Happy Release Day to

The Requiem Red by Brynn Chapman!

Join us in celebrating this new release from Month9Books!

Enter the giveaway found at the end of the post.

Happy Book Birthday, Brynn!

Patient Twenty-nine.

 

A monster roams the halls of Soothing Hills Asylum. Three girls dead. 29 is endowed with the curse…or gift of perception. She hears messages in music, sees lyrics in paintings. And the corn. A lifetime asylum resident, the orchestral corn music is the only constant in her life.

Mason, a new, kind orderly, sees 29 as a woman, not a lunatic. And as his belief in her grows, so does her self- confidence. That perhaps she might escape, might see the outside world.

But the monster has other plans. The missing girls share one common thread...each was twenty-nine's cell mate.

 

Will she be next?

 

The Requiem Red by Brynn Chapman

Publication Date: April 5, 2016

Publisher: Month9Books

Google Play | BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | TBD | iBooks

Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Brynn Chapman is the daughter of two teachers. Her writing reflects her passions: science, history and love—not necessarily in that order. In real life, the geek gene runs strong in her family, as does the Asperger’s syndrome.

 

Her writing reflects her experience as a pediatric therapist and her interactions with society’s downtrodden. In fiction, she’s a strong believer in underdogs and happily-ever-afters.

 

She also writes non-fiction and lectures on the subjects of autism and sensory integration and is a medical contributor to online journal The Age of Autism.

 

She also writes under the pseudonym R.R. Smythe.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest |Goodreads

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Welcome to this week’s Super Middle Grade Mondays presented by Tantrum Books/Month9books!

Today, we get up close and personal with

Jennie K. Brown

author of Poppy Mayberry, The Monday

a 2016 title coming from Tantrum Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Jennie K. Brown is a high school English teacher by day, freelance magazine writer by night, and middlegrade/young adult author by late-night and weekend. When she isn’t teaching or writing, Jennie can be found reading a good book, traveling, or spending time with her awesome husband, amazing son and super-spoiled yorkie.In 2010, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) named Jennie the Pennsylvania English teacher of excellence, and she currently serves as President of the Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of English and Language Arts (PCTELA). She is also an active member of SCBWI, NCTE and ALAN.

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram

Inspiration with Jennie K. Brown

Many people have asked me where I got the big idea about having magical powers based on the day of the week you’re born for my MG novel POPPY MAYBERRY, THE MONDAY. So, I’ve written a bit about my inspiration below!

The idea actually came to me when I was stopped at a red light in my hometown. I glanced up at the Starbucks on the corner across the street to see a young girl tossing a ball into the air. From the angle I watched, it looked as if the girl was controlling the ball with her mind. At pretty much the same time I asked myself, What day of the week is it? (I have a tendency to lose track of the days over the summer!) And then I put those thoughts together – What if a person had certain powers depending on the day of the week? Or what if a person had a special power specific to the day of the week in which they were born? And that’s where I got the concept for Poppy’s town of Nova. Then I took that a step further and gave certain powers to certain days of the week. If you check out this link, you can see what day of the week you were born and the power behind that day!

Monday – telekinetic powers (controlling things with your mind)

Tuesday – teleportation

Wednesday – energy/electricity manipulation

Thursday – mind reading (So cool!)

Friday – invisibility (disappearing!)

Saturday and Sunday – powerless (This is funny, because I was actually born on a Saturday myself!)

In POPPY MAYBERRY, THE MONDAY, the main character (Poppy Mayberry) is struggling with her telekinetic Monday power. Because of this she is sent to a remedial summer camp for the powerless - Power Academy – where she gets teamed up with her archrival, a mind reading Thursday, and a few other weekday hopefuls to combat the awful headmistress Clothes-too-tight Larriby and her equally awful sidekick. The novel is set to release in April 2016 with a sequel in December! Find out more and Jennie and her writing inspiration on her website jenniekbrown.com

:) Jennie

What if your teacher could read your mind just because she was born on a Thursday? Or the kid next to you in class could turn back the clock just because he was a 'Wednesday''? In the quirky town of Nova, all of this is normal, but one thing is not---Poppy Mayberry.

