GUEST BLOGGER POST: The Secret Side of Empty by Maria Andreu

Note from Susan: Generally, guests posting to this blog meet two criteria: They have a novel out, and they're a friend of mine. Well, I've never met Maria Andreu, and in fact, I've had no contact with her at all.  (The arrangements for this blog post were accomplished with the help of a third party.) Nor does she have a book out--yet. The Secret Side of Empty is coming in March 2014, so it's still six months away. The reason I agreed to invite Ms. Andrea to post here is that she has an amazing story, and I think she's got some interesting things to say. I'll look forward to eventually reading her fictionalized account of the life she led as an undocumented teen in America.

Now here's Maria...

My book wanted to be a YA novel. I was not happy with its decision at all. The story of an undocumented girl and what her life is like on the precipice, knowing that “real” life will begin for all her friends but not for her, was so intimately mine that I very much wanted to tell it as my story. But the book had other ideas.

I was born in Spain two months before my parents decided to bring me with them on their grand adventure of making it in America. They were Argentinian by upbringing, Spanish by citizenship. Although they projected both those things on me, what I really became was an American kid. I learned my English on Sesame Street. I loved my Baby Crissy doll with her magical, growing red hair. I wore bad 1970s bellbottoms and envied Marcia Brady along with all the other girls my age.

When I was six, my grandfather died in Argentina. Off my mother and I went to the funeral for what we thought would be a two-week stay. My father stayed behind in the U.S. to send us money. Two weeks turned into two years. Finally, out of ideas on how to reunite with his family, my father paid some coyotes to smuggle us across the Mexican border. In many ways I count that as the start of my story, looking across a border you couldn’t see, wondering why I wasn’t good enough to cross it except against the rules. I was 8 years old. It shaped my personality and world view like few other things have.

As I grew into a teenager I understood the real meaning of being undocumented. No social security number. No college. No job. No “normal” life like the one I saw my friends planning so happily. I looked into the future and saw a blank. And then, in a twist almost too cinematic to work in a book, an amnesty law was passed. Three months after I turned 18, I was put on a path to citizenship and my entire future changed.

I spent decades trying to forget all that, trying to “pass.” Finally, it was an angry pundit on the radio ranting about how we should kick out all the “illegals” that got me thinking. I was proof that people just want dignity and a chance at a good life, that we didn’t want to ruin America, but participate in it. Once I’d gotten a chance at that, I turned my back on the people who were struggling the way I had struggled. I still remember the exact spot of road on which I was driving when I understood that I needed to end my silence.

So I began to speak and write about my experiences. I wrote an essay that appeared in Newsweek, another in The Washington Post. I found my voice. I began writing my story as a memoir.

I shopped that version of the story for 4 years. I got rejected by more than 70 agencies. I fought off well-meaning friends who said, “Just self publish.” There is nothing wrong with self-publishing, but I knew that as someone who had felt so marginalized I needed to sell at least her first book the “traditional” way. I was doggedly, unreasonably determined. So I kept at it. I went to workshops. I got critiques. I rewrote. I got such lovely rejections filled with praise for my prose and my voice. Each one broke my heart and echoed with just how much I didn’t belong.

Finally, it was an impossibly young-looking agent at a pitch conference who told me, “The problem with your pitch is that all the action happens when the protagonist is a teenager. Your book wants to be a YA novel.” I thanked her and rolled my eyes internally. Didn’t she get I wanted to be a Real Writer? There was so much I didn’t understand about Real Writing and about the wonderful literature now finding its way out into the world as YA. It would be months before I’d be ready to understand that she was right.

Everything flowed almost as if by magic when I finally let it sink in. I opened up the big YA titles of the time and saw one agency name over and over again: Writers House. I sent a pitch to their slush pile. Within days I had a response from someone. I Googled her name and my heart started pounding when I learned that she was the same person who had pulled Twilight from the slush pile too. I had queried too soon – I only had 3 chapters, and here they were, asking for the whole manuscript. I pounded it out in 10 days. Of course I’d told many versions of this story, so it was ready to be told quickly. I kicked myself at probably blowing my chance… until they accepted me as a client. So, yes, technically I got the first agent I pitched. Their “we’d love for you to be our client” email still sits framed in my living room. They sold my book in a multiple-offers situation in the first round.

So I feel a certain peace with the story coming to the world as a YA novel. I am a big believer in “flow” and things happening as they should. I don’t know if I fully understand the mystery of why this book wanted to happen this way, but I can’t deny the unmistakable ease with which it did. If I were hard-pressed to come up with a theory it would be this: we all love stories. People may resist something that feels pedantic or is trying to push a certain worldview, as a memoir might have. As a novel, The Secret Side of Empty does none of that. It will appeal to anyone who has ever felt left out or who has ever faced a problem that has felt too big to figure out. The Secret Side of Empty lets you get a glimpse into a life you otherwise would probably never see. It has a love story, characters I hope people will like and, at its core, this very complicated problem of the restricted choices faced by undocumented people in general and kids in particular. But it doesn’t tell you what to think. It just lets you inside. Hopefully, that will spark conversations.


