Debut Graduate: Zombie Queen of Newbury High

Zombie Queen of Newbury High (Amazon USA, UK, Canada)
by Amanda Ashby (website - blog - myspace)
Paperback - $7.99
Puffin (Penguin)
Excerpt

This is the adorable cover for Amanda Ashby's adorable new book, Zombie Queen of Newbury High. Regular readers of this blog will be raising their eyebrows in shock. Tia, reading a zombie book? I had a few reasons for reading this novel. One, is that Amanda Ashby wrote it. I cannot resist anything that Amanda writes. And the other is that I was assured by the blurb that none of the protagonists were zombies.

Speaking of blurbs, here it is:

Quiet, unpopular, non-cheerleading Mia is blissfully happy. Rob-super hot football god-has asked her to prom! Life couldn’t get any better. Enter Samantha -cheerleader queen and Miss Popularity-who has made it quite clear that Rob should be her prom date. Mia is desperate to make sure she doesn’t end up dumped in front of the whole school. So with prom in just a few days, she turns to Candice-her holistic, hypochondriac best friend-and decides to try a love spell to make Rob stay with her. Unfortunately, she ends up inflicting a zombie virus on her whole class instead, and she is their zombie leader! At first she loves all the attention. But when she learns from zombie hunter hottie Chase that her classmates will actually try to eat her in a few days, she’s not too thrilled. She’s sure she and Chase can figure something out, but in the meantime, she’s suggesting that no one wear white to prom, because things could get very messy.

Yes, the whole book is like this. It's great fun and a very fast read. Puffin sent it back in January and I read it then, but I wanted to put up my review close to the release date so you wouldn't forget all about it by the time the release date got here. It comes out tomorrow in the United States.

The book is quirky, loopy and hysterical. I don't want to give too much away by writing about all the funny lines, but I'm having to restrain myself. Let's just say that I love Chase's job title. And I really loved the title he gave for the woman who sold Mia the "love spell". And I love, love, love what she did with Google searches. The Google search engine is much more powerful than you might think! The novel is also filled with all kinds of how-is-she-going-to-get-out-of-it moments.

And it had an Amanda Ashby trademark, which is what I'll call a Moment of Reconciliation. Plus, none of the leading men or what you would expect at first. Both are very nicely done, elevating this book from Pure Fluff to Fluffy With Substance.

The only thing I was left wishing for was that Mia would end up a part of the same organization that Chase belongs to. Mia turns out to have more magical ability than she should have, and I would have liked to see this explored a bit more.

That, and the novel was way too short! Add another 25,000 words and I would have been perfectly happy.

This novel is perfect Saturday reading. Get it on Friday night, and you'll be done with it in time for brunch on Sunday. Highly recommended for those who enjoy fun, quirky books.

One Year (or so) Later - Amanda Ashby

 

Amanda Ashby wrote my favorite book of 2007, the only one that made me cry, YOU HAD ME AT HALO. She accomplished something that was really hard. She took this concept that I didn't really buy into, but nevertheless, I bought her book. It turned out to be something completely unexpected. And wonderful. If she can keep making books that yank tears out of me (none of the 2008 books managed this), I'll keep buying her books. The crazy thing is, her books are funny, not weepy. So when I saw the delicious blurb for ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH, I knew I had to have it. (No, it's not about an undead protagonist, despite the title.) Here are her thoughts about the last year and a half.

~*~

Wow, it seems so strange that my debut book YOU HAD ME AT HALO has been out in the world for over a year now. Since then it’s been an interesting time. I guess the best thing about it is that my book really did come out, since I’d had a secret fear that something would suddenly go horribly wrong (like I’d wake up from a dream and discover that I’d made the whole thing up!!).

Because of my physical location – I live in New Zealand and my book came out in the US – I didn’t really do much promotion for it apart from online interviews/blog tours etc. To be honest, I think this worked out well because the idea of having to do book signings for any sort of face-to-face interview leaves me feeling weak at the knees.

There have been quite a few highlights since my book came out. At the top of the list were some of the reviews I received. A really great one from Publisher's Weekly where they described it as ‘Bridget Jones meets Lovely Bones’. Never in a million years would I have been cheeky enough to even think of my book in those terms so their quote made me feel pretty incredible. The other great thing was not only getting a 4½ star TOP PICK from Romantic Times Bookclub, but I was also nominated for a reviewer’s choice award. I didn’t win, but since it’s one of the few awards where you don’t have to actually have to enter, I was really blown away by it.

Another great thing was when I went over to the RWA conference in San Francisco, I got to see my book in Borders for the very time. That was special (not least since it had almost been out for a year and I didn’t know if they’d even have it in stock!!!!). AT the conference I got to take part in the RWA literacy signing and my publisher also had a book signing there which was great. I had so much fun and I actually had real life readers come up and say that they’d liked my book – that rocked (and I can’t forget that I got to meet my very own lovely stalker, Laura. I definitely recommend that every author get themselves a Laura!!)

