Character Profiles ~ Desi

Desi is one of my favorite Crawdad characters. He's loosely based on a kid my daughter met at a Panic at the Disco concert. A little bit emo, but kind and generous with what little he has.  Desi is every kid who's ever been rejected by their parents for not being whatever it is their parents thought they should be. Desi has the misfortune of being born gay in a strict religious family. For every kid that comes out and finds acceptance, there are many more that don't. Many find themselves homeless or worse. It's an ugly truth.

~Meet Desi~

My head slammed into the door frame as I fell into my bedroom. The pain screamed in the back of my head and for a second I saw stars. I didn’t expect Louis to lash out as me and I hadn’t managed to dodge in time. Louis was my mother’s third husband. The one after she found God. Louis kept telling me to call him dad, but I never did. I could tell from the beginning he didn’t really mean it. Usually he yelled a lot, but the punch was new. I suppose he probably wanted to punch me all along. Me kissing Andrew was just the excuse he needed. Now, he stood over me quivering like a freaking psycho. He wasn’t a big guy, kinda bald. It was hard for him to get aggressive. Now that he was hyped up on adrenaline his nasty streak got real obvious.

“Are you gay, Desmond?” he shouted, his voice breathy. I hated him when he called me Desmond. I’m Desi. I have blue hair I dyed myself. I pierced my lip. I’m getting a tattoo as soon as I have the money. I am not a Desmond.

“What do you think?” I muttered as I rolled over, holding my head. I pulled myself up to my knees, but I couldn’t quite stand I was so woozy.

“Huh?” Louis demanded. “Cause if you are, you can take your shit and get out of this house. We don’t want no abomination here.”

“What?” My head was still fuzzy from that whack. It didn’t help that Louis always used the biggest words he could ‘cause he thought he was smart. At least, he wanted you to think he was.

“I said get out!” I didn’t think he could yell any louder, but he surprised me.

“You aren’t my mom.” 

“This is my house and I say you’re out. Get your shit and go!”

“What for?” I forced my head up and faced him, too angry for tears now.

“For being a faggot, that’s why.” Louis had his hands on his hips now, staring at me like he was God’s right hand man. You’d never know he’d missed church a month of Sundays. Righteous asshole.

My little sister Kitty bounced on the couch in the living room.

“Desi is a faggot…Desi is a faggot,” she teased, too young to even understand what she was saying. Mom walked in the door unnoticed by Louis, just back from work.

“Shut up!” I yelled at Kitty.

“No, you shut up!” barked Louis. “She lives here. You don’t.”

“What’s going on?” asked Mom, but the lines on her face said she was too tired to really care. Kitty climbed into her arms.

“Daddy says Desi’s a faggot,” she told Mom.

“No, he’s not,” Mom said to Kitty. “Don’t let me hear you talk like that again.”

“As a matter of fact, he is,” said Louis. “I told him to get out.”

Mom turned to me, her face a mixture of sadness and shock. I never wanted to tell my mom, but some part of me always thought she wouldn’t care, that she’d love me anyway. Your mom’s supposed to love you, no matter what, right? That’s not what my mom’s face said. Her expression said I’d crushed all her dreams to dust forever.

“Is it true, Desi?” she almost whispered, like it was too horrible to even imagine. I think my heart made a sound loud enough to hear when it cracked open just then. It’s always easier to rage so I cut loose.

You can find out more about Desi and Crawdad on AMAZON

Character Profiles - Jamil

On this Martin Luther King Day, I want to share the fictional story of Jamil  Ramos. I have always been inspired by the words of MLK, even though he died before I was born. His message was one of hope that the injustices of men would one day be replaced by equality and freedom from fear. Dr. King had a dream of a better life for those who have been oppressed just because of the way they look or where they were born. His dream is the American dream, that anyone, no matter how poor or disadvantaged, can become whatever it is they want to be. And this is the theme of Crawdad. 

Jamil, as well as all the other characters in Crawdad, have challenges in their lives, but they each do the best they can to overcome those challenges. Jamil dreams of being a professional trumpet player despite having no money and very little family support. He doesn't let it stop him.

~Meet Jamil~

I spent most of my math class, staring at my trumpet, thinking about what Mr. T said. I sat next to the window so I always put my trumpet on the window sill. It had a few dents in the horn. Mama said it was probably from too many late nights playing in the juke joints of New Orleans. She bought it in a pawn shop there before I was born. A few of those dents were from me though.

