Blog Tour Stop & Giveaway: R for Rebel by Megan Mulry

Yesterday I featured Megan's fourth in the Unruly Royal series about the youngest sister Abigail, HERE.  Today, I'm excited to welcome Megan Mulry back to talk about her newest installment.

Megan:  Hi Becky! Thanks for having me at One Literature Nut.

Becky:  I'm always excited to have you here!

I have loved that your first two novels were about the male royals and now the last two are from their sisters' perspectives.  What story spark drew you to putting together these American + British royal couples?

Megan:  The first spark was this desire to do a Regency romance in a contemporary setting, and because some of my favorite Regency romances (like early Judith McNaught) had a feisty American heroine who knocked the socks off a British aristo hero, that's what I did first.

After I got the seed of the idea, I started researching contemporary British aristocrats and one thing led to another. I'd always been a complete anglophile, so it wasn't really a stretch. Throughout his life, my father sent me clippings and obituaries about eccentric Brits, and this one about the 17th Duke of Norfolk never left me.  That became the inspiration for the fictional Northrop family.

Becky:  You have such a fun social media presence on twitter (@meganmulry).  Which of your characters do you think would have an active online media presence, and which ones would absolutely avoid it?   (Just FYI, for some reason, I keep thinking all of the American ones would have one.  Why is that?!?  I don't think Twitter is totally gauche or anything, but I've thought someone like Claire, for instance, would avoid it, while many of the others might actively participate.)

Megan:  I love this question! Obviously Bronte is a total media whore, so she would be on Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Tumblr, Facebook—you name it—all the time. (I picture Max throwing her cell phone into the Thames on a regular basis).

I think Devon would probably have a secret Twitter account so he could stalk everyone without having to actually put himself out there.

Sarah would have a business account for the shoe company, but I don't think she'd feel totally comfortable with the self-revelatory nature of that kind of social media; maybe she'd have a Tumblr with lots of shoe shots from fashion shows and awards dinners.

I think Claire would actually thrive on Pinterest; her love of color and design and fabrics is a perfect match for that. One of my childhood friends who reminds me of Claire--temperate, creative, loving--surprised me when I learned about her very extensive social media presence.

I think Abby would hate it all. She barely carries a cell phone, except to sext Eliot, and I think she'd inherently dread putting herself before her cause for any reason. Eliot probably has some super stylish twitter account with a mix of cool philosophical sayings and candid pictures of Italy and Paris and Miami mixed in, with about 300,000 followers.

I think Ben would say, "I'm too old for Twitter."

Becky:  Oh my goodness, I love it!  :)  If it wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time, I'd love to see an account from any of these characters.  To be honest, the end of R is for Rebel had a nice spot for some blabbing on social media by some of these folks and a few others!  It would have been hilarious to see what they were thinking.

Megan:  Thanks so much for having me!

Thank you again so much to Megan for stopping in and sharing a little bit more with us about her Unruly Royals series and R is for Rebel.  Check out the series and this newest release.


About the Author:

Megan Mulry writes sexy, modern, romantic fiction. She graduated from Northwestern University and then worked in publishing, including positions at The New Yorker and Boston magazine. After moving to London, Mulry worked in finance and attended London Business School. Mulry is a member of RWA. She has traveled extensively in Asia, India, Europe, and Africa and now lives with her husband and children in Florida. Her latest book is R Is For Rebel, out now.

Now for a little giveaway:  
I'll make this simple this time around!  Do you have a thing for British royals/aristocrats in a story or not and why?  Respond to this simple little question before Monday, February 17th by midnight (MST) with your response and email address for the chance to win one copy of R is for Rebel, U.S. & Canada only.

Blog Tour Stop & Giveaway: In Love Again by Megan Mulry

Last week I posted a review on Megan Mulry's third in the Unruly Royal series, In Love Again.  Book three is a great "second chance" love story and adds a nice twist to the previous stories, with this book being told from the perspective of the royal (although, I can't say that seems to throw things off much in this case).

Here's a quick blurb about In Love Again:  

 

The Marchioness of Wick is about to get a second chance at life...whether she wants it or not. After twenty years in a loveless marriage to a duplicitous British aristocrat, Claire Heyworth Barnes finds herself broke and alone. Encouraged by her dynamic American sisters-in-law, the shy royal decides to start over in New York City. After landing a job with an interior designer, Claire reconnects with the first-and only-man she ever loved, Dr. Ben Hayek. Can they build a new love from an old flame? Or will a bitter past and a complicated future stand in their way?


