Coney Island: in (some) photos

I didn't spend enough time at the beach as I wanted, and the Coney Island Museum doesn't let you take any pictures (which is why I'm relying on Google to show you what it looks like without me there).



Here is the beach at 10 AM. This is the first really nice day I've had all summer. Screw this weather.



This is the Wonder Wheel from far, far away. Not good composition, but it's really a research photo for the book. *memory snap*


This is me in my sequin bathing suit top. Kind of research for the novel. I kind of wanted to see what it's like to be a mermaid. In the end, it was just a sparkly top. *sigh*




This is the face one makes when drinking a POOR EXCUSE OF A PINA COLADA WITH WATERED DOWN RUM. Shiiiiiieeeet.



Walking to the Coney Island Museum.


(the next two photos are not MY museum shots)


Next time I have to go to this bar. It's called Freak Bar.



the path to the Museum



one way....



...or another.


just when I was wondering the sex life of mermaids...


and starfish...


I found Flotsam, but not Jetsam.


my bff



The End.

south of the equator

Or, really, right on the equator. As in, Ecuador.

In one week, I'll be on my way to Ecuador.

I'm nervous. One, because I haven't seen my family in so long and don't know how they'll react to my strange New Yorker ways. Two: because my grandmother's house doesn't have wifi. Three: I will leave my blog unattended and then you all might forget me.

This is why I'm going to write up some of those reviews I've been staring at for the past week and just have them scheduled to be posted.

Guayas, here I come.

NYC Mega Reading

This looks like fun. Though, the author I'm interested in the most is Michelle Zink because I'm reading Prophecy of the Sisters right now. And I'm LOVING it.

This coincides with my going away party, which isn't really a party, and more of an excuse to go to the bar for happy hour. The bar is The Skinny and it's on the Lower East Side. It's on the corner of Orchard, between Allen and Ludlow. I'm not good with directions. The first time I went here, my friends and I got very lost.

Also, I'm not really "going away," as much as I'm just visiting Ecuador for two weeks. So, if you'd like to join me for some book action followed by bar action, lemme know!

Nine authors will be at Books of Wonder in New York City on Saturday July 25th, from 2pm to 4pm.


Participating Authors:

Lauren Barnholdt, author of Two-Way Street
Sarah Cross, author of Dull Boy
Erin Dionne, author of Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies
Heather Duffy-Stone, author of This is What I Want to Tell you
Mandy Hubbard, author of Prada and Prejudice
Julie Linker, author of Crowned, Disenchanted Princess
Sarah MacLean, author of The Season
Mari Mancusi, author of Boys that Bite, Girls that Growl, Stake That!, Gamer Girl and others
Michelle Zink, author of Prophecy of the Sisters

Pitch Party NYC

Have you ever been to a Pitch Party?

Me neither.

That's why I wanna have one.

Adrienne Rosado over @ PMA and I were chatting about True Blood and vacation days when we decided this would be a rather neat idea. A party (at a bar) where the agents will be there for your pitching pleasure. *wink*

We're still thinking on what the invitation is going to look like, the when and where. We're thinking Library Bar. Fitting?

What I know for sure is: Please only pitch if your novel is completed, as in, finished. Please only pitch if your non-fiction proposal if completed, as in, typed. There will be more info to come throughout the summer because it will happen at the end of summer, when the sun will finally start shining.

I'll have to get one of my image-savvy internet friends to make a little flyer for it. Anyone? I'm already excited and speaking with a southern accent as I type this.

Start telling your novel-writing friends. Specially if they write YA.

Maggie Quinn: Triple Whamey

Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Pub: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Realeased: April 2008
Rating: 4 by 5



Maggie Quinn knew high school was hell, but even she thinks the smell of brimstone is a little out of the ordinary. When she’s the only one to see that something supernatural is stalking the school’s ruling clique, it’s up to Maggie to channel her inner Nancy Drew and ferret out the origin of the ancient evil, before all Hell breaks loose at the Senior Prom.

Maggie Quinn is cute, smart, witty. She looks like a pixie, writes for the school newspaper, and she's a psychic. This is definitely a cool girl. Clement-Moore creates a psychic Nancy Drew who has to save her school from a demon.

My only beef with the story is that the magical elements are very underdeveloped. Maggie has inherited the sight from her Granny Quinn, who has only decided to tell Maggie of her gift on her senior year of high school. The gift skips the males in the family, so her father didn't have it. The magics are too general, and so not new. But I found myself rooting for Maggie and hoping she saved the day.

