COVER REVEAL!

How about a cover reveal and interview to start the week off?

Vicki Grove's Everything Breaks will be released in the fall but you get to learn a little bit about it -- and possible WIN a galley copy -- now!!

Putnam Juvenile

October 3, 2013

240 pages

add to Goodreads

Tucker was supposed to be the designated driver. But there was something about the beauty of that last true summer night, that made him want to feel out-of-control just once. He drank so much and so quickly that he was instantly sick. That left Trey to drive. "I'll catch up to you later," were the last words Tucker would ever say to his friends as he heaved by the side of the road. It was the last time Tucker would ever see them alive.

Tucker’s grief and guilt are just about unbearable and he wonders how he can continue living himself. When he meets the Ferryman who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers that divide the world of the living from the world of the dead, Tucker gets a chance to decide: live or die. The temptation to join his three best friends on the other side may be too much for Tucker to overcome. A gripping, haunting and emotional read.


the interview, with giveaway following are just below so keep reading!



Book Sp(l)ot Reviews: How did the beginning/plot of Everything Breaks come about? Did any real life events play a part?

Vicki Grove

Vicki Grove: Hi, again, [Book Sp(l)ot]. I hope you're having a great week-end, enjoying this spring weather. My dog Imogene is campaigning for a long walk in the woods, so pretty soon I guess I'll take her on a ramble down by the creek. You asked how Everything Breaks came about and if real life events were involved in my thinking, and yes, you guessed right. I went back in my mind to a horrific car wreck that happened when I myself was a junior in high school. [It was t]hree boys, some drinking, a high bluff road, a switchback curve that they either didn't see or couldn't slow down for in time.

 It's odd how memory works, how it consolidates events into mental images. I think of their red car in the air, looking somewhat like a flying fish before its quick descent to the rocky sand below. I've carried that image in my mental gallery for a long time and I think the death of my own parents a couple of years ago brought it to life. I've been grieving, of course, and wondering what remains after death in the hearts and minds of those left behind.

Adding imagination to memory, I put a fourth boy in that doomed car, a boy who by chance survives. Tucker is a mess in all ways, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and he doesn't know it but that's put him into scary territory, for it draws a strange hitchhiker into his car. It turns out to be the Ferryman to the Underworld, who's shown up to force him to use some brutal honesty with himself, to pull himself together before he, too, becomes a passenger across the dark river that separates the land of the living from that of the dead.

BSR: I have to admit that i wondered if any real life events were a part of Everything Breaks some similar crashes to the one Vicki talked about happened in my town just before I moved here. I, of course, didn't know any of those involved, but it was still a big deal when we got here.


BSR: Does your personal setting effect the setting of your novels?

VG: I went through junior high and high school in Oklahoma after a childhood spent on a farm in Illinois. Since college, I've lived here in the Missouri Ozarks. All my books have been set in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Missouri, except for one set in Medieval England. I know the Midwest pretty well and do use it for my settings.

 I use the people here for my characterizations, too, though, in my opinion, folks are probably pretty much alike no matter where they live. We all want the same things, I mean, and that's what I basically like to figure out when I write. What my characters really want and need.

 Everything Breaks is my first truly supernatural book, though I've used supernatural touches in a couple of others. The Ferryman takes Tucker up the Oregon Trail in this book, from the trail's start near Kansas City, Missouri, to one of its points of no return in Nebraska. But it's a Twilight Zone of a trail in the book, always wobbling between the past and the present. The Ferryman has the power to do that kind of stuff. I don't know if this is making sense. It's a spooky and strange book, but I have to say, I like it. I think it's maybe my favorite of the nine or ten books I've written. It made me cry as I wrote it.


BSR: Your book comes out later in 2013, is there a YA novel out later this year, *you're* excited for?

VG: You asked if I have a favorite from among recent YA books, and now I'll have to confess that I don't let myself read YA's when I'm involved in the final phases of writing one. I think lots of writers are like that. It's a self-confidence thing with me. There are so many wonderful reads out there, and you can't let yourself get intimidated by what other people are doing. I know, weird, huh? But like I said, lots of us feel that way, I think. While I've finished this book I've been reading poetry, and a biography of Chopin (because I just started taking piano lessons!) Now that I'm done, I'll jump back in and read fiction, especially YA's, voraciously!


BSR: For everyone not lucky enough to win a galley, while we wait on the release of Everything Breaks, is there one of your previous releases you suggest we start with?

VG: You're so nice to ask for a reading recommendation from among my books, and I think you might like Rhiannon, which is a YA murder mystery set in England in the early 12th century.


BSR: If your novel's character Tucker had a best friend from another, recently released novel, who would it be?

VG: Since I haven't read in my field for a little while, could I pick Frederick Chopin? :) He made his musical debut in Paris when he was nineteen and was an instant sensation, quite a contrast with Tucker, who's just hoping to get his feet back on solid ground. But they are both conscientious, both in pain, both people I would love to know.

Thanks so much, for inviting me into your blog and letting me ramble. Keep fighting the good fight!

BSR:  Love the idea of Chopin and Tucker, Vicki.

Thank you for the answers -- it was a lot of fun finding out about where Everything Breaks came from and how/what you write, as well. Thanks for your time.



There's not an excerpt yet, but here's a little teaser to whet your appetite:

There was a lot more that I wanted to tell her, like that everything in this beautiful treasure house of a world breaks, and sometimes things break so bad, all you can do is hope to get your heart to stop bleeding long enough for you to sift through the ashes so you can try to gain some slight understanding. But some things that break real bad can be mended if you’re lucky enough to have someone on your side with a ton of glue who won’t give up.

Anxious to read it yet?
Well then, enter away:

a Rafflecopter giveaway




thank you to Stacey at Putnam and Vicki Grove for making this possible