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Today on my blog I have the Mystical High tour. On my stop there is a spotlight, excerpt, guest post, and giveaway.
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Lisette Brodey was born and raised in Pennsylvania New York City where she
attended Pace University New York , several of them working in
the radio industry, she moved to Los Angeles ,
where she held various positions at Paramount Studios in Hollywood
and CBS Studio
Center in Studio City , CA
Back on the East Coast, she worked for many years as a freelance writer,
specializing in PR and the entertainment industry. In 2010, she returned
permanently to the Los Angeles
Her first-published book, CROOKED MOON (General Fiction) was published in both
the trade paperback and Kindle editions in 2008. Her first-written,
second-published book, SQUALOR, NEW
MEXICO
Her third novel, MOLLY HACKER IS TOO PICKY!, a romantic comedy, was published
December 1, 2011. The author blogged as her character, Molly Hacker, for over a
year. All blogs can be found at www.mollyhacker.com.
In January 2013, the author edited and published a book of her mother's poetry
(written 50 years earlier) called MY WAY TO ANYWHERE by Jean Lisette Brodey.
Lisette's fourth novel, MYSTICAL HIGH, is the first book in her YA Paranormal
Desert Series trilogy.
Stalker Links:
Guest Post:
WHY I’M WRITING A PARANORMAL SERIES
When people learn
that I’m an author, the first thing I’m usually asked is, “What kind of books
do you write?” Let me start this post by answering that question.
I have written one
book that is classified as general fiction (Crooked
Moon), one as YA (Squalor, New Mexico),
and one as women’s fiction (Molly Hacker
Is Too Picky!). I’ve just recently published Mystical High, the first book in my YA paranormal The Desert
Series.
For me, choosing the
genre has everything to do with the story I want to tell and the people I want
to write about. As someone with a lifelong interest in the paranormal and a
strong belief that weird stuff happens, I wanted to combine my love for writing
character-driven stories with subject matter that sparks my imagination.
I’ve always had
random, mind-blowing experiences with ESP, and as a teen, I saw things that
really shouldn’t have been there, like the time I was in a pitch-black closet
with a friend (we were having a séance) and saw two bright green eyes looking down at us, or at my fifteenth birthday party (a sleepover)
when all of us saw several unearthly faces of people in the corner of the room
just as dawn was approaching.
An old friend of
mine, at age fifteen, once saw a spaceship in a remote New Jersey field that
was extraordinarily close but she never told anyone for fear she wouldn’t be
believed.
I know many people
who have experiences with ghosts, astral projection, near-death events, and so
much more. There’s a whole lot going on out there, and some of it is bogus, but
if you believe as I do, some of it is not.
I often describe Mystical High as “realistic paranormal.”
The two main characters in the book, Jessie and Jinxsy, juniors in high school,
are best friends and struggle through many of the same issue as teens
everywhere. They never imagined that their real-life issues had such a strong
connection to the strange activity in their midst, but they’re about to find
out.
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In Mystekal, a small, dying town in the Southern
California desert, only 75 students attend the old, sometimes
creepy high school dubbed “Mystical High,” where strange things have been known
to happen. Jessie Dalworth and Jinxsy Patterson are juniors and lifelong best
friends. At home, Jessie deals with the pain of an absentee mother who has
abandoned the family for the lure of Hollywood
Meanwhile, at school, the unexplained activity begins to escalate when Jinxsy
keeps seeing a long-haired guy in the hallway checking her out. Jessie can’t
see him, but her younger brother, River, can.
Then, in English class, a stapler mysteriously flies off teacher Eve Carrow’s
desk, hitting a student in the face who has just mouthed off to her. The
beloved teacher is in the unenviable position of having her brute of a father
as principal, so she hates sending any student to his office. As Principal
Ernest Carrow begins to terrorize Eve and others more openly, something or
someone unseen decides that it’s payback time.
School is getting stranger, and Jinxsy and Jessie are faced with mind-boggling
changes in their home lives that complicate everything. When a string of
shocking events expose explosive secrets, decades-long mysteries are finally
revealed.
Excerpt:
Eve Carrow, Mystekal High’s English
teacher, glanced at the giant wall clock as Jessie and Jinxsy slipped into
their seats seconds before the bell.
“Welcome, you two. I wasn’t sure you were
going to join us today. I like to be fashionably late at parties sometimes, but
school is a different story.”
The old bell sounded loudly.
Jessie opened her notebook, grabbed To Kill A Mockingbird, the current class
book, from her backpack, and sat upright in her chair. “See? We’re on time.
Ready to go.”
“Yes, you are.”
Jinxsy, still fumbling through her
backpack, looked at her friend, then at her teacher. “Jess had a mishap with
her locker. Cut her finger.”