Today, I'm excited to welcome Megan Mulry to my blog for a chat about her newest book!

When you started writing these books, did you anticipate writing about a different person in the family, their royal, and picture their individual stories?

 

 Yes, when I first sat down to write Bronte (A ROYAL PAIN), I knew I wanted to write a book about each member of the British Heyworth Family and the American they fall in love with. I don't really plot, but focus much more on character development (What type of person is this? How will they react in this type of stressful situation?) and then once I've got their personalities sorted I throw them together and let the story unfold. (Then lots of revisions and edits!) So I guess I picture them as people more than I picture their stories, if that makes sense.

Claire was an interesting mix of aloofness and vulnerability.  I really liked that Claire is a little older and with a little more life experience than some of the our younger characters.  Do you think that older characters, like Claire, deal with different emotional issues than younger characters (in terms of romance)?

 

Yes, but I think it's more than that. This book is different because Claire is different: whether I had told the story as an NA (New Adult) when she was 17 or as it is now, with her 38, it would have had the same tone. I thought about this question a lot and it gave me a sort of epiphany. I realize that each one of my books--even though they take place in the same fictional world and are told in third-person by the same narrator--ends up reflecting and projecting the characteristics and personality of the heroine. A ROYAL PAIN is neurotic and ambitious and eager, just like Bronte is. IF THE SHOE FITS is sparkly and young and bold, like Sarah James. IN LOVE AGAIN is softer--meditative and tender--just like Claire. I think my books are so character driven that it would be impossible for me to tease out the heroine's perspective from the actual telling of the story. (R IS FOR REBEL, my February release about Abigail Heyworth, further proves this point. She is going through some major soul-searching and her story totally reflects that.)

Benjamin is a dream.  I really loved that he remembered her all those years from when they first met.  He also seemed so incredibly vulnerable and scared of her, which was such a crazy combination.  How did you develop Benjamin?  Any fun tidbits about him?

 

 *sigh* I loved him too. Writing an older hero presented some different challenges. I wanted him to be established, to have built a good life, otherwise I don't think he would appeal to the heroine. But he also had to have lost sight of his dreams along the way (wanting children and a strong family life), in order to give him so much vulnerability. I have a few friends who really wanted children and for one reason or another never had them. I think this is a really universal feeling of regret and it just sort of came into my mind (and I think my fabulous editor Lisa Dunick may have pointed it out). Ben needed more motivation than just being divorced and lonely. (For the record, I also have a few friends who are childless by choice and perfectly happy about it…always feel like they deserve a mention too!) In terms of fun tidbits, about a year and a half ago, I had emergency oral surgery and I went to a new dentist and he was such a lifesaver. (And handsome!) I decided then and there to make my next hero a dentist. Which was also a fun challenge because for some reason lots of people think, "Dentist? How are you going to make a dentist sexy?" (Uh…in the usual way, lol.)

Yes, I think you completely succeeded in making Ben, the dentist, sexy!  :)

 It was nice to see Claire connect with her daughter, and Benjamin be a role in her life as well.  Do you think that the daughter will appear in later novels down the road now that she is more present in her mother's life?

 Lydia, Oh Lydia! I am still very much on the fence about writing Lydia's story. I would love to write an interracial romance with her and Alistair; I think we need WAY more representations of interracial relationships in fiction and in all media for that matter. The thing that is holding me back is my fear that Lydia's story will be very bitter--with her history of drug abuse and probably other forms of self-abuse. Yes, she's on the mend, but I suspect she's going to be careless and mean to Alistair and I just don't know if I have the heart to go through that. He can handle her, of course. And recovering drug addicts totally deserve their HEA, so… Ugh! See? Can you hear me developing their characters as I write this? This is always how it happens! Basically, I'm afraid Lydia's book could cross a line into depicting the horrors of drug abuse that I'm not sure I am ready to cross just yet.

I want to thank Megan Mulry so much for stopping by today and for chatting with me about her newest release! 

 

Now for a little giveaway:  

Tell me about your first love!  Do you have a first love, and do you know what happened to them?  Would you ever want to meet back up with them?  Respond to this fun little question by Monday, December 9th by midnight (MST) with your response and email address for the chance to win one kindle ebook copy of In Love Again, U.S. only.