I grew up playing with it all the time, like it was some kind of weapon till I figured out you could make sounds with it. I made all kinds of awful racket with it. Mama said it sounded like dying rooster. Sometimes it got so bad, she’d take it away, but eventually I got the hang of it.

Mama would play her old vinyl records of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis till the record player broke and we had to throw it out. I’d play with those records over and over till I could make my trumpet sound the same. Lots of times I’d play by myself till Mama got home from work. My trumpet kept me company like a friend. When I played, I wasn’t lonely by myself.

By the time I was old enough to start band at school, I was hooked. I was also way past the other kids my age. I wasn’t too good at sheet music, but I could usually play what I heard. I thought everybody learned that way till I joined band.

I wanted to play trumpet for real, professionally. I always had, but now I wanted something even more. I wanted to meet my dad, Leon Ramos in Charleston. I wanted to ask him a million questions, like what he did to make Mama hate him so much. Or why did he never come around? What had he been doing all these years? The more I thought, the more questions popped into my head the way dish soap bubbles grow bigger and bigger until they fill the whole sink and spill over the side. I was filling up with questions I had no answers for and they were pushing my music out of the way.

If I was going to play well at audition, I’d have to clear out all the cobwebs out of my mind, but how? The only way I could think of was to find him.

You can find out more about Jamil and read Crawdad on AMAZON

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Character Profiles ~ Angel

Of all the characters in Crawdad, there's nobody quite as damaged as Angel, but she's probably one of the toughest too. She's made some bad choices in her short life. Choices that have left her with nothing. She ran away from home on a whim, misled by someone she thought she could trust.  Can she ever go back?

~Meet Angel~

Mikey glared at me like he might hit me again, his eyes so dilated they were like huge black holes in his head. I got up and went to the kitchen before he could do it again. There was nothing inside him. He’d burned it out a long time ago and now he wanted to burn out my soul too.

     I hovered in the kitchen by the sink overflowing with smelly, putrid dishes because no one ever washed them. I stared out the back window at the yard filled with weeds as high as your waist and remembered the smell of fresh cut grass when my dad mowed the lawn back home. The buyer came banging on the front door. When Mikey opened the door, I slipped out the back unnoticed. I sprinted across the overgrown lawn, glad I’d put my flip flops on this morning. They weren’t great for running, but at least the rocks didn’t hurt as much as barefoot. Once I hit the alley, I was out from under the shady trees in the shabby yards.

The sunlight blinded me at first until my eyes adjusted. It had been awhile since I’d been outside much. I could feel the sun burning my pale skin, but it felt good to me, like it was burning away the crust of filth that had grown over me like moss on a sick tree. For the first time in a long time, I felt alive, maybe even happy. Maybe I could go home? I could finish school. I was still young enough to go. They had to let me in, right?

Mikey’s voice nagged my brain. You can’t do that. You’re too stupid. They don’t want you. It had become. a constant in my life. Sometimes I believed it, but I never wanted to think those things about myself. I knew I wasn’t stupid. It’s just I wasn’t sure about the other two.

I shoved Mikey’s voice out of my mind and tried to put some distance between me and his house. All I had in my pockets was a dead cell phone somebody left at the house after a night of partying and a watermelon Jolly Rancher. My tummy grumbled so I unwrapped the candy, stuck it in my mouth, and kept walking.

I got a few blocks before I saw a cop car, its lights flashing, stopped in the middle of the street. It wasn’t a busy neighborhood so it wasn’t blocking a whole bunch of traffic, but there were a few gawkers across the street. Part of me knew I should turn the corner and avoid the mess, but curiosity got the better of me, so I kept walking the way I was going. Pretty soon I could see two officers hassling this big black kid. Some cops think they gotta interrogate every person they talk to, but I couldn’t see how the kid was doing anything wrong. I supposed he could a robbed a gas station, but he didn’t act guilty. Suddenly, one of the cops went for his Taser gun.

You can find out more about Angel and Crawdad on AMAZON

Character Profiles ~ Aisha

In life and in fiction, we see what someone is made of when they're under pressure. In Crawdad, all the characters are stressed by something in their lives, usually events outside of their control.

