Sorry I’ve Been Out Of Touch!

First of all I want to thank everyone who has been writing to me. In the last two weeks I’ve receive more reader emails than I ever before. I honestly love every one of your messages and I have every intention of sending each one of you a personal response, but you must be patient with me. I’m asking the same of my editor because for the first time in my life I’m late on a deadline. All my other books have been turned in early (in fact I turned in my upcoming November title, So Much For My Happy Ending 6 months early). But this has been a very hectic year for me, and I mean hectic in a good way: traveling for book tours and running back and forth between the Bay Area and LA for my son’s testing (okay that last wasn’t as fun as the book tours, but I did learn from the experience). Anyway, all my non-parenting time is currently going toward the completion of Sophie Book III and pulling together a proposal for the book I want to write next. So again, if you’ve emailed me, hang tight I will respond.

Other than that: Kepler's was wonderful! Thank you all for coming; it was a standing room only kind of event!


Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Jennifer Lynn Barnes: Chick Lit's Leonardo Da Vinci

Okay, first a quick reminder: I’ll be speaking tonight at Kepler’s. Hope you can make it!

Moving on: Four days a week I take my son to swim lessons. While he’s diligently working on his “ice cream scoopers” and “pizza arms” I sit by the pool chatting with the other moms. Oddly enough the most common topic of conversation among this impromptu mom’s group is not our children, its politics and world affairs. I’m actually fairly well versed in these areas and can talk about the issues intelligently. Thus I am now seen by a few of these other mothers as being somewhat of an intellectual.

On the last day of this last two-week session one of the moms promised to go out and buy my book. “It’ll be weird to switch to a book titled Sex, Murder And A Double Latte after what I’m currently reading (The Time Of The Uprooted by Elie Wiesel). But,” she said, giving me a knowing smile, “I bet it’s not as light as it sounds. I bet it was just packaged that way and you snuck in some rather deep and thought provoking messages.”

“No,” I said with an emphatic shake of my head. “It’s just light. No hidden agenda, just pure escapism.”

This surprised her and I know why. People assume that intelligent, well educated authors write serious literature and that ditzy, fashion and men-obsessed authors are responsible for all the chick lit and romance novels. Why would a person who is passionate about the environment write a comical book about a woman who fanatical about Jimmy Choos?

The reason is simple: intelligent chick lit authors (and I immodestly include myself in this group) are well rounded. We know that a person can escape into something light and still listen to NPR and read the Times. There’s more to us than just the chick lit we write but the reverse is just as important: there’s more to us than the causes we champion.

A perfect example of this is Jennifer Lynn Barnes author of the newly released YA supernatural/chick lit novel Golden. It just came out today so I haven’t read it yet but I have read the reviews. Kirkus liked it (that makes 3 books they don’t hate) and called it “…A well-balanced blend of fast-moving fantasy and light, playful chick lit.” .

Light, playful, chick lit. So she must be a light, playful gal, right? Between writing sessions she must be out shopping the Nordstrom Half-Yearly sale in search of the latest Juicy Couture handbag she wants to take on her next trip to Vegas.

Then again, maybe she recently graduated from Yale with a degree in cognitive science and spends her non-novel-writing-time compiling research on animal and child cognition for the likes of World News Tonight, Animal Planet and The New York Times and makes preparations for the year she’ll be spending at Cambridge doing autism research.

Barnes is a true Renaissance woman and I look forward to reading both her blog and her book, not because I hope to learn something about cognitive science but because I want to know what a cognitive scientist thinks about A-List teens with cool supernatural powers.

To quote the back cover of the book, you can't always judge a girl by her lip gloss.

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Such Is Life

The other night, on a whim, my son and I rented Return Of The Jedi. He loved, loved, LOVED the first twenty minutes of it. And then he fell apart and locked himself in his room.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what had upset him so much. He had run out during a scene where not much was going on. No fighting or even bad guys on the screen. No foreboding music. Just Luke Skywalker talking about his life.

Baffled, I re-watched the apparently offending scene. I listened carefully to what Luke was saying and all of a sudden I knew what the problem was. I went to my son’s room and after gaining admittance sat on his bed beside him and said five words that I NEVER thought I would have to say:

"Your father is NOT Darth Vader."

My son nodded but was clearly unconvinced, so I pushed forward.

“Darth Vader is evil and he wants Luke to be just as bad as he is. Your dad is NOT evil (he’s not even bad) and he wants you to grow up to be a better man than he is. A truly bad person wouldn’t want that for their child.”

My son’s lower lip began to quiver and he looked away from me. “I understand why your marriage had to end,” he said softly. “I understand why you couldn’t be his wife, but why did he have to leave me? Why did he have to move all the way across the country? Out of reach?”

This was breaking my heart but I knew it was something we needed to deal with so I took his hand and explained carefully. “As I said, he wants you to be an even better man than he is. He just doesn’t know how to teach you how to do that so he leaves raising you to me because he thinks that I can help you become the wonderful man he knows you can be.”

“But he could teach me how to be a good person,” my son insisted. “He is a good dad.”

It was hard to respond to this because the reality is that my ex is not a good dad. He has spent a total of five hours with our son in the last twelve months, called to talk to our son perhaps six or seven times within that same period and has neglected to return our child’s phone calls on more than one occasion. No one in their right mind would call that parenting. But reality isn’t really important here. What’s important is my son’s perception of reality and he is currently clinging to the idea that his father is a wonderful parent who left him. Here’s where it gets tricky. If I paint a picture of his father that is undeservedly idyllic my son will put the blame for his dad’s absence on himself. After all, a perfect dad would never leave a good kid. But I don’t want to bash his father either because I don’t want my son thinking he’s the spawn of…well…Darth Vader. So we talked about how his dad needed to work on being happy with himself before he would be able to make the people around him happy and how he needed to find a way to get his illness (he’s bipolar) under control. After much discussion my son asked the dreaded question: “Will he ever come back to me?”

The temptation is to lie, but of course I told the truth instead which is that I don’t know. I could see the devastation on my son’s face and I took him in my arms and reminded him of all the people here in Northern California who love him; knowing even as I uttered the words that they weren’t really helping.

That night, out of morbid curiosity, I Googled my ex-husband’s name. Seems he landed a management position at a new, locally owned, business. There was a newspaper article written about him in which he explained that he moved back to his hometown (Back East) in order to be “closer to (his) family.” There’s some truth to that (he’s currently living with his mother) but still, I couldn’t help but ponder the irony of the statement. But to my surprise, I wasn’t angry. I actually believe all that stuff I told my son about his dad. I believe that underneath the illness and the self loathing there is a good man struggling to get out. I believe that he loves our son, despite is inattentiveness. I also believe that if he’s unwilling to deal with his own issues it probably is best that he not be actively involved in our child’s life.

As long as this is the situation (and at this point I have no reason to think things will ever change) I will comfort my son and be the best parent I know how to be. But I can’t protect him from everything and I don’t even think I should try. Instead I’ll teach him how to cope. I will continue to remind him that it’s okay to love his father even though he rarely sees him and it’s okay to be angry with him even though he loves him.

This is my son’s cross to bear. We all have one (or two, or three). All I can do is help him shoulder the weight.

I’m sharing this because I know there are a lot of single moms who read this and I know, (as a woman who was raised by a single mother and who now is one) how emotionally difficult it can be for a child when one parent is basically out of the picture. I also know you can get your child through this without causing any undue trauma. It just takes a little sensitivity, a lot of honesty and a whole lot of love.


Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Lauren Barnholdt

Not long ago my agent was approached by an editor from one of the big NY publishing houses. The editor wanted to know if I’d be interested in writing a YA novel (young adult). At first I was so flattered by the request that I said “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

And then I stopped and realized that I had no idea HOW to write a YA novel. Were there situations I couldn’t write about? Words I couldn’t use? I was at a loss. I started doing a little research but it didn’t take me too much time to figure out I had another problem, lack of time. Writing my adult novels and homeschooling my son is enough to keep me plenty busy. Taking on a new project, particularly a learn-as-you-go-kind-of-project, was just asking for a breakdown. Still, I haven’t ruled out writing YA in the future and continue to be curious about the genre.

That’s why I was so excited to find out that one of my fellow GCC members, Lauren Barnholdt not only writes YA novels but also teaches an online course titled How to Write and Sell the YA Chick-lit Novel. She even wrote a book on the subject.

Her latest novel is Reality Chick which has been receiving rave reviews from the likes of Teen People. Anyway, I figured I’d pick her brain by inviting her to be interviewed on this blog. I know many of you are aspiring writers and a few of you are aspiring YA writers so perhaps you’ll find her answers as helpful as I did.

What attracted you to the chick-lit young adult fiction genre?

I’ve always been fascinated with adolescence, that time when everyone’s trying to figure things out. I think my writing voice naturally fits into the YA chicklit genre. My characters tend to overanalyze everything (kind of like me, ha), but in a funny, absurd kind of way.

The common assumption is that YA novels consist of fictional tales that deal with issues which are of interest to teens and adolescents while simultaneously side-stepping, or only delicately touching upon, adult situations and language. But in a world where very young children are exposed to “adult situations/language” in the media all the time, where does an author of YA fiction draw the line?

I think YA fiction has really grown up over the past few years. Before, YA authors were writing books with sixteen-year-old protagonists, but the books were geared toward a twelve-year-old audience. YA fiction is now writing books about sixteen-year-olds FOR sixteen-year-olds, and the topics, language, and issues addressed in the book are becoming more mature. The genre is really exploding, as teens are staying longer in the YA section before graduating to the other parts of the bookstore. My agent always says that today’s YA books address the same issues and topics as adult books – the only difference is that the YA characters are experiencing these things for the first time.

I’ve definitely noticed a lot of older teens reading YA novels but I’ve also noticed a lot of adults reading YA. Are adults part of YA’s target market these days?

The YA demographic has definitely changed over the past few years, with lots of books (like Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling books) having crossover appeal. I think a lot of the issues addressed and brought up in YA literature can appeal to adults as well, so the demographic is definitely shifting a little bit.

Your book is about a college freshman who has her first semester filmed for a reality show. What about reality TV perked your interest as an author?

I’m obsessed with reality TV. There’s something about knowing that what you’re watching actually happened that’s really compelling. I tried out for THE REAL WORLD once, and I didn’t make it. All my friends were like, “It’s because you’re too normal!” And I thought, “That’s exactly why they should have picked me!” I thought it would be cool to see how a normal person reacted to living with a bunch of people with issues – so I decided to write a book about it. (A lot of the stuff that happens during Ally’s audition in REALITY CHICK actually happened to me when I tried out for THE REAL WORLD. But I won’t tell you exactly what, ha.)

What’s next for you? Are you working on anything right now?

My first novel for tweens, DEVON DELANEY’S SECRET IDENTITY, will be out in May of 2007. It’s about a thirteen-year-old girl who goes away for the summer and lies to the local girls about how popular she is. She then has to scramble to recreate her “secret identity” when one of the girls shows up at her school. My second YA novel, ROAD TRIP, will be out next summer, and it’s about a girl who gets stuck driving cross country to college with the boy who just broke up with her.

Okay, if you’re anything like me you will now buy Reality Chick and analyze every incident in the book trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not. Maybe they’ll be some hints in her blog. It’s worth checking out.
www.livejournal.com/users/laurenbarnholdt

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Kepler's

Do you know that I’m on the Barnes & Noble bestseller list two times over?!?! I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about that. I’m doing pretty darned well at Borders too. I’ve had managers of Borders Express' contact me and ask if I would be willing to speak at their stores. It’s all incredibly flattering and insanely exciting but there is one group who I’m still fighting to be recognition by: the independent booksellers. There are those who feel that this isn’t an important fight for me to win. Some people feel that independent booksellers are relics from a bygone era and that their support (or lack there of) isn’t going to significantly affect my sales one way or the other.

