Category: Giveaways

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Steven in Brooklyn, NY! ***

Move to the big city. Take weird risks. Fuck up. That, in short, is the plot of a lot of my favorite novels — the latest among the Hermione Hoby’s debut novel, Neon In Daylight.

This is a New York coming of age story in the age of Facebook, where you can “friend” anyone you happen to run across — and online stalk their whereabouts aimlessly. Because what else are you going to do if you’re new to the Big Apple and know pretty much no one? Why not obsess about a random teen who bums a smoke off of you on the street, a handsome semi-celeb you meet at an art gallery, a friend of a friend you know from back home but don’t actually want to hang out with —

The novel follows Kate, a slightly lost twenty-something British girl who moves to NYC for no real purpose, killing time while getting some space from her uptight upper-crust boyfriend back home. She meets a teenager who seems  older and wiser and more worldly — who introduces Kate to drugs and party people and really expensive six-inch designer heels. She then meets a hot, jaded, older famous writer who seems immature in many ways — who introduces Kate to rarebit and literary readings that actually draw a crowd and biodynamic wine.

Trouble ensues because, you know, the older famous writer is the precocious teen’s dad.

And there are more complications in the novel:  Strange Craigslist gigs offered by creepy rich people. A wild Halloween party thrown by a dying man. Period sex.

And there are lines like these:

It’s never love, as soon as you feel the next love. Because isn’t that a prerequisite of the condition? That you tell yourself everything that came before wasn’t really it.

It makes you wonder if you’ve ever been in love, or if you might be wildly in love now —

I think you might fall in love with this coming-of-age story. I’m giving away  a copy of  Neon in Daylight to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, naming your favorite coming-of-age story. The giveaway closes March 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back mid-month to read an interview with Hermione Hoby.

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Kris in Glendale, Calif.! ***

What I love most about Patty Yumi Cottrell’s writing: the sudden moments of humor within the bleakest of moods:

A little self-knowledge can be a very productive thing, I said to no one. I am a very productive person, I said as I opened the windows of my shared studio apartment. I shouted things to the passersby on the crummy sidewalks below. I can be a very helpful person! I screamed. A woman pushing a double-wide stroller looked up at me with concern. At your service, bitches! I shouted.

This is what 32-year-old Helen Moran, the protagonist of Patty’s debut novel, does soon after getting a call about her brother’s death. It’s a painful, wrenching scene — disrupted by a wry hilarity that makes you want to laugh-cry.

Sorry to Disrupt the Peace is full of these riveting moments as it follows Helen, who goes to her estranged adoptive parents’ home in Milwaukee after her adoptive brother’s sudden suicide. The book is depressing and painful and moving and ridiculously funny — with a flat tone that somehow manages to feel both unreachably distant and too close to home.

Patty in real life is hilarious too. I met her last year at a reading at Skylight Books, a few months before both our debut books came out, when Patty was still living in L.A. Now she’s moved back to New York, despite all the nice and funny things she said about L.A. in her interview with Los Angeles Review of Books:

I have to say, New York City was for me a terrible place to write a novel…. There are such limited resources and you’re in such close proximity with others, you’re always highly aware of all of the things other people have, the things you want and lack. For example, in Brooklyn none of my friends had a dishwasher….

Living in Los Angeles, a lot of people have dishwashers. It’s not a special thing. I don’t mean to make Los Angeles sound like some kind of Communist utopia. What I’m trying to say is that you’re not as aware of what other people are doing or what they have. It feels like things are more spread out. You can get space away from people who call themselves writers if you want. You don’t have to interact with them if you don’t want to. In this way, I feel more freedom in Los Angeles and that obviously affects what I’m writing and how and when I write.

Patty — I hope the writing’s going well though you’ve moved away!

Get a taste of Patty’s work by reading the excerpts of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace in Vice and Buzzfeed. Then get your copy — or try your luck in this month’s giveaway! I’m giving away  a copy of Patty’s book to one of my readers. All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, specifying whether or not you have a dishwasher. The giveaway closes January 31, 2018 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back mid-month to read an interview with Patty.