Author Interview: Phillipa Ashley of Carrie Goes Off the Map

After a few mix ups only days before Christmas, I am excited to get the opportunity to interview the talented Phillipa Ashley, author of Carrie Goes Off the Map, Wish You Were Here, and Dating Mr. December.  I've thoroughly enjoyed her novels for their great escape read and chick-lit, star quality. I hope you enjoy my interview with Phillipa!

Me:  Thank you so much for letting me interview you about your newest book for my blog! Your book was an undeniable treat, just as your previous two have been.  I have loved reading and reviewing them on my blog, so I’m extra excited to have you stop by my blog to share a bit more.

In the three of your books that I’ve read, there always seems to be a journey involved.  Is there a reason for that, or is that just a fun element thrown in for our couples?

Phillipa:  Apart from Carrie, I don’t think I consciously planned to send the characters on a journey but now you come to mention it, you’re absolutely right! Someone once told me there are only two basic plots for a book, namely ‘A Stranger Comes to Town’ and 'A Journey.’ That’s oversimplifying things, of course, but it does apply to an awful lot of stories. I’d say that Dating Mr. December was A Stranger Comes to Town and Wish You Were Here and Carrie are journeys. A journey makes a very relatable metaphor for the characters emotional discovery.

Me:  Your books are endlessly romantic, with a lot of tension leading up to the endings.  How do you work out the pacing so that you don’t frustrate the reader (which I never have been), but hold us off long enough to make us want the couple to get together?

Phillipa:  Oh gosh… I guess some of the pacing just happens naturally, I start off with a beginning and end and usually two or three big scene ‘turning points’. Then I start writing and the rest of the story unfolds naturally, or I think it does. There are times when I’ve stuck to a plan and realized that it’s not really happening naturally enough so I go back and scrap thousands of words. That hurts but it’s important that the characters lead the story, not my whims. I don’t micromanage scenes – I have no idea what ‘beats to a scene’ are etc.; I write in a ‘train of thought’ way which sometimes works and sometimes leads me into a lot of trouble!

Me:  Has anyone ever mentioned that you don’t describe your female lead characters very much?  In a way, it makes me picture myself in their positions.  Is that on purpose, or am I really overlooking the physical descriptions here?

Phillipa:  No one has said straight out but you are spot on! I think I want my heroines to be every woman and for the reader to fit right into their shoes and hearts and minds - but also I don’t want them to be bland! I made Carrie the most volatile of my heroines. I wanted her to show real reactions to her situation – she’s a bit of a drama queen in every sense and she reacts by turns, devastated and angry, vengeful and confused. Her fight or flight instincts keep kicking in, leading to a journey of true emotional ups and downs. I don’t think I could ever write a ‘kick ass’ heroine but my girls could cut any one down to size with a tongue lashing!

Me:  Specifically for Carrie Goes Off the Map, her fiancé who chucked her seems completely unhappy by the end of the novel.  Was that just me, or was that just wishful thinking in my once-dumped experience to hope that he was miserable without Carrie?

Phillipa:  Of course he’s miserable, lol. Serves him right. Happily, you can take revenge in a book in a way you might not in real life, but people do move on and find new partners who are more right for them than the person they thought was ‘The One.’  I found writing the scene where she returns pretty difficult to write. I wanted their resolution to be quiet and regretful – the ultimate revenge, of course, being to live well as Carrie has started to do. Huw’s not a bad man but he’s made a very bad decision that he has to live with. The worst scene to write, however, was one with Natasha and Carrie that made me cry and made my agent cry. She won’t let me send a book off to an editor unless it has made her shed a few tears!

Me:  I loved Doctor Matt in Carrie Goes Off the Map and kind of think he felt like the reserved version of Mr. Darcy.  In fact, at one point in the story you said he was like a “dirty Mr. Darcy.”  Is that who you pictured here? 

Phillipa:  Matt is my favourite hero. In fact, after I wrote Carrie, I found I couldn’t write for a while (my books are published out of sequence in the USA.) It sounds odd, but I fell hard for Matt and no one could top him for quite a time. The Dirty Mr. Darcy thing comes from a couple of places.  One is the fact that Matt was inspired by a photo of Richard Armitage who had been playing John Thornton in North & South. There had been a lot of stuff in the press referring to Thornton as the ‘Industrial Darcy.’ Matt has that Darcy class thing going on – he’s typical of your posh Oxbridge boy and I did a lot of research with my daughter’s medic friends from those universities. He tries to hide his seriousness and passion all under a veneer of sarcasm and bravado. I can’t give away any spoilers, but yes, he knows exactly how to handle Carrie and exactly what she needs and he gives it unselfishly as he does to his patents. Question is, what does he need?


