Convention doesn’t carry much weight in Alder Creek. It doesn’t in Amoris Westmore’s family either. Daughter of a massage therapist and a pothead artist, inheritor of her grandmother’s vinyl collection, and blissfully entering her senior year in high school, Amoris never wants to leave her progressive hometown. Why should she?

Everything changes when Jamison Rush moves in next door. Jamison was Amoris’s first crush, and their last goodbye still stings. But Jamison stirs more than bittersweet memories. One of the few Black students in Alder Creek, Jamison sees Amoris’s idyllic town through different eyes. He encourages Amoris to look a little closer, too. When Jamison discovers a racist mural at Alder Creek High, Amoris’s worldview is turned upside down.

Now Amoris must decide where she stands and whom she stands by, threatening her love for the boy who stole her heart years ago. Maybe Alder Creek isn’t the town Amoris thinks it is. She’s certainly no longer the girl she used to be.

Loading…

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Only The Pretty Lies’ by Rebekah Crane appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Rebekah Crane’s new novel, Postcards For A Songbird was such a powerful and moving story! Our contributor, Teralyn, had the pleasure of talking with Rebekah about her new release, writing, and much more. Check out the interview below!

Can you tell our readers a little about you?

I’m an extrovert, which means I’m a unicorn in the writing world. I love people and hugs and parties. I’ve lived all over the US (NYC, Boston, Chicago, to name a few). I was a high school English teacher, but I didn’t write a single word until I was thirty years old. In fact, I didn’t like to read growing up. I much preferred watching soap operas. I’m a devout yoga practitioner, coffee drinker, kale eater, and I married the guy I dated in high school.

What made you want to become a writer?

I fell in love with young adult books! And the more I read, the more I wanted to add to the voices. I wanted to be a part of the story telling.

Postcards For A Songbird was such a powerful and moving story! Can you tell us a little about the book?

The story follows sixteen-year-old Wren, whose sister has recently left Spokane, WA under a veil of secrecy. Wren is left to put the pieces of her life back together, while trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s disappearance. In the process she meets two boys—Wilder and Luca. One encourages Wren to stay safely hidden away from life. The other challenges her to break out of her shy shell and face the world as it is. Wren must decide what and who she wants, while slowly piecing together the truth about her past and the uncertainty of her future.

What was the inspiration for the story?

The novel started as a simple writing exercise. I was in the middle of editing another novel and I needed a break, so I sat down and wrote a scene between two sisters. The scene was from the perspective of the younger sister, who is in complete adoration of her older sister. And to counter the somewhat boring editing I was doing, I made the scene as vivid and imaginative as I could. That’s how Wren and Lizzie were born.

What do you hope your readers take away from this book?

In the simplest terms—whatever they need. That’s the power of books. They are an examination of the human experience and affect us all in different ways. Whatever the reader needs, I hope they find it somewhere in my pages.

Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?

Wren lives within me on such a deep level, mostly because she is so different from me. Imagining her life was a blessing, a journey to great depths, and an exploration of my own imagination and for that I’m so grateful. She reminds me what a joy it is to be a storyteller.

If you had to describe character Wren in three words, what would those three words be?

Imaginative, intuitive, compassionate

What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?

Persistence and patience, two qualities that, depending on the day, I have in abundance or am completely lacking. I’m also a stickler for realistic dialogue.

What comes first: the plot or characters?

For me, it’s always the characters. I love crafting the voice and personality of each of my characters.

Writing can be an emotionally draining and a stressful pursuit. Any tips for aspiring writers?

Read a lot. Read a variety of books. Find an author who inspires you. Keep writing. Get rejected and move on. Get rejected some more. Keep writing. Read a juicy romance novel. Watch a movie and eat popcorn. Sit at a park and people-watch. And finally, carry a notebook with you at all times. You never know when inspiration will strike.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

All that soap opera watching you did as a kid will pay off. Thank you, General Hospital!

Are you working on anything at the present you would like to share with us?

I am! But I’m going to keep it a secret for now. Most likely, the book will publish in 2021.

Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for us?

I read a lot and quite a variety. These are the books that have stuck with me lately.

