Interview with Jen Calonita

May 10, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Hey Everyone!

I am so excited as today I have the opportunity to interview Jen Calonita about her amazing book Belles.  Belles was released on April 10, 2012 and marks the beginning of a great new YA Contemporary Series.  I personally loved Belles and can’t wait for the follow-up Winter White, coming out in October 2012.

 

 

 

Can you tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind Belles?

Everyone has a best friend or a sister who they love more fiercely than anyone else and who they also argue with more than anyone else!

Having grown up with a sister four years younger than me, I wanted to explore that kind of relationship, especially one between two polar opposite girls. Could you learn to get along if you were forced to live under the same room, or would you eventually kill each other?

That’s what Izzie and Mira face in Belles. They’re two very different girls now living together and they have to figure out what works for them.

 

When I first read Belles back in January I had no idea that it was part of a series.  I really hoped that it would be, but I wasn’t sure.  Was it always your intention to write this as a series and not a standalone book?

I love writing stories that have a chance to grow over time so you can really get to know the characters. I felt so strongely about Kaitlin in the Secrets of My Hollywood Life series that I never wanted to let her go! I feel that way about Izzie and Mira too and I always thought it would be fun to tell their story over the course of their first year together. Each book in the series deals with a new season of their lives. The next book is called Winter White and is out this October. In it, the girls face cotillion and a secret Emerald Cove rite of passage (sort of like a sorority hazing) that goes along with it.

 

Without giving anything away, was there a particular part of Belles that you found either really fun or really challenging to write?

This is going to sound so strange, but I always enjoy writing the mean girl! She says the things I would never ever say! So Savannah was fun for me. Izzie was intriguing too because she’s struggled with so much.

She’s tough and she has guts and I always wished I had more of that when I was fifteen.

 

Watching Isabelle, and to some extent Mirabelle, struggle to find their footing in their new reality was very interesting.  How important was it to show the struggle and journey they went through?

What I think is fun about the girls is that Izzie is the one who comes in and you think is really going to flounder a bit, and she does, but she’s so strong that you just pray she’s going to get through it somehow.  liked the idea of Mira realizing a lot of the things she held dear were sort of a charade. For Izzie, I liked the idea of saying this town couldn’t beat her.

 

Now it’s been a while since I was in High School, but really, what is up with all of these ‘mean girls’?

Sigh. I know, right? Sometimes people say, girls are NOT that mean, and I say, “Have you been to high school?” I knew Savannah’s in my day and they were never outwardly evil to your face, but sometimes you’d overhear them, or you’d hear through the grapevine what they’d be saying, and it would just devastate me. I like that both Mira and Izzie find ways to deal with them and thrive despite them.

 

When writing, do you plot out the entire story or do you just go with the flow?

I’m a plotter! I have to work off an outline or I get lost somewhere along the way. That’s not to say that I don’t let the story take me in new directions when I’m writing, but I like the idea of knowing where I set out to go from the very beginning.

 

If there is a lesson you would like someone to take away with them after having read ‘Belles’, what would it be?

Don’t let anyone define who you are. You’re the only who can decide what kind of person you want to be in this world.

 

If you could recommend just one book to another person, what would it be and why?

For the reason in question number seven!

 

Finally, what can readers expect next from you?

I hope readers will follow Izzie and Mira through three more books and seasons! I’m working on Belles three now and there are a lot of twists and turns coming up for the girls during this year that they have to make it through. They’ll be fun to watch.

 

I would like to thank you for stopping by the blog today and participating in the interview!

 

Thank you for having me! I love hearing from readers and please let them know they can always email me through my website, www.jencalonitaonline.com

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About Jen

It’s no secret how Jen Calonita knows the inside scoop on young Hollywood. A former Senior Entertainment Editor at Teen People, Jen has interviewed everyone from Reese Witherspoon to Zac Efron. An entertainment journalist for the past ten years, Jen has written for TV Guide, Glamour and Marie Claire.

Be sure to visit her online at:

Website
Facebook
Twitter

Filed Under: Author Interviews ·

Now on my Shelves #46

May 6, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Hey Everyone!  Welcome to another edition of the weekly mailbox feature!  It used to be called In My Mailbox, but is now going to be called Now on My Shelves. I don’t have a graphic for it yet, because quite frankly I am feeling far too lazy to make a new one right now.  All credit given to Alea from Pop Culture Junkie who came up was doing this before there ever was a IMM feature.

Thankfully, it’s been a very quite week here in books.  I even managed to do some purging of my shelves and doing so has set me up to do a series on organizing your shelves.  Stay tuned for that starting later this week.