***Sidenote:  I mentioned to Phillipa on twitter that the "dirty Darcy" bit had me laughing aloud and completely picturing the male hero in a much different way.  What a great way of describing a hero!  :)  (Thank you to Phillipa for providing this awesome picture of Richard Armitage.)

Me:  Do you have any other books that will be coming out in the U.S. that have already been published, and do you have any other books that you’re working on for the moment?

Phillipa:  Just Say Yes is being published by Sourcebooks in June – it’s probably a bit lighter and funnier than Carrie, more of a romp and a stab at reality TV culture. It has a blond, uncompromising, working class hero who was a real challenge to write. After that I have my fingers crossed for the publication of a new longer book featuring a history-loving heroine who has no past of her own and a tortured modern day aristocrat who share a romantic island castle

Me:  I can't wait!  I will definitely be picking them up!

Thanks again Phillipa!  Your books are a real treat for this overworked high school teacher.  In fact, they make me want to escape back to the U.K. and can’t wait for the day that I can travel back over for a longer visit.

Phillipa:  Becky, it’s always a pleasure and thank you for such interesting questions. I’ve loved answering them and would love to meet you if you come over here in future.

Phillipa Ashley

Me:  I can't wait to get back over to the U.K. for a visit and would love to get in touch.  Thanks for such a great interview and for sharing more about your books with us.

Honestly, I can't recommend Phillipa Ashley's books enough.  She has great, romantic-comedy meets British Chick Lit.  There is substance to her writing and a great escape for any reader.  Although Carrie Goes Off the Map was recently released in December, you can also check out her other two novels--Dating Mr. December and Wish You Were Here.  Happy reading!

Knowing Phillipa Ashley based her hero on our fan-favorite Richard Armitage, how does that shape your reading?  Does it change the way you view the character and make you love them more?

What great questions do you have for Phillipa?

Holiday Catch Up

First off, please check back on December 26th for a fun author interview with the great Phillipa Ashley.  With all the holiday madness, we're going to move it back a couple of days.  Check back on Monday for more from Phillipa about how she came up with her characters and more!  (Check out my review of Carrie Goes off the Map for a fun read.)

Next, stop by my good friend Tasha's blog Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books to check out Romance Month.  There are some fun posts--including a little something Tasha asked me to write up!  I love the great stuff my other blogger friends wrote up, especially about romance reads, so it was a lot of fun to bust out of my normal writing style to post a little fun post about romance heroes and romance novel covers.  Check out all the posts this month, but you can also check out my guest post, "Judging a Cover By Its Man-Flesh."

One last thing!  Thank you to everyone who joined in the birthday celebration for Jane Austen.  It was a lot of fun learning a bit more about Austen-era sweets and joining so many other great bloggers and authors in celebrating Austen's birthday!

All right, now it's time to head back to my grading, reading, and resting!  I wrenched my back pretty good a couple of weeks ago (trying to put together my new treadmill--how ironic) and it finally knocked me flat on Tuesday.  Today I'm pretty thankful for chiropractors and plenty of time to rest.  Maybe it was yet another way to avoid grading all of these essays?  :)

Author Highlight & Blog Post: Heather Lynn Rigaud of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star

This week I'll be posting a review of the newest Pride and Prejudice remake, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star.  As part of the review, I had the great opportunity to ask the author a few questions and am excited to have Heather Lynn Rigaud here to share her post with us!

One of the things that I really wanted to know had more to do with the writing process and what she expected out of her audience.  Let's face it.  People can either really love a great remake or feel pretty upset that their sacred original was manipulated.  I happen to love remakes and modernizations (obviously), so having the chance to hear from Heather about how she approached her own retelling with that in mind was really interesting to me.  I hope you enjoy her discussion as much as I have!

Thanks for having me here, Becky. I'm delighted to have a chance to write about my book, Fitzwilliam Darcy Rock Star. I was asked about my target audience and if I wanted my readers to connect my book back to the original Pride and Prejudice.

Fitzwilliam Darcy Rock Star was originally written for, and posted on, a Jane Austen Fan Fiction board called the Hyacinth Gardens. It's possible some of your readers remember it. That board was started specifically to be a place where writers could share their work in a safe and supportive atmosphere, where creativity and risk-taking was strongly encouraged. I think it's very telling that several published writers got their start in that incubator.