In Aisha's case, she's got a strange insight into people she's learning to understand, but can barely control. Is it voodoo? Aisha doesn't know, but it scares her and the people around her. Who is she? Is she evil? Is she crazy? Is the power real or just her imagination? And when will it go away?

~Meet Aisha from Crawdad~

“Aisha?” I could hear my grandmother calling me from the porch where she’d been shelling peas in a big, red bowl. A vibration, so faint most folks wouldn’t have noticed, had lured me off the porch and out into the woods, wet and green, steaming like a rain forest. I glanced back over my shoulder where I should have seen grandma’s house through the trees. I saw only shrubs. I could still hear her yelling though.

“Aisha, you get back here or I’m a tan your hide!” she was screaming but it sounded like she was a million miles away. She used to scare the crap out of me, but she’d threatened me too many times in my young life. I didn’t believe her anymore. Besides, I had something in me I needed to understand. No one else around me understood, so I kept walking. I wanted to see Naomi.

My head buzzed with electricity. It was just a feeling I got sometimes when I knew stuff. Once, it started on Friday at school. I knew what the answers were on Mrs. Whitnack’s quiz cause she was thinking them. I knew Paul was gonna ask me out, so I hid in the bathroom until most everyone had got on the bus or left for home. I didn’t like that boy and he couldn’t seem to get it through his thick skull. Missing the bus meant walking a long way home, but it was worth it to avoid Mr. Grabby Hands. I took a short cut through the woods, like I was now, and I was overcome by the same feeling both times. Alive with a vibration like no other. Every leaf was sharper, every sound perfectly clear in my ears, like it was right beside me. Something was coming.

I thought I knew the way, but pretty soon there was a creek I didn’t recognize and the trail turned to little more than a pattern of pine needles and dead leaves.

“What you looking for?” I heard a voice say. I looked around me. I was sure there weren’t nobody there before, but now there was a woman, old and wrinkled as the bark of a gum tree, staring at me with eyes blacker than midnight in a rainstorm. She rattled me, but I tried not to let it show. That was the first time I ever met Naomi.

“Nothing. I’m just walking home,” I said.

“Dat’s not what your heart says,” she said in a little know-it-all voice.

“My heart?”

“’Bout to beat right outta your little chest, it’s so loud. I hear it searching.” I gave her my best “you must be crazy” look, which was easy ‘cause she looked kind of crazy. Her hair was covered by a tightly wrapped purple bandana and her eyes darted around like she kept hearing things in the forest I couldn’t hear. She wore a flowered house coat and slippers, like a patient who just wandered away from the old folks’ home.

“What are you?” I asked her.

“My name is Naomi Wentworth. I got a lotta names, but that’s my favorite.”

The name sounded a little familiar, but too normal to be the person I’d heard all the stories about.

“You ain’t Mama Copperhead, are you?” I blurted out.

I always thought Mama Copperhead was a story meant to keep us out of the woods or away from snakes, but his lady made me wonder if it was true. She laughed a raspy sound.

“Maybe…maybe.”

“Well, nice meeting you, Naomi, but I gotta go,” I said, moving my feet away from her.

“But you ain’t told me what your blessed heart is looking for yet,” she said almost pleading.

I paused. What did she expect me to say?

“I know you been misunderstood a time or two,” she offered as she pulled a loop of string out of her pocket and started lacing her fingers through it to make a cat’s cradle.

“That’s the truth,” I muttered.

“So maybe you’re looking for understanding?” I squinted at her, the momentary glare of the sun through the trees blinding me. A rare breeze cooled my face for a second.

“Ain’t everybody?”

“Maybe, but that ain’t exactly what I mean, honey child.”

I never really heard nobody use that expression before, except for in a joke. Naomi made it sound like the most natural thing in the world.

“I won’t hurt you, sweet pea,” she murmured. I felt the humidity dripping down between my shoulder blades now, itching.

“I know,” I said, a little too smart mouthy. I didn’t mean to be rude, but snapping at people had gotten to be a habit with me.

“Sometimes it’s ok to ask folks to help us, especially when we can’t see the path too clearly,” she said shuffling toward me.

“I heard you was some kinda witch,” I said, backing away a few steps.

“Maybe, maybe not. All in how you look at it, I suppose. They don’t call them witches in voodoo.”

