Hello! Today we have the character, Duncan, from Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe by Shelley Coriell with us today for a “This or That” post! Welcome Duncan!

I write stories about teens on the edge of love, life-changing moments, and a little bit of crazy. My debut novel, Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe, will be released in the Spring of 2012 from the fantabulous folks at Amulet/Abrams Books. A six-time Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist, I live in Arizona with my family and the world’s neediest rescue Weimaraner. When I’m not writing, I bake high-calorie, high-fat desserts and listen to voices in my head.

Cereal or Oatmeal?
Neither. Eggs and cheese on toast. Chloe and I ate this the first time she came to my house. And when I was having um…issues at home…she brought me the Mexican version: a breakfast burrito.

Chocolate or Vanilla?
Vanilla. Great for fried ice cream from Dos Hermanas Mexican Cantina.

Movies at Home or Theaters?
Movies at Chloe’s house. Grams has a killer 65-inch HDTV and a huge DVD collection.

Mac or Windows?
Mac. They break down less often. I’m the official fix-it guy at KDRS radio, where everything is old and falling apart, so I have enough stuff to work on.

Sports Car or Trucks?
Anything that runs. Right now I ride a bike with duct tape on the seat, but I’m thankful for that.

Basketball or Soccer?
Trash ball, like basketball but with paper balls and trash cans. One of Chloe’s Garbage Games.

Tennis or Swimming?
Swimming. Chloe loves the ocean, and when she thinks I’ve been working too hard, she’ll drag me to the beach where we swim and have a picnic and watch the sun set. Yeah…being with Chloe is fun.

Popcorn or Nachos?
Nachos Deluxe from Dos Hermanas.

Facebook or Twitter?
No time.

Hot Chocolate or Coffee?
Coffee. I work two jobs and am always falling asleep in first period economics. Although hot chocolate is one of my favorite comfort foods, which Chloe talked about in one of her radio talk shows.

Thanks for having me on your blog, Ivy. May your world be filled with good books and great people!

To learn more about Chloe’s high school radio world and win a $50 electronic/radio store gift certificate or one of ten CHLOE swag packs, go to Shelley Coriell’s website, www.shelleycoriell.com/blog/. Good luck to all!

Big-hearted Chloe Camden is the queen of her universe until her best friend shreds her reputation and her school counselor axes her junior independent study project. Chloe is forced to take on a meaningful project in order to pass, and so she joins her school’s struggling radio station, where the other students don’t find her too queenly. Ostracized by her former BFs and struggling with her beloved Grams’s mental deterioration, lonely Chloe ends up hosting a call-in show that gets the station much-needed publicity and, in the end, trouble. She also befriends radio techie and loner Duncan Moore, a quiet soul with a romantic heart. On and off the air, Chloe faces her loneliness and helps others find the fun and joy in everyday life. Readers will fall in love with Chloe as she falls in love with the radio station and the misfits who call it home.

Hello! Let’s welcome the author of Fall from Grace, Charles Benoit, with us today for an interview! Welcome Charles!

What were your “plans” and what were your parents’ “plans” for you?
I don’t know if it was my parents or the time I grew up in, but there were never any “plans” for me or my sisters (I’m the only boy, and one of those amazing middle children.) Neither of my parents graduated high school (they both dropped out to join the Navy in WWII and that’s when they met). Sometimes they would suggest the military, but I think they just wanted me to stay out of trouble. As for my plans, I can say that when I sat there at graduation, it suddenly dawned on me that I had none. I drifted for a few years–from job to job, apartment to apartment, girlfriend to girlfriend—then I joined the Army at 21 for something to do. Wow, looking back, I guess I really was a clueless as my teachers said.

Did you ever think that you would become an author?
No, but I did know I’d be a storyteller since that is the gift/curse of my family. It’s genetically impossible for any one of us to answer simple question, even one like, “What did you have for dinner last night?” We have to tell you a story—complete with flashbacks, foreshadowing, a few celebrity walk-on cameos, a comic sidekick, a villain, maybe a dream sequence—just to tell you that we went to McDonalds. Our family motto, given to us by the Emperor Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo, is “Nunquam permissum a res prosterno a bonus fibula.” (Never let a fact ruin a good story)

How long did it take you to write Fall From Grace?
It usually takes me about a year to write a book. For reasons I can’t explain, I wrote Grace in about 5 months. It was like the story was already in my head and I was just typing it out. I’m a two-finger typist, so I guess if I could do that freakish type-without-looking thing with all my fingers, I would have been done in a week. The first line of the book—“I need you to steal something for me”—came to me when I was listening to the song Into Action by Skye Seetnam and Tim Armstrong. I started the book that night and before I went to bed I knew exactly where it was going and how it would end. It was kindda scary, actually.

