Month of Guests 2013: Alex Gutteridge

We have the brilliant Alex Gutteridge here today with an amazing post...  Enjoy!! :D

I CAN’T DO THAT!

‘There’s no such word as can’t.’ This was one of my father’s favourite sayings when I was small. I was a cautious child and he said these words to me often as I faltered over some task. He ensured, for the most part, that I didn’t give up on things which were within my grasp, if only I’d tried a little bit harder. Of course those words used to irritate me at the time and of course I’ve failed at many things, many times, but it’s not been for want of trying. And where my father’s words have been particularly useful is in my writing life.

I think that I always knew deep down that I wanted to write but didn’t actually know if I could do it, if I would have the right amount of persistence, resilience and imagination to see me through to the end of a book. But the time comes when the only way to find out if you have what it takes is to give it a try. And sometimes you really do think to yourself, if I am going to do this, it has to be now. This is what happened to me after my daughter was born. Suddenly the time seemed right. I enrolled at what was then Leicester Adult Education College and for one morning a week learned about writing in various forms. At the time writing for children was very much under the radar and we actually only had one brief session which covered it. But that didn’t matter. I learned about plotting, a sense of place, mixed with other people who loved writing and probably most importantly of all, I learned about the importance of studying your market. I still didn’t know if I could write a story that would be published but I knew that I had been given the grounding I needed to give it a go.

Actually I was very lucky and my first book, Ghost Riders, was accepted by A&C Black/Puffin as part of their Chillers series. When I look back at that initial manuscript it looks very amateurish but the publishers obviously saw something in the story and I will be forever grateful to them for that. Of course getting a book accepted for publication is a huge thrill and gives you a certain degree of confidence. With each book you write, whether published or sitting in a drawer waiting for its time to shine, you learn something about yourself and about the process of writing. However, what never leaves me when I begin a new project is that initial thought ‘I’m not sure that I can do this’. This is probably partly to do with the fact that I’m not a plotter or a planner. When starting out, I know the beginning of the story and usually the ending, but the swathe of chapters in the middle remains a complete mystery, until I begin to write. It’s a scary way to work but also an enlightening one too because sometimes a scene just pops into your head and you think ‘oh I had no idea that was going to happen’.

Basically it all boils down to trust, trust in yourself and in the process of writing. It is about believing, despite the doubts and that nasty little critic sitting on your shoulder, that you CAN do this, that the right words will reveal themselves and that the plot will unfold in the direction it is meant to take. If you love your story and your characters it is about having the faith that they will find their rightful place in the world. This can take time and a good degree of patience. It may eventually result in publishing your book yourself rather than using a mainstream publisher but if you do not honour your commitment to whatever project it is you have undertaken you may forever wonder ‘what if?’

 My latest book, Last Chance Angel, was the most technically difficult book I’ve had to write and there were times when I thought that I’d never get it right.

But again I was lucky. I had people around me who believed in my ability as a writer, my friends and family and of course subsequently Templar, my publishers. But ultimately I had to believe in myself in order to do justice to the story I wanted to tell. And of course I had my father’s voice, imprinted in my psyche, whispering to me through my own negativity. Of all of the gifts he gave me, those six little words, ‘there’s no such word as can’t’, have been some of the most valuable.  On the whole we are capable of more than we realise.

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Thank you so much Alex! This was a great and inspirational post!  I shall remember these words and will never say 'I can't' again.  Unless it's about something silly, like eating charcoaled food or thinking I can jump off a house and live...  Other than this though! ;)
Hope you all enjoyed Alex's post! And don't forget to follow Alex's Site, follow her on Twitter and Facebook, and check out his books on Goodreads! :D
And keep up to date with MonthOfGuests on Twitter using #MonthOfGuests2013! And stop by tomorrow for another brilliant post!!


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Alex Gutteridge was born in Leicestershire and has lived there ever since, earning her the rather dubious title of 'woolly back'!

Alex attended local primary schools, followed by boarding school and 6th form college. She is now married with 3 children and surrounded by pets that include several stick insects and lots of fish.