My other favorite thing was getting to meet so many great bloggers/reviewers like Tia, who gave me so much support. Knowing that there were people out there who not just liked my book but were willing to say so out loud gave me such an incredible feeling that hasn’t been forgotten.

Oh, and one final highlight. I do a bit of part time work at my local library and on my very first week there, a woman came up to the counter to check out some books AND ONE OF THEM WAS MINE. Naturally I was very controlled and polite about the whole situation (aka, I screamed like a banshee and terrified the poor woman for the rest of her life – though she hid it quite well and pretended to be excited about it which was very sweet of her!!!!)

However, it’s not all been plain sailing. Learning about how print runs and returns really work can be a bit depressing and also finding that despite all your best efforts, your book isn’t selling as well you’d like it to, is a bit of a downer. Also, my publisher didn’t buy my option book because the market had changed by the time my first book came out, so that was sad – especially since I really loved that book (about a stressed out bride who had to save the world so that her wedding could go ahead!!!).

Thankfully, just before my debut book came out, I got a contract with Puffin for my young adult books and knowing I had that definitely made everything a lot easier, and now my second book ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEWBURY HIGH is coming out in about six weeks.

I’d like to say that my experience with Halo, will help me with promoting Zombie, but I have a bad feeling that I’ll still be compulsively Googling my name and checking Amazon rankings despite knowing how ridiculous it is. To be honest I think most authors indulge in these hobbies because they feel so helpless once their books come out and it’s their way of taking back some control. Or, of course the other reason could be that all authors are slightly crazy. Hmmmm...

But over all, I’ve really amazing to know that I’ve got a book out there and I can’t wait to go through it all again. Roll on the fifth of March!

Amanda has promised to stop by and answer comments, so fire away with any questions you have!

Guest Post - Amanda Ashby! Plus Another Giveaway!

And now for something entirely new -- a guest post!

I first encountered Amanda Ashby via Emily Gee's website, where she had some links to fellow authors. I was thrilled to see that one of them, Amanda, had a debut paranormal romance coming out that very week. Amanda and I have been emailing off and on ever since, starting when I tried to get a photo of her book for her at my local bookstore.

Since I started follwing her very active blog, I noticed that she had guest-blogged at several other sites. Therefore, I asked her to do a guest post. She graciously agreed and also offered to give away a copy of her book, YOU HAD ME AT HALO to Fantasy Debut Readers! Her instructions are at the end of the post.

And without any further ado, here she is -- Amanda Ashby!!!

When Tia invited me to do a guest blog on Fantasy Debut, I immediately said yes, because not only has she been so supportive of my book, YOU HAD ME AT HALO but she gave me a kick ass review as well, which pretty much puts her up the top of my list of favorite people!!!

Anyway, Tia was curious to know how I managed to sell such an unusual premise to a big publisher and honestly, I’m just as curious myself! In publishing, you often you hear the phrase ‘right time, right place, right book’ and I definitely think that I was no exception to this rule.

Though, saying that, even though I’d been writing for about six years, when I had the idea for YOU HAD ME AT HALO, I knew right away that it felt different.

Of course I didn’t know if it would sell or not, but it was the first book I’d written where the heroine’s goal was so consuming and powerful that it really did drive the book (it also drove me to distraction at times, but that’s another blog post). Anyway, I do think that having a well-motivated character helped, along with the fact that despite the paranormal/fantasy set-up, the emotions and conflicts were very earth-bound and regular.

Another big help was that I decided to query uber agent, Jenny Bent from Trident Media. Now at the time I had no idea of what Jenny did or didn’t like, so it really was good luck that my book covered quite a few of her favorite things. She loves feisty heroines. Tick. She loves quirky. Tick. She’s a big fan of high concept. Tick (once I figured out what high concept was of course). And it just so happens that her favorite movie is the Steve Martin body-sharing comedy called All of Me. I knew none of this until much further down the track.

Anyway, it didn’t take long for Jenny to get back to me with revisions and two weeks after she started submitting it to editors, we got an offer. Oh, and she is also the one who thought up my great title, so having an amazing agent who is enthusiastic about your writing is definitely a plus.

Of course, my personal favorite theory of how I managed to get a big publisher interested is that the Gods were a little bit bored on that particular day. Perhaps they were even having a friendly game of poker over a couple glasses of ambrosia, when one God bet another God that he could get that Amanda Ashby girl a book deal, and was then forced to do it or risk having to fork out big time to a half-drunk, gambling-addicted God!

But whatever the reason, I’m truly grateful that I got to see my book come out in print. Even more so because the idea came to me on the day of my dad’s funeral, so in a way it’s a tribute to him. Though what he thinks about being the inspiration for a stroppy 22 year old dead girl with issues is anyone’s guess!!