Do you relate to Grace or any of the other characters from your book?
Most of my male characters are semi-losers with huge flaws and little clue as to what’s really going on, so yes, I’m like my male characters. I wish I had the devil-may-care attitude of Grace. Or the demonic-cool of Zack, the evil character from my first teen novel, YOU. Or the tough-guy street smarts of the main character of my third mystery, Noble Lies. But no, I have the what-just-happened naiveté of Sawyer or Kyle or Doug (Relative Danger) or Jason (Out of Order) or Eric (the as-yet untitled book I’m writing now). But at least I got the girl!

Can you share a little something from your book with us, please?
How about the first 6 Chapters? http://files.harpercollins.com/HCChildrens/OMM/Media/FallFromGraceexcerpt.pdf

Thanks for the post, Charles!

Grace always has a plan. There’s her plan to get famous, her plan to get rich, and—above all—her plan to have fun.

Sawyer has plenty of plans too. Plans made for him by his mother, his father, his girlfriend. Maybe they aren’t his plans, but they are plans.

When Sawyer meets Grace, he wonders if he should come up with a few plans himself. Plans about what he actually wants to be, plans to speak his own mind for a change, plans to maybe help Grace with a little art theft.

Wait a minute—plans to what?

Hello! Please welcome the author of While He Was Away, Karen Schreck, with us today for an interview! Welcome Karen!

Karen Halvorsen Schreck’s new Young Adult novel, While He Was Away, will be published by Sourcebooks in 2012. She’s also the author of Dream Journal (Hyperion), which was a 2006 Young Adult BookSense Pick, and the award-winning children’s book Lucy’s Family Tree (Tilbury House). Her short stories and articles have appeared in Literal Latté, Other Voices, Image, as well as other literary journals and magazines, and have received various awards, including a Pushcart Prize, an Illinois State Arts Council Grant, and in 2008, first prize awards for memoir and devotional magazine writing from the Evangelical Press Association. Karen received her doctorate in English and Creative from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She works as a freelance writer and editor, teaches writing and literature, and lives with her husband, the photographer Greg Halvorsen Schreck, and their two children in Wheaton, Illinois.

Where do you write? Is it always the same place that gives you the motivation or do you visit different places to get the motivation and ideas to write?
I am all about having “A Room of One’s Own,” as Virginia Woolf once advocated. And for a while, I did. It was in our basement, and I loved the rituals I could establish there, which included candles, incense, and music on some days, and always the comfort of sitting down at the same place, with all that I need spread before me. I’m kind of Pavlovian, if you know what I mean—the bell rings and I write. But a couple years ago our basement flooded horribly and the room was destroyed, and I really won’t risk going through that again with my computer, etc.. Now I’m a Bedouin. Depending on my mood, I write on the couch, at the kitchen table, in libraries, coffee shops, on trains. It’s good, I think, learning to do the work wherever, whenever I can.

Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write While He Was Away?
When I was fourteen, my mother died. At the end of her life, she told me she’d been married before, to a man who died in WWII. It seemed to explain so much of who she was, and yet I never understood it, because I never got a chance to ask her more. My dad told stories about WWII, too—he was a soldier who fought in France, the Philippines, and Japan. So I’ve always thought a lot about war—and when the Iraq war started, I wanted to understand as much as I could about it, and the difference between our citizens, soldiers, and conflicts from the past to now.

If what happened to Penna happened to you, what would you do in that circumstance?
I like to think that I would try to learn from the hard stuff, and grow, too. I like to think that I would try to solve any mystery that came my way, understand what I don’t understand, and make the world a little more beautiful.

Did the title of your book undergo any title changes? If so, what are they?
Yes! I love that you ask this. I began by calling the book Gold Star Girl, which was related to Justine’s reality as a Gold Star Wife (having lost her first husband in war). My editor then suggested Hold Me Forever. Together we decided on While He Was Away. I’m happy to say that I like this title the best!

If the world is about to end, what five books would you try to save?
Wow. Um. OK.

• The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare
• So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
• The collected poems of Rumi
• Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
• The Bible

Thanks for an interesting post, Karen! I like the title Hold Me Forever too!

“This is just something I have to do, okay?” I hear David say. “The right thing.”

He cradles my face in his hands. He kisses me hard. Then he lets go of me. His eyes dart from me to whatever’s next.

All she wants is for him to stay. She’s been doing pretty well, pretending he doesn’t have to go. But one day, after one last night to remember, she wakes up and there’s no denying it anymore. He’s gone.

When Penna Weaver’s boyfriend goes off to Iraq, she’s left facing life without him. As summer sets in, Penna tries to distract herself with work and her art, but the not knowing is slowly driving her crazy. Especially when David stops writing.

She knows in her heart he will come home. But will he be the same boy she fell in love with?

Hello! Today we have Jessica Shirvington, author of Embrace, with us today for a guest post. She will be sharing her story on falling in love at the age of seventeen! Welcome Jessica!

