Girl on the
Brink
by Christina
Hoag
Genre: YA Romance/Thriller
Release date: August 30th 2016
Fire and Ice YA/Melange Books
Summary:
Sometimes the one you love isn’t the one you’re meant to be with.
The summer before senior year, Chloe starts an internship as a reporter at a local newspaper. While on assignment, she meets Kieran, a quirky aspiring actor. Chloe becomes smitten with Kieran’s charisma and his ability to soothe her soul, torn over her parents’ impending divorce. But as their bond deepens, Kieran becomes smothering and flies into terrifying rages. He confides in Chloe that he suffered a traumatic childhood, and Chloe is moved to help him. If only he could be healed, she thinks, their relationship would be perfect. But her efforts backfire, and Kieran turns violent. Chloe breaks up with him, but Kieran pursues her relentlessly to make up. Chloe must make the heartrending choice between saving herself or saving Kieran, until Kieran’s mission of remorse turns into a quest for revenge.
Genre: YA Romance/Thriller
Release date: August 30th 2016
Fire and Ice YA/Melange Books
Summary:
Sometimes the one you love isn’t the one you’re meant to be with.
The summer before senior year, Chloe starts an internship as a reporter at a local newspaper. While on assignment, she meets Kieran, a quirky aspiring actor. Chloe becomes smitten with Kieran’s charisma and his ability to soothe her soul, torn over her parents’ impending divorce. But as their bond deepens, Kieran becomes smothering and flies into terrifying rages. He confides in Chloe that he suffered a traumatic childhood, and Chloe is moved to help him. If only he could be healed, she thinks, their relationship would be perfect. But her efforts backfire, and Kieran turns violent. Chloe breaks up with him, but Kieran pursues her relentlessly to make up. Chloe must make the heartrending choice between saving herself or saving Kieran, until Kieran’s mission of remorse turns into a quest for revenge.
Buy Links:
Advance Praise:
“An engrossing tale of a
dangerous teen romance.” -- Kirkus Reviews
“Girl on the Brink is
a must have for every high school and public library.” – Isabelle Kane,
Wisconsin high school librarian
ABOUT TEEN DATING VIOLENCE
Abusive relationships are
widespread, cutting across socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, religious and
gender preference lines. One in three high school girls experience dating violence, while more than half of college-aged women
reported experiencing controlling behavior in a relationship. Eighty-nine
percent of female college students said they were unable to recognize the signs
of an abusive relationship, and a third of teens involved in intimate partner
violence ever told anyone about it.
For more information, see http://www.breakthecycle.org/dating-violence-research.
Writing Tips:
By Christina Hoag
Here are several writing tips I’ve
discovered through many years of writing. You may find them helpful. They’re in
no particular order.
1. I don’t write myself out every day. I leave something – the
very next scene, usually - so when I come back the next day I know what to do.
I just pick up and keep going. If you write yourself out, then you end up
wasting a lot of time wondering what comes next and trying to get back into the
rhythm of the story.
2. If someone says something in your piece doesn’t work, it’s
only one person’s opinion. But if two people make the same observation, you
need to pay attention to what they’re saying. More often than not, it’s
something that needs fixing.
3. Develop a thick skin. It
takes courage to write and show your work to the world for judgment, but
remember that not everyone is going to like your work, and that’s okay. You
have to learn to let criticism roll off you. The nastiest rejection I ever got
was from the editor of a literary journal who scornfully said of my
experimental fiction submission, “Why would anyone even read this?” I kept
submitting it and got the piece and another like it published in other
journals.
4. If there’s someone in your
life who does not support you creatively, either get rid of them out or
distance yourself from them as much as possible. Be ruthless because your art
is worth it. I’ve broken up with boyfriends because they were not supportive or
had no interest in my writing. In my mind, you can’t be with a writer if you’re
not interested in what they write because their writing is part of their
self-expression.
5.
Don’t give up! It can be hard to keep going amid the onslaught of rejection
–agents, editors, reviewers. If you get a particularly bad rejection or setback,
allow yourself to wallow in self-pity for a set period of time, say three days.
When that’s over, get back to your PC.
6.
When critiquing other people’s work, remember to be constructive and how it
feels to be on the receiving end. Always state some positive points first then
say ‘I thought you could improve this by…”
7.
Have a general sense of where your story is going and how it will end. I’ve
tried “pantsing,” ie. writing by the seat of my pants, and ended up lost in the
plot labyrinth and wasting a lot of time. So now I have a loose outline and I
periodically map out the next couple scenes as I go, that keeps me on track and
thinking ahead. It makes the process much smoother.
8. Read a wide range of genres and authors. Read poetry to develop
lyricism and an ear for language. Read plays to develop dialogue. Read
mysteries/thriller classics to improve plot development. Read literary works to
enhance character development.
9. When confronting the dreaded writer’s
block, do something else for a while, don’t fret and don’t force. I’ve found
that getting up and going to the kitchen clears my head enough for the next
step to pop in it. You can also use the time to do something else
writing-related: work on your website, submissions, an essay, or on another section
of your book. The secret is changing your focus so you can clear your blocked
channel.
10.
This may be the most important tip of all: Believe in yourself. Believe that
you have something worthwhile to say. Believe in your talent. Believe that you
will succeed and that the rocky road is part of any artist’s journey.
About
the Author:
Christina Hoag is the author of Girl on the
Brink, a romantic thriller for young adults (Fire and Ice YA/Melange Books,
August 2016) and Skin of Tattoos, a literary thriller set in L.A.’s gang
underworld (Martin Brown Publishing, September 2016). She is a former reporter
for the Associated Press and Miami Herald and worked as a correspondent in
Latin America writing for major media outlets including Time, Business Week,
Financial Times, the Houston Chronicle and The New York Times. She is the
co-author of Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence,
a groundbreaking book on gang intervention (Turner Publishing, 2014). She
resides in Los Angeles. For more information, see www.christinahoag.com.
Author Links:
GIVEAWAY:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Blog Tour Organized by:
