Kimberly Pauley

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

So I recently received a review copy of Stolen by Lucy Christopher. It’s her debut novel that Booklist calls “…a complex psychological study that is also a tribute to the hypnotic beauty of the outback…” Darn them. I was totally going to say that.

In all seriousness, this first novel is a lyrical and stunning work with a quiet intensity that builds throughout the novel until you are left at the end wondering where your day went. It’s the story of Gemma, a 16-year-old British teenager who lives in London, who is kidnapped while on holiday with her parents.

But this isn’t a normal abduction and her captor, Ty, is no normal kidnapper. He spirits her away to the remote reaches of the Australian outback, far away from everything and everyone Gemma has ever known. Unlike many of the other abduction stories out there (including Meg Tilly’s Gemma), there is no sexual or physical abuse. What there is, for Gemma, is always the tension and the wondering — is he going to harm her? Can she trust him? What does he want? Why did he take her?

The answer to that last question takes up much of the book. Gemma was not a random victim. If Ty was going to take anyone, it was her.

All of this is set against the dry, dusty backdrop of the wilds of Australia. A place so foreign to Gemma that it might as well be Mars. Ty sees beauty in the land and we (the reader) and Gemma eventually do as well, but it’s a beauty with danger always lurking beneath the surface.

I liked this one quite a bit. It’s told in Gemma’s voice as a letter to her captor, Ty. She’s both strong and weak; in other words: realistic. She reacts to her situation in ways that I think many of us would react. The book explores her captivity and what it does to her, as well as the influences of Stockholm syndrome (where you come to identify and even look up to or love your captor). And it is, above all, a love letter to the wilds of Australia.

The publication date on this one is May 2010 for the US; it looks to have come out elsewhere in May 2009. Check it out. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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Congrats to Myra! (And Egmont)

I’m sooooo happy to announce today (as the cat is out of the bag, so to speak) that my good friend and writing buddy Myra McEntire just got a 2 book deal for her YA novel with Egmont USA. You guys? Are totally going to love it. I mean it. Emerson (Myra’s main character) is a girl that Mina would love to hang with. And she’s short like Serena. And she kicks butt.

So go check her out…the book won’t be out until 2011 (I know, I know, I keep telling you, publishing is a slow business), but you can get to know her now. ‘Cause she’s fun (seriously — check out her blog posts about Edward on a Stick. Yes, that Edward.).

Tags: myra mcentire
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In Remembrance

It’s hard for me to believe that it has been 8 years since 9/11. Like most everyone else that day, I will always remember where I was and how I felt (for the record, I was working at home and after hearing some rumblings over IM from colleagues at work, I turned on the TV around the time the second plane hit. How I felt is harder to describe.).

 Eight years. What’s really amazing about that to me is that the teens that I write for today were only 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 back then. What do I remember from when I was that age? Honestly, not much. Just hazy memories. World events had a way of just passing right through my life back then.

Is it important for today’s teens to understand what 9/11 means to so many people? I think so. It was a cataclysmic event that touched people around the world.  My husband and I traveled to Italy in September a year after 9/11 and everywhere we went, the Italians took time to remember with us when they found out we were American; 9/11 truly affected people around the world. It is part of our collective consciousness now.

David Levithan, an author who is also a New Yorker, has written a book called Love is the Higher Law. It’s about three different teens and what happens to them on that day, in the city that they all love. It’s also about what happens to them immediately afterward as their lives, formerly separate, become entwined. And about how they deal with things long term.

It’s a great book and you should read it. Not just to get a feeling for how 9/11 felt to a teenager that was there, but also because it’s a good story with real, believable characters (as per usual in David’s books).

Tags: david levithan, love is the higher law
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