Alex has a real fear of spiders, Maths and hermetically sealed packages but cannot get enough of raspberries, the colour Blue and swinging as high as she can go on her daughter's swing!

Month of Guests 2013: Matt Whyman

I love Matt Whyman and I was so excited both by him agreeing to take part but also about what he planned to write about.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...

CONFESSIONS OF A CELEBRITY GHOST WRITER

Matt Whyman

The first rule of Ghost Writing Club is that you never talk about the books you’ve ghosted. Ever. You’re hired to be invisible. Quite literally - a ghost. This is not your day in the sun. The celebrity whose name is all over the cover is the one to bask in the glory. You might be lucky to get a small-print acknowledgement, but even then don’t hold out hope.

Last year, I heard from my agent that I was in the running to ghost a celebrity memoir. She knew that I’d always been interested in writing such a book. It seemed like a challenge, which appealed to me. I also knew there was a long shortlist drawn up of writers more than capable of doing the job, and so I put it to the back of my mind. Then, on the last day of June, my agent called and said, ‘scratch out everything in your diary for July. The next four weeks are about to be a well-paid hell on earth.’

As you can imagine, the surprise at getting the gig was eclipsed by the news that I only had a month to write it. Normally, a book will take me between six to nine months. So, having agreed to the offer, I put down the phone and promptly had a panic attack. What was I doing, I asked myself? I’d just signed up to the impossible, and had visions of being sued by the publisher, the celebrity and all ‘the people’ involved in the project who expected me to deliver the goods.

So, once I’d finished breathing into a paper bag, and having realised I was totally on my own here, I sat down and worked out a course of action. Straight away, it felt like being told I was facing exams imminently, and yet I hadn’t done any revision. In that situation, I knew that a plan was the first thing I needed to draw up.

The contract stated that I was expected to deliver a 50,000 word manuscript. Because my maths is terrible, I decided to give myself not a month but 25 days to write it, simply because I could divide 50,000 by 25 in my head. All of a sudden, 2,000 words a day for 25 days didn’t seem so terrifying. I could do this, I thought, but first I had to meet the celebrity.

Things were so tight that my first encounter with the commissioning editor occurred on the train journey to meet the star in question. He had placed great faith in me, and I didn’t want to let him down.  By the time we stepped off the train, I felt I had his full support, and an appreciation of what lay ahead for me. Our meeting with the star occurred behind closed doors. As a ghost writer, I quickly recognised that it’s not their job to worry about the writing. That’s my responsibility, as was drawing out the material I needed in order to put it together. I left with a sheaf of notes, most of them unintelligible, but with a clear idea of the story ahead of me.

That night, I plotted the entire memoir from start to finish. I boiled down each chapter to a sentence, emailed it to my editor the next morning and gave him one chance to come back with any input. There was no room to mess about midway through this project. Everyone needed to know exactly what to expect from the start.

Then came the writing. 500 words before coffee break. Another 500 to lunch. After that, I had the small matter of looking after my children when they finished school, before returning to my desk when my wife came home from work so I could write another 1000. Sometimes I’d be done by 10pm. Other nights I’d be up until 3am. There were no weekend breaks. I just motored on. What saved me was the road map I’d written up. I just stuck to the plan, and reminded myself throughout that I wanted to do a good job. I’d picked up several ghost written memoirs and promptly put them down again. They just lacked soul, in my opinion, and so I sweated hard on that spark.

Just to make things harder, I agreed to send across three chapters at a time so my editor could sign them off. It was tough, but the alternative risked delivering a 50,000 word donkey that everyone rejected.

Twenty five days later, like a man who’d just crawled across the desert, I reached the final full stop. I then had a few days spare, in which my editor allowed me to tinker with everything, before the manuscript was taken out of my hands. My role in the book was finished. There was nothing more for me to do. As a result of my labours, the springs in my keyboard were so worn out I had to replace it. I was exhausted, but everyone was happy, and that included me.

It was weird to see the book published later that year. The star did the promotional rounds, and I resisted every temptation to yell ‘I wrote that’ from the rooftops. Was the experience hell on earth, as my agent had suggested? No. It was just very intense but would’ve been a nightmare without forward planning. As for the finished product, it did very well. You’d know the title if I told you, but there’d only be consequences, so I’m saying nothing more.

