SNEAK PEEK: FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS

FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS, my first NA rom-com, releases March 20--just one week from today! To gear up for the release, I'm sharing a sneak peek.

About FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS:

When Mable Barker, a “mutt from Queens,” accidentally snags a job walking a snarly Pekingese belonging to the “purebred” but awkwardly shy New Yorker, Jason Mead, she expects to spend her days dealing with yet another creature’s crap—literally…Only to find, to her surprise, that love is unleashed, as she and Jason both fall completely for the Peke—and for each other. But can three imperfect beings come together to create utter perfection at the Westminster Dog Show? A modern-day, humorous fairy tale in which dogs, not dragons, rule the land.

~

In this scene, Mable and Jason meet for the first time. Both are having a rough go of it: Mable's just lost yet another Manhattan job in her attempt to find her true talent, and has come to the HEADLINES newsstand for the Classifieds. Jason's come to HEADLINES to see his dog Innis (his first attempt at breeding) featured in The Orient Express--a magazine devoted to Pekingeses...only to find that the picture of Innis depicts him in a very un-show-dog manner. The both reach for a pair of foo dog statuettes for sale at HEADLINES at the same time; this is what happens...

“I got a hit out right now on anybody in uniform. You guys are bringin’ me down.” It was true—losing her job made Mable hate the look of a uniform or a briefcase or a business suit with the intensity of ten thousand suns. And, as she had walked toward HEADLINES, she had imagined hanging new posters on all NYC utility poles: posters that showed Mable pointing a water submachine gun at various uniformed pros beneath the phrase, “They got in her way and now they’re dead.—A warning from Ma Barker.”

But somehow, standing there, saying it out loud—a hit on anybody in uniform—and watching this stranger’s eyes light up had also suddenly made her stop feeling desperate. Instead, it all just seemed laughable. “I would love to give one ‘a you my creepin’ crud,” she added, because somehow, it had also become overwhelmingly important to get a full-on laugh from this man—whoever he was. The kind of laugh that Mable had always interpreted, throughout her nineteen years, to mean I approve or I like you or that Mable—she’s something.

She grinned happily when it came—the full-on guffaw.

But Jason quickly recovered, slathered on a serious expression, and explained, “This doesn’t exactly help my cause, since you’re apparently against all professionals, but I’m not a nurse. I’m a vet.”

“Like from Afghanistan?”

“Like rabies shots. Dogs, see?” He pointed at the figures with his free hand, still refusing to let go of the foo dog.

“That’s as tough gig. I mean, I had a pet rock when I was little, and boy, was that work.”

“The anatomy of pet rocks happens to be incredibly complex,” Jason informed her, fighting another grin.

“Really.”

“Yeah, really. Now, hands off my sculpture.”

“Hands off my sculpture.”

They lingered there a moment, his hand on hers, their fingers tangled. Somehow, though, it didn’t have the feel of accidentally bumping a stranger’s hands while reaching for the “down” arrow on an elevator. It felt familiar; it was sitting next to the one person who didn’t give a damn that you were in your holey Friday night sweats. It was babbling about anything, without the worried pressure of having to impress anyone. It was neither one of them finding it strange that Jason’s face was hovering now nearly as close to Mable’s as Gavin’s had the last time she’d seen him—when he’d thought he might be able to free her from the parking meter.

“That’s a single set,” Carl interrupted, making them both jump. He pointed at the foo dogs. “I could, though, be persuaded to break the pair.”

“I need a little good luck,” Mable admitted. “Some kind of protective guardian. Somebody to snarl at the world on my behalf. I only need one. I can share with the vet-slash-President of the Pet Rock Society over here.”

“Done,” Jason said, reaching for his wallet.

“It’s a male and a female,” Carl said, sliding each dog closer to its proper recipient. “Perfect way to divvy them up, eh?”

Money was forked over; Mable disappeared around the corner before Jason could think to ask for her name. Or before Mable could think to ask Jason’s.

But names didn’t matter. It wasn’t like they were going to see each other again.

Right?

~

To read more of FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS, order at Amazon or Kobo.

FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS: A CELEBRATION!

I'm in celebration mode: my first independently-published novel is about to hit e-readers everywhere (the official release date is March 20), and I'm holding a party!

Want to take part of the festivities? Help me spread word that my book's about to release. Post the cover and the book description (below) on your blog--or Tweet or post a FB update with a link to this post--to tell your readers about my fun New Adult rom-com, FIFTH AVENUE FIDOS:

Fifth Avenue Fidos

A New Adult Rom-Com with “Bite”

Holly Schindler

When a mutt from Queens meets a purebred New Yorker, it takes man’s—and woman’s—best friend to convince them what they feel is more than puppy love.