This is a character-driven novel. So if you're looking for something that has created a new universe rules for magic, this is not it. If you want a novel with a funny protagonist who like, doesn't, like, for sure, totally talk like this, Maggie Quinn is your girl.


Hell Week by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Pub: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Realeased: August 2009
Rating: 3.5 by 5



Maggie Quinn has battled an ancient demon, faced down psychotic cheerleaders, and saved her best friend from certain death, but nothing can match this. Formal sorority recruitment, otherwise known as rush. And after facing hellfire, infiltrating sorority rush should be easy. But when she finds a group of girls who are after way more than “sisterhood,” all her instincts say there’s something rotten on Greek Row. And when Hell Week rolls around, there may be no turning back.

Here Maggie gets a boyfriend! A few, actually. She starts realizing that she's hot, even though she thinks guys are only into her because she's rushing a sorority. For Maggie, the point of the rush is not to be part of the "sisterhood," but to go undercover to see what the big deal is. Article by article, she starts noticing occulty-related things. Before she knows it she has to find a way to get herself out of the mess that comes with the sorority bitches from hell.

This novel is fast paced and the characters have undeniable voices. Sometimes I want to roll my eyes at the way that Maggie is so introverted and a smart-ass-know-it-all, but she's somehow still likeable. I love snark, but sometimes there's a level that shouldn't be breached and Maggie sometimes gets close to breaching it.

Also, again with the very light magical aspect. I kind of wish she was just a regular psychic detective because the Hell and demons part of the narrative are very plain.

The only thing that keept me reading is the characters, not the plot. And while I'm into character-driven novels, I like my magics to be new and innovative.


Highway to Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Pub: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Realeased: March 2009
Rating: 3 by 5



Maggie Quinn was expecting to find plenty of trouble with Lisa over Spring Break. Give a girl a bikini, a beachfront hotel, and an absent boyfriend, and it’s as good as a road map to the dark side. But Maggie doesn’t have to go looking for trouble. Trouble has started looking for her. One dead cow and a punctured gas tank later, she and Lisa are stuck in Dulcina, Texas—a town so small that it has an owner. And lately life in this small town hasn’t been all that peaceful. An eerie predator is stalking the ranchland. Everyone in town has a theory, but not even Maggie’s psychic mojo can provide any answers. And the longer the girls are stranded, the more obvious it becomes that something is seriously wrong. Only no one—not even Maggie’s closest ally—wants to admit that they could have been forced on a detour down the highway to hell.

Clement-Moore has a knack for starting a story just when it needs to be started. There is nothing excess in her writing style. Even still, this is my least favorite of my Maggie novels. Most of it has to do with the chupacabra business, and some of it has to do with the way the magic (surprise) is explained. Everything is very black and white. Sometimes I couldn't picture the way the demon was described because a chupacabra is so 2000, but still fresh in my mind from the tabloids when I was in junior high.

My problem is that everything about this world is a cut and paste collage of pop-culture references and doesn't give iteself a chance to explore its own universe.


Watch out for Rosemary Clement-Moore's new book The Splendor Falls out September 8, 2009. This time it's a dark-romance ghost story. Very excited ;)

In my mailbox (nueve) / Suck it Week

Two words: Sookie Stackhouse.

I just got the first seven novels of this series. I can see how they're already changing some of the plot line and relationships in the series (which I've finally watched and have become obsessed with).

To continue this obsession, I've gotten Buffy Season 8 #21-26. This season is leading up to the END of Magick in the world/buffyverse. I've stuck it out with Buffy for years because Joss Whedon is a master at writing dialogue. There are a lot of books that try that sarcastic-blunt angle, and it always comes out too forced or annoying.

Buffy Season Eight (for those not following) is in comic book form. Harmony is now a celebrity vampire. It's like True Blood, vampires are in the open. Except there's no vampire blood supplement, and people in the Buffyverse think they're misunderstood. The big army of slayers is now painted as the "bad guys" and they're on the run. Below: covers #21 and #22



Both covers for #23. See, seach comic comes out with two covers. One is more cartoony and the other is life like. Can you tell which one?!?!?


#24 Yes, that's Faith. And Giles. #25, Dawn and the Thricewise that put a curse on her.

#25 Willow and the whole gang.


Seriously, I cannot wait. Vampires rule. End of story.

P.S.
Oh, keep watch all your writers our there. My agent and I are going to plan a Pitch Party at the end of the summer. More details to come.

P.P.S.

I just finished some books. I didn't like any of them. I sometimes hate giving negative reviews, but I guess I'll just suck it up.