You can find Crawdad on AMAZON

Crawdad Blog Tour

Happy New Year &Welcome to the Crawdad Book Blog Tour!

For the whole month of January, my new contemporary young adult novel Crawdad, will be featured on the blogs of some of my besties - authors and book bloggers who support the readers and writers of  diverseYA - and I couldn't be more pleased. I hope you can visit them all and enter the giveaway.  Here's the schedule:

Magic of the Muses - Eileen Schuh January 1
I Read too much! January 5
Rich in Variety January 8
Beth Fehlbaum Books January 15
CJ Burright January 22
Twinjas Book Reviews January 29

~About the Book~

Seventeen-year-old Jamil Ramos grew up on Alabama’s Gulf Coast believing his mom, Loretta, was his only living relative. She put a trumpet in his hands as a toddler and sparked his love of jazz. But when Loretta drops a bomb on Jamil from her deathbed- she’s not his mama and his daddy is still alive, living in Charleston, S.C. – his world is turned upside down.

Now, with the only mama he’s ever known gone and the Loyola University trumpet audition less than a week away, Jamil has trouble feeling his music. When his band teacher tells him to get it together, Jamil decides to hitchhike to South Carolina over to find his father and get his questions answered. All he has is a name –Leon Ramos.

Jamil relies on the kindness of the strangers he meets-a gay teen kicked out of his home, a runaway prostitute, and a street musician-as he makes his way across Florida and Georgia trying to avoid the cops along the way. But when Jamil is robbed of his most prized possession, his trumpet, his plans go anywhere but where he’d hoped. That trumpet was supposed to be his ticket for a scholarship, the only way to college his mama could give him. Lost and alone without it, Jamil wonders if finding his father is worth risking his future.

You can find Crawdad in print and e-book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads!

~About the Author~

Lisa T. Cresswell has been writing middle grade and young adult books for what seems like a mighty long time. She can never seem to make up her mind if she likes reality or fantasy, so she writes both. She also likes lemon jasmine green tea, dark chocolate almonds, and lots and lots of coffee. And of course, BOOKS. ALL THE BOOKS!! You can see all of her work at www.lisatcresswell.com 

~Enter the Giveaway~

Enter to win one of three copies of Crawdad to be given away in January!

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My next book cover reveal ~ Crawdad

I know I've been a little quiet this year, but I do have a surprise for you. I'm publishing a new novella titled Crawdad. It's a southern story, much like my first novel Hush Puppy, about a young man who goes on a cross country trek to find his dad after the woman he thought was his mom passes away.

The book is inspired a lot by what I've seen in the news over the last few years. Kids today are living in increasingly violent worlds, but many kids are not violent. They're just trying to do the best they can, you know? Full disclosure, I am a white woman of European descent, but I've always believed we are more alike than we are different and our stories are essentially the same. We are all born the same way, we grow up with hopes and dreams for our futures, and we all fall in love. We all experience pain and rejection at some point in our lives. If we're lucky, we experience great joy. As my character Recks says in my novel Vessel, "The outside doesn't matter. It's what's on the inside that counts." I truly believe that.

Crawdad is now available in print and e-book!

Book bloggers friends, if you'd like to host Crawdad during the book tour in December, sign up with 

Rich in Variety Book Tours as a host!

It's happening soon! Sign up for the cover reveal :)

I'm pretty excited about this new book of mine peeps! If you blog at all, sign up with Rich in Variety to reveal the cover on Nov. 30 or join the blog tour in December.

Crawdad is a multi-cultural, contemporary story set in the South. If  you loved Hush Puppy, I think you'll love this one too.

Here's a look at some the inspiration for Crawdad.

Sign up soon!

Just a little #SampleSunday from Crawdad~

My newest young adult novel is here! It's called Crawdad and it's a little hard to describe. It's a contemporary tale with a bit of magic. It's the story of Jamil, but it's also the story of Aisha, Angel, Desi, and Sebastian. Crawdad was inspired by my love of the diverse people and places across the South, by music, and by current, terrible events I see in the news.  I made an inspiration  Pinterest page for Crawdad if you want to see.