 

As an almost-eleven-year-old Monday, she should be able to pass notes in class or brush her dog, Pickle, without lifting a finger. But her Monday telekinesis still has some kinks, and that plate of spaghetti she's passing may just end up on someone's head.

 

And if that's not hard enough, practically perfect Ellie Preston is out to get her, and Principal Wible wants to send her to remedial summer school to work on her powers! It's enough to make a girl want to disappear...if only she were a Friday.

 

"Whimsical, imaginative, and fun. Poppy Mayberry is a modern Annie - immediately likable, charming and spunky. Kids will be rooting for this wonderful heroine from page one." --- Robert Beatty, New York Times Bestselling Author of SERAFINA AND THE BLACK CLOAK

 

Poppy Mayberry, The Monday by Jennie K. Brown

Publication Date: September 2016

Publisher: Month9Books

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Today brings us a new YA novel, Em & Em by Linda Budzinski. She's been gracious enough to also write up a guest post about why she writes the YA genre. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why do I write YA fiction? Because E.B. White, C.S. Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and many, many others. As a kid and a teen, those authors taught me so much about life and pain and joy and what it means to be a flawed yet still beautiful human being. Now, as an adult, my favorite books are still YA, written by amazing novelists such as Ruta Sepetys, Laurie Halse Anderson, Gary Schmidt, Rainbow Rowell, and many, many, MANY others. The life themes that most interest me all tend to center around discovering our true selves, understanding and accepting our imperfections, and learning to appreciate others as multi-dimensional people rather than forming snap judgments about them and trying to put them in boxes. What better setting for exploring those ideas than the teen years? Though it’s been—well, let’s just say—a while since I was a teen, I remember the insecurities and also the sense of possibility I felt back then as though it were yesterday. I was kind of awkward, or at least, I felt awkward, and though I had some great friends, I was certainly not part of the “in” crowd, andI was SUPER shy around boys. Basically, I was a YA character waiting to bloom. Writing YA gives me a chance to create characters that navigate their way through all that awkwardness and find ways to bloom.

Em and Em by Linda Budzinski

Publication Date: Sept 15, 2015

Publisher: Swoon Romance

Genre: YA, Contemporary

The last thing sixteen-year-old Emily Slovkowski wants is to move away from her home at the Jersey shore, gorgeous surfer boyfriend Zach, and her entire identity. But that’s kind of how Witness Protection works, and Em must prepare herself for an epic do-over as she starts a new life in the Midwest.

Even as she pines for sandy beaches and the night life of the shore, the newly-named Ember O’Malley finds herself making new friends, taking photos for the high school newspaper, and thinking an awful lot about the paper's editor, an oddly cute cowboy named Charles.

When Em stumbles upon a shady beneath-the-bleachers exchange between one of the school’s football coaches and a student, she refuses to get involved. The last thing she needs is to be witness to another crime or call attention to herself. Besides, she finally has some real friends - well, real except for the fact that they don’t know a single thing about her - and she prefers to keep it that way until the trial. But as her day in court approaches, Em begins piecing together what she saw that day beneath the bleachers. And, as her own past secrets start to catch up with her, Em needs to figure out who she really is - Em or Em.

Purchase it at: Books-A-Million / Amazon / B&N / Chapters / The Book Depository

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Linda Acorn Budzinski decided in the second grade that she wanted to be a “Paperback Writer,” just like in the Beatles song. She majored in journalism in college and now works in marketing and communications. She spent 18 years at a trade association in the funeral service industry, where she discovered that funeral directors are some of the bravest and most compassionate people on earth. Linda lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Joe, and their chihuahua, Demitria. She has two step-daughters, Eris and Sarah. THE FUNERAL SINGER is her debut novel. She is represented by Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger Inc.

Connect with her on: Goodreads / FB / Website / Twitter