On to the books

Purchased

Lamb by Christopher Moore
The Serpent’s Shadow by Rick Riordan
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Insurgent by Veronica Roth

So I picked up Lamb because I have heard nothing but good things about it.  I am always looking for books that can make me laugh and this seems like it would be right up my alley.  Ran out on Tuesday morning to pick up The Serpent’s Shadow, Bitterblue (I haven’t read Graceling or Fire yet), and Inusrgent (I haven’t read Divergent yet either).  I probably won’t get to them for a while, but I will have them on my shelves to complete the sets and read at my leisure.

Personal Library Kit from Knock Knock!

Don’t ask why I felt the need to purchase this.   But needless to say, if you plan to borrow a book from me any time soon, we’re going to do it old school style!

For Review

Narc by Crissa-Jean Campbell from Flux Books via NetGalley

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So those are all the books that have made themselves a home on my shelves this past week.  Be sure to leave me a comment with a link to your mailbox so I can pop by and visit!

Filed Under: Now On My Shelves ·

Review: The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry

May 4, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

The Columbus Affair
by Steve Berry
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: May 16, 2012
Format: Hardcover – 448 pgs.

He was called by many names—Columb, Colom, Colón—but we know him as Christopher Columbus. Many questions about him exist: Where was he born, raised, and educated? Where did he die? How did he discover the New World?
 
None have ever been properly answered.
 
And then there is the greatest secret of all.
 
From Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author, comes an exciting new adventure—one that challenges everything we thought we knew about the discovery of America.
 
Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist Tom Sagan has written hard-hitting articles from hot spots around the world. But when a controversial report from a war-torn region is exposed as a fraud, his professional reputation crashes and burns. Now he lives in virtual exile—haunted by bad decisions and the shocking truth he can never prove: that his downfall was a deliberate act of sabotage by an unknown enemy. But before Sagan can end his torment with the squeeze of a trigger, fate intervenes in the form of an enigmatic stranger with a request that cannot be ignored.

Zachariah Simon has the look of a scholar, the soul of a scoundrel, and the zeal of a fanatic. He also has Tom Sagan’s estranged daughter at his mercy. Simon desperately wants something only Sagan can supply: the key to a 500-year-old mystery, a treasure with explosive political significance in the modern world. For both Simon and Sagan the stakes are high, the goal intensely personal, the consequences of opposing either man potentially catastrophic. On a perilous quest from Florida to Vienna to Prague and finally to the mountains of Jamaica, the two men square off in a dangerous game. Along the way, both of their lives will be altered—and everything we know about Christopher Columbus will change.

 

My Thoughts

Why yes, I will drop everything I am doing to read a new book by Steve Berry and that is exactly what I did when the publisher sent me a finished copy of his latest novel The Columbus Affair, in stores on May 15, 2012.  Let me clear something up right from the start.  The Columbus Affair is not part of the author’s wildly successful Cotton Malone series, but rather is a stand alone novel.  While I was initially excited for a new book, I was kind of hesitant about moving on to a different cast of characters.  Nonetheless, I decided to give it a shot and it was so worth it.  As a matter of fact, as much as I like the Cotton Malone series, The Columbus Affair far surpasses any of the books in that series.

‘Speak the truth and speak it ever, cost it what it will’

The Columbus Affair, like the author’s previous books, takes us to a whole host of locations as the story unfolds.  From the streets of Prague and Vienna, to sunny Orlando.  None of the locations were more central to the plot than the beautiful island of Jamaica.  Not only do you get exposed to Jamaica as it is currently, but you also get a fabulous history and language lesson.  Steve Berry manages to show you the Jamaica of the past and the present and believe me, it’s much more than just a bunch of nice beaches.  It was such a joy to see a part of my own heritage and culture explored and explained to the wider masses as part of this book.

‘Jamaica has a little of everything but not quite enough of anything’

On top of the locale, history and language lessons that are mixed in a part of the story, I really enjoyed the characters in The Columbus Affair.  I absolutely loved that every last character was flawed and not one character was suffering from what I like to call ‘the white knight syndrome’.  The protagonist, Tom Sagan, was written in such a way that you were never quite sure just how much of a ‘good guy’ he really is.  Just when you think you have him figured out, he would do something to blow that assumption right out of the water.

‘Di innocent and di fool could pass fi twin’

What can I even say about the story that Steve Berry has created in The Columbus Affair, using Christopher Columbus and his voyages to The New World as the basis, other than to say it absolutely masterful.  The author takes you on an almost 2000 year old mystery and manages to tie it into some of the most important periods in history.  If you want to pick up one book this spring that will both engage and challenge you, I recommend that you make it The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry.

Rating:
Source: Finished Copy from the Publisher

 

Trailer

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