Jai & K's Reviews

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Blog Tour Next Door To A Star

NEXT DOOR TO A STAR by Krysten Lindsay Hager

Genre: Young Adult

★ SYNOPSIS ★

Hadley Daniels is tired of feeling invisible.

After Hadley’s best friend moves away and she gets on the bad side of some girls at school, she goes to spend the summer with her grandparents in the Lake Michigan resort town of Grand Haven. Her next door neighbor is none other than teen TV star Simone Hendrickson, who is everything Hadley longs to be—pretty, popular, and famous—and she’s thrilled when Simone treats her like a friend.

Being popular is a lot harder than it looks.

It’s fun and flattering when Simone includes her in her circle, though Hadley is puzzled about why her new friend refuses to discuss her former Hollywood life. Caught up with Simone, Hadley finds herself ignoring her quiet, steadfast friend, Charlotte.

To make things even more complicated, along comes Nick Jenkins…

He’s sweet, good-looking, and Hadley can be herself around him without all the fake drama. However, the mean girls have other ideas and they fill Nick’s head with lies about Hadley, sending him running back to his ex-girlfriend and leaving Hadley heartbroken.

So when her parents decide to relocate to Grand Haven, Hadley hopes things will change when school starts…only to be disappointed once again.

Cliques. Back-stabbing. Love gone bad.

Is this really what it’s like to live…Next Door To A Star?

Links

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Book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnLXsu2c43k

Bio: Krysten Lindsay Hager is an obsessive reader and has never met a bookstore she didn’t like. She’s worked as a journalist and humor essayist, and writes for teens, tweens, and adults. She is the author of the Landry’s True Colors Series and the new Star Series and her work has been featured in USA Today and named as Amazon’s #1 Hot New Releases in Teen & Young Adult Values and Virtues Fiction and Amazon’s #1 Hot New Releases in Children’s Books on Values. Krysten writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, middle school and high school, frenemies, modeling, crushes, values, and self-image in True Colors and Best Friends…Forever? as well as in, Next Door to a Star. The sequel to Next Door to a Star (Competing with the Star: Star Series: Book 2) will be out March 22nd and the 3rd book in the Landry’s True Colors Series (Landry in Like: Book 3) will be out January 12th.

She is originally from Michigan and has lived in Portugal, South Dakota, and currently resides in southwestern Ohio where you can find her reading and writing when she’s not catching up on her favorite shows. She received her master’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint.

Top Ten Favorite Songs:

10. I Don’t Care by Cheryl Cole: It’s the song I put on when someone or something has upset me and I have to take a moment to step back and realize I don’t care about what anyone else thinks and how they react to me or my life. It’s a very freeing and liberating song.

9. Feelin’ So Good by Jennifer Lopez: This video for this song represents a time in my life when I was in grad school and I love watching the video and reminiscing. This is probably why I’m having trouble cleaning out my closet with all the J.Lo clothes from back then in it!

8. Fight Song by Rachel Platten: This song represents every moment where I had to keep pushing and keep going when other people thought I should just stay with a “safe job.” I had a lot of people who thought I was crazy to keep pursuing a writing career because it’s such a shot in the dark. I look back at old journals of mine and can see who had no faith in me. It’s sobering.

7. I Look to You by Whitney Houston: I started listening to this one a few years ago when I lost a friend and a cousin around the same time. This is also a song I would play during the time my dad was going through an illness. I actually played it for him in the hospital and it was so weird—the lyrics which had always made me think it was a narrative for me, suddenly sounded like what my dad was going through himself. It’s one of those songs where you have nothing left and you turn to God for strength.

6. Change Your Mind by Boyce Avenue: I swear this song is my soundtrack for so many of the breakup/love-gone-bad bad relationships scenes I write.

5. Healer by Kari Jobe: If I’m upset or not feeling well, I play this one on repeat and it always calms me down. My friend Melissa sent me the video for it when I was having a hard time years ago and it was the perfect song at just the right moment.

4. Mama Do by Pixie Lott: They used to play this video all the time when I lived in Portugal and I loved it then and love it now.