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Thank you so much Matt!  I really do love this post and you have me utterly intrigued!!  Thank you for taking part!!

Hope you all enjoyed Matt's post! And don't forget to follow Matt's Site, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube, and check out his books on Goodreads! :D
And keep up to date with MonthOfGuests on Twitter using #MonthOfGuests2013! And stop by tomorrow for a brilliant post by the lovely Alex Gutteridge!!

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Matt Whyman is a bestselling author, also known for his work as an advice columnist for numerous teenage magazines. 

He has written two novels for adults, Man or Mouse and Columbia Road, as well as both fiction and non-fiction for teenagers, including Superhuman, XY, Boy Kills Man, XY:100, The Wild, the So Below trilogy, Inside the Cage,Goldstrike and The Savages.

His most recent books, Oink! My Life With Minipigs (also known as Pig in the Middle), and Walking with Sausage Dogs, are both comic memoirs about family life with problem pets, published by Hodder and Stoughton.

A graduate from the University of East Anglia's MA in Creative Writing, Matt is often invited to teach the subject for writers of all ages. Recently, he has hosted workshops across Russia and the Middle East.

In 1995, Matt became the first agony uncle for 19 magazine, and has subsequently written regular advice columns for B, Fox Kids, AOL UK and Bliss. He often appears on television and radio in this role. Over the years he has co-presented a series of ITV's cult Saturday morning show, Love Bites, and a live weekly phone-in on LBC. He is currently resident agony uncle on BBC Radio 1's The Surgery.

Matt is married with four children, and lives in West Sussex, UK.

Month of Guests 2013: Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre

Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre have just brought out a brilliant book together - Oliver and the Seawigs.  It's a really fun book about adventure and so to celebrate its release, Philip and Sarah have put together a list of their fave fictional journeys!  Enjoy! :D

Our Top Ten Fictional Journeys

Our new book Oliver and the Seawigs is the story of a journey - a very strange journey, by mobile island, to seas populated by short-sighted mermaids and mischievous monkeys. And many of our favourite books feature characters going on journeys and voyages. What better way is there to get away from the rain on the window and the gloomy knowledge that there is school or work tomorrow than by travelling in our imaginations to far and fantastical fictional places?  Here are a few of the journeys we most enjoyed, for everyone from toddlers to grown-ups.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Sarah McIntyre: I love how Max doesn’t just go to a wild place; the wild place comes to him, as a forest in his bedroom, and then he sets out. I remember trying to turn my own bedroom into a forest. I spent ages studying a book about house plants, but I only ever managed to get a little potted palm thing and a jade plant, and the result was underwhelming.

The Expotition to the North Pole (in Chapter 8 of Winnie the Pooh by A A Milne)

Philip Reeve: I love Winnie the Pooh: I loved it as a child, I loved it as an adult, and I loved reading the stories to my son (they were always what he wanted to hear if he was ill and I was sitting up with him at night). This is the one where Christopher Robin leads all his friends (and all Rabbit’s many friends and relations) off on an ‘expotition’ to discover the north pole, despite the fact that none of them are sure what an expotition is - or what the North Pole is either. Funny, and charming, and with a real sense of how children play (they don’t really go to the North Pole, and it doesn’t matter a bit).

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

PR: I grew up in Brighton, but I spent a lot of my childhood in Middle Earth, courtesy of the wonderful maps which folded out of the back of the library’s hardback edition of The Lord of the Rings. Both that book and The Hobbit are the story of journeys, and the characters spend most of their time tramping the lanes of the Shire, the paths of the forests and passes of the Misty Mountains - too much time, some people think. But I could never get enough of the layers and layers of detail which build up Tolkien’s fictional world, where beauty or terror waits around every turning of the road.

SM: I didn’t like these books as a child, but I read the LOTR trilogy in the year before the films came out and was totally obsessed with them. I bought the BBC audiobooks on cassette tapes and played them until they wore out and I had to buy a second set. They made a great soundtrack for illustrating at my desk, that was at once comforting and swift-paced enough to drive me on with my work.

