Trick or Treat by Sally Anne Morris

Synopsis:

Ever thought you were hearing voices in your head? Welcome to Lucy Diamond’s world... Nothing seems out of the ordinary about Lucy. Well, not until she starts hearing the voices of grumbling ghouls from beyond the grave. Hippie-mom Jasmine arranged for Lucy to develop the Gift and unlike the other presents of vegan cookbooks and tie-dye blouses, this one Lucy can’t return to the store. The Dead aren’t going anywhere until she sorts out their problems. But how can she be expected to deal with the lives of those in Limbo when she can’t even manage her own?

Perfectly timed for Halloween this light hearted romance is a sweet, clever and quirky treat to indulge in. Poor Lucy Diamond - she is merely another drudge in an office full of drudges. She has the glamourous friend JoJo who does "something" in publishing and the obligatory gay male friend, Nigel, who is more than just a little self-obsessed and more than just a little unhappy with how dull his life has become.

That is until JoJo and Nigel rally around Lucy when she starts having episodes of seeing dead people, talking to them and arguing with them - not just on the underground whilst commuting to work but also in her tiny flat above a shop in N17.

Things are pretty scary sounding for Lucy, actually - she's doubting her sanity, her mum, a flaky hippy living in a commune in Wales is no help, gushing that this is her birth gift eventually coming to the fore, her friend Nigel is somehow making everything about him and dammit, the dead just won't stop talking to her. Even attending a show where a world-renowned spiritualist is in attendance turns into a disaster as Lucy realises that she would get no help from the woman who can quite clearly not see anyone apart from her studio audience.

Trick or Treat comes as a pleasant surprise. I adore the cover, of course, and the people at Little Black Dress Books have yet again gone out of their way to publish a very sweet novel about friendship, communication, mis-communication, the supernatural and the downright odd.

Sally Anne Morris's writing is just plain good fun - her touch is light and her overall tone in the novel is a little bit Sir David Attenborough as she relates who Lucy Diamond is, who her friends are and her odd relationship with her "out there" mother.

A pivotal role has to go to Lucy's grandmother who, after Lucy runs to her in the depths of despair, convinced that she's going insane, tells her quite calmly that yes, her gift for seeing and speaking to the dead is a hereditary thing...Lucy baulks, stunned that her grandmother who is the world's most practical and steady person can drop a rock in her lap like that without warning.

Like in Girl from Mars, my first LBD Book, I was amazed by the character development and overall story progress in Trick or Treat. For a tiny book (311 pages) it packs a lot of whallop. If I worked in a bookshop I would file Trick or Treat in two places: romance (of course) but also paranormal / urban fantasy because Lucy may not realise it but she is pretty kick-ass. She's a medium with a can-do attitude and a genuinely sweet and giving heart. Not every single situation she gets herself into pans out well and she deals with that competently and bravely.

Trick or Treat is a definite must read for October and come December, it will make a perfect stocking filler indulgence. It will be the perfect antidote to too much sweet, delivering a kick and a punch and a little bit of bite. The romance is handled very lightly (with one section so funny I scared the life out of my receptionist as I chortled over my lunch whilst reading it) and with a wry tongue in cheek.

Sally Anne Morris writes well and I'm looking forward to more of her novels. Trick or Treat is out now from Little Black Dress books.

**Winners of copies of Girl from Mars by Julie Cohen**

A huge congratulations goes to our two winners of one of my favourite books of 2009, Girl from Mars by Julie Cohen:

1. Carol S

and

2. Lorraine P

I've contacted you both by email, so please do let me have your address details so I can forward it onto the peeps at Little Black Dress Books.

We had a lovely reaction to this competition - so thanks to everyone who entered! So glad to see fun romantic novels with a twist is such a hot favourite. I will do my best to bring you more! And as usual, thanks to Random.org for being utterly impartial in our selection of winners. And an even bigger thanks to the peeps at Little Black Dress books for allowing us to run this comp!

Why Geeks Rock by Julie Cohen, author of Girl from Mars

I am so flattered to have Julie Cohen pop by MFB to do a guest blog on writing one of my favourite books of 2009 - Girl From Mars. I cannot urge you enough - if you are a geek in any shape or form - to pick up a copy of this very sweet, very poignant and very true little book. Yes, even the boys will get a kick reading this. Challenge yourself - it is light on romance and chock full of real situations and characters who are fantastic geeky peeps, just like us. Plus, the cover is a must-have for any genre fan's bookshelf.