3. I Need You Tonight by Professor Green featuring Ed Drewett : Take the INXS song and add an English rapper to it. Magic.

2. That’s Life by Frank Sinatra: This one felt like my theme song when I lived overseas. It’s funny because there’s a line in the song that basically says if nothing happens by July, you’re going roll up and die, and I kept saying, watch me find out something major in July. Sure enough, July that year I found out I was moving back to the U.S.

1. Breathe (2 AM) Anna Nalick: it just sums up how you feel in those early morning hours when you’re writing in your journal uninhibited.

Facts About Next Door to a Star

The idea for the book came from situations I observed back in my school days. I couldn’t understand why some girls let their “friends” treat them the way they did. Hadley isn’t based on me, but rather on a lot of things I witnessed that made an impression on me.

The Pilar character is a mix of both a mean girl and a victim of a mean girl. In the next book, Competing with the Star, you’ll learn more about Pilar and why she acts the way she does.

The first time I saw the show, “Girl Meets World,” I thought that Lucas (Peyton Meyer) looked exactly like how I pictured Nick Jenkins in my mind.

When I saw my cover, I just gasped because the cover model is the perfect Hadley. Hats off to Ashley Byland of Redbird Designs for getting that so right.

I went to Grand Haven almost every summer as a kid and teen and made several research trips, too. There’s nothing like walking the pier imagining the characters with you. I have tons of pictures—I even have the picture of the alley where Asia and Hadley see their rock star crush, Jack Brogger.

There’s a scene where Nick walks Hadley and her friends home early from a party even though it means he has to leave himself. It’s based on something that happened when I was in high school and a guy left a football game early to walk me and my friend to her brother’s car which was parked far away. I thought it was the sweetest thing and never forgot that.

When I was writing the book, I pictured Grace Kelly as Aunt Faith.

People ask me who Charlotte’s grandpa was based on and honestly I imagine a comic book strip character when I write his scenes—he looks like Ralph from Crankshaft. Oddly, I got to meet the creator of Crankshaft last spring at a writing event. I hadn’t signed the contract for Next Door to a Star at that point though, but we did talk about Ralph because I liked the storyline he did with Ralph and his wife’s dementia.

The idea for Hadley’s rock star crush came from my decades long crush on George Michael. I used the last name “Brogger” for him because that was a nickname my grandpa’s coworkers gave him.

Simone and Hadley do movie marathons of Josh Haven, but who was my Josh Haven? Well, when I was in grade school it was…Charlie Sheen. Yup, my cousin Anne and I did a movie marathon of Charlie Sheen films. Her mom even rented, “Heidi,” for us and we fast-forwarded through every scene Charlie wasn’t in. You might be thinking about the “Two and a Half Men” show right now, but let me just say, “Wall Street.” Google it, see Charlie’s beauty, and then ask yourself why my uncle would think that was an appropriate movie for a 10 year old to watch.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Wasted Time Blog Tour

Wasted Time

Summary

Do you believe that some souls are destined to be together, even through hardship and deceit?

After 9-11, Declan’s heart is torn between wanting to stay with Morgan and needing to fight for his beloved country. Knowing that the future may be uncertain, he kisses his fiancée goodbye and focuses on his mission until that dark day from which he will never fully recover. Injured in Afghanistan, Declan has lost more than part of his leg; he’s lost part of himself, now plagued in grief and guilt. How could he possibly ask Morgan to take care of him for the rest of his life, being nothing but a burden to her? Which would be more heartbreaking, feigning his own death or bringing her unhappiness every day? If only he could eradicate her from his mind and be at peace with his decision.

Morgan prays day and night for Declan’s safe return, but when his letters stop coming, Morgan knows in her heart that she has lost him forever. Morgan has a hard time believing in fate and destiny after her fiancé is taken from her. With Declan gone, Morgan’s hope for true love is destroyed, but eventually she finds comfort in the arms of another, even though Morgan’s new love knows that her heart belongs to Declan.

Will Morgan eventually be able to move on, or will Declan haunt her dreams forever?