Mable Barker, a hilarious, good-natured sweetheart who is always the pal but never the girlfriend, endures nine horrendous months of bouncing between lackluster New York City jobs (and suffering unrequited love) in her unsuccessful attempt to find her one true talent. So when she meets Innis, the ill-tempered Upper East Side Pekingese, she assumes her dog-walking days are numbered, too; soon, she’ll be heading back to Queens brokenhearted, tail tucked between her legs. But Innis belongs to the adorable yet painfully shy young veterinarian, Jason Mead, a man whose awkward ways around women have him dreaming not of finding love for himself but of playing canine matchmaker—breeding Westminster champions.

When Mable and Jason meet, romance is officially unleashed: they find an instant connection and shared goal, as it appears that Mable could very well have what it takes to be a professional handler, soon to be seen holding Innis under a banner labeled, “Best in Show.” As Jason and Mable get closer to putting a new twist on the term “dog lovers,” outside forces—Mable’s overprotective brothers, a successful wedding planner with her eye on Jason, even the theft of purebred pups from Jason’s Fifth Avenue apartment building—all threaten to come between them. Will Mable and Jason simply let their burgeoning love roll over and play dead? Or will they rally to make sure Innis emerges as the leader of the pack?

Brimming with humor and endearing characters, Holly Schindler’s Fifth Avenue Fidos offers a sweet romance and modern-day fairy tale in which dogs, not dragons, rule the land…a story about the loves that help us realize our dreams.

The book will be available through Amazon, Kobo, and B&N. Pre-order isn't available through B&N; the book will go live on March 20. 

Pre-Order:

Amazon
Kobo

You can also add the book to your Goodreads shelves:

Goodreads


 

INTERVIEW WITH BRENDA VICARS, AUTHOR OF POLARITY IN MOTION

I'm delighted to share my chat with Brenda Vicars, author of the recently released POLARITY IN MOTION.

About POLARITY:

Fifteen-year-old Polarity Weeks just wants to live a normal life, but with a mother diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, that’s rarely easy. Her life gets exponentially more disastrous when her sixth-period history classmates start ogling a nude picture of her on the Internet. Polarity would never have struck such a shameless pose, but the photo is definitely of her, and she’s at a complete loss to explain its existence.

Child Protective Services yanks her from her home, suspecting her parents. The kids at school mock her, assuming she took it herself. And Ethan, the boy she was really starting to like, backpedals and joins the taunting chorus. Surrounded by disbelief and derision on all sides, Polarity desperately seeks the truth among her friends. Only then does she learn that everyone has dark secrets, and no one’s life is anywhere near normal.

~

Holly: I love the name Polarity—it instantly gave me the image of a girl being pulled in two different directions. Which came first—the idea for the story or your character’s name?

Brenda: The idea for the story sprang forth fairly well developed, and as I slipped into the mind of the mother, she proclaimed that Polarity was the name of her daughter. I agree with your reaction—Polarity labels the struggle she has.

 

Holly: Polarity’s not in a great place—she’s new to school, her home environment’s not great…Nude pictures are swirling online, and Child Protective Services get involved. Have you known or worked with a teen who found themselves in the midst of so much trouble all at once? How did that affect building Polarity’s character?

Brenda: I’ve never worked with a teen whose nude picture was on the Internet, but I have worked with lots of students in tough situations, and I’ve been awed at how courageous young people can be—how they can work through awful situations and come out stronger.  I wanted Polarity to show the resiliency that real kids have.

 

Holly: You and I have dealt with many of the same issues in our work. You describe Ethan as being the one black guy in the class. My debut MG featured an African-American protagonist. #weneeddiversebooks is such a predominate discussion, especially among writers and readers of juvenile lit. What role do you believe writers should play in depicting characters of differing races and ethnicity? Do you find it especially challenging to write about characters who are of a different background than you are? Why or why not?

Brenda: My first connection with young adults was as their teacher, rather than as an author. I am haunted by the times I took my students to the library and found that the vast majority of the fiction on the shelves featured white characters.  How were my diverse students to develop a love for reading when there were so few books that depicted their races and cultures?  And what message did the omission send? 

I feel as a YA author, I would be negligent to focus only on my own race—white.  That said, I do worry about depicting diverse characters appropriately, and I often ask friends of other races and cultures to read segments and give me feedback.  I also immerse myself in YA books by authors from other races and cultures.

Holly: Another issue we’ve both tackled is a mother with mental illness—Polarity’s mom has a borderline personality disorder. How has Polarity’s mother’s mental illness shaped Polarity’s character? How does it impact the decisions she makes throughout the book?

Brenda: Like any child of an unstable parent, Polarity must navigate the minefield of tripwires embedded in her relationship with ever-unraveling Mom. Polarity, like Aura, doesn’t get to be the child.  Instead, Polarity constantly gauges every move to make sure that she doesn’t set off her mother.  Worse, Polarity, like Aura, is haunted with doubt: Is she like her mother—destined for the same fate?