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Melanie in La Mesa, Calif.! ***

When I think of the ’90s, I think Nirvana, Beverly Hills 90210, and long stretches of childhood boredom. But Chiara Barzini’s debut novel reminded me that the ’90s was actually a rather violent and volatile time in Los Angeles, what with the L.A. Riots, the Northridge Earthquake, and of course, the O.J. Simpson Trial.

Which is to say — reading Chiara’s debut novel, Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, was a fascinating experience for me, at once a trip down memory lane and a thrilling journey down the road not taken. I remembered and recognized so much in the events she describes — but saw them this time through completely new eyes, those of a wild, sensitive, and sharp girl trying to make sense of a foreign world.

The novel tells the story of Eugenia, an Italian teenager who moves from her home in Rome to Los Angeles with her family so her filmmaker parents can chase their Hollywood dreams. The family readies for a glamorous life among movie stars — only to land in LAX while the city’s still literally smoldering from the riot fires. They end up living in a house in Van Nuys, far far away from the rich and beautiful.

From the start, the family doesn’t quite fit in, their cultural clashes often hilarious. On a Malibu beach, Eugenia’s old grandmother gets yelled at through the police helicopter’s loudspeaker then receives a citation — for topless sunbathing. On the first day of school, Eugenia gets sent to detention — after wandering the halls unable to find the bathroom or her class.

Yet Eugenia’s got a lot of moxie, forming odd friendships with strange characters — her father’s death-obsessed writing partner, a Persian classmate who likes her but won’t acknowledge her in front of his friends, an ear-less dude who works at his mother’s shop of movie curios. Her parents preoccupied with their own dreams, Eugenia has the freedom to basically do whatever she wants — whether that’s sneak out of school to hook up with a secret boyfriend or walk down long, empty stretches of Sepulveda Boulevard or hike through Topanga Canyon on hallucinogens. Her adventurous scrapes are thrilling, but often frightening and dangerous too — and her loneliness is palpable.

I loved this Los Angeles coming of age story and think you will too. I’m giving away  a copy of  Things That Happened Before the Earthquake to one of my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win the copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below, naming your favorite street in L.A.. The giveaway closes December 31, 2017 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back mid-month to read an interview with Chiara Barzini.

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Shawn in Red Wing, Minn.! ***

Political drama. False identities. Forbidden romance. David Rocklin’s new novel, The Night Language, contains all of these, but is at its heart a quiet — and unexpected — love story. After all, there aren’t too many novels starring black men in the court of Queen Victoria — let alone two black men who fall in love.

The Night Language brings together Prince Alamayou of Abyssinia (Ethiopia today) with his ad hoc guardian, Philip Layard. Plucked from his home and brought to England, Alamayou slowly learns to communicate with Philip’s help — with whom he slowly falls in love. Yet from the beginning, the two men are under constant threat in the racist, homophobic society they’re immersed in.

The couple’s allies — who include the royal family — do their best to protect them. Princess Louise, for example, warns them to watch what they say: “It’s a different language, the words that come quietly at night. Don’t mistake what we’ve talked about for something we can talk about in daylight.”

Yet despite the support of the royal family, Alamayou is eventually sentenced to be sent back to Abyssinia — where he’s likely to be killed. The novel follows the men as they struggle to survive through the plot’s surprising twists and turns.

Although Prince Alamayou is a real historical figure, David’s novel is an alternate history, imagining a longer and more romantic story of the prince’s life (the real Alamayou died of pleurisy while still in his teens) that allows for a nuanced examination of repressive societies of that time and the curtailed possibilities suffered by those not in the majority. As Philip says of himself and his friends at the local circus, “We’re all freaks, they and I. We’re not prepared for the life we lead, but we’re certainly not prepared to hope for more and fail.”

The Night Language will be published by L.A.-based indie press Rare Bird Books on Nov. 14. I’m excited to be partnering with Rare Bird to give away  a copy of  The Night Language to my readers! All current email subscribers will be automatically entered to win one copy. Subscribe now if you’re not yet getting my occasional newsletters.

For a second chance to win, comment on this post below with your favorite language. The giveaway closes November 30, 2017 at 11:59 pm PST. US addresses only.

Come back mid-month to read an interview with David Rocklin.