ABOUT The Secret Side of Empty

It's the story of a teen girl that is American in every way except for in one very important way: on paper. She was brought to the U.S. as a baby without proper documentation, so she's "illegal." As the end of the safe haven of her high school days draw near, she faces an uncertain future. Full of humor and frustration and love, The Secret Side of Empty speaks to the part in all of us that has felt excluded or has had a secret too scary to share. What M.T., the main character, finally discovers is the strength of the human spirit and the power that's unleashed when you finally live the truth.


Giveaway Info:

Maria is giving away two separate prizes on her tour, a $250 Amazon Gift Card AND a Kindle Fire.

1) For a chance to win the $250 Amazon gift card, OR the Kindle Fire leave a comment on her blog post for that day. Winners will be randomly selected on September 30th.

Maria Andreu’s Bio:

Maria’s writing has appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Post and the Star Ledger. Her debut novel, The Secret Side of Empty, is the story of an “illegal” high school senior. It was inspired by Maria’s own experiences as an undocumented teen. Since becoming a citizen, Maria has run her own business and has become a soccer mom. She lives with her 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son in northern New Jersey.

Links Maria Andreu’s website- http://mariaeandreu.com/
Maria Andreu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WritersideofM
Maria Andreu on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maria.andreu.books

Preorder The Secret Side of Empty- http://amzn.to/17LaXLX

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

After a couple weeks of fiction, I thought I'd mix things up this week with a non-fiction title, Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal. I'm giving away a galley of this book that goes on sale on January 25, 2011. William Morrow is giving this book a big roll out, hoping that it will find the same success as Greg Mortenson's Three cups of Tea. However, at this time, I don't have a whole lot of info on the title. Blogger Deb Hoffman posted this elsewhere on the web:

In search of adventure, twenty-nine-year-old Conor Grennan left his secure home and job for a trip around the world. His first stop was as a volunteer at the Little Princes Children’s Home orphanage in war-torn Nepal. When Conor got there he was overrun with small children’s smiles and joys of welcome. Soon he found out that underneath, these children had endured being wrenched from their families and sold by human traffickers to become slaves. Conor vowed to keep the children safe and to ultimately reunite them with their families and villages. Often fraught with the inequalities of our world this book shows the determination of a handful of people to right the terrible wrongs that have been heaped on these children. Little Princes is a heartwarming story that highlights the tragedies of war that families have experienced and the changes that occurred within one man.

I'll be honest, this book isn't my cup of tea (three or otherwise). As readers of this blog know, I don't read much non-fiction, so I won't be reviewing this title here. But early reviews have been positive. I hope this book lands in the hands of a reader who will really enjoy it. Please post a comment below for a chance to win the book. A winner will be announced Friday afternoon. At that time, the winner has a week to send me a U.S. mailing address, or another name will be selected by random number generator.

Good luck!

UPDATED TO ADD: This book just got a rave, starred review in today's Publisher's Weekly:

Grennan, who once worked at the East West Institute in Prague, embarked on a round-the-world trip in 2006, starting with a stint volunteering for an orphanage six miles south of Kathmandu. The orphanage, called the Little Princes Children's Home, housed 18 children from the remote province of Humla, rescued from a notorious child trafficker who had bought the children from poor villagers terrified of the Maoist insurgents eager for new recruits; the parents hoped to keep their children safe, but the children often ended up as slaves. Grennan was stunned by the trauma endured by these children, who he grew to love over two months, and after completing his world tour, returned to the orphanage and vowed not only to locate seven Humla orphans who had vanished from a foster home, but also to find the parents of the children in the orphanage. This required starting up a nonprofit organization in America, Next Generation Nepal, raising funds, buying a house in Kathmandu for the children's home, and trekking into the mountains of Humla to locate the parents. Grennan's work is by turns self-pokingly humorous, exciting, and inspiring.

It was a dark and stormy night…

The Distant Hours
by Kate Morton

Okay, that infamous line is never used, but it might as well have been. There were plenty of dark and stormy nights in this deliciously atmospheric novel of suspense. Like Ms. Morton’s previous novels, this is a tale told in two times. The “contemporary” story is set in 1992, and events are set in motion by the delivery of a letter 51 years late. Protagonist Edie Burchill is visiting her parents when the letter arrives, and she witnesses her mother’s unexpected and unexplained emotional response to the missive.

Questioning her mother, Meredith, Edie learns for the first time that her mother was evacuated from London during WWII. For over a year, she lived in the country with the sisters Blythe and their elderly father at gothic Castle Middlehurst. Meredith is inexplicably reticent to discuss her past. This is merely one more example of the distance that Edie has always felt with her mother. Edie finds the incident odd, but it fades quickly into the past—until months later, lost on a road trip, she stumbles upon Castle Middlehurst and her curiosity is fiercely awakened. On a whim, Edie arranges a tour of the castle and discovers, among other things, that all three sisters are alive and in residence. After several introductory chapters setting up the story, the book moves back and forth between Edie’s answer-seeking in 1992, and chapters set during the actual events that occurred between 1939 and 1941, seen from the POV of several of the story’s participants.

