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glimpse

Booktube

Not-So-Scary Halloween Book Recommendations

(For those not able to see the video, click here)

I hate reading scary books – I get terrified by them! So I thought I would put together a video full of books that are perfect to read at Halloween if you’re like me and get frightened easily. There are creepy inns, haunting pictures, and dead bodies! Enjoy!

Books Mentioned:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – With pictures to help tell the story, now is the perfect time to read it as the film is released in 2016.

Glimpse by Kendra Leighton – Based on one of my favourite poems by Alfred Noyes, Glimpse is about a girl who has lost her memories and a boy that haunts her in her dreams.

Dead Romantic by C.J. Skuse – In this hilarious novel, two girls set out to create the perfect boy from body parts that they collect. Think Frankenstein for a teen audience.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson – One of my favourite books of the year, The Name of the Star explores what would happen if the Jack the Ripper murders started happening all over London again with a supernatural twist.

What are your favourite Halloween reads?

Blog Tour UKYA Uncategorized

UKYA BLOG TOUR: Interview with Kendra Leighton, Author of Glimpse

ukyablogtour
I’m very lucky to have Kendra Leighton on the blog tour! Kendra’s debut novel, Glimpse, will be out next year, and I am so excited about it. It sounds so good! Over to you, Kendra…
Hi Kendra! Welcome to Queen of Contemporary! To start, can you introduce yourself?
Hi, Lucy! I’m so happy to be here. I’m Kendra Leighton: YA writer by night, chocolatier by day (writing always goes better with chocolate!). My debut novel’s being published next summer.
I loved ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. What made you set your novel, Glimpse, on it?
‘The Highwayman’ is wonderful, isn’t it? I’m not a huge poetry fan, but ’The Highwayman’ has stuck with me ever since I first read it in school. For anyone who hasn’t read it, it’s a fabulous dark romance and ghost story — I adore everything about it.
I rediscovered ‘The Highwayman’ poem at the same time as I discovered YA. I had a brief career as an English teacher, and was teaching the poem to year 8 as well as reading YA books from the school library. Paranormal romance was huge at the time, and since I’ve always adored gothic fiction, I fell so much in love with it that I decided to write my own. I thought about basing a novel on a real-life ghost story, then I had a brainwave — ’The Highwayman’ is already the perfect romantic ghost story, why not start with that?
I originally planned to write a re-telling, but when my imagination cranked into gear I ended up with a very different story, set in the present day and using ‘The Highwayman’ as a springboard. Glimpse was born!
What would you say to people who don’t read, and don’t want to read?
This is a tough one. I know from my teaching days that when people say they don’t like reading, there are no magic words that can force them to! Not everyone likes the kind of books taught in schools, and sadly that’s enough to put some people off. But I really believe there are stories out there for everyone. If you like films or TV or song lyrics then you already like stories; you just have to find the right books for you.
What was your writing process like when writing Glimpse?
Glimpse was the first novel I’d written. I spent three years writing and re-writing before submitting to agents, so it was a long process! It took me six months to write the first draft, and only then did I start studying the writing craft. Every time I learned something new I would go back and apply what I’d learned to the book, over and over, until it was as good as I could make it. I’m reaching the end of the editing process with my publisher now, and it feels bizarre that there’ll soon be a point where Glimpse can’t be rewritten!
Can you name a few of your favourite UKYA novels?Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, Rachel Ward’s Numbers trilogy, Sharon Jones’s Dead Jealous. There are lots of others I’ve enjoyed too, and I’m on a mission to read more!

What do you think makes UKYA so special?

It’s hard to pin down, but there’s definitely a different ‘feel’ to most UKYA. Having read so much USYA, it’s refreshing to read a book with settings I’ve visited or know about, and to read descriptions of school and being a teen that I can relate to (i.e. no cheerleaders or bleachers or high school cafeterias). There are some really great UKYA books that deserve to be just as big as their US counterparts.
And finally, what’s next for you?
More writing! I have lots of ideas up my sleeve…