I love November. It kicks off with Halloween and ends with my favorite family holiday: Thanksgiving. (All the family (and food) of Christmas with none of the give-giving stress.) And this November includes some YA releases from some of my favorite authors. First up, a contemporary novel from award-winning author, Caridad Ferrer, who graciously answered my questions about her upcoming (11/23) novel, WHEN THE STARS GO BLUE. Passion, love triangle, ballet… I’m loving the premise of this book. RCM: What is WHEN THE STARS GO BLUE about? Caridad Ferrer: Essentially, it’s a contemporary reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen (i.e. Ballet & opera) where the gypsy Carmen is Soledad, a driven dancer, the straight-laced Army officer Don José in transformed into Jonathan, an intense, disciplined music prodigy, and the flamboyant bullfighter, Escamillo is now Taz, all-star Spanish soccer player. The action plays out over the course of a summer and is set primarily against the backdrop of competitive drum & bugle corps (sort of like marching band, but several orders of magnitude higher). And like in the original story, lives are changed irrevocably. RCM: What’s the significance of the title? (I love the song by the Corrs.) Caridad Ferrer: Um, because I’m…

<div style=”width:150px; float:left; margin-right:10px;”> <a href=”http://freshfiction.com/book.php?id=42076″><img src=”http://freshfiction.com/images/books/thumb/0061999067.jpeg” style=”float:Left; margin-right:10px;” alt=”Dancing With Mr. Darcy”></a> <br clear=”all”> <small> October 2010 On Sale: October 19, 2010 256 pages ISBN: 0061999067 EAN: 9780061999062 Trade Size $13.99 <h3><b><a href=”http://freshfiction.com/my_wish_list.php?id=42076″>Add to Wish List</a></b></h3> Jane Austen</small> <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061999067/freshfiction-20″>Buy at Amazon.com</a> <A href=”http://freshfiction.com/picks.php”><img src=”http://freshfiction.com/images/logos/freshpick150.gif” border=”0″ width=”150″ height=”83″ alt=”Fresh Book of the Day” style=”float:left; margin-right:10px;” /></A> </div><a href=”http://freshfiction.com/author.php?id=21962″><img src=”http://freshfiction.com/images/authors/thumb/21962.jpeg” style=”float:Right; margin-left:10px;” alt=”Sarah Waters” align=”right” /></a><a href=”http://freshfiction.com/book.php?id=42076″><b>Dancing With Mr. Darcy</b></a> by <a href=”http://freshfiction.com/author.php?id=21962″>Sarah Waters</a> <i>The Best of the Jane Austen Short Story Competition</i> Two hundred years ago, traumatized by her parents’ decision to give up the rectory in Hampshire where she grew up, Jane Austen found herself unable to write for a decade. During that time she moved from one rented property to another, and it was only when her brother Edward offered her a permanent home in his Chawton House Estate that she was able to pick up her pen again. In fact her time spent there was so productive that all of her novels were written or published while living there. The Jane Austen Short Story Competition celebrates the author, her works and the home that allowed her to write some of the most beloved and enduring novels…

When I was a younger and much harder on myself, I wanted my Christmases to be perfect. I wanted professionally wrapped gifts (I made my own intricately looped handmade bows!). I wanted caterer-caliber iced sugar cookies (I applied silver dragées with tweezers!). I wanted a picture-perfect family to go with everything else (I frog-marched everyone to a photographer to take a stiff-looking holiday-card photo, sporting “dress up” clothes we only wore twice a year, at most!). You know what I mean: I wanted a Martha Stewart holiday…but I had a typical working mother’s time, energy level, and expertise to accomplish it with. And the bad news is: I’m not Martha. But the good news is: I’m not Martha. I learned pretty quickly that gingerbread men always taste delicious, even if their little legs are snapped off during marathon decorating sessions with six year olds. I learned that Christmas trees actually look better if you pile on lots of (mismatched, shiny, and potentially tacky) decorations…including the ones your children make and hang by themselves on all the lower branches, giving your tree the kind of “pear shaped” effect I usually only associate with “skinny” jeans. I learned that, in proper gift-opening…