Holly: I love Emily Dickinson—are you a fan, too? (Polarity references her.)

Brenda: Yes, a lifelong fan.  And Dickinson was the perfect poet for Polarity to love.  Polarity is shocked when she learns that Dickinson said she hated the Irish—wishing that they could be scientifically exterminated.  Dickinson’s poetry and life experience helped Polarity to learn that even brilliant, insightful people can be blind to their own biases—can fail to see their own way of seeing.

Holly: Polarity forgives Tracey. Do you feel forgiveness is an important component in maintaining a healthy existence?

Brenda: Forgiveness is essential for Polarity to move forward. She would have been justified to hate Tracey, but that hatred would not have bothered Tracey in the least. Instead, that hatred would have been a burden for Polarity. 

Holly: My own path to publication was long and winding—what was yours like? How did you sell POLARITY IN MOTION?

Brenda: “Long and winding” is an apt description of mine as well!  I worked about 20 years in education—teacher, principal, director of support services—before attempting to write a novel.  Novel number one is in a drawer.  It’s an adult literary fiction I call THIS HOUR’S TERM—took seven years to write.  POLARITY IN MOTION is novel number two.  It took about a year and a half to write, and I was able to get a literary agent pretty early—Charlotte Sheedy.  However after a year of representation, she said that none of the acquisition editors she worked with were interested in the manuscript, and she recommended that I self-publish. Her words were, “Just get it out there.”  I was considering self-publishing, but friends recommended submitting to Red Adept Publishing.  And here we are!

Holly: What were your reading preferences as a teen? How does that reading experience influence what you write now? Do you write with potential teen readers / audience in mind, or do you find that distracting?

Brenda: I’m not sure why—maybe it was just chance, but as a teen I was totally disinterested in YA literature.  I hungered for fiction about adults—only. I mostly read the classics—Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Bronte. I especially loved THE GOOD EARTH and tried to read all of Pearl S. Buck’s books. I loved Maya Angelou’s memoir I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS. Now, as an adult, I spend more of my reading time immersed in YA.

I do think about teens and people who care about teens when I write.  I think about the students I’ve known and the experiences that were important to them.

Holly: What are your favorite writing tricks?

Brenda: I love to have those days when I can start writing first thing in the morning—still in PJs, and get in several hours before taking care of all the interfering necessities of life!  When writing a novel, I do a lot of editing as I go.  I find that if I edit the work from the day before, I’m ready to flow right into the new segment.

Holly: What are you working on now?

POLARITY IN LOVE.  By the time I finished POLARITY IN MOTION, Ethan and Polarity had matured and their needs had deepened.  They are ready for greater risks!  Ethan has a larger role in POLARITY IN LOVE.

~ 

Brenda Vicars (brendavicars.com) has worked in Texas public education for many years. Her jobs have included teaching, serving as a principal, and directing student support programs. For three years, she also taught college English to prison inmates.

She entered education because she felt called to teach, but her students taught her the biggest lesson: the playing field is not even for all kids. Through her work, she became increasingly compelled to bring their unheard voices to the page. The heartbeat of her fiction emanates from the courage and resiliency of her students.

Brenda’s hobbies include reading, making things out of re-purposed wood, pulling weeds in the garden, and going to Zumba classes.

Brenda's giving two copies of POLARITY IN MOTION! Two winners will be randomly chosen on March 26.

Giveaway:

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INTERVIEW WITH JENNIFER SALVATO DOKTORSKI, AUTHOR OF THE SUMMER AFTER YOU & ME

Jennifer Doktorski and I both blog over at YA Outside the Lines; I was thrilled to get a sneak peek at her forthcoming perfect-for-the-beach read, THE SUMMER AFTER YOU AND ME...so much so, I wanted to chat directly with her about the book:

I love the title. I can see fifteen-year-old me grabbing this right off the shelf. When you write, do you visualize your reader—or do you find thinking of your potential audience distracting as you draft a book?

When I write a first draft, I’m mostly thinking about the story I want to tell and the plot. I read one interview with Meg Cabot in which she said she thinks about what she’d like to have happen to her. That always stuck with me, especially when I write romantic scenes. Once I’ve got the first draft down, I think more about the potential audience on revision. My critique partners are very good about pointing out aspects of the characters or plot that wouldn’t ring true for teens.

In the traditional publishing world, the author usually isn’t in on the development of their cover. This cover is so striking, I have to ask—did you have input at any stage? Was it a surprise?

My editor, Annette Pollert, asked me what I envisioned for the cover. This is the second time I’m working with her. She edited HOW MY SUMMER WENT UP IN FLAMES and she asked for my vision of the cover then too. Both times I was surprised by how absolutely perfect the covers were. The first time I saw the cover for THE SUMMER AFTER YOU AND ME, I thought: “That’s Lucy and that’s the Jersey shore!” I love how it captures the mood of the book perfectly.

