Who hasn’t wished at some point that you could see the future? Well, would you still want that wish to come true if all you saw were the bad things in your future? That’s the issue tackled in GCC Member Linda Gerber’s new YA novel, TRANCE, which debuted this week through Penguin Speak.
As always, here’s a little bit about her book to get you hooked:
Ashlyn Greenfield has always known when bad things are going to happen. Each time that familiar tingling at the back of her neck begins, she knows what’s to come—a trance. She’s pulled in, blindsided, an unwilling witness to a horrible upcoming event. But she’s never been able to stop the event from actually occurring—not even when the vision was of her mother’s fatal car accident. When soulful Jake enters Ashlyn’s life, she begins having trances about another car accident. And as her trances escalate, one thing becomes clear: it’s up to her to save Jake from a near-certain death.
Here’s what Linda had to say:
Q: In AMIGAS AND SCHOOL SCANDALS, Mariana takes a road trip to Cornell. What’s your funniest road trip story?
Linda: I don’t know about funniest, but the most adventurous was probably the time I flew out to Georgia to help my college roommate drive her car across country. The thing had a bad radiator and a dying alternator and it kept breaking down… like when it overheated in the middle of the desert on an empty stretch of road and we had to warm the ice water from the cooler by lining plastic water bottles along the asphalt (so we wouldn’t crack the radiator when we filled it up)… or when the alternator finally gave up in the wee hours of the morning and the only other people on the road were two drunk guys who really wanted to get us in their truck with them, but weren’t overly concerned about help for the car… Yeah. It was memorable.
Q: I often talk about how I didn’t always “know” I wanted to be a writer. Did you? Or did you have other plans when you were little?
Linda: I always loved writing, but I never dreamed I’d be a writer. When I was little, I thought I’d like to draw, or paint, or dance, or something creative. I guess I was close.
Q: Throughout the AMOR series, Mariana and her friends celebrate their Sweet 16s (and 15s). What did you do for your Sweet 16 or Quinceanera?
Linda: I didn’t have a big sweet sixteen party or anything, but in my family, we weren’t allowed to date until we were sixteen, and sixteen meant I could get my driver’s license, so my sixteenth birthday was a big deal – at least to me.
Q: I wrote the AMOR series organically, no outlines. My new manuscripts, I’ve outlined extensively. How about you? Are you an outliner?
Linda: I’m a pantser by nature, but I learned to outline by necessity since most of my books are a. mysteries, and b. sold on proposal. But I think of my outlines like the navi in my car; I set a destination, but if I need to change the route along the way, I can always renavigate.
Great, next time I deviate off course in my novel, I’m going to hear that navigation lady’s voice, “Recalculating…”
Q: Where were you when you found out that your novel was going to be published? Tell us the story.
Linda: TRANCE is the first book I sold with my current agent so it was pretty exciting, even if I was too tired to notice at the time. The first book in my Death By Bikini Mystery series had just come out a couple months before and I was finishing up copy edits for book number two. It was summer break, and by then, the kids had been out of school long enough to be bored. So I was struggling to keep them entertained, waiting for the news, and juggling book promo and book edits and… I’m afraid (or glad, depending on how you look at it) that there’s no photographic evidence, but I was thrilled to get the news. Overwhelmed, but thrilled.
Thank you, Linda! Now, everyone go out and buy books, lots and lots of books!
