August Author in the Spotlight

August Author in the Spotlight

Happy first day of August everyone.  I hope you are having a great summer.  Mine has been busy and full of really mountains and valleys, highs and lows. Some of my high points include my son earning his Eagle rank in Boy Scouts, traveling to Spain and Morocco, doing a week of service work in Montana on the Northern Cheyenne Indian reservation, reading 7 books so far this summer and of course writing.  Lows include, my car dying a painful death and still owing a car payment on it. Having to buy a newer vehicle when I didn't want to, and then my garage door motor burned out and we had to get a new one.  So yes, it is been an expensive summer.

Moving to a more exciting topic, books and authors, I would like to introduce my new Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob for the month of August.  Her name is Jacqueline West and she has written a great book series for tweens called The Books of Elsewhere and now she has just started a new series for young adults.  I'm so excited to read her new book, Dreamers Often Lie.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Jaye wakes up from a skiing accident with a fractured skull, a blinding headache, and her grip on reality sliding into delusion. Determined to get back to her starring role in the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jaye lies to her sister, her mom, her doctors. She's fine, she says. She's fine. If anyone knew the truth - that hallucinations of Shakespeare and his characters have followed her from her hospital bed to the high school halls - it would all be over. She’s almost managing to pull off the act when Romeo shows up in her anatomy class. And it turns out that he's 100% real. Suddenly Jaye has to choose between lying to everyone else and lying to herself.

Troubled by the magnetic new kid, a long-lost friend turned recent love interest, and the darkest parts of her family's past, Jaye’s life tangles with Shakespeare's most famous plays until she can't tell where truth ends and pretending begins. Soon, secret meetings and dizzying first kisses give way to more dangerous things. How much is real, how much is in Jaye's head, and how much does it matter as she flies toward a fate over which she seems to have no control?

The Books of Elsewhere- There are five books in the series.

Old Ms. McMartin is definitely dead. Now her crumbling Victorian mansion lies vacant. When eleven-year-old Olive and her dippy mathematician parents move in, she knows there's something odd about the place--not least the walls covered in strange antique paintings. But when Olive finds a pair of old spectacles in a dusty drawer, she discovers the most peculiar thing yet: She can travel inside these paintings to a world that's strangely quiet . . . and eerily like her own. Yet Elsewhere harbors dark secrets--and Morton, an undersized boy with an outsize temper. As she and Morton form an uneasy alliance, Olive finds herself ensnared in a plan darker and more dangerous than she could have imagined, confronting a power that wants to be rid of her by any means necessary. It's up to Olive to save the house from the dark shadows, before the lights go out for good.

Jacqueline West weaves a tale at turns haunting and moving.



This month you can expect a book review, a giveaway, an author interview and maybe a guest post.
You can find Jacqueline West on her blog at http://jacquelinewest.com
or on her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Jacqueline-West-112573782122159/?ref=sgm

Have a great August and enjoy the last month of summer!
Happy reading!