WIP, YA and Libba Bray

So I've been working on my latest WIP, trying to find humor and fun,
and I think I've done that, but I still don't have the character's
voice down yet. The plot is fine, and the laughs are there, but not in
HER voice. I still hear me, and that won't work. I need to find her.
She's a little Daria but a little more Willow from season 1 Buffy. At
least that's how I see her when I close my eyes.
I haven't picked
up the latest in the Twilight series, but I did spend the weekend
reading Stephenie Myers interviews. DANG is she amazing. Melissa Marr
won the YA Rita for Wicked Lovely. It's a well deserved award. Until
recently Marr was my 8th grade niece's current favorite. Wicked Lovely
was unseated recently by Libba Bray. I'm hearing young girls everywhere
talking about Bray's Gemma Doyle series. DD actually read the first, A
Great and Terrible Beauty, when it came out. The library featured it
that summer. Then DD went to high school and forgot about the book
until recently. This summer, she caught up, and she's LOVED it. When I
go back to school, I hope to bring the series with me. I might have to
keep it on my desk instead of in the bookshelf. From what I've heard so
far, I think it will be in high demand.


A Great and Terrible Beauty:
It’s
1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is
shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper
boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions
of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s
reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been
followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But
why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s
most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

Rebel Angels
Gemma
Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy—spending time
with her friends in the city, attending balls in fancy gowns with
plunging necklines, and dallying with the handsome Lord Denby. Yet amid
these distractions, her visions intensify—visions of three girls
dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened that only the
realms can explain.
The lure is strong, and soon Gemma, Felicity,
and Ann are turning flowers into butterflies in the enchanted world
that Gemma takes them to. To the girls' great joy, their beloved Pippa
is there as well, eager to complete their circle of friendship.
But
all is not well in the realms—or out. Kartik is back, desperately
insisting to Gemma that she must bind the magic, lest colossal disaster
befall her. Gemma is willing to comply, for this would bring her
face-to-face with her late mother's greatest friend, now Gemma's
foe—Circe. Until Circe is destroyed, Gemma cannot live out her destiny.
But finding Circe proves a most perilous task. . . .
This sumptuous companion to

A
Great and Terrible Beauty teems with Victorian thrills and chills that
play out against the rich backdrop of 1895 London, a place of shadows
and light . . . where inside great beauty can lie a rebel angel.

The Sweet Far Thing
It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum
addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered
an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the Realms, where
dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic
to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches
her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds.
The
Order—the mysterious group her mother was once part of—is grappling for
control of the Realms, as is the Rakshana. Spence's burned East Wing is
being rebuilt, but why now? Gemma and her friends see Pippa,
but she is not the same. And their friendship faces its gravest trial
as Gemma must decide once and for all what role she is meant for.