Kate’s
heard of messages from beyond the grave, but she never expects to find
one in her fortune cookie. Especially from her best friend, Grace—who’s
supposed to be dead.
At
the elite Pemberly Brown Academy, nothing is as it seems. A classmate
has gone missing, and Kate soon realizes that the disappearance is tied
to the secret societies that rule her private school. Her best friend
died for their secrets, and there’s no way she’ll let them get away with
it twice. It’s up to quirky outsider Kate to get some answers, but in a
school where every answer leads to more questions and nothing’s as it
seems, who can she trust?
This
exciting sequel in The Liar Society series is filled with suspense,
danger, and mystery as Kate stops at nothing to prevent the secret
society at her school from getting away with murder again.
LISA and LAURA ROECKER are sisters-turned-writing-partners
with a passion for good books, pop culture and Bravo programming. Not
necessarily in that order. Lisa has always been a phenomenal liar and
Laura loves to write angsty poetry, so writing for young adults seemed
like a natural fit. The sisters live in Cleveland, Ohio in separate
residences. Their husbands wouldn’t agree to a duplex. To learn more
about The Liar Society series check out www.theliarsociety.com
Today as part of the SECRETS and LIES blog tour Authors Lisa and Laura Roecker discuss on how to write quirky but not crazy characters. Please stay a bit and enjoy what these authors have to say about their writing views.
Quirky But Not Crazy- How to make
your original character unique but still relatable to YA readers
We’re old. Not old-old, but old
enough. There’s always risk in writing for teenagers when you’re not, in fact,
a teenager. We had all these goals for Kate—we wanted her to be independent and
funny and cute and smart and sad and lonely and loving. The list goes on and
on. But we needed to ensure that she wasn’t a thirty-something trapped in the
body of a neon-haired detective. Because, let's face it, there's nothing worse
than a bossy thirty-something trapped in the body of a blue-haired teen.
So we channeled
our inner-YA, our awkward high school selves, and imagined who we always wished
we could have been. We thought we knew everything in high school, we had it all
figured out so we needed Kate to have a little of that—most teenagers do.
Kate is
extremely goofy and makes us laugh out loud. This is actually very sad because
it means that we’re laughing at our own jokes. The reality is that as we switch
the book back and forth while drafting, we’re always trying to one-up the other
sister. Our main goal is to play make-me-laugh with the manuscript (or
make-me-scared, make-me-cry, etc., depending upon the scene).
Kate is also
very sensitive, even if she doesn’t show it all the time (what teenager does?).
She’s fueled by her love for Grace and her need to right a wrong. She takes
advantage of her devoted neighbor Seth, but sometimes she lets her guard down
just long enough for the reader to witness her love for him. It will take a
long time for her to learn that Seth is the kind of guy she’ll want to marry!
Liam and Bradley are there to mix things up even more. Each of these characters
help define the true Kate Lowry.
But at the end
of the day, Kate isn't perfect. She says stupid things, judges people way too
harshly and generally makes a ton of stupid mistakes. But she's a TEENAGER. A
very imperfect teenager. But fun and brave too. Part of our goal when we
started writing The Liar Society Series was to chronicle Kate's journey as she
slowly grows up and in THE LIES THAT BIND, Kate takes one more step toward
adulthood. And maybe even half a step backward. Hey, no one ever said growing
up was easy!
The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Ula at Blog of Erised!
