Welcome to our stop on the Young Adult Giveaway Tour! Heather Doherty and I write fast-paced YA paranormal/horror. While we each have our own solo writing careers (I write romantic suspense and adult paranormal romance and Heather writes literary and child lit), we do love love our YA. So here it is – 10 things we love about well-written Young Adult/New Adult literature:

1. It’s wide open! (Almost) anything goes.
2. It appeals to a wide range of readers, not just teens. I think that’s because our teenage years are seared into our psyches. We read a coming of age novel and we’re teens again.
3. Well-written YA lit is engrossing, compelling and above all honest!
4. It’s written expressly about the challenges experienced by teens/young adults.
5. It’s wide open!!!
6. All fiction gives us life lessons, but we think YA fiction helps the young reader mature. They have a chance to “live” multiple scenarios, watch the characters make choices, suffer the consequences of bad ones. They see the character get knocked down and get back up again. They struggle and triumph. Or at least come to a kind of clarity.
7. It provides escape (not to be underestimated in this troubled world).
8. It can confirm the legitimacy of your own experiences to see characters undergo the same kinds of experiences/feel the same emotions.
9. YA lit has always pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable, sometimes dealing with very difficult or taboo subjects. Adults don’t always like that, but the fact remains that lots of young adults live with domestic violence, incest, etc., and why shouldn’t young adult literature reflect that? If not in literature, then where can we bare our souls, shred our screams and claw our way through?
10. Did we mention that it’s wide open?

 

Three girls from completely different walks of life come together when their parents send them to a last chance boarding school. The only thing they have in common is the soul-deep pain each of them holds inside, from very different wounds. Each wants to find a way to escape the pain. A way out. And they do.

In the attic of the old Victorian house that serves as their residence, they’ve found an old diary that gives them the key to escape their pain, escape their very bodies. But that kind of reprieve always carries a price…

Coming soon: 

What do YOU love best about YA? Tell us in a comment below to qualify to win one of our two prizes:

–        A signed copy of our latest YA Comes the Night (Book 1 in the Casters series)

–        A $10 Gift Certificate from your choice of Amazon, B&N or iTunes.

NOTE: Comments on this blog are moderated. Don’t sweat it if your comment doesn’t show up immediately.

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If you want to join Norah Wilson’s newsletter mailing list, she often has special giveaways and free book offers for her newsletter subscribers only. Note that while her newsletter talks about our YA projects, she might also talk about our jointly written cozy mystery or her solo-written romantic suspense or paranormal romance. You can subscribe here if you’re interested.

Once you’ve commented for your chance to win our prizes, click this link to get back to the Linky list to continue hopping. Good luck to you!

Oh, and if you’re so inclined, take a look at this cool video we commissioned from Jeffrey Somers. He’s doing some awesome book trailers.