From the back of the room, Taylor
Jessie turned abruptly in her chair. “You
are so exaggerating, Taylor
“Your boring
business.” Taylor
Eve, though usually of the sweetest
demeanor, slammed a book down on her desk. “Taylor Dennison. Stop. Now.
Everyone else, face front.” As she looked around the room, her angry look
softened. “Okay, who wants to begin our discussion about Boo Radley?”
Sophia Chavez raised her hand. “I will.”
“Thank you, Sophia. Please go on.”
“Well, I know the kids made up a lot of
stories about him, but it’s only natural, you know? I mean, he never came out
of the house. There were creepy rumors, like how he stabbed his dad in the leg
with scissors. If I heard that about someone, I would be thinking the same way
that Scout, Jem, and Dill did.”
Eve nodded her head in agreement. “It’s
very easy to assume all kinds of things when we don’t know the truth.”
“So why is that, Ms. Carrow?”
“Well, Sophia, I think it’s because as
human beings, we like answers. If an answer can be looked up or found out, most
of us will choose that route. But when the answer to a question isn’t readily
available, we tend to make things up, to satisfy our inquiring brains. It’s not
a good thing to do, but human beings engage in this practice quite liberally.
What do you think of my assessment?”
Jessie, with little animation on her
face, responded to her teacher’s question. “I think you’re right.”
Jessie turned and glared at Taylor
Eve was furious. “Taylor
Silence fell over the room. The principal
of Mystekal High was Eve’s father, Ernest Carrow. He had been the principal
since Eve herself was a student. The only person who seemed to tolerate him at
all was his secretary, and he seemed to like children as much as picnic goers
like ants.
Carrow was the wealthiest man in Mystekal
and owned a large percentage of the real estate, both commercial and
residential. He didn’t need the salary he earned as Mystekal High’s principal,
but he liked to control people, and being in charge of everyone at the school
helped him to do just that.
Even though she couldn’t stand sending
students to her father’s office, Eve hated making empty threats even more. She
despised him, and sending a student for discipline meant that she had to deal
with her father as well. She would have to endure a lecture about how she
wasn’t able to control her class or how she had failed to mete out proper
discipline. Eve pretended not to hear Taylor
“Would you all please take out your class
assignment for this week? We’re going to share.”
Cade Swift raised his hand.
“Yes, Cade?”
“Do you mean the paper you asked us to
write on who we thought Boo Radley really was? The one where you wanted us to
write a description of how we saw his life inside that house?”
“The one and only.”
Cade bit his lip. “Uh, would you mind
calling on me last?”
“Since when are you shy?”
“I’m not. But after what you said to
Sophia I’m thinking maybe I need to rewrite my paper.”
Cade, the dark-haired boy known for his
smiling eyes was quick to respond. “No, Vega, I mean rewrite it.”
Eve Carrow was intrigued. “Why do you
want to rewrite it, Cade?”
Cade looked embarrassed and responded
more softly than usual. “Um, I think maybe I was too judgmental. Just want to
do it over.”
Jessie looked admiringly at Cade, then at
her best friend. Jinxsy knew Jessie had a crush on him but had been denying it.
Jessie’s glance confirmed that she was ready to admit it. But whether or not
she was ready to seek out Cade’s affections was an entirely different story.
Eve Carrow smiled. “Actually, Cade. I’d
like you to read your paper as you wrote it and then tell us how you’d like to
change it.”
“Oh, man. Do I have to?”
The class giggled and Jessie’s eyes grew
wide with anticipation.
“As your teacher, I would truly
appreciate it.”
“Read it, dude. Then tell everyone how
you’ve gone soft on Radley.”
Eve looked sternly at the class
loudmouth. “Mr. Vega, I can only surmise by your comments that you would prefer
to lead the class into this exercise. By all means, why don’t you go first?”
Santino looked angry. “Listen, Ms.
Carrow. I think it was really a stupid assignment. I mean, Harper Lee already
wrote the character. There’s no point in us rewriting the dude. Sorry, didn’t
do it and I’m not gonna do it. Any questions?”
As Santino’s words fell on the shocked
class and the disrespected teacher, a gust of desert wind rushed through the
open window, blew a small stapler off Eve Carrow’s desk, and sent it flying
through the air before it landed sharply on Santino’s mouth.
“What the —?” Santino wiped the blood
from his mouth.
As the class focused on the freak
accident, Eve looked out the window and noticed that it was a very still day.
The sagebrush was not moving. There was not even the faintest trace of wind.
Book Links:
Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Lisette for her guest post and say Thank You to Jadis for letting me participate in this tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina
Great interview! Lisette, we used to have seances etc when young, and I believe in spirits and things that go bump in the night!
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