I'm an aspiring author of YA fiction who checks her email far too much, and drinks copious amounts of coffee.
By day I'm an office worker and a mom to one Super Spawn, and by night I'm having the time of my life creating stories I can't wait to share with you.
You can contact me at Holly(at)hddodson(dot)com.
Oh Em Gee, pitch wars is ON!
I’m kind-of full of SQUEE this morning because I forgot! And then Erinn reminded me! And EEP!
If you’re at all interested in seeing the pitch and first 250 of my novel THE RIDDLE OF LEGEND, which my super fantastical mentor Danielle Ellison worked on with me, jump right over to Brenda Drake’s blog and see!
My lovely friends Erinn, Megan, and Ghenet are also up for the war today, so look for them too! Good luck to you all!! <3<3
manuscript, OMG AMAZING, pitching, revisions, Writing | 
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Okay, so I wasn’t going to do a book rec this week. You know, change and all. But GUYS I READ THE MOST AWESOME BOOK AND I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT!!
Ehm. Sorry about that. 
I finished it at about two this morning, so I’m a little over the edge today. lol
Blurb on Goodreads: “It’s always been just Kate and her mom—and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate’s going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won’t live past the fall.
Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld—and if she accepts his bargain, he’ll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.
Kate is sure he’s crazy—until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she’ll become Henry’s future bride, and a goddess.”
IT WAS SO GOOD!!!
I wasn’t sure about the book when I started it, but it didn’t take long to fall in love with the story. Kate is a great main character, and for most of the story I was right on the same page as her. Sometimes I did want to smack her, but it wasn’t for any bad reason. Just because I could see what was going on and she couldn’t. 
And Henry is The Most Awesome EVER. OMG I HEART HENRY.
At first he’s kinda scary, but guys! *swoon* Let me tell ya, Carter has got the whole romantic tension bit in the bag.
You definitely want to pick this one up.
Blurb from Goodreads: “Now is not the time for Carmen to fall in love. Two weeks before the most important violin competition of her career, she has bigger things to worry about—like growing out of that suffocating “child prodigy” label, and not disappointing her mother. But it isn’t just the wrong time. It’s the wrong guy. Jeremy is Carmen’s most talented rival, and according to her mother, he’s only interested in one thing: winning. He isn’t the only one. Carmen is so desperate to win she takes anti-anxiety drugs to control performance nerves. But what started a year ago as an easy fix is now a hungry addiction. Her mother insists now is not the time to quit, but Carmen is sick of not feeling anything on stage and even more sick of doing what she’s told. When the darker side of the classical music industry and her mother’s ambition collide, Carmen must choose between her career and her love for music.”
First, take a moment and stare in wonder at that magnificent cover. It’s just so PRETTY!
Guys. Oh, guys. Seriously…I am without words.
This book is so moving, so full of emotion and hope and love and life, that it absolutely sings on the page. It was 100% unputdownable. I kept sneaking peeks at it while I was at work. I devoured it in the evenings, on my lunch break, any spare moment I could find.
It not only stole my breath, it stole my heart. I can’t stop thinking about it, about Carmen, about how brave she was, and how noble.
Funny side note — I always wanted to play violin. I played guitar, but it never felt right. I begged my parents, pleaded with them, to let me take violin lessons. They couldn’t afford to buy me a violin though, not to mention the fact that there was probably nobody anywhere near us that could give me lessons. But it was a dream. This book brought the dream back, and I may just put playing violin on my bucket list now.
I can’t tell you enough how simply amazing this book is. You’re just going to have to read it when it comes out in October. And don’t worry, I’ll remind you about it.
A humongous thank you to Simon and Schuster for the egalley.
Blurb from Goodreads: “Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows.
After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues – and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.”
Oh. Em. Gee.
John Green is a master. The way he writes is so — so — I don’t even have words to explain it. That’s how good he is. I am a total fangirl. I loved him after reading Looking for Alaska, but now… oh, goodness. We’ve reached dangerous levels of fangirldom.
First of all, Q’s character is so fresh. He’s not a guy dying to fit in with the popular crowd, he’s not concerned with looking the way everyone “expects” him to. He’s just a teenager content with being who he is for the most part — which is OMG awesome.
When Margo disappears, Q has to find her. She left him clues, but they’re more riddles than anything helpful. So you go on this huge journey with Q that is so much more than a mystery. It’s a journey of self realization.
Okay, I could talk about this book all day. But if I did that, I’d wind up spoiling the ending for you, and I don’t want to do that because it’s beautiful. And the journey to get there is beautiful.
And the whole book is just BEAUTIFUL. For the love of all things written, please go read this book.