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

PR: Sym, a shy teenager obsessed with the explorer Captain Oates, is lured into her uncle’s mad and dangerous attempt to cross the Antarctic ice-sheet. Geraldine McCaughrean is my favourite author, and this is my favourite of her children’s books. It’s aimed at a slightly older readership than most of her novels: the pace is relentless, the plot veers in unexpected directions, and there’s a sense of danger and foreboding to it which adds spice to the beautiful descriptions. Magnificent! 

SM: I love how Sym is intentionally naïve in the story, she doesn’t want to believe what’s happening to her is horribly dodgy. In a way, you as the reader get to voyage through her mind, and you can see before she does that she’s heading into some horrendous blind alleys.

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

PR: When I was a child, walking on the hills of Sussex, I felt a close imaginative connection with the people who had walked there before me - Normans and Saxons, Romans and Bronze Age tribes. That was because I had read Rosemary Sutcliff, who brought those periods to life in her vivid, beautifully written historical novels. The Eagle of the Ninth was my favourite of them. It’s the story of crippled former Roman soldier Marcus and the journey he undertakes, with his freed British slave Esca, beyond Hadrian’s Wall, into the wild lands of the Picts, to fetch back the Eagle of his father’s lost legion.  And it’s also the story of other journeys; Marcus’s difficult coming to terms with his disability, and the growing friendship that bridges the divide between Roman and Briton. Like Tolkien, Rosemary Sutcliff had terrific eye for landscape. She made me realise how big Britain was, before the coming of trains and cars.

The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pené du Bois

SM: The hero of this story doesn’t plan to explore countries, he’s a tired, disgruntled teacher who wants to spend a year aloft in a hot-air balloon, never coming down. But when he crash-lands on the island of Krakatoa, he discovers a wildly eccentric society of inventors, who have constructed a marvelous life for their families based on colossal wealth from their diamond mines. I loved how they made up their own rules, basing their names on letters of the alphabet, and how each family ran a restaurant with the nationality based on their letter: The A family ran an American restaurant, the Bs, British, Cs, Chinese, etc. The story got me daydreaming a lot about the kind of society I would want to live in if I could choose everything and money was no issue.

Gemma Bovary by Posy Simmonds

SM: This is one of the books that inspired me to make comics; the story of Gemma Bovery who decides to move to a country village in France with her husband and set up pastorale lives there. Posy Simmonds writes and draws such wonderfully observed studies of expat mannerisms, English romantic ideals and disappointments. I’d recommend this one for teeangers and adults, but not children.

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

PR: Like Gemma Bovary, this is not a children’s book, although some teenage readers might enjoy it. Like The Eagle of the Ninth, it brings a period of history vividly to life. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, it begins with the meeting between naval officer Jack Aubrey and down-at-heel Irish doctor Stephen Maturin - a meeting as important in the annals of fiction as that between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, and the beginnings of a friendship which will endure through twenty thrilling, moving, unexpectedly laugh-out-loud funny novels, and circumnavigate the whole globe. This first voyage stays close to the shores of Spain, where Captain Aubrey is busy capturing French and Spanish shipping. There are plenty of battles and betrayals, but it’s really about the characters, and O’Brian’s glorious, impressionistic vision of the dawn of the 19th Century.

Pyongyang: a journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

SM: Travel comics are such a wonderful way to share a journey with a reader; so much can go into each image that would take long paragraphs to describe. And it can be much more subtle; something might appear in a frame which isn’t pointed out and doesn’t necessarily have to be noticed, but can be spotted if the reader wants to take the time; that’s much more like the experience of travelling than having everything encountered spelled out. I love Guy Delisle’s simple, angular drawings and getting to see all the unexpected, awkward and bizarre encounters he has on his trip to Pyongyang to work with an animation studio.

Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson & French Milk by Lucy Knisley

SM: When I give talks to people about making travel comics, I like to show them these two travel comic books together. Both are inspiring, but I think Craig Thompson’s incredibly detailed drawings and technically proficient brush strokes make a reader think, ‘Amazing, but I could never do that’, while Lucy Knisley’s book makes a reader think, ‘Amazing, and hey, I could do something like that!’ In a lot of ways, Knisley’s book – a diary of her trip to Paris with her mother – has a warmth and intimacy that Thompson’s lacks. Its lack of perfection makes it feel like something genuinely made on the road, while other things are happening to her. Whereas reading Thompson’s book, one can’t but help thinking that he did nothing BUT draw on his trip through France, Barcelona, the Alps and Morocco. It also made me think about what’s achievable when one travels with other people and when one travels alone and can stand and draw for two hours on an obscure street corner. I love both books, and they’re very much what inspired me to do my own travel comics in China and Alaska.

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Yay, thank you so much Sarah and Philip!  I loved your post and will be checking out some of these books ASAP!! :D
Hope you all enjoyed Philip and Sarah's post! And don't forget to follow Philip's Site, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube, and check out his books on Goodreads!  And follow Sarah's Site and Blog, follow her on Twitter and check out her books on Goodreads!:D
Oh, and check out Oliver and the Seawigs too on Goodreads!And keep up to date with MonthOfGuests on Twitter using #MonthOfGuests2013! And stop by tomorrow for an awesome post by the brilliant Matt Whyman!!

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Philip Reeve was born and raised in Brighton, where he worked in a bookshop for a number of years while also co-writing, producing and directing a number of no-budget theatre projects.Philip then began illustrating and has since provided cartoons for around forty children's books, including the best-selling Horrible Histories, Murderous Maths and Dead Famous series.Philip has been writing stories since he was five, but Mortal Engines was the first to be published.

Illustrator and writer Sarah McIntyre makes picture books and comics with three other artists in an old police station – complete with jail cells! – in Deptford, south London. Her comic Vern and Lettuce appeared weekly in The Guardian and in the DFC; in September 2010, David Fickling launched it as a book as part of the DFC Library. Her picture book with Giles Andreae, Morris the Mankiest Monster, introduced the world to a loveable monster with stomach-turning personal habits. Morris sold out in its first month and has won both the Sheffield and Bishop's Stortford Children's Book Awards, as voted by children. She launched two more picture books in 2010: You Can't Eat a Princess with Scholastic and When Titus Took the Train with Oxford University Press. You Can't Scare a Princess!launches in September this year. She has several more contracts with David Fickling and Scholastic for books that she's written herself, and one that's she's writing with her friend David O'Connell.

Winner of the Mieradome Giveaway!

Thanks to Diana, from The Lovely Getaway, we had a giveaway of an eBook: Mieradome by Kate O'Hegarty. 

I am proud to announce that the winner is....

Missie @ The Unread Reader

Congratulations, and thanks to Diana, again!

Fortnight of Guests: Mysteriou Books (YA Books I’m Looking Forward To In 2011)

Hello readers and bloggers!

I’m your guest blogger for today and I’m so happy to be here at The Book Addicted Girl, thank you Megan for letting me be a part of this great feature.

My name is Mette and I have the blog Mysteriousbooks, I have been blogging for about 5 months now and in that time I have learned a lot about the book blogger community, met a lot of great people and gotten a good look at great books because of you all.

There are so many incredible books coming out this year and every persons favourite list will be different but I wish to share with you some of the books I look the most forward too.

The first list is my top 5 over series I absolutely can’t wait to read, either because I have read the first book and loved it or loved other books by that author.

Top 5 (Series)

5 Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

(Hush, Hush book 3)

Expected publication: October 4th 2011

The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They've overcome the secrets riddled in Patch's dark past...bridged two irreconcilable worlds...faced heart-wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty and trust...and all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth. Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in one another, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they've worked for—and their love—forever.

4 Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

(The Infernal Devices book 2)

Expected publication: December 6th 2011

In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa’s powers for his own dark ends.

3 Last Breath by Rachel Caine

(The Morganville Vampires book 11)

Expected publication: November 1st 2011

With her boss preoccupied researching the Founder Houses in Morganville, student Claire Danvers is left to her own devices when she learns that three vampires have vanished without a trace. She soon discovers that the last person seen with one of the missing vampires is someone new to town—a mysterious individual named Magnus. After an uneasy encounter with Morganville's latest resident, Claire is certain Magnus isn't merely human. But is he a vampire—or something else entirely?

