Laura Pauling | Tag Archive | Hollywood Scandals

Tag Archives | Hollywood Scandals

The story behind Run Like Hell – a teen’s worst nightmare come true.

By Laura on May 11, 2012 in guest posts, murder and mystery

Welcome to Day 5 celebrating A Spy Like Me!

Today we have with us Elena Andrews author of Run Like Hell – a young adult thriller!

RUN LIKE HELL is a young adult thriller involving seventeen-year-old Morgan Butler. Her parents are out of town, she’s headed to the party of the year to meet up with her boyfriend and things couldn’t be better…until she gets stranded on a dark, desolate road. With no money, no gas and a dead cell phone, Morgan makes a decision with dangerous consequences.

Several things inspired me to write this book. First, I loved the movie TAKEN starring Liam Neeson. If you haven’t seen this film, I’d highly recommend it. In the movie his naïve, teenage daughter and her friend travel to Europe with horrible results. I was drawn to the guileless spirit of the girls wanting to travel and enjoy Europe, un-chaperoned.

Secondly, I shared an interesting conversation with someone one day regarding her concerns for her teenage daughter while she was travelling overseas. She trusted her daughter to make wise decisions, but worried nonetheless. Despite how parents prepare their child to make the right decisions, other influences come into play that are more powerful than a parent’s voice.

Lastly, I thought of my own experiences during my teenage years and early twenties. I primarily grew up in Miami and during my senior year of high school I went to Miami Beach every weekend with my friends. We loved dancing till dawn at the coolest alternative clubs. Sometimes when I think back to those days and the crazy, sometimes dangerous, decisions I made I say to myself, “what was I thinking?” but back then I didn’t have any worries or concerns.

My character Morgan simply wants to go to an amazing party on a Saturday night and hang out with her friends and boyfriend. My teenage goals were the same – to have a good time. RUN LIKE HELL allowed me to fictionalize a “what if” scenario that could be terrifyingly realistic — the best type of thriller.

The real terror in life hides behind the face of the person next to you.

Purchase at Amazon or if you belong to Prime – read for free!

Elana’s blog ~ Website ~ Twitter

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Okay, friends. I read the first couple chapters and was on the edge of seat! Clean writing and will get your heart pounding within paragraphs! And Elena is offering the ebook of Run Like Hell to one lucky winner!

To enter please leave a comment and tweet with @laurapauling.

Comment to win Gemma Halliday’s Hollywood Scandals.
Comment to win Anne R. Allen’s The Gatsby Game.
Comment to win Elisa Ludwig’s Pretty Crooked.

Thanks everyone! And thanks Elena for sharing your story with us.

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What does a barefoot bandit have to do with Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig?

By Laura on May 9, 2012 in guest posts, murder and mystery

Welcome to the blog series celebrating my YA release, A Spy Like Me.

Today we have with us Elisa Ludwig, Young Adult author of Pretty Crooked – a contemporary Robin Hood story. And yes, she’s giving away a hard cover! Woo hoo!

Top secret intel on Elise:

Elisa Ludwig studied writing at Vassar College and Temple University. She has been pick-pocketed twice, and once caught someone mid-pocket. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and her cat Beau. PRETTY CROOKED is her first novel. You can visit her online at www.elisaludwig.com.

Book trailer ~ Facebook ~ Twitter

The Story Behind the Story for Pretty Crooked

So you would like to know how my debut novel, Pretty Crooked, came to be? Let me take you back—way back—to the summer of 2010. It was excruciatingly hot, and there was the Deepwater oil spill going on, as well as the European debt crisis, but I will still remember it as an awesome summer because it was the summer I got my first book deal. (Lest you find this very selfish, I will add that good things were happening that summer, too: the H1N1 pandemic was declared over, and the first 24-hour flight by a solar-powered plane was successfully completed.) What’s more, the Barefoot Bandit was on the loose and I can’t help but feel some affection for the fella, as I will explain below.

What happened was this: For several months, I’d had a novel on submission that was not getting any hits. I was feeling a little hopeless. The manuscript had made the rounds to just about every house and my next WIP was dead on arrival. In the meantime, I was still getting these thankfully very kind but still heartbreaking rejections that told me I had a good voice, my prose was smooth and the characters were believable, but that the book was too quiet to sell. The very last editor to read it, Claudia Gabel at HarperCollins, responded to my agent that she really enjoyed my writing and would like to work on a project together.