How do you write: Plotter? Pantser? Combo?

I wish I could be a plotter. I’m told by authors who have converted from being pantsers to plotters that it IS easier, but I still consider myself a pantser on first draft. It’s usually upon revision that I make notecards (large, colorful ones) or some other visual mockup of the all scenes—in order—and take a look at what’s working and what’s not.

Let’s talk local color / book settings. I’m a lifelong Ozarkian—but I’ve written of different locations (Minnesota, New York…) The setting (the Jersey Shore) factors predominantly in TSAYAM. Is the Jersey Shore a place you’ve spent time yourself? Were you or your family affected by Sandy? What moved you to choose this location?

I’ve spent time at the Jersey shore nearly every summer of my life. I lived there until I was nine, and then my family moved to northern New Jersey. But we continued to spend summers at the shore. I love the Jersey shore. I’ve traveled a lot but it’s still one of my favorite places on the planet. I chose this location for two reasons. I wanted to show people what the real Jersey shore is like because I feel it has been misrepresented. I also wanted to write about the shore’s recovery efforts in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Like everyone else in New Jersey, my family was affected by Sandy. In my hometown, which is about 30 miles from the coast, schools closed for nine days. We also have a place at the shore, which thankfully was unscathed by the hurricane, but we witnessed firsthand the devastating losses many people and businesses endured. Recovery became the theme for this novel.

Did your own past influence this book? Do you have special memories of summers at the beach? Was there a Connor in your teen years?

My past very much influences this book. I have many special memories of summers at the beach, beginning from the time I was four. Most of the places mentioned in THE SUMMER AFTER YOU AND ME are real locations that people who frequent the area will recognize—Lucky Leo’s arcade, The Sundae Times, Marucas pizza. I went to some of these places as a kid, and am now creating new memories there with my family. Sadly, there wasn’t a Connor in my teen years, but I always wished there had been. That’s where Meg Cabot’s advice comes into play! Connor is the kind of boy I wanted to date back then, and Andrew is the type I wanted to marry.

Love the name “Breakwater Burrito.” Did you ever have a job “feeding the Bennies”?

Breakwater Burrito was inspired by one of my favorite places to eat in the summer, Surf Taco. That was actually the working title for this novel. I never had a job “feeding the Bennies.” By the time I hit my teen years, I technically was a Benny!

One of my favorite recurring tidbits in the book are the short excerpts from Lucy’s thesis, “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” Such a clever way to get us further into Lucy’s mind. How’d you come up with it? Was it a happy accident? At what point did the excerpts make their way into the book—first draft? Later on?

The excerpts made their way into the book on the second and third drafts. At first Lucy was working on a more traditional high school English paper involving famous, tragic lovers, like Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Iseult. She was also keeping notes about animal life in a field journal. My critique partner, Jennifer Ann Mann (she writes the Sunny Sweet middle grade series), and agent Kerry Sparks get the credit for suggesting I merge these ideas and make the excerpts reflect Lucy’s interest in science and her desire to become a marine biologist.

Do you feel too many times that we settle for an Andrew rather than hold out for a Connor?

Hmm. Well, growing up I always talked about the concept of “big love.” My sister gave a lovely toast at my wedding telling all 250 guests how I was never the type to settle. That being said, I think you can have big love with a Connor or an Andrew, it all depends on the girl and the timing.

What’s your writing schedule—early bird / night owl? To music? Need silence? Any tricks (lucky hats, special pens, four-legged writing partners) that help you power through a draft?

I used to be a night owl, but now that I’m a mom, I’m an early bird. I get most of my writing done in the morning and early afternoon, while school is in session. For my YA novels, I make playlists that I either listen to while writing or running. Music inspires my scenes. Right now, I’m working on a middle grade series and for that I’ve noticed that I prefer to write in silence or with some kind of white noise, like the running of the dishwasher. Buffy, our fox terrier, is my writing partner. Or at least she thinks she is. She shows up every morning to sit beside me. She’s a bit bossy though, so now she has her own chair.

What are you working on now?

I’m finishing up the first book in my middle grade series and then it will be on to the next YA, which I’ve been calling a post-dystopic novel. You know, when everything is back to normal?

~ 

You had me at "post-dystopic." Seriously. Catch up with Jen at her site, snag a copy of THE SUMMER AFTER YOU AND ME, or add the book to your Goodreads shelf. And DON'T FORGET TO ENTER JEN'S COUNTDOWN TO SUMMER GIVEAWAY!

BLUESTEM & THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY

I got some lovely news yesterday: THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY has made the 2016 Bluestem Award master list.

Yay, Auggie!