There's some difficult topics in the book that I haven't attempted to solve because it's not meant to be a preachy book and I obviously don't have all the answers. It's meant to be a hopeful book with an uplifting message while acknowledging some of the tough situations today's teens are up against. I hope you enjoy reading it. Here's a short sample from Jamil:




It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there and the mosquitoes buzzed around me pretty thick. The cicadas up high in the pines drowned out everything with their constant sawing screeching noise. I went right. I had to tell someone where I was headed. Missy wasn’t the hottest girl in our school, or even the smartest, but she was pretty darn close and she understood me. I had to hurry cause her mama was pretty strict about not letting me come over past seven on a school night.

I was on her doorstep in just a few minutes. The humidity was so high now just walking felt like going for a swim. I was glad when Missy’s mama let me into their air conditioned house.

“Is Missy here?” I asked, already knowing she was.

“She’s in her room. Why’d you bring all that stuff?” asked her mama, eyeballing my backpack.
“Um, I have a homework question I need to ask her,” I mumbled. It could happen, right? Like, would you turn in my homework while I’m gone?

 “Pfft! Homework?” It was plain she didn’t believe me.

 “Yeah.”

“OK, go on back, but keep that door open. And no trumpet! I’m watching my show.”

Some nights I’d play trumpet for Missy in her room, but I didn’t mean to tonight. I walked softly down the hall and peeked into her room. Missy was stretched out on her bed reading a book.

 “Hey,” I whispered from the doorway. She looked up from her book.

“Hey,” she said. “I missed you.”

I sat down on the bed next to her, leaving my stuff on the floor. She let go of her book and sat up to give me a hug. I’d hugged a ton of people at the funeral, but none of them affected me the way she did. I could smell the flowery soap she’s just shampooed her damp hair with. She was a warm, safe place to fall into and I held her tight.

 “You OK?” I heard her say before I let her go.

 “Yeah, I think so.”

 She pulled back and looked at me to make sure I was telling the truth.

 “Audition is next week,” I said.

Missy, more than anyone after my mama, knew what trumpet meant to me.

 “Will you be ready?” she asked.

 “Gonna try. There’s something I gotta do first, but I think I can be back in time.”

“Be back? Where are you going?”

I had to think a minute how to explain it. I hadn’t told anyone about my dad yet.

 “Before my mama died, she told me something,” I started off.

“What?”

 “You know how I always thought my daddy was dead?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Well, he’s not. He’s living in Charleston right now.”

 “You mean South Carolina?”

 “Yeah. And my mama ain’t my mama. She’s my aunt,” I added, shaking my head. I still couldn’t believe it.

 “Wow,” said Missy, thinking it over.

 “All this time my mama didn’t tell me ‘cause she didn’t want me to know.”

 “Maybe she had a good reason?”

 “Maybe, but I can’t think of any good ones. How could you keep that from somebody?”

 Missy didn’t say nothing. She just twisted her lips a little the way she always did when she was thinking about stuff.

 “It’s been driving me crazy ever since she told me. I can’t concentrate on nothing else, Missy. Not even trumpet,” I said.

 Missy stayed quiet. She wasn’t like one of those girls who would talk your ear off about nail polish and stupid stuff. Or one of those people who just loved the sound of their own voice or couldn’t stand it being quiet. I liked that about her. She really listened.

 “I’m gonna go find him,” I said, staring at my trumpet and the red and white strap she made in school colors for it.

 “What? Like on the Internet?” she asked.

 “No, in Charleston.”

 “You're going to Charleston? South Carolina?” She gave me that I-think-you-crazy look.

 “Yeah, I need to at least see him for myself,” I said.

 “But how? You don’ have a car.”

 “I’ll just hitch a ride with a trucker. Should only take a day or so to get there. I can make it back by audition.”

“Jamil, you should be practicing, not hitchhiking, especially not with some drugged up truck driver.” She was frowning now.

"It’ll be fine. I done it before. And I’ll practice on the trip,” I offered.

“Let’s try to find him on the Internet first. Lots of folks find missing family that way.”

“Something tells me he’s not on there, Missy. Besides, I need to see him in person, look him in the eye.”

“Why?” She truly didn’t understand and I didn’t know how to explain it to her.

“I just do.”

“Well then, wait until after audition. You don’t want to take the chance you’ll miss it,” she said.

“If I don’t do this now, I may as well not do to the audition. I’m not gonna be able to play any good until I get this taken care of. I know it. I just know it.”

“Now you’re just being hard headed,” said Missy, frowning.