We began throwing around ideas. The Barefoot Bandit was making the news at the time but was still at large. With clever getaways and stick-it-to-the-man attitude Harris Colton-Moore, or his female equivalent, seemed like the perfect hero(ine) for a YA novel. Throw in a hefty dose of the man in green tights and a little dash of Veronica Mars for good measure, and the concept about a teenage outlaw who steals from the rich mean girls to find justice for the scholarship kids at her school was born.

Right away, I fell in love with Willa Fox and enjoyed every minute of working on this book, which is anything but quiet. It was also a wonderful experience working with Claudia and the rest of the team at Katherine Tegen, so it has been a win all around. I STILL can’t believe I have a book, a real book, out there in the world. Like, a month later, it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Best of all, both Willa’s story and my own adventure in publishing continues. I recently finished book two and am now on the third installment. A writer friend once said to me, things don’t always happen in the way you expect them to, and I am really glad in this case that she was right.

Purchase Links: Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble

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Wow, I just love the stories behind the stories. Thanks, Elisa! And thanks for offering one winner a copy of Pretty Crooked!

To enter, please leave a comment and tweet with @laurapauling. If you tweet more than once or blog about this series then add another comment with the link. Winners will be announced on Saturday so you’ll have all week to enter and promote.

You can still enter Monday and Tuesday’s book giveaway below!

Day 1: Gemma Halliday’s Hollywood Scandals
Day 2: Anne R. Allen’s The Gatsby Game

Thanks everyone!

Hang onto your seats because tomorrow we’ll hear from an extremely popular blogger about her life in France!

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A Spy Like Me celebration kicks off!

By Laura on May 7, 2012 in murder and mystery

Welcome to the kick off of a terrific blog series to celebrate the release of my YA novel, A Spy Like Me! **throws confetti**

And wow do we have an incredible line up of authors and bloggers in the next three weeks! Stick around and you’ll get tidbits of personal stories, behind the story stories, mystery writing tips – you name it.

Here’s how it will work. Almost every day there will be a guest post with a giveaway. To enter, please leave a comment and tweet using @laurapauling. If you tweet more than once or blog about this series then add another comment with the link. Let’s show these fantastic authors and bloggers our support!

On Saturday, at the end of each week, I’ll announce the winners. So you’ll have all week to promote and enter. Woo hoo!

I thought I’d start with an interview. Yeah, I interviewed myself. Okay?

Why did I choose to write about spies?

I’ve thought about this and to find the answer all I had to do was look back at my favorite books and movies in the last 20 years or longer.

1. Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, a one thousand page book that I liked so much I’ve read it twice. The aspects of unfair imprisonment, betrayal, revenge, secret identities – all called to me.
2. Until Tomorrow Comes by Sydney Sheldon. I’ve read this numerous times. A woman is unfairly imprisoned, escapes, and turns into a cat burglar.
3. And, of course, Ally Carter’s Gallagher series and Heist books.

And for movies?

1. Shining Through with Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith: A woman because of her ability to speak German becomes a spy during WWII – and falls in love, of course. Loved it!
2. True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. The story is about a wife learning her husband is really a spy and how she gets involved. Over the top, funny, serious – all at the same time.

So now you know why my tagline is Spies, Murder and Mystery.

Why did I wait so long to write a story about a spy?

Inspiration. I needed a different take. A unique angle. And I found that during Castle. Yes, Castle. In this one episode, the victim was involved in Spy Games. Bingo. I found a way for my main character to become an accidental spy. And then I set the story in Paris, France to add some flavor.

Anything else you want to know? Ask away in the comments.

Wait! What about the giveaway for today?

Here’s what Gemma Halliday, NYT best selling author of the Spying in High Heels series thought about A Spy Like Me.

“Move over Gallagher Girls – there’s a new spy in town! A Spy Like Me is a fast-paced, high energy ride through Paris that left me almost as breathless as Pauling’s hot hero. Super fun beginning, great story, and an ending that won’t disappoint.”

-Gemma Halliday – NYT best selling author of Spying in High Heels.

So I thought we’d give away her books today! Spying in High Heels, which I read and loved, you can download for free! At Amazon and Smashwords. And Gemma is also offering the ebook of Hollywood Scandals, the first book in a separate series, to one winner today. Thanks Gemma!

That wraps up day one. Tomorrow we’ll hear from Anne R. Allen and a little bit about The Gatsby Game and the Hollywood scandal that inspired it. Here’s a terrific review by Benoit Lelievre.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope to see you tomorrow and the next day.

Don’t forget to enter to win Gemma’s book!

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