One Last Summer Hurrah: A Giveaway

Okay, I don’t know if you guys know, but I live in Florida. It’s freaking summer year-round, basically. The rest of you (or a good chunk of you) are walking around in breezy weather watching the leaves change and I’ve got palm trees left and right. And if their colour is changing, it’s because they’re dying of dehydration.

So when Terra Elan McVoy contacted me with the awesome idea of an end-of-summer interview and giveaway, I was all for it. Maybe the more I celebrate summer ending, the truer it can be! And yes, the other day I did wear a sweater entirely due to wishful thinking that maybe if I dressed like winter, it would be winter (this wishful thinking lasted all of a 10 minute car ride – air conditioner blasting – before I took the sweater off).

Anyway, check out this awesome and hilarious interview with Terra Elan McVoy and enter to for a chance to win personalized copies of The Summer of Firsts and Lasts and Being Friends with Boys – open internationally!

Being Friends with Boys

Goodreads | Amazon

Charlotte and Oliver have been friends forever. She knows that he, Abe, and Trip consider her to be one of the guys, and she likes it that way. She likes being the friend who keeps them all together. Likes offering a girl’s perspective on their love lives. Likes being the behind-the-scenes wordsmith who writes all the lyrics for the boys’ band. Char has a house full of stepsisters and a past full of backstabbing (female) ex-best friends, so for her, being friends with boys is refreshingly drama-free…until it isn’t any more.

When a new boy enters the scene and makes Char feel like, well, a total girl…and two of her other friends have a falling out that may or may not be related to one of them deciding he possibly wants to be more than friends with Char…being friends with all these boys suddenly becomes a lot more complicated. – Goodreads

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The Summer of Firsts and Lasts

Goodreads | Amazon

Three sisters. One life-changing summer.

Calla loves summer because summer means Duncan. They’ve been best friends for years, but Calla has never worked up the nerve to tell him how she really feels. This summer, the summer before college, is Calla’s last chance.

Violet isn’t much of a rule breaker in real life. But this isn’t real life, this is summer, and Violet is determined to make the most of it. Besides, a little sneaking out never hurt anyone. And sneaking out with James is 100% worth the risk…even though James is completely off-limits.

Daisy has never been the sister that boys notice, but when sparks fly with Joel at the first bonfire of summer, it seems so easy and right. So why is being his girlfriend so complicated? – Goodreads

Terra Elan McVoy

There is a lot of boy goodness in Being Friends with Boys. If you were Charlotte, which option would appeal to you the most?

I think I would have the same problem figuring out which boy in Being Friends with Boys I felt which way about, just like Charlotte. I mean, even good ol’ Abe has his weirdo appeal. And then there’s Benji . . . and Fabian . . . But I think, if I were Charlotte, I probably would have made the same decisions she does in the end.

What’s your own experience with summer camp? In The Summer of Firsts and Lasts, the three sisters have a long history with that summer camp. I myself attended a summer camp every summer for several years, although I quit before reaching the point of applying for counselor. Do you have your own similar experiences?

Believe it or not, I’ve never actually been to sleepaway camp! My family did go to Montreat, NC for one or two weeks every summer, which is *kind of* the same thing, but not really. Camp Callanwolde is the result of a lot of research (including interviewing a bunch of people about camp life, plus studying current camps), movies about camp that I’ve liked (“Wet Hot American Summer,” “Little Darlings”) and of course my own fantasies about what the ideal camp experience would be.

I had a ton of crushes in high school. I mean, a ton. I don’t even want to go into numbers. And some of them are super embarrassing to think about. What’s the most embarrassing crush you’ve ever had (that you’re willing to share)?

I am right there with you in the “ton of crushes” department. But I think the WORST was a boy in 5th grade whom I was head-over-heels about. I wrote him a secret admirer letter and everything. (And then, stupidly, called him trying to pretend I had heard about it and was curious what he thought.) It was extra-bad when he beat me in the election for 5th grade class President. More embarrassing than that, however, was that we went to different middle schools, but then THERE HE WAS on the first day of 9th grade, and I spent another whole year suffering this crippling crush. Turn-around-in-your-seat-to-”check”-the-clock-fifty-times-a-day-in-science-class-just-to-stare-at-him kind of crippling. Give-him-shoulder-massages-in-drama-class-just-to-be-near-him kind of crippling. I’m still cringing right now thinking about it.

Which of the three sisters do you identify with the most in The Summer of Firsts and Lasts?

Well, the obvious and most direct answer is to say that I relate most to Calla, since she’s the oldest of three sisters, and so am I. Her need to be perfect and her desire to get everything just right, I definitely understand. But I think there’s something very relatable for me in each of the Winthrop sisters. Violet’s passion and sometimes her frustrations. Daisy’s need to do her own thing. All three of them have a fierce connection to each other in different ways, and I really relate to that too.

Time to play favourites! if you were going to recommend a reader, new to you or contemporary YA, one of your books to read first, which would it be – Being Friends with Boys or The Summer of Firsts and Lasts

This *is* a difficult question, as you well know. But I think if I were recommending to someone who had never read contemporary YA, or had never read my work before, between the two I’d suggest Being Friends with Boys first. I love The Summer of Firsts and Lasts, but the switching points-of-view isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. So I’d like readers to take on the newest book, to get a sense of my style, before they went into that. I’d love it if they read both, though!

Giveaway

Terra Elan McVoy is super awesome and wants to giveaway a signed, personalized copy of The Summer of Firsts and Lasts as well as a signed, personalized copy of Being Friends with Boys – open internationally. Pretty freaking awesome, right? Follow the rules to win and fill out the raffle copter thing!

Rules
International
13 years or older
Winner has 48 hours to respond to my e-mail

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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