“I guess I am, but I’m right on this. I know I am.”

Missy twisted her lips again.

“Then why’d you come here?” she asked.

“I wanted you to know where I’m going. I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“Oh, I’ll worry all right. You got any money?”

“No, but I packed some food. I’ll get by,” I told her.

“You can’t go all the way to Charleston without no money, “she said, getting up off the bed. She crossed the room to her desk an opened a drawer. She pulled out some cash and offered it to me.

“What? I can’t take that,” I said.

“You can pay me back later. It’s only seventy-two dollars.” I shook my head no, but she wasn’t listening. “You’ll starve. Take it,” she insisted, shoving the money into my hands. “Maybe you should take my cell phone too.”

“I won’t have no way to charge it.” She frowned again, knowing I was right.

“OK, but you have to find a way to call me every day and let me know you’re okay.”

“I will,” I said, smiling. She was giving her blessing, which I think was what I might have wanted all along.

“I’m sure I can find somebody to loan me a phone,” I said, standing to stuff the cash into the pocket of my jeans.

Missy grabbed me in another urgent hug.

“Just so you know, I’m not OK with this,” she said into my chest. She might have been crying, but then, I might have been too.

“It’ll be all right,” were the words that came out of my mouth automatically. Does anyone ever believe those words when they say them? Probably not. It’s almost like a gut reaction. You have to say them.

“Get home as fast as you can,” she said.

I nodded before she pulled me into a kiss so sweet and warm I forgot all about leaving for a minute. At a time like this, her mom would usually barge in and ask what was going on, but not this time. Somehow I managed to get my head back on straight and pick up my stuff.

“I’ll be back by the nineteenth,” I said.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

That was my last night in Theodore, Alabama for a while. I stepped out into the darkness and the heat and headed toward the highway.

Heart in a Box Book Tour~

Welcome to my stop on the Heart in a Box Tour!

Be sure to scroll down for the giveaway and read about 
 Catherine's  inspiration~

~About the Book~

Heart in a Box by Catherine Stine
Publication Date: December 20, 2015
Publisher: Inkspell Publishing


Each heartbeat leads Joss closer a shocking truth that will change everything.

Joss Olstad wins the fight to switch from her private school to a public high to “find her pieces” she lost when the Indian artist father she never knew died. There, Joss struggles with a slutty friend, who flirts with her new love; Indian Culture Club girls who press her on her past, as well as her stoner mother’s lies back at home. Armed only with her handmade heart boxes that hold private messages, Joss’s search for identity leads her to a scary industrial section of Queens, and a shocking family secret that changes everything.

Goodreads

BAM | IndieBound | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | TBD | iBooks

~About the Author~ 

Catherine Stine writes YA and romance. Her novels span the range from futuristic to supernatural to contemporary. Her YA sci-fi thrillers Fireseed One and Ruby’s Fire are Amazon bestsellers and indie award winners. Her YA, Dorianna won Best Horror Book in the Kindle Hub Awards. She also writes romance as Kitsy Clare. Her Art of Love series includes Model Position and Private Internship. She suspects her love of dark fantasy came from her father reading Edgar Allen Poe to her as a child, and her love of contemporary fiction comes from being a jubilant realist. Visit her at catherinestine.com and subscribe to her newsletter for news of releases, workshops and appearances.

Catherine’s website: http://catherinestine.com/wp/

Subscribe to Catherine’s newsletter: http://catherinestine.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1fe566b1e53f7d3e95b7443e4&id=93554d599e

Blog: http://catherinestine.blogspot.com/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kitsy84557/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1018139.Catherine_Stine

Catherine’s Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Catherine-Stine/e/B001H9TXJC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1439242205&sr=8-2-ent

Catherine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorcatherinestine?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/crossoverwriter

~Enter the Giveaway~

The prize pack includes:

A $40 gift card, 2 hand-painted heart-boxes with secret treasure inside, a signed paperback of Dorianna by Catherine Stine, a signed paperback of Heart in a Box by Catherine Stine, a great YA ebook pack of novels: Tiger Lily by Wende Dikec, When Sorrows Come by Katie M John, and Time Runs Away with Her by Christine Potter.

