The Secrets and Lies Blog Tour With Guest Post, Giveaway & My Review of The Lies That Bind

Today I am lucky enough to have Lisa and Laura Roecker on the blog again as part of their Secrets and Lies Blog Tour.  First you'll find a guest post by them, then my review and at the end a giveaway of a paperback copy of The Lies That Bind.

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 Lies The Bind (The Liar Society #2) by Lisa & Laura Roecker

Paperback, 320 pages

Published: Nov. 6th, 2012 by Sourcebooks Fire

Source: NetGalley & Sourcebooks

Just when Kate Lowry thought she had life at elite private school Pemberly Brown figured out, she cracks open a fortune cookie to find a message from her best friend Grace--who's supposed to be dead.

Another Sister Gone

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?

 Kate is such a brave but fun character to read about.  She's in pain, still  mourning the death of her friend, but she still has vengeance on her mind.  Oh, she doesn't want to hurt anyone physically (well, maybe a little...) but she wants to dismantle the secret society's within her school who are responsible for the death of her friend.  And she'll pretty much do anything to make that happen.  While Kate may take some risks that are pretty much downright stupid, I never really found myself irritated with her.  I'm not sure why that was, but I genuinely liked her and felt bad for all that she had to go through and face the injustice that was going on.

Secret Society's... there's something fascinating about them.  This one is with high school students but yet there are so many adults involved that there's no where Kate can really turn.  It truly feels like everyone is out to get her and it's hard to determine how far they would really go.  What is great is that the book was pretty twisty.  There's a serious mystery going on with another girl disappearing and even though Kate dislikes her she's quite sure the Society brothers are involved and she thinks maybe this is her ticket to get them dismantled.  The thing is, there's so much more involved than she ever bargained for.

I think I may have seen some twists coming, like I remember things running through my head, but I kind of dismissed it or something because I kept getting surprised with things.  And while I felt like I should have predicted the end (it too ran through my head but was dismissed) I was totally shocked.  I guess it's because with all the pieces there it ends up being so much more than what you may think.  I liked it, I thought the unpredictability was good.  For me anyway.  Maybe I'm just dense and didn't see the obvious clues...

The romance is really light in this one and I think it was good,it just didn't have an important role because Kate is busy trying to solve this mystery.  I liked that for once a girl wasn't pushing everything aside to make out with her boyfriend.

I really enjoyed this one and thought it lived up to the first. I definitely recommend you check it out!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.

Sourcebooks is sponsoring a giveaway for one copy of The Lies That Bind to one lucky person.

This is open to US/Canada

You must be 13 or older to enter.

The giveaway ends 12/6/12

Please fill out the rafflecopter to enter.

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