I don’t agree with any of that. I am just naïve enough to think that there’s room in this world for both the superstores (like Borders and Barnes & Noble) and the independents. Go to any shopping district in an area that is at least marginally metropolitan and you’ll find two Starbucks, one other chain coffee shop and two independently owned coffee shops. And they’ll all be busy. If people can support five coffee shops in a three block radius then surely they can support two book stores in a five block one. I’m aware of all the independents that are closing and/or being pushed out. I know they’re struggling, I just don’t think it HAS to be that way. There has to be a way to spread out consumer support so that everybody wins. Do I have the answer as to how that’s going to work? I have some ideas but on a whole, no, I don’t. I’m just hopeful.

But while independent bookstores may be struggling financially I still think they wield an enormous amount of influence. Because they are perceived as members of the community they have the ability to get the community talking. They have the power to start a buzz and that’s not a power to be underestimated.

All this is leading up to a personal request. At 7:30 on Tuesday the 25th of July (as in six days from now) I’m going to be speaking at Menlo Park’s Kepler's. For those of you who don’t know, Keplers is one of the country’s best known independent bookstores in the country and like most independent bookstores they’ve had their fair share of financial difficulties. But things are beginning to look up for them and that’s partially due to a carefully selected and extremely high quality inventory. The powers that be at Kepler's are spending a lot of time studying the buying patterns of their customers and they make sure to carry what will appeal to them

I’d like to think that I would appeal to their customers. But Kepler’s is not in a position to take a gamble. If I was writing a type of book that they specialized in (non-fiction, science, children’s literature) then I’d have an automatic place in their store. But I write commercial women’s fiction and while they do carry commercial women’s fiction they don’t sell enough of it to justify carrying every chick-lit book that catches their eye. I have to prove myself to them. I’d like to think that this next event will do that. After all, I can usually pull in a crowd of 30 or more. But while I have gotten a lot of publicity in other areas of the country for some odd reason I haven’t had much in the South Bay this year. That could affect the size of my audience. Furthermore I’m going to be speaking with two other chick-lit authors and both of them are from the South Bay. I’m not in competition with these ladies but I don’t want them to feel like they have to provide me with exposure to dozens of new readers while I provide them with exposure to maybe three. So this is what I’m asking: if you can make the 7:30 signing please, please, PLEASE do. Furthermore bring friends. If you don’t live within driving distance of the store but know someone who does tell them to go. If you already have a book or if, for whatever reason, you don’t want to own one, that’s fine. I just want to provide the store with a crowd. You can go on their website to get instructions but I highly recommend that you actually call the store (650-324-4321)to ask a salesperson and that you mention the event while you’re on the phone, thus subtly letting them know what kind of attendance to expect.

I realize that I’m on the verge of begging here, not something I normally do. It also feels odd to be making this plea when my currents sales are so incredibly strong. But I really want to have more of a presence in those darned independent stores and this seems like a great opportunity to further that goal. Help me out?

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Georgia On My Mind

There are lots of great story tellers out there. They’re the authors who write those books you can’t put down. Maybe their prose are somewhat less than fluid, perhaps a secondary character or two are not as developed as they should be but we forgive these flaws because the plot has us riveted. We need to know what happens next.

Then there are the poets. I don’t mean the people who actually write poetry but those who write novels filled with lyrical prose. It takes longer to get through these. Perhaps we only read a page or two a day but when we close the book we always do it with a wistful sigh. Reading these novels is like listening to particularly beautiful love song. It’s impossible not to be moved.

Then there are those gritty authors. They write the books that shock us…did that character really just say that! But that’s so graphic! So real! I’m not going to be able to get that image out of my mind for years!