YA contemporary: Opposite of Always
General Fiction: Where the Crawdads Sing, Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Daisy Jones and the Six
Nonfiction: How to be an Antiracist, Factfulness, Women Who Run with the Wolves
Romance: One Day in December
Historical Fiction: The Alice Network
Memoir: Educated, Becoming, Between the World and Me

Will you be picking up Postcards For A Songbird? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Rebekah Crane, Author of ‘Postcards For A Songbird’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Postcards For A Songbird is a beautiful coming-of-age story. The story starts a month after Wren Plumley’s older sister, Lizzie, left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. Wren believes she is cursed and everyone is destined to leave her eventually. She is a shell of herself and so much so that her father forces her to get out of the house and take a driver’s education course. Slowly, after meeting a few new people and getting reacquainted with her sister’s best friend, Wren is able to figure out who she is and what she wants in life. She’s able to find out long held secrets and really move forward with her life.

Postcards For A Songbird is the kind of book that got me into reading contemporary YA in the first place. It is deep and dealt with issues that effect real life. The characters are three dimensional while also being quirky and funny. This was a great summer read that had its light moments along with its dark ones that did not overshadow the rest of the story too much but added depth and heart to it.

I loved how eccentric and off-beat it was with the auras and the casserole Wren’s father made for every softball game even though no one ate it. Wren was such a strong character who did not know her strength. She lived in her sister’s shadow all her life and tried to make sure her sister never left that she never found out who she was. She never found out what she wanted in life and was content to just let life flow around her. But when Lizzie leaves, Wren starts to discover who she is and what she wants out of life. She has to learn how to live for herself and while it looks like rebellion, it really isn’t. When you are the good child who always follows the rules and never makes any waves, any little thing you do can seem as if you’re rebelling against the system. That’s what happen to Wren after her sister left. She started doing more and realising that even if people may leave in the end, you still have to live your best life.

I also enjoyed Leia and Luca from the beginning. Leia did not beat around the bush and I loved how she was so open from the start. She felt a certain way about things and she made sure to let everyone know. I enjoyed her personality a lot. I liked Luca because his personality was so bright and infections. He was happy and he too did not beat around the bush. He liked Wren from the moment they met and he made sure to let Wren know that. He was persistent and talkative in a way that sad Wren wasn’t. He slowly but surely helped pull Wren out of the shadows. Baby Girl was a great character too and I loved seeing her finding herself along side Wren. Baby Girl spent her whole life being everyone but herself only to realise that she wanted to finally find out who she was and what it was she liked.

Wilder was Wren in the sense that he was cautions and never stepped out of his comfort zone. He believed in playing it safe at all costs because the risk of being hurt and left behind just wasn’t worth it. Wren had to realise even with that risk she wanted to give into love and new friendships. These three new friends helped Wren when she needed it the most and so did Wilder in his own way.

Learning the reason behind Wren’s mother leaving and then Lizzie’s leaving fourteen years later was a shock. It was unexpected to find out what was the truth of it but finding out helped the reader realise why Chief —Wren’s father—acted the way he did with his girls. Finding out the truth was what Wren needed to really move on from the past and embrace her future. It was what Lizzie needed as well to move forward.

Postcards For A Songbird was such a powerful and moving story that showed the importance of friends, family, and never letting fear rule your life. Wren had to learn that she was not the reason people were leaving and that she had to learn to live the life she wanted. This coming of age story was one of the best I’ve read this year and I enjoyed it so much!

Postcards For A Songbird is available on Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.

Synopsis | Goodreads

Everyone eventually leaves Wren Plumley. First it was her mother, then her best friend, and then her sister. Now living with only her cop father and her upended dreams, Wren feels stranded, like a songbird falling in a storm.

When Wilder, a sickly housebound teen, moves in next door, Wren finally finds what she’s always wanted—a person who can’t leave. But a chance meeting with Luca, the talkative, crush-worthy boy in her driver’s ed class, has Wren wondering if maybe she’s too quick to push people away. Soon, Wren finds herself caught between the safety of a friendship and a love worth fighting for.

Wren starts to dream again. But when postcards begin arriving from her sister, Wren must ultimately confront why her mother left fourteen years before and why her sister followed in her footsteps. For her new life to take flight, Wren will have to reconcile the heartbreaking beauty of lost dreams and the beautiful heartbreak of her new reality.

The post Review: Postcards For A Songbird by Rebekah Crane appeared first on The Nerd Daily.