2 Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer

(Nightshade book 2)

Expected publication: July 26th 2011

This thrilling sequel to the much-talked-about Nightshade begins just where it ended-Calla Tor wakes up in the lair of the Searchers, her sworn enemy, and she's certain her days are numbered. But then the Searchers make her an offer-one that gives her the chance to destroy her former masters and save the pack-and the man-she left behind. Is Ren worth the price of her freedom? And will Shay stand by her side no matter what? Now in control of her own destiny, Calla must decide which battles are worth fighting and how many trials true love can endure and still survive.

1 Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

(Bloodlines book 1)

Expected publication: August 23rd 2011

When alchemist Sydney is ordered into hiding to protect the life of Moroi princess Jill Dragomir, the last place she expects to be sent is a human private school in Palm Springs, California. But at their new school, the drama is only just beginning.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, Bloodlines explores all the friendship, romance, battles and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive - this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone's out for blood.

Honourable mentions:

Hades by Alexandra Adornetto

Fury by Elizabeth Miles

Vanish by Sophie Jordan

Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

It’s often very difficult to choose between all the interesting books that is being released and I sometimes look at covers as well as descriptions to “help” me choose which books is going on top of my TBR pile.

Top 5 (Single Books)

5 The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

Expected publication: August 2nd 2011

The Near Witch is only an old story told to frighten children.

If the wind calls at night, you must not listen. The wind is lonely, and always looking for company.

And there are no strangers in the town of Near.

These are the truths that Lexi has heard all her life.

But when an actual stranger—a boy who seems to fade like smoke—appears outside her home on the moor at night, she knows that at least one of these sayings is no longer true.

The next night, the children of Near start disappearing from their beds, and the mysterious boy falls under suspicion. Still, he insists on helping Lexi search for them. Something tells her she can trust him.

As the hunt for the children intensifies, so does Lexi’s need to know—about the witch that just might be more than a bedtime story, about the wind that seems to speak through the walls at night, and about the history of this nameless boy.

4 Possess by Gretchen McNeil

Expected publication: August 23rd 2011

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from.

Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king.

3 Witch Song by Amber Argyle

Expected publication: September 1st 2011

The world is changing. Once, Witch Song controlled everything from the winds to the shifting of the seasons-but not anymore. All the Witches are gone, taken captive by a traitor. All but Brusenna. As the echo of their songs fades, the traitor grows stronger. Now she is coming for Brusenna. Her guardian has sworn to protect her, but even he can't stop the Dark Witch. Somehow, Brusenna has to succeed where every other Witch has failed. Find the traitor. Fight her. Defeat her. Because if Brusenna doesn't, there won't be anything left to save.

2 Deadly Cool by Gemma Halliday

Expected publication: October 11th 2011

Hartley Grace Featherstone is having a very bad day. First she finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her with the president of the Herbert Hoover High School Chastity Club. Then he's pegged as the #1 suspect in a murder. And if that weren't enough, now he's depending on Hartley to clear his name. Seriously? Not cool. But as much as Hartley wouldn't mind seeing him squirm, she knows he's innocent, and she's the only one who can help him. Along with her best friend, Sam, and the school's resident Bad Boy, Chase, Hartley starts investigating on her own. But as the dead bodies begin to pile up, the mystery deepens, the suspects multiply, and Hartley begins to fear that she may be the killer's next victim.

1 The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

Expected publication: November 15th 2011

Words are the most dangerous weapon of all...

In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she’s spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can’t be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country’s only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

Honourable mentions:

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies

So this is my lists and I would love to hear from you, which book/books are you looking forward to in the other half of 2011?

I would also like to know, what makes you try out new authors? Is it the description, the cover, something else?

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Thanks for this post, Mette!  It's great, and there are loads of books here I'm going to be waiting for desperately now!  As for your question: it's usually fellow bloggers' book reviews for me.  I trust them, so if they like a book, I'm almost 100% I will too.  Book covers are also a big pull no matter how much I try to deny it...  Thanks again, Mette!