PRIDE & PRINCESSES ORIGINAL BLURB and First Page

PRIDE & PRINCESSES by SUMMER DAY

Mix a teenage version of Emma with a touch of Pride and Prejudice, transfer the drama to an American high school and the results can be...contagious:

& this is one of the original drafts of the first page, it changed a lot prior to publication: 

Chapter 1

Arrivals

    The day Mark Knightly transferred to Sunrise High from some snooty boarding school in England was the day Mouche and I began the Boy-Rating Diaries. They weren’t written in the traditional manner although they started that way. We wrote our thoughts on pink notepaper and used a feathered pen popular with countless teenage girls from previous generations. Suddenly, the secret diary became a blog that ended up as a how-to-guide to dating within the hallowed halls of our Performing Arts School. We went from social wallflowers to social winners in under a month all because our fantasy men walked the halls one surprising day in September and stopped to ask my best friend Mouche directions to  home room. ‘And not a minute too soon,’ Mouche noted, ‘I was beginning to think high school could only be fun in movies...’

PRIDE & PRINCESSES by SUMMER DAY: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0069JLAPA

MY BLOG HAS TEN THOUSAND VIEWS

THANKS SO MUCH to the readers who have helped my blog reach ten thousand views. I am absolutely thrilled & ecstatic that some lovely peeps out there have been here - you are all  AMAZING and cheers to the power of reading & writing - words on paper! WOOHOO, lovely readers! I couldn't have done it without you:) 

Eight Random Facts About Meme Tag

Miss Summer Ellen Lane (@SummerEllenLane on Twitter - writer of Snappy Social Networking) has written some fab facts about herself on her lovely writer's BLOG: http://writingbelle.blogspot.com/



I thought I'd add another and write Eight Fab Facts you didn't know about me:

The novel I most want to see made into a movie is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (yeah, you already knew that). 

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor is the next YA novel I plan to read!

My favourite foods are pizza, fresh fruit and roast chicken (with roasted potatoes and all the trimmings...)

When I was a child I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast and made a balance beam to practise on in my grandparent's backyard.

I like milkshakes made with chocolate and crunched up Malteasers (malt and chocolate candy) on top.

I adore the beach and when I was small I loved waterslides.

I dream of gorgeous tropical islands and coconuts.

When I was a child I loved climbing trees and making cubby houses...

WOO HOO - whose next? (By the way, I don't seem to be adding followers on my blog - it is not intentional, really! Nor do I seem to be allowed to add myself to other blogs - any tips? Perhaps I need to click some button asap!)

Now, I'm going to tag or mention these writers next. Have a great weekend lovelies:)

The fab @ChelesBells1 is on Twitter and runs a marvellous blog here:

http://abellestales.blogspot.com/ 

Author Airicka Phoenix has a fab new YA series called Touching Smoke, details here:
http://airickaphoenix.com/Author/?cat=10

Writing Belle: One Lovely Blog Award

Writing Belle: One Lovely Blog Award: It's been a while since I've taken part in a blog meme, so this one should be fun! I was awarded the One Lovely Blog Award by  Kate from T...

Writing Belle: The Next Big Thing! Meme

Writing Belle: The Next Big Thing! Meme: It's the week of blog memes at Writing Belle! I got tagged by my fabulous NA Sister, Victoria Smith, from  her blog  in the The Next Big Thi...

Safe And Sound

My thoughts are with my wonderful reading and writing friends today on the East Coast - STAY SAFE if you are anywhere near the path of the storm :) 

NEW NOVEL TRILOGY

While TRULY is going through the review process, I thought my lovely readers might like a sneak peak of something different. This is the first page of a trilogy I have been working on for years. It's about a group of teens. At the moment, this first novel is called Adam & Amber but I have a title for the trilogy in my mind that I shall share with you when it's final. What follows is one of the first drafts of the first page. *Please note, in no way is it the final product. Names, places, spelling and punctuation are sure to change! 

Adam

    Infinity is a magical place few have visited. I went there first with Adam Barclay, a boy I met after my parents moved with me from Los Angeles to Phoenix during my first year of high school. At my new school, in the tiny town of Infinity, on the edge of the Arizona desert, I was rendered silent. I only spoke when I had to. That was until Adam, Rufus and Lena Barclay arrived in junior year and I found my voice. I had to know everything about them. They were the subject of school gossip for so many reasons… but I’m moving ahead of my story.  

     People ask me what I remember most about the summer I turned sixteen. They expect me to say the blistering, orange heat or the endless attempts I made (practising in the concrete car park of the local supermarket) to gain my learners permit. Who knew I’d never need it?     

      My oldest friends, the girls I went to school with in Los Angeles, wanted me to describe the desert and the boy I met there. But how could I describe a place I’d never really been to, a boy who remained a secret? Infinity loomed beyond the main town of Phoenix and sprawled out into a tiny maze of suburbs. My uncle lived very close to the desert, in a trailer park an hour’s drive from where we now lived and so close to Infinity he could almost touch it.  Once I'd visited, I promised my friends, I’d tell them more.

      I vowed to describe the ‘vacation’ I intended to take to visit Uncle James. The trip would go beyond the desert, through pure water and a golden sunset that spread across dawn till dusk.  Beyond talk of desert animals or air that smelt like sun and sand, my old school friends would never believe me if I told them the truth; that I disappeared in time, leaving only dust and the red earth behind me.

PERFECTION IN WRITING: THE NIGHT CIRCUS

PERFECTION IN WRITING: THE NIGHT CIRCUS:

Just in case you haven’t read my obsessive tweets (@summerdaylight) about this glorious novel, THE NIGHT CIRCUS by ERIN MORGENSTERN (@erinmorgenstern) is amazing. I read it in January and it cast a spell that has stayed with me. The writing is wonderful: perfect exposition, breathtaking descriptions and characters that are unpredictable and enchanting. The story is complex without being pretentious and extraordinary without being annoying. Quite simply, The Night Circus is one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read and one of the rare novels I would like to read again. There are only a few writers who change your ideas about writing (and in this case, art) and all it could encompass. I’d put this writer and this novel in that category.  I know many of us happily survive on a diet of YA ‘literature’ and some of it is awesomeness in a chocolate wrapper, but do yourselves a delicious favour and read a truly great novel: Erin Morgenstern’s THE NIGHT CIRCUS.  You open the first page and enter the Circus of Dreams where a cast of characters reveal themselves in an unforgettable and unimaginable tale of beauty, love and deception. THE NIGHT CIRCUS is the story of the birth of a circus of dreamers, magicians and gifted conjurers. It is the tale of a devastating bet between two magicians and their equally talented prodigies. This novel is beautiful beyond reach, intangible yet wickedly good. Have I encouraged you to take a peek yet? Oh, and Summit better do it justice, ‘cos I cannot wait for the movie. *Just don’t expect everything to be spelled out. Why? Because, THE NIGHT CIRCUS is EXTRAORDINARY: the writing employs your imagination to actively visualize the scenes and events that take place, it's a trip to the circus you'll never forget. Take it now!