But it’s extremely rare to find an author who is capable of combining all three of the above listed qualities in order to create a masterpiece of a novel. Alice Walker did it in The Color Purple. Arthur Golden did it in Memoirs of a Geisha. Anne Rice managed it in Feast Of All Saints (a non-vampire, non-Jesus novel which may very well be her best), Pat Conroy did it in The Prince Of Tides and GCC member Joshilyn Jackson has done it in Between, Georgia.

There is absolutely no way that I convey the magic of Jackson’s writing in a description posted on a blog site so let me treat you to an excerpt:

The war began thirty years, nine months, and seven days ago, when I was deaf and blind floating silent and serene inside Hazel Crabtree. I was secreted in Hazel’s womb, which was cloaked in her pale and freckled skin which was in turn hidden by the baggy sweat suit she adopted so she would look fat instead of pregnant. Which was ridiculous because who ever heard of a fat Crabtree? They were all tall and weedy, slouching around like wilting stems, red hair blooming out the top.

Hazel Crabtree was fifteen years old, and no one thought twice about her expanding waistline as she crept around the edges of rooms, watching her mother ignore her and ignoring me in turn as I kicked at her and spun and grew myself some lungs.

I never heard Hazel’s side of the story. She birthed me but was never in any sense my mother. I heard an expurgated version from my aunt Genny; to hear Genny tell it, I frolicked bloodlessly into the world attended by singing rabbits. From Aunt Bernese, I got raw medical data and a flat recitation of events in the order they occurred.

But my mother, Stacia Frett, told it to me as a love story, hers and mine. It wasn’t a declaration of war to her, it was simply the tale of how we found each other.

Admit it, you CARE about this woman’s relationship with her mother, Stacia, don’t you? Yet you don’t even know “this woman’s” name yet! But Jackson doesn’t just get readers to care about her characters, she gets you to care about her story. As I read I find myself needing to find out why Nonny (the protagonist) is so determined to divorce the gorgeous rocker sex-god that is her husband. I need to know how this war between the Crabtrees and the Fretts is going to play out. I need to know what’s going to happen to Nonny’s mother and aunt after they were attacked by the Crabtree’s dogs. I could have finished this book in a day but I’m forcing myself to read it slowly because the further I get into it the less I want it to end.

Anyway, I urge you to check it out next time you’re in a bookstore. And you should also stop by her blog from time to time; if only to makes sure you don’t miss out on any of her future offerings.

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Sophie’s Screwing With Society’s Moral Fabric! Literally!

My good friend Alina Adams is the ghostwriter for Oakdale Confidential, a New York Times bestselling tie in book for As The World Turns. Yes, I just outted her but it’s excusable since Soap Opera Digest outted her weeks earlier. Anyhoo, there is this guy with a blog site who had dedicated SEVERAL (as in way more than one) posts taking her to virtual-task for the way she’s handled her ghostwriter-status (amongst other things).

I read this and was immediately jealous of Alina. You know you’ve made it when the haters come along. After all, nobody gives grief to the underdog (unless you’re a high school bully on steroids or something). But despite my ever improving sales I’ve yet to find even one person who is willing to be my nemesis.

At least that’s what I thought until tonight…

See, my film agent emailed me asking if I had an e-copy of the Cosmo excerpt of Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights that was featured in their July issue. I didn’t have one so I did a quick search on Google. I couldn’t find what I was looking for and was about to log off when I saw something rather strange. The title of my book was bringing up an article that was being distributed on the Christian News Wire. Curious I clicked the link, and guess what?

I have a nemesis!!!! In fact I have managed to piss off an entire organization of people!!! They call themselves the American Decency Association and they find my work to be incredibly indecent. How fabulous is that?!

Apparently my “racy” books are an irresistible temptation for all the “lustful youth” of America. At least that has become the case ever since Cosmo brought me to their attention. The problem has also reportedly been exacerbated by a game Cosmo suggested in that issue which is meant to spice up couples’ sex lives. The game begins by the selection of sexually explicit scenes from beloved books that can later be reenacted. So the fear is that after seeing my excerpt in that particular issue of Cosmo teens will put two and two together and do what Sophie does.

