2009 Debutantes

It's time for the Friday Snippet!

Anyone who'd like to join in, Deb or not, post a snippet of something you've written, to give us a glimpse of upcoming books, works-in-progress, or anything else you want to share. Try to keep 'em short (no more than 150 words). Beyond that, anything goes.

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Mine, from my WIP POSSESSING LUCY:

We stood there in silence for a few minutes. Then, Rick said, "You'll find her again. Or she'll find you. I can tell. The way you talk about her... There was something there. Not like my mom."

He said the last part flippantly, the way the child of a long absent mother can, but I think his pain of knowing hurt as much as my pain of not knowing.

"You know," I said, "sometimes I wonder if she isn't waiting for me at all. Maybe the last time she saw me she realized I was never going to be ready, I wouldn't ever be able to come with her. No matter how much she loved me--because she loved me--she wouldn't want to put me in danger if she thought I couldn't ever handle it. So maybe she gave up.”

To compliment Fresh Fiction Wednesday, every Friday we will have The Friday Snippet! Anyone who'd like to join in, Deb or not, post a snippet of something you've written, to give us a glimpse of upcoming books, works-in-progress, or anything else you want to share. Try to keep 'em short (no more than 150 words). Beyond that, anything goes.

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Here's mine, from the first chapter of GIVING UP THE GHOST:

Paige wrinkled her pert nose and shook her head. Very few things got her as worked up as my untapped fashion potential. Most of the time she had this faded tissue-paper look, so filmy I could see right through her. Get her interested, though, and she brightened up like a Chinese lantern. Right then, she was beaming from her bleached-blonde hair to her strappy sandals.

A few years ago it would have pissed me off. These days, it was like a game: how bossy could she get, how bratty could I get. Playing at being normal.

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Okay, your turn! :D

(crossposted from megancrewe because some mysterious anonymous person who I assume was one of you forgetting to log in asked me to)

Thousands of books come out in the year. Most years I manage to read about a hundred. So, especially since I read in many different genres (all sorts of YA, some children's, and adult mainstream/speculative fiction/nonfiction/etc.), it can be hard figuring out what to spend my limited reading time on.

A few things matter a little:

Book description. If the story sounds really amazing, I'll look for more info. If the story sounds like 'not my thing at all', I may skim or skip further info. But there's a lot of space in between those extremes.

Marketing. If a book's selling really well, or being pitched really hard, and it's in a genre I *write*, I will probably take a look at it as market research if nothing else. However if I don't write in that genre it makes no difference.

Professional reviews. If I go to the Amazon.com page to read more about a book, I do check the Booklist/Publisher's Weekly/whatever other reviews. And if I like what they say, I'm more likely to pick the book up; if they make me nervous about whether I'd like the book, I'm less likely. But I have to have gone to that page for some reason in the first place, and that reason may very well outweigh reviews.

Cover. I don't know if I've ever picked up a book because of a cover. I have occasionally avoided books because the cover was awful, but only if I had little else to go by.

The one thing that matters a lot:

Reader recommendations. I think every single book I've picked up in the last few years I read because someone else said (to me directly, or in a post in their blog, or a comment on a message board, or wherever) that they really liked it. The more people I see saying they like a given book, the more likely I am to pick it up. The better I know the people recommending, and the closer their tastes are to mine, the fewer recommendations I need. And of course, if the story already sounds like something I'd enjoy, I don't need much encouragement--but if enough people talk about how wonderful a book is, even if it doesn't really sound like my thing, I will at least give it a try.

Mostly I think this is because if someone--who has nothing invested in a book, and doesn't have to review it for their job--liked it enough to want to tell people about it, well, that says quite a lot. And most of the people I talk with, or whose blogs or comments I read, are writers and/or avid readers who love books as much as I do. So I trust their judgment more than I trust sales figures.

Which means, from my perspective, the best thing you can do for an author you love is talk about their books. And the best thing you can do as an author is write books that people will love enough to talk about.

(If only it were as simple as that sentence makes it sound, no?)

How do the rest of you decide which of those thousands of books you will give a chance to?

Name: Megan Crewe

'09 Book Title: GIVING UP THE GHOST (tentative)

Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Books for Young Readers

Favorite Books: Hard to narrow this down... In children's/YA--anything by Roald Dahl (especially THE WITCHES), anything by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (especially THE CHANGELING), BIRTH OF THE FIREBRINGER by Meredith Ann Pierce, Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia books, TUCK EVERLASTING by Natalie Babbitt, EVA by Peter Dickinson, THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD by Lynne Reid Banks. In adult fiction--THE PRINCESS BRIDE by William Goldman, THE LAST UNICORN by Peter S. Beagle, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (the original trilogy) by Douglas Adams, WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams, REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier.

Favorite Bit of Writing Advice: "Murder your darlings" (which I got via Stephen King's ON WRITING but I believe he got it from someone else). So tempting to keep writing you love that doesn't actually make the story stronger (and possibly makes it weaker), so important to be able to cut it.

Also, the advice of a high school writing teacher (who I think also got it from someone else) on three steps to being a writer: 1. Read. 2. Write. 3. Rewrite. Sounds simple, yet many fail to do so. ;)

Random Info About Me: I'm Canadian, grew up and still living in Toronto. As fond of my city as I am, if I could I would live in London (UK). I love traveling, and have visited Britain, China, and Italy, as well as various parts of the US; hoping to see Egypt and Japan in the near future. I find ancient history and mythology fascinating, especially when I'm in the places it originated.

GIVING UP THE GHOST Synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Cass McKenna would take the company of the dead over the living any day. Unlike her high school classmates, the dead don't lie or judge, and they're way less scary than Danielle, the best-bud-turned-backstabber who kicked Cass to the bottom of the social ladder in seventh grade. Since then, Cass has styled herself as an avenger. Using the secrets her ghostly friends stumble across, she exposes her fellow students' deceits and knocks the poseurs down a peg.

When Tim Reed, the student council V.P., asks Cass to chat with his recently-deceased mom, her instinct is to laugh in his face. But Tim's part of Danielle's crowd. He can give Cass dirt the dead don't know. Intent on revenge, Cass offers to trade her spirit-detecting skills for his information. She isn't counting on chasing a ghost who would rather hide than speak to her, facing the explosive intervention of an angry student, or discovering that Tim's actually an okay guy. As Tim sinks into a suicidal depression, Cass has to choose: run back to the safety of the dead, or risk everything to stop Tim from becoming a ghost himself.

The books of the members of debut2009--specific release dates, book covers, and Amazon links coming when available!

To find out more about the authors and their books, stop by their blogs or look for their posts in this community.