Thanks for inviting me to guest on your blog, Liz. I’m so glad you enjoyed Girl from Mars! (Review here)

As an author, your books are supposed to be like your children, so it’s probably unfair to have favourites, but I have to say that Girl from Mars is probably the book that’s closest to myself and my own experiences. See, in school I was a geek. I grew up in a small town in the mountains of western Maine, and I was most definitely an oddball there. Like my geeky heroine Fil, I liked dying my hair strange colours and I do believe I was the first kid in my school in the 80s to have pink hair. I was unlike my heroine Fil in that I had quite a few friends, and while she’s an artist, I was geeky about more showoffy things like being in plays and singing and wearing weird clothes that I’d found in secondhand shops. But like Fil, I loved science fiction, and playing Dungeons and Dragons, and reading comics. Because of these interests, I had a lot of male friends. I drew on a lot of this when I was writing the book.

It’s interesting how many people I’ve encountered who say that they were geeks in school, too. Promoting this book has introduced me to lots and lots of fellow comics fans, male and female, and also a lot of people who love role playing games and Star Trek and Dr Who. I’ve had more comments about my photo of me with a Dalek than any other picture on my website, except for the one of a bare-chested Ryan Reynolds carrying an axe. Go figure.

But the sci-fi and the comics and the dyed hair and the D&D are all only the outward signs of being an outsider. And in fact, all of these little fandoms have their own communities and their own lingo and their own codes of conduct.

I think the more important feeling of being an outsider is when you stand in a room and you feel that everyone else knows something you don’t. They know how to dress, and how to act. They don’t have to worry about fitting in. It’s like everyone except for you has been given a rule book, but you never got one because you were in the bathroom or whatever when they were being handed out.

Julie with friend

I remember feeling that quite vividly in high school. I still feel it now. (Actually, these days I feel it more than ever, because being an author requires you to sit in a room with nothing but a computer and your own imagination for long stretches of time, and when you emerge you tend to have forgotten the most basic of social skills.) And—here’s an interesting thing—I’m coming to believe that, in this way, almost everybody has felt, one time or another, like they’re an outsider.
The easiest way of dealing with feeling like a freak is to make yourself a safe little world with people you trust, people who won’t look down on you. That’s what my heroine Fil does. Excluded from girls’ friendships at school, she befriends a bullied nerd named James Lousder (aka “Loser”). Later on, they make friends with quiet giant Digger and timid war-comic artist Stevo. When the four of them are together, they can do just as they like. It’s safe.

There are down sides to this safety, though. For one thing, small intense friendship groups can isolate themselves from reality. Groups are more conservative than individuals. They have their own internal pressures, too—even when they’ve been formed to escape the pressure of other people’s expectations. And they have difficulty adapting to new things, like when one of the group’s members starts a relationship with someone else. I really enjoyed exploring the dynamic of the friendship between Fil and Jim and Digger and Stevo, and though the book is a romance, it’s no mistake that it begins and ends with the friendships.

I think the thing that was the most pure fun about writing Girl from Mars, though, was making up the story for “Girl from Mars”, the comic book that Fil and Dan are working on together. They do six issues, and I outlined every one of them. I made up a backstory for the character Girl from Mars, researched similar comics and how comics in general are created, and basically let my imagination go wild. It’s not often, as an author of contemporary romance, that you get to write about time machines, space stations, Arcturan electricity, and former-lab-assistants-turned-evil-geniuses called Glypto.

Awesome. Especially for a geek like me.

*Competition News*

Julie's truly generous publishers, Little Black Dress Books, have agreed to let us have two copies of this excellent feast of geek and romance to give away - UK entrants only, I'm afraid! So, all you have to do is email us: myfavouritebooksatblogspot(at)gmail(dot)com and put "GIRL FROM MARS" in your subject line. The winner will be decided via Random.org in one week's time - i.e. 9th September. We will then contact you to let you know that you've won and if you could then forward your details to us to send onto LBD Books.

