The YA book blogger community is truly awesome, and so when Montana from The Book Belles (www.thebookbelles.blogspot.com) got in touch to see if I wanted to join an online scavenger hunt featuring 2016 Young Adult Contemporary titles, I said yes without hesitation!
Here's the deal: Below, you'll get exclusive interview content from author K.C. Held, whose debut, HOLDING COURT, comes out on March 1. After you read about HOLDING COURT, you'll get a link to another author's blog, where you'll learn about another book—and so on, and so forth. Somewhere along the way, you'll come across an interview with me about HOW IT FEELS TO FLY! Each post will also have a code word hidden somewhere in it. Collect all of the code words and go HERE before end-of-day Wednesday, January 27, for a chance to win a great prize pack!
Oh, and at the end of this post, I'll also be giving away an ARC of HOW IT FEELS TO FLY. I'd ***love*** for you to enter!
About HOLDING COURT:
Sixteen-year-old Jules Verity knows exactly what's in store at her new job at castle-turned-dinner-theater Tudor Times. Some extra cash, wearing a fancy-pants dress, and plenty of time to secretly drool over the ever-so-tasty—and completely unavailable—Grayson Chandler. Except that it's not quite what she imagined.
For one, the costume Jules has to wear is awful. Then there's the dead body she finds that just kind of...well, disappears. Oh, and there's the small issue of Jules and her episodes of what her best friend calls "Psychic Tourette's Syndrome"—spontaneous and uncontrollable outbursts of seemingly absurd prophecies.
The only bright side? This whole dead body thing seems to have gotten Grayson's attention. Except that the more Jules investigates, the more she discovers that Grayson's interest might not be as courtly as she thought. In fact, it's starting to look suspicious...
About K.C. Held:
K.C. HELD was born and raised in California with stopovers in Honduras, Mexico, and France. Married to her high school sweetheart, and mom to two avid bookworms, she holds an MFA in costume design and has worked as a freelance costumer in opera, theater, film and television. Although she once spent a summer working in a castle, there were no dead bodies involved.
K.C. is represented by Kathleen Rushall at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Her debut young adult novel, HOLDING COURT, will be published by Entangled Teen on March 1, 2016.
The Interview:
1) Congrats on your debut! Is HOLDING COURT the first book you wrote, as well as being the first you published? What was your path to publication like?
K.C.: Thank you! I wrote most of HOLDING COURT during a frenzied two week period after finally realizing it was time to break up with my first book. I wanted to write a YA mystery that combined elements from TV shows, movies, and books I love: the Stars Hollow feel of Gilmore Girls, the interconnected affect of Amélie, the impossible romance and quirky characters of Pushing Daisies, the fast-paced mix of humor and mystery in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, and a heroine who was a whip-smart wisecracker like Buffy and Veronica Mars. I put it all in a blender, reblended it a few times, and HOLDING COURT was the result. Which makes it sound like a smoothie rather than a book, but that’s essentially how HOLDING COURT came about!
2) I love the idea of a supernatural mystery set at a period dinner theater. Did you write Tudor Times based on personal experience? If not, what's the craziest summer job you ever had?
K.C.: I would’ve loved to have had a job at a period dinner theater! I did have a summer internship in textile conservation at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, which was crazy awesome, and there are definitely parts of the castle in Tudor Times that were inspired by Hearst Castle.
3) What sets your main character, Jules, apart from her peers? (I mean, aside from the whole "psychic prophesy" thing mentioned in the book's teaser...) Do you tend to write protagonists who share a lot of characteristics with teen you, or are they very different?
K.C.: While Jules’s gift is something no one else has, she’s like me, and everyone I knew as a teen, in that there’s something about herself that she desperately wishes she could change. I’m not sure what other characteristics we share besides the fact that we’re both tall people who love vintage clothing and the movie The Princess Bride. Also, as a teen I once had to dress up in the same costume Jules has to wear at her job. But the less said about that, the better. :)
4) What are you most excited about heading into your publishing debut?
K.C.: I can’t wait to see how it feels to hold a physical copy of HOLDING COURT in my hands!
5) What are you working on next?
K.C.: “Another mystery,” she said mysteriously.
Your next scavenger hunt stop:
Did you find the code word hidden in this post? Hint: I put lots of asterisks around it. :)
Once you've got it, head over to author Kim Culbertson's blog: http://kimculbertson.com.