Jessica Shirvington is the author of THE VIOLET EDEN CHAPTERS also known as THE EMBRACE SERIES. An entrepreneur, author, and mother living in Sydney, Australia, Jessica is also a 2011 finalist for Cosmopolitan’s annual Fun, Fearless Female Award. She’s also one of the lucky few who met the love of her life at age seventeen: Matt Shirvington, a former Olympian and current sports broadcaster for FOXTEL and Sky News. Married for almost eleven years with two beautiful daughters, Sienna and Winter, Jessica knows her early age romance and its longevity has definitely contributed to how she tackles relationships in her YA novels. Previously, she founded a coffee distribution company, Stella Imports, in London, and before that was involved in the management of restaurants Fuel Bistro and MG Garage in Sydney. Jessica is now a full-time novelist and living her dream.

Falling in Love at 17
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love … more complicated.

At 17, life is about new experiences. It is about self-discovery, friends, adventure, mistakes, career and university choices. And let’s be honest, there are not many 17 year olds out there that aren’t interested in falling in love.

But how many are truly interested in falling in love with THE ONE at 17?

I’m not sure I was. In fact, I probably wasn’t. I was planning to take the world by storm – solo. So when I met Matt, well, actually … it was pretty darn amazing. But it was a little frightening too.

When we first got together, it was sweet and young and … perfect. I was head over heels. But things became complicated quickly. He was an up and coming athletic star and I was working in hospitality. So basically he worked hard in the day, and I worked hard at night. His lifestyle demanded routine and healthy living, mine … not so much. But we were determined to make it work.

Falling in love so deeply at a young age made it difficult to be as reckless as our friends. We watched them coast in and out of short, fun, but meaningless relationships and it just seemed so different to what we had.

Writing the Embrace series has been an opportunity for me to pour some of the incredibly intense emotions of young love into Violet’s story. It has been important for me as a writer, and a person, to recognize that it’s completely realistic for someone at her young age to experience the full effect and heartbreak of love. Violet is one hundred percent invested with her heart. She makes bad choices, but we have to. She regrets many of her decisions, because we all do. And she fights for what she loves, because she is compelled to. Violet’s story is unique to her, I don’t pull on parallel scenarios from my own life, but I do pull on the emotion of intense love. Love that I think adults sometimes forget that 17 and 18 years-olds are very capable of feeling.

I often find one question helps a lot of adults, who maybe disagree with this view, to be more open minded: Do you remember you first true love? Do you ever wonder what your life would’ve been like if you had stayed together? For some, the answer is a resounding NOT INTERESTED, but for others … the pause says it all.

Matt and I celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary in March – I believe jewelry is in order

Thanks, Jessica, for sharing with us!

CHECK OUT MY REVIEW FOR EMBRACE!!

Click more for a giveaway!

Embrace by Jessica Shirvington
Series: The Violet Eden Chapters
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Released Date: March 6, 2012
Paperback: 400 Pages
Rating: 4/5

It starts with a whisper: “It’s time for you to know who you are…”

Violet Eden dreads her seventeenth birthday. After all, it’s hard to get too excited about the day that marks the anniversary of your mother’s death. As if that wasn’t enough, disturbing dreams haunt her sleep and leave her with very real injuries. There’s a dark tattoo weaving its way up her arms that wasn’t there before.

Violet is determined to get some answers, but nothing could have prepared her for the truth. The guy she thought she could fall in love with has been keeping his identity a secret: he’s only half-human—oh, and same goes for her.

A centuries-old battle between fallen angels and the protectors of humanity has chosen its new warrior. It’s a fight Violet doesn’t want, but she lives her life by two rules: don’t run and don’t quit. When angels seek vengeance and humans are the warriors, you could do a lot worse than betting on Violet Eden…

My Thoughts

Embrace by Jessica Shirvington is suspenseful and engaging! If I were to be an angel, I would want to be Violet!

When I was reading Embrace, I had a mixed feeling about it because the beginning was so captivating that it sucked me until…up until the middle. The middle lost me because my interest level dropped. I thought I would not be able to finish, however, I kept reading and I loved it, despite my feelings towards the middle of the book. I am glad I did not drop this book!

There is a love triangle in this novel, which I do not like much because clearly, one of the guys is a better fit than the other. It gets me so frustrated at who Violet picked.

I really enjoy the characters in this novel because each of them has a secret of their own, which blows me away. When their secret was out, I was amazed, surprised as to what that secret is because it changes your whole perception to who they are, and where they stand. If I were Violet, I would not know what to do. I would probably run away.

I dislike the middle. It was not as interesting as the beginning and end. I wished there was more to it to make it interesting or continues to draw the audience in than make the audience excited in the beginning, bored in the middle, and excited in the end again. But now, I really want to know what happens in the next book and see what lies ahead for Violet.

Source: Publisher.