LETTERS TO NOWHERE by Julie Cross - Review & Excerpt!

 

Author: Julie Cross

Title: Letters To Nowhere

Pages: 360

Publication Date: August 1^st 2013

Publisher: Julie Cross

Genre: Mature Young Adult Contemporary

 

SYNOPSIS

Her family may be shattered, but her dreams aren't...

 

From the International Bestselling Author of the Tempest series

 

A Mature YA contemporary set in the tough world of Elite Gymnastics. Grief, love and pursuing dreams are at the forefront of this emotionally powerful coming-of-age story.

 

Seventeen year old Karen Campbell has just lost both her parents in a tragic car accident. Grief stricken and alone, her gymnastics coach opens his home to Karen, providing her a place to live while she continues to train, working toward a spot on the world championship team.

 

Coach Bentley’s only child, seventeen year old Jordan is good-looking and charming enough to scare away a girl like Karen—someone who has spent ten times more hours on balance beams and uneven bars than talking or even thinking about boys. But the two teens share a special connection almost immediately. It turns out Jordan has a tragic past of his own, grief buried for years.

 

As Karen’s gymnastics career soars, her nightmares and visions of the horrible accident grow in strength. She can only avoid facing her grief for so long before it begins to surface and ultimately spin out of control in a very dangerous way. Can discovering love and lust (simultaneously) help with the grieving process or will it only provide a temporary distraction while waiting for reality to hit full force.

 

MY REVIEW:

Karen’s world has just collapsed with her parents’ sudden death in a car crash. Left reeling and attempting to pick up the pieces, Karen moves into her gymnastic coach’s house since, other than an absentee grandmother, he’s the closest thing to family Karen has left. Everything Karen though was important—training with complete discipline, competing as an elite gymnast, getting into the college she wants—suddenly all pales into comparison of the realities a fickle world where some people live and other people die.

 

And then Karen meets Jordan, Coach Bennet’s son. Jordan is the complete opposite of Karen—formerly an elite gymnast himself, he’s left the sport. He’s rebellious, gets into trouble, and shockingly, he understands Karen at this vulnerable point in her life in a way that no one else does.

 

Living under the same roof creates some hilarious situations as the two get to know each other and spend more and more time in each other’s company. In a world that no longer makes sense, suddenly something does—Jordan, and what Karen feels when she’s with him.

 

The characters are all so perfectly drawn. Jordan feels like such a teenage guy. Karen’s path through the cycles of grief are pitch perfect. The backdrop of the world of gymnastics is absolutely fascinating, and I just loved everything about this book.

 

Sweepingly romantic, raw, and completely real, Letters to Nowhere is a must read of 2013.

EXCERPT:

“So,” one of the girls said to me, “you must be a freshman, right? I thought you looked familiar.

 

I downed about two-thirds of my drink and placed it on a table. That would be just enough alcohol to loosen my tongue, but not enough to tip off Bentley when we got back home.

 

“How do you know Jordan?” the other girl asked.

 

“Well . . . we’re . . . uh,” I stammered.

 

They both nodded, looking impressed. “That’s so great you guys are together,” one girl said, holding her hand to her heart as if Jordan was a close relative or something. “I’ve been telling Jordan forever that he needed to get a girlfriend and quit messing around.”

 

I coughed loudly, nearly choking on the alcohol still burning my throat from thirty seconds ago.

 

“Right . . . well, it’s only been two dates. It’s not like we’re living together.”

 

“Two dates is progress for him,” the girl on my left said, rolling her eyes. “Trust me on that.”

 

“Thanks, guys,” I heard Jordan say. He moved right behind me, resting his hands lightly on my shoulders. “Why don’t you just tell Karen everything you know about me?”

 

“Whatever,” they said together.

 

Jordan steered me in the other direction, where Tony and a couple other guys were standing. “Sorry about that.”

 

“This is our second date, by the way.”

 

“So our first date was buying tampons? That kind

of sucks.”

 

AUTHOR BIO

 

I live in central Illinois with my wonderful husband and three kids currently between the ages of 7 and 12 (the kids not the husband). My writing journey began in May, 2009 with a short story in a notebook.

