February Comes to a Close…
And I could not be happier about impending spring! It’s still too cold up here to do much but troll the weather channel for the days the high is above freezing, but I do believe in my last post I really tried not to scare away my younger readers who are here for author fun and not Old Mom fun. I bet flower and veggie seeds and weather channel temps make me old so I’ll stop now. Especially since I have a delicious YA book lined up for today’s post.
Wink, Poppy, Midnight, April Genevieve Tucholke
A classic YA love triangle, complete with twists and turns that freshen up the narrative. Midnight has always been pretty much emotionally enslaved toward the classically beautiful and cruel, cookie cutter high school prom queen Poppy, but when he moves next door to the mysterious and childlike Wink, everything changes. Poppy doesn’t like one of her subjects slipping away from her, and innocent seeming Wink, with her love of whimsy and fairytales, is an unlikely but formidable foe. Midnight of course as a teen boy is trying to figure out who he is, and cope with his mother and favored older brother moving to Paris for a time, and he gets caught between these young women. A series of events unfolds between them that turns quickly from what you expect and keeps you guessing. It’s so twisty I don’t want to ruin any surprises because that’s a key part to this story...what is real, what is story, and how each girl struggles with her own fate. Told from three perspectives for added interest in the story.
I don’t know why I started this book and then left it hanging a few pages in quite awhile ago. It isn’t even that long, and I wish I had stuck with it back then, because once I decided to finish it, it flowed right along, no contest. Poppy, the classic high school queen, is of course unlikable but it’s a trope that works and it’s relatable how Midnight, the boy in the middle, grows past attraction to a person that is only appealing on the outside. I like how her character is used to show Midnight’s growing up and attraction to a girl who is different in her own way. Of course Wink has her closely guarded secrets and inner life, too, like Poppy does. Wink has all that fairy magic of a big unruly farm family led by an unconventional Mom who dips her toes in psychic gifts and the unseen. Everyone finds their way somehow in the end, which I think is important to teen readers, as the gap between being a teenager with everything so uncertain and adulthood with things worked out seem so far apart. The story itself kept me guessing and I loved that, I loved how it was a familiar story made new. We all like familiar stories but we like to wonder how it will resolve this time, and what’s real, and what isn’t. This is a highly recommended, well done story. And the cover? Yes. All the magic.
As far as the new book is concerned, the copyedits are finished and I am meeting with my editor to review what she has done with it and my final round of edits before proofreading happens, along with covers and graphics. It’s coming, just very slowly!
Likes and Shares always appreciated :)