Girl from Mars by Julie Cohen

Synopsis

I, Philomena Desdemona Brown, do solemnly swear to forsake all romantic relationships... It's not like the vow, made by Fil and her three nerdy male best friends, seemed much of a big deal at the time. Frankly, Fil wouldn't know romance if it hit her in the face, and with her real love being her artist job at Girl from Mars, the comic whose heroine has never had a love interest, she doesn't exactly mind being relationship-free anyway. Until her world is rocked to its core when one of her long-standing quartet and Girl from Mars herself both unexpectedly fall in love. Is it time to give in to temptation and finally fall in love?

There is so much to love about this little book from Little Black Dress, a Headline imprint. Firstly, the cover is 100% made out of win - it's quirky, it's fun and utterly encapsulates the coolness of the actual story. Secondly, Julie Cohen's writing is a doddle to read (nom nom nom, burp) and thirdly, Fil, the main character is so genuine, you can't help but relate to her. Oh, and lastly, but very much the not the least, our hero does sound fantastically damaged and lovely, always a good recipe!

Fil is a geek. She's weird, her haircolour changes from platinum blond to purple, pink and blue, when she is in the mood for a change, she hangs around with her three best friends, all male, and she can geek about Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and numerous other shows with the best of fanboys out there and she also happens to be a comicbook artist, working almost exclusively on Girl from Mars, one of the oldest comics still running since the dawn of time. Well, not really, but it could very well be the case for Fil.

Even though she is a huge comic fan, reading loads and buying loads, her one true love is Girl from Mars and she is incredibly passionate and loyal to GfM. To the extent where she faces off against her boss at the company, when it transpires that the original creator of GfM's grandson has decided to write a script for GfM. Not bad, you would personally think, but it turns out that he's written in a romance for GfM. And Fil is adamant that this is not the way things ought to be done - GfM never falls in love, admittedly she is super sexy and cool and the boys love her, but she never falls in love. She is above that.

Dan, the new blood, has a difficult task coping with Fil. She's opinionated and goes in swinging when she is let loose to meet him and confront him with his rubbish script for GfM. Fil points him to the archives, explaining to him how intense people were about backstory when it comes to favourite comic book characters and if he was going to pull his weight, he had better start stocking up on his knowledge about GfM.

Slowly but surely Fil and Dan become a team. This however means that Fil's relationship with her mates become even more tentative. There is Digger, a large bearded man who is frightening in appearance but a softie at heart and Jim, slightly neurotic and deeply sweet where Fil is concerned. Jim and Fil have known one another for many years and when they graduated, they bought a house together - strictly as friends. Their relationship is strictly platonic and there is a cameraderie there that is so well written that the author should get a huge thumbs up.

We learn that Fil's parents, highly intellectual literary types (quite frightening) don't take her job seriously and feel that she should apply herself to doing commercial art in order to make decent money. The relationship is amusing and strained.

The romance element is very subtle and very cleverly thought out and woven throughout the storyline. There are no heaving bosoms but there is a lot of stuttering, lies and well, someone leaving the other person at an art installation and legging it for the hills. It is laugh out loud funny in some places and cringeworthy and true in others.

I identified with so many of the characters in GfM - the element of feeling the odd one out in the normal world and the feeling that everyone else got a set of rules to grow up to, but somehow you were left out when those rules were handed out, making you a little bit less socially adept.

I went through a gamut of emotions reading GfM and have to admit that I thought Fil was an excellent character - everything she goes through in the novel is so true that I think everyone, both male and female, should be able to identify with her.

The one thing I regret though is that the cover makes this very much a "girl"-book - especially as it would appeal to both sexes. Fil's world is one of science fiction and fantasy, of comic books like 2000AD and discussions about Star Trek and other popular shows and movies. Guys would enjoy Girl From Mars because it is so firmly set in a world that is so familiar to them - the ploy that Fil is the odd one out in a man's world is fantastically underplayed and therefore makes it even more believable.

I loved, loved, loved Girl from Mars, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Fil, her friends and of course, Dan, who came across as genuinely sweet. If I had to rate it, I would give it a nine - yes, that high, peeps! GfM is definitely highly recommended and has to go into my "best of 2009" reads. And no, it's not just because it mentions my favourite indie shop - Forbidden Planet - either. There is a lot of punch in this light romance novel and what makes it a winner is that its characters - main and secondary - come across so very well. A definite winner and one I'll be talking to everyone I know about for a long time to come.

Find Julie Cohen's website here and the Little Black Dress website here.