There is so much more to the story told in this epic novel. The Blythes are a literary family, and patriarch Raymond is the author of the children’s classic The True History of the Mud Man that inspired Edie’s love of literature and eventual career in publishing. Ms. Morton is a brilliant story-teller and knows exactly how to torture her readers with questions. What was in the letter Meredith received half a century late? What was the true inspiration of the Mud Man? Why is the parlor door kept locked? What was in Raymond’s will? What really happened that night in 1941?

So many questions. And Morton teases us along for hundreds of pages, stringing along answers like breadcrumbs for readers to follow. Kate Morton is very, very good at what she does. Though, after three novels, the similarities in the types of stories she tells and the themes therein have become quite evident. She’s going to need to shake things up before she starts to recycle too much. But for now, The Distant Hours is hard to beat for good old-fashioned entertainment value. It literally brought chills and goose bumps to my skin time and time again. Savor it on a dark and stormy night!

P.S.: Post a comment within the next 30 hours to the giveaway post (below this post, not in the comments section right here) for a chance to win this book!

BOOK GIVEAWAY: The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

A quick note: The winner of last week's giveaway has been posted in the Moonlight Mile thread.

This week's giveaway is by a terrific gothic author from down under. I've been reading and loving Kate Morton since she debuted in the US with The House at Riverton. I thought that The Forgotten Garden was even better. Now I'm deep into this 672-page galley, and Ms. Morton has not disappointed. I'll be posting a review as soon as I can find time to finish the book. For now, here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say in a starred review:

A letter posted in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a London book editor, in this enthralling romantic thriller from Australian author Morton (The Forgotten Garden). At crumbling Milderhurst Castle live elderly twins Persephone and Seraphina and their younger half-sister, Juniper, the three eccentric spinster daughters of the late Raymond Blythe, author of The True History of the Mud Man, a children's classic Edie adores. Juniper addressed the letter to Meredith, Edie's mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst during the Blitz. Edie, who's later invited to write an introduction to a reprint of Raymond's masterpiece, visits the seedily alluring castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so shattered by the contents of a letter sent 51 years earlier? And what happened to soldier Thomas Cavill, Juniper's long-missing fiancé and Meredith's former teacher? Despite the many competing narratives, the answers will stun readers.

Reading that again, it makes me even more anxious to finish this book. And I'm delighted to share a galley with you. Anyone with an American mailing address is elegible. Please post a comment below for a chance to win. The winner will be choosen by a random number generator and posted Friday afternoon. The winner has a week to contact me at suetu@yahoo.com with a mailing address, or a second name will be chosen. Good luck!

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

Yes, as at least one of you guessed, this week's giveaway is Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane. Unbelievably, this was my introduction to Mr. Lehane's work. I read it from cover to cover this weekend and absolutely loved it! (My full review is below.) It gives me great pleasure to share a galley of this excellent novel with you.

Please post a comment to this thread for your chance to win this book. The winner will be picked by a random number generator on Friday, and will be posted here. Winners have one week to contact me at suetu@yahoo.com with a U.S. mailing address, or I will draw a new name. And that's about it. Good luck!

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Eight weeks of winners!

So, for the past couple of years, I've done a pretty good job keeping up with this blog... Until this September. What can I say? The past few months have been brutal. I've spent so much time traveling and attending literary events (the National Book Festival, Bouchercon, the Northern California Independent Booksellers' Association Trade Show, Thrillerfest, Litquake, etc.) that I haven't had time to write about them. September was a month of exhaustion and writers block. Happily, with some hard work I've caught up with most of my reviewing.

To reward the readers who have stuck around (I know you're out there. The site counter records you lurkers.) and new readers who visit the site, I've decided to give away a book a week (most of them Advance Reader Copies) for the next eight weeks. I've got some really fantastic titles to share! (A few of them are pictured above.)

Here's how it will work: Every Monday, starting November 1st, I'll make an announcement about the giveaway of the week. You'll have until the following Friday to leave a comment on the book of the week post. That comment is all you need to do to enter. On Friday afternoon, a random number generator will pick that week's winner. I'll post the name of the winner, and you've got one week to contact me with a mailing address. I'm really sorry, but I'm going to limit this contest to those with a U.S. mailing address. I have to do the shipping and pay the postage, and I need to keep this fun and managable. I'll post a new giveaway for the next eight weeks, with the final book drawn on December 24th. Uh, it's like eight weeks of Hannukah!

A clue to next week's giveaway: This hardback novel goes on sale on November 2nd, and will surely race up the bestseller list. Any guesses? Check back on Monday and enter to win!