What’s on my iPod: “Marry Me” by Train
What I’m reading: The Song Remains the Same by Allison Winn Scotch
The last person I followed on Twitter: @marcjacobsintl

1. GIRL UNMOORED launch and contest continues to heat up! 

GIRL UNMOORED by Jennifer Gooch Hummer is making so much buzz! Between the contest and official launch last week, the novel is on fire! The contest open for everyone is already a hit among Hummer and BookSparks fans!

Here’s the Totally Awesome Deal:

Now through April 6th, when you comment about Girl Unmoored on my blog you’ll be automatically entered into a drawing to win a tote bag stuffed with gifts that blend the hottest 2012 e-reader with totally rad ’80s memorabilia and more! And if you purchase the book (print or e-book) and forward your receipt confirmation to contests@sparkpointstudio.com, your name will be entered to win 10 TIMES! That’s 11 chances to win the following awesome prizes:

 

  • A Kindle Fire, just in time for spring break lounging!
  • DVDs of Best Of 80s movies to celebrate the year of Girl Unmoored, 1985
  • Copies of my Top 5 YA books: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie; She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb; Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson; The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty; and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  • A gift card to 1-800 Flowers in honor of Apron’s summer job at Mike and Chad’s flower shop, Scent Appeal

The winner will be notified and announced the week of April 23rd. Bonus Fortuna!

Want to know what GIRL UNMOORED is totally about? Here are some more deets on the novel:

Apron Bramhall has come unmoored. It’s 1985 and her mom has passed away, her evil stepmother is pregnant, and her best friend has traded her in for a newer model. Fortunately, she’s about to be saved by Jesus. Not that Jesus—the actor who plays him in Jesus Christ, Superstar. Apron is desperate to avoid the look-alike Mike (no one should look that much like Jesus unless they can perform a miracle or two), but suddenly he’s everywhere. Until one day, she’s stuck in church with him—of all places. And then something happens; Apron’s broken teenage heart blinks on for the first time since she’s been adrift.

Mike and his grumpy boyfriend, Chad, offer her a summer job in their flower store, Apron’s world seems to calm. But when she uncovers Chad’s secret, coming of age becomes almost too much bear. She’s forced to see things the adults around her fail to—like what love really means and who is paying too much for it.

Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You, comments, “Love, loss, and the coming of age of one remarkable girl blaze through this haunting debut like a shooting star you’d wish upon. It’s tough and tender, funny and smart, and it frankly took my breath away. I loved it.”

2. THESE GIRLS reviews by the Library Review Journal

THESE GIRLS by Sarah Pekkanen received a lovely review from the Library Review Journal. Here it is:

VERDICT Because Pekkanen’s characters

are sympathetic and familiar, readers are

likely to identify with aspects of each pro

tagonist. Fans of Jennifer Weiner. Sarah

Dessen, Liza Palmer, and Emily Giffin

will strongly appreciate this smart novel

by a rising star in women’s fiction

 

More on THESE GIRLS

Sarah’s third novel, THESE GIRLS, will be published on April 10. “Sarah Pekkanen’s latest celebrates the healing power of female friendship for three very different young women sharing a New York City apartment. By turns bittersweet, laugh-out-loud funny, and painfully real, you’ll want to move in with these girls” ~ NYT bestseller Jodi Picoult.

3. Auryn Celebrates National Reading Month by Giving Away Free Apps! 
Auryn, the most award-winning digital publisher and creator of  unprecedented children storybook apps for  iPad and tablet devices, announced that several of the notable and award-winning apps from the company’s popular collection will be offered free, throughout the month of March.

In recognition of National Reading Month, Auryn is giving away one free storybook app each day of the month to promote reading among children on digital devices. Among the titles available for free download during March will include:

March is recognized throughout the U.S. as National Reading Month; designated as such by the National Education Association. The organization will celebrate its 15th Annual Read Across America Day this year, a nationwide program that helps children discover the joy of reading and is expected to draw more than 45 million participants on Friday, March 2.

TODAYS FREE TITLE: I, Trixie Who is Dog by Dean Koontz is FREE all day on iPad http://bit.ly/vWnpd3 & iPhone http://bit.ly/iphtrx. Happy National Reading Month!

4. HELL OR HIGH WATER and Joy Castro on University of Nebraska! 

The University of Nebraska did an awesome profile of Joy Castro and her upcoming novel HELL OR HIGH WATER. Here is a highlight:

Most writers don’t aim to blur the lines between a crime thriller and a chick lit novel.

Joy Castro isn’t one of them.

“To write ‘Hell or High Water,’ I repurposed the conventions of classic noir and chick lit and put them into tension with each other to tell a story about sexual violence and environmental degradation,” said Castro, associate professor of English and ethnic studies. “I wanted to write a guilty beach read that would have political substance.”

Most recently, Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Book Club selected Castro’s forthcoming debut novel, “Hell or High Water,” as a 2012 Book of the Month.

“Latina and Latino readers all across the United States will be reading and talking about ‘Hell or High Water,’” Castro said. “That’s an amazing gift to an author. I couldn’t wish for anything better.”

“Hell or High Water,” sets up shop in post-Katrina New Orleans, where hundreds of registered sex offenders who went off the grid during the hurricane evacuation have never been found.

The novel’s protagonist, Nola Céspedes, is a young newspaper reporter who is assigned the sex offender story. As her research progresses, she becomes increasingly entangled with the criminal underworld of New Orleans.

“I wanted to dramatize the connection of writing to justice in a story about a young writer who longs to make a difference but then gets saddled with a story that scares her,” Castro said. “As I wrote, I realized that she was going to have to reconnect with her own difficult, problematic past as a child from a background of poverty before she could move forward and get the job done.”

More on HELL OR HIGH WATER

Nola Céspedes, an ambitious young reporter at the Times-Picayune, catches a break:  an assignment to write her first full-length crime feature.  While researching her story, she becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in New Orleans.  As Nola’s work leads her back into dangerous corners of the city, she finds herself faced with an even more compelling question:  Who is Nola Céspedes?  Vividly rendered in razor-sharp prose, this psychological thriller is a riveting journey of trust betrayed—and the courageous struggle toward recovery.

“Hell or High Water is more than just a mystery; it’s a heartfelt examination of a second America—poor but undaunted—that was swept under the rug but refuses to stay there.”  –Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River

“In the tradition of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Lucha Corpi, Joy Castro shows how mystery can be much more than the unraveling of crimes concealed.  An irresistible and compelling novel.”  –Lorraine M. López, author of Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories

5. THE ARRIVALS picked up by Target! 

We’re very happy and proud to announce that client Meg Mitchell Moore’s new novel THE ARRIVALS has been picked up by Target! One of our favorite stores for one of our favorite books. Here is a little more about THE ARRIVALS so you can put it in your red shopping cart next time you make a stop!

THE ARRIVALS

It’s early summer when Ginny and William’s peaceful life in Burlington, Vermont, comes to an abrupt halt. First, their daughter Lillian arrives, two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage. Next, their son Stephen and his pregnant wife Jane show up for a weekend visit, which extends indefinitely.  When their youngest daughter Rachel appears, fleeing her difficult life in New York, Ginny and William find themselves consumed again by the chaos of parenthood—only this time around, their children are facing adult problems.  By summer’s end, the family gains new ideas of loyalty and responsibility, exposing the challenges of surviving the modern family. And the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true.