 

 Within a year, I had written seven (some good some God-awful) young adult novels. Not being a college graduate and having spent the previous fifteen years teaching gymnastics and working as a YMCA Program Director for Recreational Gymnastics, professional writing wasn't in my plans. Not even close. But ever since the day I started that short story, I haven't been able to stop. It was love at first sight.

 

 After about a year of writing, I had a three book deal with St. Martin's Press, and a film option with Summit Entertainment. Crazy, right? I know. It wasn't until August of 2011 that I quit working full time in order to be at home with my kids more and of course, write more. My young adult time travel debut novel, Tempest, released on January 17, 2012. The rest of my personal story remains unwritten.

Links:

 

Website:  http://www.juliecrossbooks.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/FansOfJulieCross?fref=ts

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Juliecross1980

Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3429117.Julie_Cross

Goodreads Letters To Nowhere: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18046135-letters-to-nowhere

 

THE GIVEAWAY

 

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Video Q&A From the Shutdown Release Party!

Want so see what I'm like IRL? Wish you could come to a signing but don't live in Minneapolis? Voila, problem solved: at my most recent signing, I had the hubby tape the Q&A session, for your viewing pleasure extraordinaire!

What Will You Do With This One Wild and Precious Life?

I just finished reading Golden by Jessi Kirby (which is holy crap amazing, everybody stop what you are doing and go get your hands on this book!) and a teacher writes this question on the board as a journal prompt for the seniors in his class from a poem by Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

It's a question that drives the characters in the novels to really reflect on what they want for their lives, and as the reader, you also can't help asking it of yourself. In the book, the teacher holds onto the senior's journals for ten years and then mails it to the people, kind of like a time capsule but better because you get to read the journal with all the straight up thoughts from your teenage self.

I just turned 31. I'm at the age where I'd be on the receiving end of the journal. So, curious, I pulled out my old journals that I've kept since high-school. They were not as revelatory as I’d hoped. Then again, I was a quiet kind of nerdy religious girl. There were no epic romances, or even making out in the back seats of cars. But I did feel things largely. I had epic moments, or at least they felt like it to me at the time, even if it was only because I snuck out of the library when I was supposed to be studying, but only so I could go walk alone in the park by the river. But I always had big plans for myself. I was going to travel all over the world and be a missionary and go sky-diving and climb mountains.

But then, part of the process of growing up is going through bitter disappointments, failure, and disillusionment. Those are kind of the things that actually force you to grow. There's good stuff too. Like finding a life partner and understand commitment and raising up little tiny humans to be full grown humans. But there is also illness and constraints and a need to pay the bills. There have been lean years where I couldn't manage more than getting by--physically, financially, and emotionally. And there have been fat years where my health was better and I would go tubing down the river and out for drinks with friends and got tattoos and drank gallons of coffee while I sat in chic coffeeshops writing books.

So part of me looks at this question about the one wild and precious life and thinks it's sentimental, unrealistic, and written by someone healthy. But the rest of me wants to sing and shout it from the rooftops. Because yes. Even with limitations, all we have is this one wild and precious life. It should be wild--unpredictable, spontaneous, changeable, not letting ourselves get caught in the rut of simply existing in the pattern of wake up, work, eat dinner with family, watch TV or read, then sleep. Where is the wildness? Even if I can't be wild in body by jumping out of planes like I wanted, I can still be wild in mind. Like those years I was in grad school where I could barely sleep at night because of all the ideas I was learning about in class. Like the times when a new story plot or characters take over my brain and all I want to do is write, write, write. And it should be precious, because oh Lord do not let us forget that this is all we have on this earth. This is life. Here, today. Like the rest of the poem says,

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

When we reach the end of our days we will lament giving up any single day to the mundane of simply 'getting by', marking the day off on the calendar with relief because all we want to do is sleep or get to the weekend or to that vacation. In the end, won't we want every precious day back that we wasted by sleep-walking through?

