Hello and welcome to my stop on the HEART IN A BOX tour by Cahterine Stine, hosted by Chapter by Chapter!
I have a guest post for you today about the inspiration behind the book, which gives you some good insight into the novel! Keep scrolling to enter a fantabulous giveaway at the bottom of the post. Without further ado, let's learn more about the book...
HEART IN A BOX
Author: Catherine StinePublisher: Inkspell Publishing
Publication Date: December 20, 2015
Summary:
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.
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I’m Catherine Stine, and I’ve written lots of young adult novels. I’m thrilled to be guest hosting at Books and Ladders as part of my Heart in a Box book tour. Readers often like to know what inspired me to write my novels, so I’ll tell you what gave me the idea to write Heart in a Box.
It was a combination of things. Early on, I did a writing prompt, which involved describing a black lacquered box with little roses on it. I got really involved in the fantasy of it being painted by a father as a gift to his daughter who he never knew. Who knows why, because I knew my own dad! Another part of the inspiration was that I lived in New York City’s East Village for a while and there were a bunch of import-export shops there that sold 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, who the mom was leery of? This would lead to a series of mom-daughter landmines they would have to figure out ways to navigate through. And of course, I wanted to write a super-sweet romance between Joss and Will.
In the novel, Joss deals with her anxiety and upset through making heart-boxes, which her artist dad made. This act of creating the boxes helps her feel close to him even though she never met him. It is also how she 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!
If you do read Heart in a Box, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.
Thanks, Catherine
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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.
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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.
Thanks, Jamie, great blog!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Catherine! It's an amazing book.
ReplyDelete