Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Emily McKay | Title Challenge: STOYRBOUND
Author Guest / May 7, 2020

My newest YA fantasy novel, Storybound, is about a girl, Edie Keller, who moves to the city where her favorite books are set (in this case Austin, TX) and when she walks through the doors of BookPeople, she walks into the world of those books. It’s all real. The good guys, the bad guys, the book boyfriend she’s been in love with forever. The book boyfriend who dies at the end of the last book. .  . Except he isn’t dead. Not yet anyway. And if she plays her cards right, she just might be able to save his life. Before I get to the actual Title Challenge, I have a funny story to share. I misunderstood the rules for this challenge when I read them. I thought I needed to describe my book using only anagrams of my book title. Which—I’ve gotta say—is a lot harder than the actual challenge. So first, I want to share my anagram solution: Broody book boy toy snubs nutsy nobody! Okay, okay. . . I had to add in an extra s in ‘snubs’ … still, I think I did pretty good! Though, my teenage daughter rolled her eyes and said, “Mom! Please….

Leslie Lutz | Exclusive Interview: FRACTURED TIDE
Author Guest / May 7, 2020

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Leslie and congrats on your debut! Please tell us about yourself and your new book, FRACTURED TIDE. Thanks for having me! FRACTURED TIDE is the story of an ill-fated scuba charter that lands the protagonist–master diver Sia–on a mysterious, time-bending island. The situation is complicated by one of the other survivors, her seven-year-old brother, a kid who needs a lot of hand-holding. Then there’s the hot guy who’s marooned there with her. . . and his ex-girlfriend. Yeah, it gets complicated. When they find a flooded sinkhole in the middle of the island, Sia realizes she has to go down into the darkness to help them discover the secrets of the island and find a way home. When I started this story, I was inspired by my diving trips, but I also dug into my experiences as a volunteer teacher at the Atlanta Women’s prison. On my first day in the classroom, I was holding onto a lot of stereotypes about prisoners (they’re pretty much all wrong). TV and movies paint the incarcerated parent as either totally evil or completely innocent. I wanted to tell a more realistic story, so I gave Sia a positive but…