Guest Post with Laura Ellen & Giveaway

There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.
Seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni’s body floated to the surface of Alaska’s Birch River six months after the night she disappeared. The night Roz Hart had a fight with her. The night Roz can’t remember. Roz, who struggles with macular degeneration, is used to assembling fragments to make sense of the world around her. But this time it’s her memory that needs piecing together—to clear her name . . . to find a murderer. This unflinchingly emotional novel is written in the powerful first-person voice of a legally blind teen who just wants to be like everyone else.

It’s (almost) Summer!

Hi! My name is Laura Ellen and I am the author of Blind Spot, a YA thriller that releases in October. To help celebrate the one year blogoversary of YA Bookmark I am guest posting today about some of my favorite things about summer!

First of all I want to say – Happy Blogoversary to YA Bookmark! WOOT! It is not easy to keep a blog up – especially in the summer  so congrats and thanks for having me!

For me, summer means hanging out in the sun, listening to music, and reading tons of books. My book tastes tend to be lighter in the summer – I like quick reads with lots of mystery and romance. Reading something heavy-issue or super literary in the summer is like wearing a heavy jacket when it is eighty degrees. It’s just too much. So I like the edge-of-your-seat, can’t-put-it down thrillers and mysteries and romances.

I’m sure a big part of this goes back to when I was growing up, spending summers at my grandparents’ house on Hoods Canal in Washington State. I’d quickly work my way through my grandma’s paperbacks. She had a lot of gothic mysteries –the ones where the main character was always a woman, an orphan in some way, who inherits a big old manor from some unknown benefactor or relative, and when she arrives she meets a dark, mysterious dude who she’s drawn to even though he seems dangerous and guilty of some crime . . . Oh I used to eat those up! Some books I am looking forward to reading this summer are:

Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard and Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf – and one I have already read, but totally LOVED and recommend is: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown.

In addition to sun, music and books, summer for me also means yummy smells. My favorites are coconut, pineapple, strawberry lemonade and watermelon. In fact, Bath and Body Works has a new fragrance – Aruba Coconut – that I cannot get enough of already!

Hmmm…..

Maybe I’ll throw a travel-size lotion of it into a swag pack along with some watermelon bubble gum and a few of my BLIND SPOT bookmarks as a ‘YA Bookmark Summer Survival’ giveaway. How does that sound?

Let us know what you plan on reading this summer and what your favorite summer thing is and you could win! Thanks for having me! Happy summer everyone and thanks for having me YA Bookmark 

---Laura Ellen author of Blind Spot

www.lauraellenbooks.com