So, it was pretty clear that I wanted a good connection to Austen's work. I read and re-read Pride and Prejudice as I was planning, plotting and writing, to keep track of where each character was emotionally, as well as the conflicts going on outside their heads. I worked hard to find modern equivalents to the important plot points.

Famous proposal scene from P&P 2005

My goal was to find modern ways to describing the class difference between Darcy and Elizabeth. Much of P&P is all about class- Elizabeth's family is socially inferior to Darcy's and he goes on, at length, about this in his terrible first proposal at Hunsford. These days, it's very hard to find ways of illustrating class differences. But I felt that fame and celebrity was one of those ways.

I tried to make my work something of a variation on a theme. I tried to be creative, while keeping with Austen's themes of class difference, and societal boundaries. Darcy is famous, from a famous family; Elizabeth is talented like Darcy, but hasn't achieved fame, her family is successful, but not famous. Darcy recognizes that Elizabeth's band of 'up and comers' might use his band's fame to improve their situations, and he feels he needs to protect them from her and her friend and sister. Much like how Darcy felt he needed to protect Bingley from Jane in Pride and Prejudice.

So there are the similarities, but it's also very much my story. Readers looking for stiff, formal interactions are going to be disappointed. These are very modern people, living a very high drama lifestyle. While readers will easily be able to spot the Hunsford proposal or the visit to Pemberley, I tried to make these guideposts to be as organic to the story I was telling as possible.

A good example is Jane becoming ill at Netherfield and needing to stay there to recover. This scene is really highlights how much things have changed from the Regency, because being so sick that you're unable to get 3 miles to your home simply makes no sense at all to us. So, looking at the fact that the characters are all performers, I changed the situation to one in which Jane is concussed from a bottle that's thrown at her head while she's onstage. Storywise, it serves my purpose of giving Darcy and Elizabeth a reason to be talking to each other. Austen fans will recognize what it is. And people who haven't read Austen won't realize I'm basing it on something else and wonder what I'm writing about.

I find it's very telling that in my first two blog reviews, one review said "She kept to the original so well" and the other said, "This isn't Austen". I hope that means that I've managed to walk the line between an update of the work and a fantasy based on the work. (I had a similar feeling of success when I posted the Hunsford scene and half my readers were mad at Darcy and the other half was mad at Lizzy.)

Heather Lynn Rigaud

This is much more technical than most of the posts I've written on my blog tour, and I hope your readers don't find it very dull. While I did put a great deal of thought and planning into the story, I also tried to make it fun and exciting. I feel this is the framework that's behind the pretty stuff in the front.

Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about my thought process on writing this story. I'm looking forward to your reader's comments and getting a chance to see what they think.  

(Highlights included by One Literature Nut.)

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Thank you so much to Heather Lynn Rigaud for sharing a bit more about how she came up with her modernization of Pride and Prejudice.  I appreciated learning more about your writing process and will say I didn't find it dull at all!  Without giving away too much from my review, I will say that fans of the original will definitely sense the pacing and emotional tensions of the original, while enjoying this completely original story and characters.   Thanks again Heather!


Fitzwilliam Darcy Rock Star was published on September 1st, so check it out today.

Author Highlight: Maria Hamilton

Yesterday I posted my review of Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman and today I wanted to post a little about Maria Hamilton, the author.  I had a chance to ask her a few questions I've been thinking about, especially in connection with these Austen-related novels.

One of the things I've been wondering about is how our Austen authors come up with their ideas?  What sparks their interest so that they can find their own in-roads into these famous stories?  Here is some of what Maria Hamilton shared:

I have been a lifelong Jane Austen fan, rereading her novels with regularity.  About ten years ago when websites devoted to her books started to appear on the Internet, I began to become interested in Pride & Prejudice sequels and variations. The inspiration for my novel, Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman, came from the flash of image I had of Darcy and Elizabeth in Hertfordshire at a large dinner with their heads bowed deep in conversation.  From that picture in my mind’s eye, I was motivated to write a story where circumstances would allow Darcy and Elizabeth to be in company slowly getting to know each other.  In Pride & Prejudice, Austen never allowed them the time to interact in such a manner once they overcome their preconceived objections and prejudices.  Instead, it is a luxury left only to Mr. Bingley and Jane during the early days of their courtship.  I had read many wonderful Pride & Prejudice variations, but none seemed to capture that moment of courtship.  As a result, I felt compelled to write a story where I could place Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in various social settings and see how they behave.