If you’d like to go into the draw to win a copy of YOU HAD ME AT HALO, all you need to do is leave a comment (nice ones get bonus points!)

Thank you, Amanda!!

UPDATE!

Amanda Ashby's contest is now CLOSED! Congratulations to Raven, the winner!

YOU HAD ME AT HALO by Amanda Ashby

Ok, right about now, my male readers are probably hovering their mouse over another link on their feed reader, or perhaps over their "Back" button. But even though you might not want to be caught dead reading this book, you might want to consider getting it for the lady in your life. She might appreciate you a bit more after reading it.

I confess it -- I bought YOU HAD ME AT HALO (USA, Canada, UK) entirely out of curiosity. Why was this published? I thought. How on earth did the author convince a publisher to take this on?

Now I know.

I deliberately didn't want to do an as-I-read-it review of this book because I feared doing the author a disservice by premature observations. I tend to save any critiques that I may have until the final post, but for a while it seemed like I had nothing but critiques. Heaven full of bumbling idiots? Run like a bureaucracy? Making stupid mistakes? And where on earth was God?

Of course, I should have known that nothing was as it seemed.

The beginning is nonsensical and rather goofy, and I covered it here. In fact, the novel's opening is one of its biggest liabilities. However, something told me that I should not judge it so quickly. It took a while for a copy to appear in my bookstore, but when I saw it, I grabbed a copy.

Holly Evans is an insufferable twit who somehow still manages to make you care about her. She is not at all pleased about being in heaven, so the inept-seeming heavenly officials send her back to straighten out her issues. They are 1) that everyone thinks she killed herself and 2) that she had just had a fight with her boyfriend. Some baggage over a past suicide attempt didn't help matters.

They send her into the body of Vince Murphy, one of the corporate geeks, who supposedly had died at her funeral. However, he wakes up a few hours later, resulting in delightful confusion. Vince takes the idea of someone inhabiting his body with surprising aplomb, and focuses his efforts on getting Holly's heavenly affairs straightened out, eventually showing Holly what it is like to be truly unselfish.

Of course, the two of them are meant to be together. Halfway through this book, even as I wrestled with its inherent goofiness, I thought, this book ought to be made into a movie. It would make a great chick flick. It turned out that the issues that Holly had to straighten out where not what she expected. I cheered when she used Vince's surprisingly buff body to clock someone who really needed punching and I turned into a blubbering idiot when she paid her estranged stepmother -- who had raised her -- one final visit.

Yup, a 41 year-old woman, weeping over a 22 year old fictional twit. We're talking actual tears here. Not a pretty sight. And the tears came again when she had her final heavenly debriefing. If this book has taught me anything, it is that I've become entirely too cynical.

Most quotable line: "Somehow she'd made the classic Lizzy Bennet mistake of getting her Darcys and her Wickhams muddled up." Aah yes. Of course Amanda Ashby is a Jane Austen fan.

YOU HAD ME AT HALO is a coming-of-age novel that will make you laugh out loud, roll your eyes in exasperation and daub away tears. The beginning might take a while to pull you in, but if you give it a chance you might just end up loving it. I did.

Amanda Ashby Website * Blog

First Chapter of YOU HAD ME AT HALO by Amanda Ashby

Since I am between books, I've been reading some first chapters that authors have posted. I'll have comments on them over the next few days.

The title of YOU HAD ME AT HALO by Amanda Ashby should tell you something of what to expect. I knew right away that it would be an irreverent romantic take on the afterlife. Here's the first few sentences:

“Unbelievable.” Holly Evans shook her head as she peered down through the glass window to the scene below.

That was the problem with an open casket. It meant everyone’s last memories of her would be with a white puffy face, the wrong color lipstick and a dreadful polyester dress. They always said the camera added five pounds to you, but no one ever talked about how fattening embalming fluid was, did they?

I guess once you're dead, you don't have much else to worry about than how you looked at your wake, now do you? It turns out that Holly does have some things to worry about. Her biggest problem is that heaven's entrance officials seem to think that she committed suicide.

I'm not sure why there's glass in heaven, or why there are so many rules, or why it doesn't seem very heavenly. Or why they would think that she committed suicide when she insists that she didn't. And you would think that heaven's officials would be rather difficult to fool. So, there's a mystery here.

The chapter ends at a nice cliffhanger when Holly gets kicked out of heaven for talking too much.

I'm not really sure what to think here. I can't say I've ever read an afterlife novel, but I did see All of Me years ago. Oh, and I saw Nick Cage in City of Angels. In any novel or movie of this sort, you cannot expect a doctrinally perfect heaven, or there wouldn't be much of a story. However, my interest is still piqued, mostly because of the zippy writing and the voice.

The excerpt is here.