Spring 2009

Name	LJ	Book Title	Publisher	Description
Susan E. Connolly	sluzan	DAMSEL	Mercier Press	When Annie Brave's famous hero father goes missing, presumed eaten, she takes his manuscript "How to slay dragons - and other advice for the hero in training" and sets off to get him back--but can a damsel ever do the rescuing?
Erin Dionne	bostonerin	MODELS DON'T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES Preorder it!	Dial	An overweight eighth grader is entered into a beauty pageant for chubby teens against her will and resorts to acts of sabotage to get out of the situation.
Heather Duffy-Stone	heather_ink	THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU Preorder it!	Flux	Sixteen year old twins Nadio and Noelle narrate a year of first loves, tattoos, and unimaginable secrets.
Deva Fagan	devarae	FORTUNE'S FOLLY	Holt	A girl who survives by telling fake fortunes must make one of them come true to save her father's life--to succeed, she'll have to procure a wicked witch, recover a pair of enchanted slippers, and, worst of all, find a princess to marry the prince she's falling in love with herself.
Megan Frazer	meganfrazer	SECRETS OF TRUTH AND BEAUTY	Hyperion	After a misunderstanding at school, a former pageant princess who is now significantly overweight finds her strained relationship with her parents gets even more fraught, and she decides to go stay with her older sister Rachel -- who her parents always kept from her.
Cheryl Renee Herbsman	dreamerwrites	BREATHING	Viking
Stacey Jay	stacey_jay	YOU ARE SO UNDEAD TO ME	Razorbill	A sixteen year old zombie settler must put the dead to rest and thwart a black coven's attempts to kill her before they harness enough renegade zombies to ruin Homecoming.
Danielle Joseph	daniellejoseph	SHRINKING VIOLET Preorder it!	MTV/Pocket Books	A painfully shy high school senior gets an internship with a popular radio DJ and finds a way to come out from behind her mask and stand up for herself.
Cynthea Liu	cynthea	PARIS PAN TAKES THE DARE	Putnam	Twelve-year-old Paris Pan has moved to a small town where she has a real shot at making friends, but that friendship comes at a price: she must take The Dare, something that killed a girl on the very property she now resides.
Sarah MacLean	sarahmaclean	THE SEASON Preorder it!	Orchard Books	Three best friends in Regency England don gorgeous dresses, attend lavish balls and meet charming boys... all while solving a mystery in the process.
Lisa Mantchev	lisamantchev	THE THÉÂTRE ILLUMINATA Preorder it!	Feiwel & Friends	Where real fairies fly on wires and pirates sail the painted seas, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith will have to take Center Stage so that the next curtain call won't be the last.
C. Lee McKenzie	sealy38	ON THE EDGE	Westside Books	A suicidal teenager and her grandmother are strangers when they are thrown together. Each has secrets that stir mutual distrust until saving a doomed horse unites them and gives each a reason to live.
J.E. McLeod	janetgurtler	WAITING TO SCORE	Westside Books	A high school hockey star encounters problems both on and off the rink.
Neesha S. Meminger	neeshadm	SHINE, COCONUT MOON Preorder it!	McElderry Books	Seventeen-year-old Sammy plans a way to reunite her unconventional, tattooed mother with the family she cut all ties with when Sammy was two.
Saundra Mitchell	anywherebeyond	SHADOWED SUMMER Preorder it!	Delacorte	14 year old Iris Rhame conjures the ghost of a boy missing for decades and decides to solve his disappearance, never realizing that in a town as small as hers, every secret is a family secret.
Jenny Moss	jenny_moss	WINNIE'S WAR Preorder it!	Walker	Living in the shadow of the cemetery, twelve-year-old Winnie Grace struggles to keep the Spanish influenza of 1918 from touching her family -- her coffin-building father, her troubled mama, and her two baby sisters.
Sarah Ockler	sarah_ockler	20 BOY SUMMER	Little, Brown	A sixteen-year-old girl with a life-shattering secret navigates the unfamiliar landscape of changing friendships, sexuality, loss, and the meaning of true love.
Carrie Ryan	carrie_ryan	THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH Preorder it!	Delacorte	In an isolated village generations after the zombie apocalypse, a 16-year-old struggles with the town's religious order until the village walls are breached and the only chance of survival is to escape into the forest beyond.
Sydney Salter	sydney_salter	MY BIG NOSE & OTHER NATURAL DISASTERS	Harcourt	For a girl who plans to get rid of her "Super Schnozz" and snag herself a boyfriend before senior year, one summer changes everything.
Kurtis Scaletta	skutir	MUDVILLE Preorder it!	Knopf	A novel about fathers and sons, brothers and baseball.
Jon Skovron	jonnyskov	GROPE 4 LUNA	Amulet	A high school kid tries to start an indie rock band while coping with his grandfather's Alzheimer's.
Michelle Zink	mzink	THE GUARDIAN	Little Brown	After finding an ancient tome entitled the Librum Maleficii et Disordinae, or the Book of Chaos, in her dead father's library, sixteen-year-old Lia Milthorpe discovers she's the key to a legendary biblical prophecy.

