have a new WIP Murder Manor – I have just started. Also secret project book that is due to be released next year. It is a fantasy crime mash up.

 

Q How can we get signed books of The Vanishing Deep in Australia?

Signed books will be available from Readings very soon. There will be updates on Instagram soon on when they are available.

 

Thank you so much Astrid for answering all our questions last night.

 

Happy Reading

Emmaly xx

#LoveOzYAbookclub March 2020 title announcement – THE VANISHING DEEP

Hello, and welcome to March! I’d like to say a big thank you to Ellie for adding me as a co contributor to the #LoveOzYAbookclub. My name is Emmaly and I’m from the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. I live on a small farm with my husband, two young adult kids and our pet alpacas, horses and dogs. I’ve been a mad YA reader for many years and one of my main hobbies is collecting signed books. You can find me on twitter @MissEmmG or insta @emmalyg

I am very excited to introduce our March bookclub read THE VANISHING DEEP by Astrid Scholte.


Seventeen-year-old Tempe was born into a world of water. When the Great Waves destroyed her planet, its people had to learn to survive living on the water, but the ruins of the cities below still called. Tempe dives daily, scavenging the ruins of a bygone era, searching for anything of value to trade for Notes. It isn’t food or clothing that she wants to buy, but her dead sister’s life. For a price, the research facility on the island of Palindromena will revive the dearly departed for twenty-four hours before returning them to death. It isn’t a heartfelt reunion that Tempe is after; she wants answers. Elysea died keeping a terrible secret, one that has ignited an unquenchable fury in Tempe: Her beloved sister was responsible for the death of their parents. Tempe wants to know why.

But once revived, Elysea has other plans. She doesn’t want to spend her last day in a cold room accounting for a crime she insists she didn’t commit. Elysea wants her freedom and one final glimpse at the life that was stolen from her. She persuades Tempe to break her out of the facility, and they embark on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about their parents’ death and mend their broken bond. But they’re pursued every step of the way by two Palindromena employees desperate to find them before Elysea’s time is up–and before the secret behind the revival process and the true cost of restored life is revealed.
 
Astrid Scholte lives in Melbourne and has spent the last ten years working in oil, animation and television as both an artist and manager. The Vanishing Deep is her second Novel. Her first novel is Four Dead Queens.
 
The Vanishing Deep is out Tuesday 3rd March and you can preorder now on Boomerang books and use our free shipping code ‘loveoz’. Please join us at #LoveOzYAbookclub on FB to comment and share about this great book all month.

Happy Reading
Emm xx

#LoveOzYAbookclub Feb 2020 author interview – NINA KENWOOD (It Sounded Better In My Head)

Our first author interview for the year – huzzah! If you’d like a little insight into what inspired Nina Kenwood to write her debut YA novel, her fave trash movies, and the potential alternative titles for It Sounded Better in My Head, read on…

 

What other media inspired you during the writing of this book? Songs, TV, movies, other books…it’s all grist for the mill!

Every book I read inspired my writing in some way, but some highlights for me were Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley (one of my favourite ever YA books), Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (I read it in a day, and wanted to write a book like that, a book to be devoured in a big, hearty gulp of happiness), Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (my original awkward, introverted teenager inspiration), Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta (one of my first, true book loves), The Dog of the Marriage: The Collected Short Stories by Amy Hempel (she does so much with so little, I love dipping into her stories when I feel stuck), and any essay by Nora Ephron.

In terms of music, I actually have a Spotify playlist of songs I was listening to while writing the book – you can see it here.

 

Your favourite fictional tropes are:

There Is Only One Bed (when two people who aren’t in a relationship but perhaps have some unresolved sexual tension are forced to share a bed). This trope just so happens to feature in my book.

I also really love Enemies to Reluctant Allies to Friends to Lovers (which is best done of several seasons of a TV show or several books in a series), Fake Dating, and a really good Training Montage.

 

Trash Media Challenge – which fave trash movie/show would you cheerily inflict on your friends?

 The Vampire Diaries. I even have a guide I give friends – it gets enjoyable by Season One: Episode 5, it gets great at Season One: Episode 10, and it is perfect from Season One: Episode 17 through to Season Three: Episode 22. Then seasons 4 through 8 are a mixed bag of good, very good and truly awful.

 

Your book has a title, and it’s an awesome title. But what might it have been called, if it wasn’t called what it is now?

 I had a running list of possible titles I kept adding to throughout the writing of my book (it was a great way to procrastinate). By the end, there were 65 (!) possibilities, some of which I later repurposed as chapter titles. Here’s a few of them:

My Face and Other Problems

Imperfect

There Is No One To Blame Here

Are You Having Fun Yet?

 

The zombie apocalypse strikes, but it’s okay, cos you have your choice of weapons, and you choose…

I like the idea of looking really cool with a crossbow but in reality, I wouldn’t know how to use it. Probably a hatchet. I’m confident I could swing a hatchet into a zombie’s head and survive for…maybe a week?

 

Nina, thank you so much for joining us at #LoveOzYAbookclub and getting your sillies on