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~Author Guest Post~

Greetings, Lisa and dear readers,

My new YA romance Heart in a Box is very close to my own heart. The main character Joss is different from me in some ways yet very much like me in other ways, so it was both a challenge and fun to create her. She is brave yet vulnerable, outspoken yet shy, artistic and a true romantic. And she never hesitates to expose secrets and lies. It is this spirit that leads her to unearthing a longstanding family secret.

People ask what my inspiration was in coming up with the plot. It was a combination of things. I lived in New York City’s East Village for a while and there are a bunch of import-export shops there that also sell bongs and paraphernalia. I started to wonder what it would be like to have a hippie-come-lately mother who smoked a lot of weed and owned this type of store. And then I kept asking “what if” questions. What if the mom also had a side to her that was very overprotective and so the daughter, Joss had to sneak around? And what if Joss had a biracial boyfriend, Will, who the mom was leery of? This would lead to a series of mom-daughter landmines they’d have to figure out ways to navigate through.

One of my favorite themes is the sweet romance between Joss and Will. I also love the theme that art has an inherent power to heal. Joss deals with her anxiety and upset through making heart-boxes, which her artist dad made. She never knew him, but this act of creating the boxes helps her feel close to him. She writes little messages in them. Here’s my favorite one:

Lost, frightened and struggling.

You find a celestial map on an invisible highway.

It will lead you back to your truest self.

Making the heart-boxes and writing the messages is also how Joss inches toward finding out a huge family secret, which of course, I won’t reveal here. LOL. So, the other part I relate to is in being an artist. I sold my paintings in galleries for years, and I still do illustrations. In fact, the tour prize giveaway includes my hand-painted heart-boxes!

Lisa, thanks for letting me guest host for the heart in the Box tour. I love hearing from readers, so if you do read the book, I’d love to hear your take on it.

Hugs and Happy New Year, Catherine

Hush Puppy Anniversary~

Today is the 2nd anniversary of Hush Puppy's release back in 2013.

It's been a great experience for me. Hush Puppy will always be one of my favorites, no matter how many books I write. I hope my readers enjoyed it too.

~Praise for Hush Puppy~

"Set in a small town in North Carolina, Hush Puppy is a wonder of a book. Lisa T. Cresswell's writing is simple and clean and clearly evokes the emotional expectations of teenage romance and the tense nature of high school. Encompassing a wide array of thematic concepts, Hush Puppy provides ample fodder for discussion and would be perfect food for thought for parents and teenagers."

—Luisa LaFleur, The Children's Book Review

"So it's not every day I get the chance to read books that feature black female protagonists that embody an honest and true character in YA. Most likely the writer over exaggerates how black teenage girls act, often resulting to finger snapping, head bobbing and poor choice of language. Now I'm not saying a lot of black girls DON'T act this way; I for one can't end my day without bobbing my head when my boyfriend annoys me but that is often just one black experience, there are sooooo many different experiences from the life of a black teenager, but for some reason people always go with the generic. Luckily, the author of this book chose to explore the life of a bookish girl from the rural South, who was more like me than she wasn't. I'm so glad I read this book! I started it yesterday and finished it in the same night!!! I wish there were more books offering different experiences from characters of color, (not even just black) because this by far was one the best books I read this year!"

—Libertad Araceli, Twinja Book Reviews

"References to The Bard abound in Hush Puppy, from Jamie's nickname, to the scenes set in their high school English class, in which Corrine and Jamie are both asked to read lines from Romeo and Juliet. Cresswell is strategic in assigning her characters roles from the play which nicely underscore their predicament; at one point Corrine must play Juliet opposite the white star of the high school football team, with whom she's never seen eye to eye; and he is a mismatched Romeo indeed. What follows is one of the book's most tender moments, in which Jamie publicly confesses his love for her, thinly veiled as literary analysis. 'Juliet is wishing Romeo wasn't a Montague,' he says, 'and Romeo is telling her he'll be anything she wants.'
This leads, ultimately, to the book's major dramatic question: Can love flourish between two teens, one black and one white, in a place like High Rock? Or will their circumstances send Corrine and Jamie the way of Romeo and Juliet? While the answers to their predicament may strike older readers as tidy, this does not detract from the pleasures of the narrative. In Hush Puppy, Cresswell has created an endearing female protagonist whose plight softly echoes that of Juliet's in a briskly-paced drama with plenty of heart."

—Ana Reyes, Southern Literary Review

Hush Puppy can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Book Depository.