An Open Letter To Christian Fiction

Dear Christian Fiction,

I really, really like you. In fact, after neglecting your genre for about a decade, I've been reading you like crazy, discovering all the books and authors I missed in the meantime. Seriously, I've read more than sixty books in your genre this year already. And tons more a decade ago when it was all I read. As someone who's been both inside and outside the Christian camp, let's chat.

First off, some of your books are really, really, like crazy good. Mainly any book by Laura Frantz (oh my gosh I'm obsessed with her books lately, pardon my fangirl) or Deeanne Gist, Tamera Alexander, Lisa Tawn Bergren, Melanie Dickerson, and Julie Klassen. Thoughtful books where the writer's aren't afraid to let bad things happen to their characters. Where there are good and bad people alike, and those lines aren't always determined by whether they are Christians or not. These writers are doing it right.

But here's my problem with you, Christian Fiction. When others writers among you paint the world as made up of THEM, ie, non-Christian heathens who are evil and immoral and driven only by darkness vs. US, the Christians who maybe make mistakes but always choose the right thing in the end, it makes me kind of sick to my stomach. It's not how the world works and oh my goodness I sure hope you know that.

And here's the other big thing that ticks me off: when you have God speaking to the characters all the time. Like literally a voice in their heads, in pretty italic letters on the page. Do you not get how painful it is to pretend that's the way the world, and God, work? Do you know how upset I was as a teenager because God never 'spoke' to me like he did in all the books I read and how I thought that meant I must be doing it wrong? And in such plots, God always steps in at the last moment so nothing bad ever happens to the characters. And I want to pull my hair out because BAD THINGS HAPPEN to people. And painting a world like this, where the Christians are always good and do the right thing and hear God's voice... it's just plain wrong and hurtful and destructive, to all parties. I mean it's not just you, it's Christian subculture too. Either way, I was so shocked and unprepared when real life hit in my early twenties. I was unprepared for life's squalls and storms because it didn't fit this picture I'd been fed of how the Christian life worked. I was shattered.

I get it, Christian Fiction, I do. You have your tropes the same way other genres like Romance or Mystery or even YA do. I don't even mind all the preachy bits because I understand, the point of this genre is you get to talk about God and have your characters talk about God. And I'm generally fine with a little wish-fulfillment fiction. I like happy endings as much as the next girl. I just have a problem when you ascribe it all to God and pretend this is how the real world works.

In the meantime, I'll keep on reading you, and just avoid the authors who trigger my gag reflex. Because I still enjoy you, Christian Fiction. I like that your characters have depth and go through big emotional character arcs, and I like the way you do your love stories in historical settings, and I like that I can read you without worrying about being assaulted by graphic sexy times every other chapter (which I still like on occasion, but not every single book where it seems like that's all the scenes are just wishy-washy character-wise, all driving toward the sexy times scenes!). And yeah. Like YA, I like that your books seem to have more time and attention spent editing them than a lot of mainstream genre books. Sometimes I even like it when you talk about God.

Still, please be on notice Christian Fiction. It's hard enough having faith in God in this world. Please don't muddy the waters with your wish-fulfillment on how you WANT God to act and give us a little more of how he DOES act, which more often than not, is silence, requiring faith.

Giveaway! 2 Signed Copies of BOTH Override & Shutdown!

To celebrate Shutdown only being two weeks away from releasing and Glitch being on sale for just $2.99 for Kindle and Nook, I decided it's time for a giveaway! Giving away 2 copies of BOTH Override and Shutdown, you can enter once every day!

I'm going to paste the rafflecopter code, but if that doesn't work, you can always click this link to it on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeatherAnastasiu/app_228910107186452


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Write Through Anything

I’ve heard people say writing saved their life, and while I can’t go that far, I can say that writing has provided stability and sanity in a very unstable world.

Writing helps me feel grounded, even in a strange week like this one where everything else feels all strange and weird. My husband and son are out of town and it’s just me up in this thirteenth story apartment, too ill to really go anywhere, feeling like Rupunzel locked in her tower—though maybe without the glorious golden locks, or does mid-shoulder black and pink hair count? Nevertheless, I feel very locked-away-in-a-tower-ish.