In order to accomplish my goal, I introduce the reader to Mr. Darcy immediately after his rejection at Hunsford.  He begins to evaluate Elizabeth’s rebukes of his prior actions and decides to correct his mistake regarding Jane and Mr. Bingley much earlier. Doing so is harder to accomplish than he imagined and he is forced to return to Hertfordshire.  He asks Jane for a private interview in order to determine if she still has feeling for Mr. Bingley and Mrs. Bennett assumes that Darcy has come to court Jane.  Once Darcy is thrown into Elizabeth's company again, he vows to show her, by every civility in his power, that he that he can be a gentleman worthy of her esteem.  As Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy become reacquainted, he pursues her and a courtship evolves during a series of dances and dinners as they attempt to see each other without their prior misunderstandings.

While my story focuses on the dialog between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth and their developing intimacy, I also wanted to see how the characters would react in some of the scenes that I wished were in the original book, but are not.  For instance, I wanted to explore how Darcy would ask Mr. Bennett for permission to marry Elizabeth, Darcy’s confession to Bingley that he was in love with Elizabeth and had wrongly separated him from Jane, Caroline learning that Darcy had asked Elizabeth to marry him (twice), and Darcy and Elizabeth transformations from suitors to husband and wife.  In doing so, I wanted to keep to Austen original intent but give the characters enough the room to act in new ways. I will let the readers be the judge.

Here's a little about Maria Hamilton:

Maria Hamilton has been a lifelong Jane Austen fan.  Her first novel Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman was published by Sourcebooks in May of 2011.  She is presently working on several projects including a new Pride & Prejudice variation. She attended Boston College where she earned a B.A. and then a M.A. in history.  She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and presently works as an attorney in Boston.  Her interests include travel, cinema, the Red Sox, and bicycling.  She is perpetually learning Italian and hopes one day to attempt a complete conversation.  She lives in southern New Hampshire with her husband, two children, and her dog Poseidon.

If you are interested in Maria’s writing style, she has two Pride & Prejudice short stories available on the internet at http://www.austeninterlude.org/maria/maria.html. 

Thank you to Maria Hamilton for stopping in "One Literature Nut" and sharing a little bit about herself and her interest in Pride and Prejudice.  I, for one, hope to see more stories out in the future!

BBAW: Blogger Interview With Ooh...Books!

For Book Blog Appreciation Week (BBAW), I had the opportunity to interview the engaging Cara of "Ooh…Books!” Thanks to our Book Blogging community, I was introduced to Cara and was able to visit with her over the phone over Labor Day weekend. What can I say? If you can learn something about someone by their voice and presence, Cara is definitely one to put a smile on your face. She is engaging, vivacious, and generous, and so excited about reading and reviewing, that what’s not to love!?!

Facts and Details: Cara comes to us from the east coast as a blogger since June of this year. She most likes to read classics (of the old variety), but found that during a stressful time in med. School—yes, did I mention that Cara has a degree in Biology and an MD!—that she branched out into Science Fiction and Young Adult Fiction. Although she first started off with “old” classics, she now reads modern literature, mysteries, comedy, and authors such as Koontz.

Unlike some of us here (like myself), Cara started off as a book reviewer from her very first post. The first book she reviewed, after a short introduction, was Harper Lee’s famous To Kill a Mockingbird. While many of her reviews are over classics, old and new, she has also branched out into wonderful pieces of YA fiction such as Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. She also covers great informational industry pieces, adding to the book/publishing conversations pertinent to many readers.

I really enjoy learning about other readers’ habits and abilities, so I asked Cara about her reading speed and consumption. Like many of you, she clips along and puts away a mass market paperback in about three hours. She also is a one-at-a-time reader, unless she’s not enjoying her current read, or finding it to be slow.

Cara generally reads just about anything, although admitted to being a bit of a book snob in high school. After telling her I was an AP Literature teacher, she revealed that she was one of my dream students, who read as many of the required books on the AP list as possible. Today, she will read and review just about anything, minus romance that goes straight to paperback!

I have to say that Cara came across to me as a very sweet, generous reader and reviewer. It was great talking about books, our blogs, and our future goals with one another. Cara has amazing goals for herself in the future, which includes a real desire to turn book reviewing into a career. Out of a love for reading, springs yet another great blogger with a desire to spread that love, one post at a time. Why don’t you drop by her blog today!

For more information, see: Ooh...Books!