Of course there are problems with their premise. For one thing as far as explicit sex scenes are concerned mine are fairly tame. I assume the lustful youth knows how to use the internet and I assure you they could find a lot worse in one Google search. Secondly to truly reenact the sex scene in Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights you’d need a box full of dark chocolate covered espresso beans and a $1,200 espresso machine…not things that the average teenager has on hand. But of course the folks within the American Decency Association wouldn’t know that because they don’t read the “smut” I write and thank God for that because if they did they might not hate me so much and I seriously can’t think of any group that I would rather piss off. I mean this is a serious honor and I’m not even being facetious! I honestly haven’t been this excited since I found out I was going to get into Cosmo in the first place!

Everybody who’s anybody is hated by the American Decency Association and now I am finally a somebody. Yea me!

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

Selling My Soul The Honorable Way

I just finished reading Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez’ Blog post: Thoughts on Sales and Art. Apparently TPTB within the publishing world told her that the books she wanted to write (after Dirty Girl’s Social Club) weren’t going to sell. It was explained to her that a Latina woman, now famous for writing a break-out chick-lit novel about other Latina women simply could not turn around and start writing literary novels featuring non-Latina protagonists.

Alisa went on to say that she regrets following this advice and is now writing the book that SHE wants to write not one she’s been told she HAS to write in order to meet the expectations of her pre-established target market


I read this and ALL I could think about was my November title, So Much For My Happy Ending. It was actually the second novel that I wrote. When I started it I had yet to sell Sex, Murder And A Double Latte and had serious doubts that I ever would. Everybody told me that authors rarely sell their first attempt at a book even if that book is good and I saw no reason why I should be the exception to that rule.

So with all this in mind I started So Much For My Happy Ending. The protagonist, April, has a similar sense of humor as Sophie, she lives in San Francisco and like Sophie, April has a Gay friend and a wild girlfriend. But that’s where the similarities ended. April is a young woman who is stuck in a career that she is ill-suited for. She craves the stability that was denied her as a child and she marries the first man who she believes will provide that for her. But when her husband’s moods become more erratic and his behavior inexplicably destructive she begins to understand that not only is he unable to offer her stability he is actually suffering from a mental illness that could devastate them both if left untreated.

I was a hundred pages into the rough draft when my agent called me with some wonderful (and totally unexpected) news. Two New York publishers had made an offer on Sex, Murder And A Double Latte. Furthermore they were both offering me multi-book contracts! Galvanized by this success my then-agent insisted that I send her the synopsis for So Much For My Happy Ending along with the little that I had written of it so far.

After reading it she was less euphoric. “Kyra,” she said, “it’s masterfully written, in fact it’s so well paced and compelling that I found myself agitated when I realized that I had reached the end of the sample pages…I was that eager to find out what happens next! But I don’t know that the publishing world is ready for a hip, chick-lit-like heroine who is dealing with such gritty and realistic problems. I’ve shopped it to a few editors and they agree. Could we make April’s husband’s illness a little more vague? Perhaps we could lighten her load a bit when it comes to her family life. And make April a little less flawed to ensure that she’s always sympathetic to readers. Just make the whole thing a little more fluffy.”

Despite my recent sale I was at that point still an unpublished author and I had an agent and two editors from two different high profile publishing houses telling me I needed to take the book in a different direction.

And I caved. I agreed to fluff it up.

And then I changed my mind. It only took me a couple of days to come to my senses. It is so hard to make a living as an author, if you’re not even going to be able to write what you love why not just choose a less demanding career that offers more job security and a better paycheck? I love writing the Sophie books and the fact that they fit into a genre that the publishing world has embraced is simply a fabulous coincidence. I loved writing So Much For My Happy Ending as well but it didn’t fit into a ready made box the way the Sophie books do. C’est la vie. I decided that if the publishing world didn’t want it I would have to accept that but I wasn’t going to sell April out by trivializing her plight.