But then, when I write, even on days like today where I’m distracted by All The Internet Things, if I manage to hit my word count, I feel this nice calm settle over me. I did the work that needed to be done today, even if everything else seems out of sync and off schedule.

It’s kind of the magic of developing a discipline of writing. Like any muscle, it’ll get flimsy and out of shape if you don’t exercise it. I’ve mostly gotten to the place where writing isn’t something I get up and decide to do everyday. It’s something I take for granted that I WILL do, come hell or high-water or, you know, Twitter and Facebook addiction and my normal internal whining about I-don’t-wanna! ;)

So tonight, all alone in this empty apartment up in the sky, I’ve got a smile on my face because I did my second writing session and hit the 2k word count I try to do every day. Officially my required word count each day is 1k. It’s one of the tricks I use on myself, so that if I only get 1k or only do one writing session instead of two, I still get to count the day as a win. When you’ve got this weird amorphous job of being a writer, it’s the little things that count to make you feel productive.

The trick is to write through anything. Write through depression. Write through success. Write through heart break. Especially write through failure. Write through sickness, at least as much as able. Write through books being sold. Write through waiting on submission to see if more books will sell. Write through failed books that didn’t end up going anywhere and sit as half-done hundred page documents that will lay forgotten in some random folder on my computer.

It’s when I stop writing that I get into trouble. I feel like I can be happy and contented through anything life throws at me, as long as I can hit that daily word count. Now, none of this is to say that the writing will be particularly good, especially if there’s something bad or stressful going on in my life. The idea of the tortured or depressed artist putting out masterpieces might be all good well in theory, but it certainly never worked for me. I write best when I’m stable and happy and my family is in a good place. But you still gotta write, because that way lies sanity and mental health. Come to think of it, I bet it’s how Rapunzel stayed sane too. She was probably stuck up there with thousands of sheets of paper and a magical unending inkpot ;)

You Don't Always Have to Love It

Sometimes being a writer, you will be super in the groove, excited about every scene that comes next, wake up the in morning and can't wait to get to your computer. You can't stop thinking about your characters so much that you can't sleep at night and you keep getting out of bed to write another scene. The book I wrote last December was like that.

And then there are books like the one I'm writing now... where I know the idea and characters are solid, and interesting-ish things are happening, but my passion for the story is only at a low simmer. I sit down each afternoon to write... and then go check twitter again. And Facebook. And maybe watch yet another John Green vlogbrothers video because that guy is so entertaining and compulsively watchable! And then, oh yeah, I'll click back to my Word document and type maybe another hundred words.

Here is the thing: there is this myth out there that a book will be no good if you don't just loooooove it while you're writing it. That somehow your lack of passion will translate into lack of reader passion because you just can't capture the magic mojo. But this is not true. I know this first hand, since the book that was THE HARDEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN has gotten the best reviews. I'm referring of course, to Override, which long-time blog followers will know was the bane of my existence for over a year. I wrote it once. And then wrote it over from scratch again. And then AGAIN. I did not love that book when I was writing that last draft. I'm pretty sure that the word 'hate' even got tossed around for awhile there. But I knew that I did have a deadline in a month so the dang thing had better get written.

And the thing was (and believe me it shocked me more than anyone!), all of the time and attention that book had gotten both plot-wise and character wise had turned it into a really good book.

Maybe some people in magical candy author land love every single part of every single book they write. But then there's the rest of us, slogging through unending middles, muddling through murky characterization, spending a whole week trying to get one friggin' scene right and then skipping it in the end to figure out later so I can at least avoid stalling completely on the whole project... oh, ahem, that might have veered into describing my own past week a little bit ;)

Suffice it to say, I may not love this book I'm in the middle of drafting. I think there's lots of work ahead reshaping and crafting it, but like I said, sometimes that can make it an even better book than ones that have slipped out easily the first time around. That's what I'm holding on to as I muddle through the middle! What are you guys working on? What's your process like? Do you give up and move on to another project when the passion dries up, or keep barreling on through?