Summer 2009

Name	LJ	Book Title	Publisher	Description
R. J. Anderson	rj_anderson	KNIFE THE HUNTER	HarperCollins	A fierce young faery must save her people while fighting to keep secret her forbidden friendship with a human.
Cyn Balog	cyn2write	FAIRY LUST	Delacorte	A teenage oracle whose boyfriend slowly turns into a fairy goes to great lengths in order to keep him human.
Sarah Rees Brennan	mistful	THE DEMON'S LEXICON	Simon & Schuster	Two brothers are hunted throughout England by a powerful magician's circle after their mother steals a charm, and when the eldest is marked by a demon, the younger uses swords and dark arts in an effort to save him but unwittingly uncovers the darkest of secrets.
Sarah Cross	sarahcross	DULL BOY	Dutton	A YA novel about teens with superpowers.
Mandy Hubbard	mandywriter	PRADA AND PREJUDICE	Razorbill	A modern teen ends up in Regency England where she must learn to navigate high-society--and her growing attraction to the nineteen year old Duke of Harksbury.
Cynthea Liu	cynthea	THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA	Puffin	An SASS novel.
Aprilynne Pike	maprilynne	WINGS	HarperCollins	An ordinary girl discovers she is a faerie sent to guard the gateway to Avalon in the mortal world, and when she is thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a mortal and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to both worlds.
Kristin Walker	walkwrite	A MATCH MADE IN HIGH SCHOOL	Razorbill	When everyone in the senior class gets paired up for a mandatory course in marriage education, Fiona Sheehan has to survive being pseudo-married to Todd Harding, the most popular jerk in school, while figuring out how to forgive her best friend's betrayal, fake being a robot-turkey cheerleader, and decide if she's really falling in love with the fat kid.

Fall 2009

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Name	LJ	Book Title	Publisher	Description
Pam Bachorz	pambachorz	CANDOR	Egmont	In a town where his father brainwashes everyone, Oscar Banks has found a way to secretly fight the subliminal Messages, but when he falls in love, he must choose whether to let Nia be lost to brainwashing—or to sacrifice himself.
Lauren Bjorkman	laurenbjorkman	MY INVENTED LIFE	Holt	A girl whose heart is in the right place gets sidetracked by the fictional life she's created.
Megan Crewe	megancrewe	GIVING UP THE GHOST	Holt	A teen outcast who sees ghosts and uses the secrets they dig up to expose her fellow students' deceits must choose between revenge and compassion when the popular student council V.P. comes to her for supernatural help.
Teri Hall	terihall	THE LINE	Harcourt	In the near future, an invisible barrier exists between the Unified States and "Away."
Jennifer R. Hubbard	writerjenn	BLACK MOUNTAIN ROAD	Viking	After the girl he had been secretly seeing dies in a car crash, a teenaged boy reads the journal she left behind, searching for the truth about their intense relationship.
L.K. Madigan	lkmadigan	FLASH BURNOUT	Houghton Mifflin	It's a chaotic year for sophomore Blake, whose simple photo class assignment ends up teaching him about love, friendship, life, and death.
Kate Messner	kmessner	currently untitled	Walker	A 12-year-old girl has until the end of the week to finish her huge 7th grade leaf project, but she faces comic catastrophes (and real drama) at every turn.
Jenny Moss	jenny_moss	SHADOW	Scholastic	YA fantasy
Jackson Pearce	watchmebe	AS YOU WISH	HarperCollins	High school student Viola Cohen inadvertently summons--then falls for--a young jinn after her boyfriend tells her a life-changing secret.
Chris Rylander	millencake	THE FOURTH STALL	Simon & Schuster	(The Godfather + Grade School + Baseball + Noir) x Humor
Kristina Springer	kspringer	THE ESPRESSOLOGIST Preorder it!	Farrar, Straus, & Giroux	Jane, a teen coffee barista, discovers the ability to matchmake customers based on their favorite coffee drinks.
Rhonda Stapleton	rhondastapleton	STUPID CUPID	simon Pulse	A 17-year-old girl becomes a cupid for her high school, arranging matches with a tricked-out Palm Pilot.

Former 2009 Debs who are now 10'rs (see 10_ers)

Name	LJ	Book Title	Publisher	Description
Olugbemisola Amusashonubi- Perkovich	olugbemisola	EIGHT GRADE SUPERZERO	Arthur A. Levine	A Brooklyn middle-school nobody discovers the superhero within himself thanks to his friends, his work at a local homeless shelter, his campaign for school president, and a pair of "Dora the Explorer" sneakers.
Heidi R. Kling	seaheidi	SEA	Putnam	A sheltered California teenager falls for a charismatic, but haunted orphan boy during her three week life-changing volunteer adventure at a post-tsunami Indonesian orphanage.

To members of debut2009, if you need to update, add to, or correct your info, please comment at this entry. Thanks!