Excerpt

Her face was the only thing that had kept him sane during his deployment. At this moment, however, thoughts of Morgan had been pushed to the side for reasons of pure survival. Declan wiped the mud from his eye with a swift movement of his hand, just quick enough so that he could see again. Booming thunder went off near and far.

Swearing under his breath, Declan closed one eye and squinted the other shut as he spied his target. Breathe. One, two, three… he could do this. The first time he’d had to shoot another man he had faltered, hesitated only the briefest of seconds, during which time the man escaped his line of sight and shot a fellow soldier in the leg, causing serious injury.

This time, Declan concentrated, aimed his M4 rifle, and fired. The distinct thud of a man dropping to the ground confirmed the target had been hit. Swiping at the sweat in his eyes from the sweltering mid-day heat, Declan gulped and struggled to his knees. Lining up his rifle again, his neck and shoulders ached with fatigue. He bit down and gritted his teeth, tasting dirt while fighting off the pain.

It seemed as if hours had gone by, when in fact, it had probably only been minutes when finally the haunting sound of gunfire ceased. Not one to trust silence in any setting, Declan mentally counted upward until he reached near fifty.

“All clear,” his buddy, Sean, called out. “All clear.”

Declan, always cautious, still maintained his position until he heard his fellow soldiers from his platoon begin to speak. Peeking up from his ravine, Declan rose slowly to his feet as the rifle was pressed to his side.

Surveying the damage, it appeared that several of their enemies were lying still on the ground. The man he had shot lay still, appearing lifeless. Another man lay several feet away. It seemed the enemies had taken off, deserting the boundaries of the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. His platoon mates fell silent, all business as they quickly gathered their belongings to head back to base.

Declan clutched his rifle, drawing closer to his victim. Curiosity had gotten the best of him. Fully aware of his previous actions, Declan stepped even closer. He had never killed a man before — injured, yes, but never killed. This man did not appear to be alive.

His heart sped up as sweat caused his fatigues to cling to his body. For God’s sake, the man looked to have been only in his early twenties at best. What have I done? What are we doing here? Waves of nausea rose and Declan swallowed hard.

“Hey! Step back!” Sean called out. “Move out! I repeat, move out!”

Hearing his friend call out to him, Declan turned toward the sound of his voice, realizing his mistake seconds too late. He should have known better; he should have. But no amount of training can prepare you for taking another man’s life.

Glancing swiftly at Sean through tear-stained eyes, he saw the movement in his peripheral vision. Sean raced to the open dirt road. They were sitting ducks, in plain sight. The man that Declan had presumed dead, the one he had shot, raised his own rifle and fired at Sean, who dropped instantly to ground.

“No! No!” Declan spun his head back to the imminent threat, a moment too late. The force of the explosion knocked him to the ground in an instant. Morgan’s face was the last thing that registered in his mind as another shot fired, leaving his world black.

****

Clouds scattered overhead, cries of gulls bringing back another time, a different memory, sitting here with Declan by her side. Morgan squeezed her jaw, fighting back the pain.

Months later, there was still no word from Declan. On the Internet, she had searched out his name relentlessly but there was no mention of Declan, no death certificates and his name couldn’t be found on any list of casualties of the war. It was as if he had simply disappeared, but that wasn’t possible and she feared the worst. He was gone and there was no closure for Morgan, as his only living relatives were his mom and some family living on the west coast, whom Declan hadn’t seen in years. Even she and Declan’s old friend, Stephen seemed to be losing touch.

She could sit on this beach and watch the water forever; it was a place Declan had cherished, a place she felt close to him. Never again would her life be the same without Declan Blake. How was she going to make it without him?

The world was quiet and without joy for Morgan. Even Morgan’s mother nagged her to speak with a therapist. She didn’t see the purpose of smiling or laughing when it was all forced. Constant thoughts of Declan plagued her day and night.

Morgan nearly jumped when her cell rang. First instincts were to let the call go to voicemail, but she knew the person calling would only persist. That’s how it had been lately; she would ignore phone calls only to find tons of messages waiting.

It was Elle, calling for the second time that day. “Hi, Elle.”

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for hours,” Elle exclaimed.

“I don’t know, I’m just hanging out.”

“Down by the river again?” Elle inquired.

“Yup,” Morgan responded as she moved her foot around in the sand.

“Figured as much.”

Elle’s voice sounded odd, almost as if she were hearing her close by. Morgan turned to see her friend walking toward her on the grassy path leading to the small beach.

Rising to her feet, Morgan felt tears escape. Elle was by her side, arms wrapped around her within moments. Morgan released Elle and took a small step back.

“Oh, Elle, what am I going to do?” she sobbed.

“You’re going to live, dammit. Declan would want you to be happy.”

“How? How can I forget about him, just move on?” It wasn’t possible, she had tried, and it just wasn’t working. Even when she was at work, she was just going through the motions; she did her job, but her heart wasn’t the same.

“I think it’s time for you to see someone to talk about all of this. You’ve waited long enough.”

She was right and so was her mother, believe it or not. “I will, Elle. I will because I don’t know what else to do.”

“Morgan, you’re the strongest person I know. You have so much happiness and love to share. I have full confidence in you. You’re going to make it and come out stronger in the end.” Elle spoke through her own tears.

“Thanks, Elle. I love you.” Morgan felt better knowing there was someone on her side rooting for her.

Character Interview with Declan

Double Decker Books: We’re so happy you could stop by to talk to us today, Declan. Tell us about how you and Morgan first met.

Declan: It was so long ago, but I can remember it well. I was visiting her school for career day, as a member of the Army National Guard. Morgan was running late for class and I bumped into her in the hallway. Let’s just say from that moment on, we were inseparable.

Double Decker Books: For a while you were, yes, that is until…

Declan: Until I was called to fight in Afghanistan. It was after 9-11 and I had no choice. I was more than ready to fight for our country, though, even if it meant saying goodbye to Morgan. I thought it would temporary. There was no way I could have known that I wouldn’t lay eyes on my fiancée for a very long time.

Double Decker Books: And at that point, Morgan was actually someone else’s fiancée. I believe his name is Mike, correct?

Declan: (sighs) Yes, that’s right. I had my reasons for disappearing and Morgan grew lonely.

Double Decker Books: Why did you let her go?

Declan: It was a heart wrenching decision, you have to know that. I made a choice to stay out of her life so that she didn’t waste her time caring for me. I was injured while serving in Afghanistan. Part of my leg was amputated, I didn’t know if I would ever walk again. I was a mess, both physically and emotionally.

Double Decker Books: Yes, but you had to have known Morgan’s heart wouldn’t survive without you.

Declan: It was the biggest mistake of my life. I regret it every day.

Double Decker Books: Without giving away your story, can you tell us if you and Morgan find happiness again? Is there a chance that destiny brought you together, after all these years?

Declan: I will say that I am a believer that true love can overcome obstacles, but then again, sometimes love isn’t enough if two people are stubborn.

Double Decker Books: Oh, come on. Was all that time apart wasted time?

Declan: I did a lot of growing during those difficult years, and so did Morgan. I don’t take anything for granted now.

Double Decker Books: And Morgan? Can you give us an idea if she’s happy now?

Declan: Morgan is a strong girl, stronger than she even realizes. I loved her then and I love her now. No matter what happened between us, she captured my heart and made it impossible for me to love any other woman.

Double Decker Books: Declan, after everything you’ve been through, I hope you found your happiness. We wish you the best.

Declan: Thank you, I’m at a place where I can only see a bright future ahead.

Author Bio

Mya O'Malley was born and raised in the suburbs of New York City, where she currently lives with her husband, daughter and three step-daughters. The family also consists of a boxer, Destiny and a ragdoll cat named Colby. Mya earned an undergraduate degree in special education and a graduate degree in reading and literacy. She works as a special education teacher and enjoys making a difference in the lives of her students.

Mya's passion is writing; she has been creating stories and poetry since she was a child. Mya spends her free time reading just about anything she can get her hands on. She is a romantic at heart and loves to create stories with unforgettable characters. Mya likes to travel; she has visited several Caribbean Islands, Mexico and Costa Rica. Mya is currently working on her eighth novel.

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