And then two other New York publishing houses took note and made offers on the manuscript without asking me to compromise the story. So Much For My Happy Ending has a lot of humor in it, the characters are young hip fashionistas and they have the kind of problems that real human beings have. It is very loosely based on my life. April, like me, is not perfect. She doesn’t always handle things well and she is at least partially responsible for her own misfortune. It was both wonderful and gut wrenching to write and by publishing this book I am sharing a part of myself that I’m tempted to keep private. The reviewers could pan it. Readers could reject it. But no matter what I will always be proud of it.

Alisa feels she made an error in judgment (although based on the high quality of her books I personally think the error was extremely minor). Nonetheless I admire her renewed resolve to only write what SHE wants to write. There is little question that her next project will be a tour de force. I also want to assure you that every book I write, whether it be a Sophie book or something else, will be a book that I wanted to write. When and if my editors/readers decide that I am not offering them something that they care to be part of then I’ll respect their choice and find another way to pay my bills.

See, you can buy a piece of my soul but you can’t change it.


Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

The Surreal Life

The editors at Barnes & Noble have honored me with yet another review and this time it’s Sex, Murder And A Double Latte (which is considered a “new” book since it was just recently released in paperback) that’s getting the star treatment. Here’s what they said:

The title of Kyra Davis's debut novel is also a fitting description of its stlye. Blending elements of steamy romance and hard-boiled mystery, this delightfully witty amalgam of chick lit and amateur sleuth mystery (featuring lovable, caffeine-addicted protagonist Sophie Katz) is not only a compelling testimonial to Starbucks; it's also one of the most impressive genre debuts to come along in years!

Sophie is a popular murder mystery novelist living in San Francisco. The biracial wordsmith has it all: a small group of loving (and wildly eccentric) friends, a beautiful apartment, a charismatic feline companion -- and an obsessed fan that may be trying to kill her. After a Hollywood movie producer interested in bringing one of Sophie's novels to the big screen reportedly commits suicide in a bizarre reenactment of a death scene from one of his movies, Sophie senses there is something terribly wrong. That foreboding turns to downright terror when someone begins re-creating scenes from Sophie's latest murder mystery with Sophie herself as the prime target. Can hunky Russian expatriate Anatoly Darinsky help her find the assailant -- or is he the mysterious stalker?

In Sex, Murder and a Double Latte, Davis mixes laugh-out-loud wit, cheeky panache, and pop-culture charm with a fast-paced and lighthearted whodunit that should appeal to anyone who enjoys reading authors like Harley Jane Kozak, Sophie Kinsella, or Elaine Viets. If novels were cups of coffee, Davis's debut would be a Grande Caramel Brownie Frappuccino with extra whipped cream. In a word: delish!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I heart Barnes & Noble. I also heart The Capitola Book Café who actually sent my book out to a few individuals they knew in the film industry. I have no idea if Sophie will ever get to be in front of a camera but a few Hollywood types did come up to Northern California to talk to me which was pretty flattering in and of itself!

Sometimes it’s hard to believe this is my life!


Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read

The Zoo Of Death

So my son received Zoo Tycoon as a gift for his birthday and over the last few days I’ve been trying to help him figure out how to play it. I assumed that a game that centered on zoo animals (including dinosaurs) would be aimed at children.

Wrong, wrong, WRONG. This “game” comes with two disks, 7 tutorials (7!!!!) an instruction manual and a web address that you’re supposed to visit in order to get MORE INSTRUCTIONS! Are they kidding me? Who has this kind of time?

I figured that an intelligent adult like me wouldn’t need all that so all I did was go through the tutorials before sitting down to start a game with my son. He wanted a dinosaur zoo so those are the animals that we started with. But no matter what we tried we couldn’t make these prehistoric beasts happy. In fact they were so UNHAPPY that the virtual-National –Organization-Of-Zoos stepped in and forbid us from adopting any more animals.

It seemed I needed to read the manual after all which I did, I swear to God I did. But when we tried to play again the same damn thing happened and this time two of the animals became ill before they even had a chance to hatch from their eggs!

Determined to make this game enjoyable for my son (and to prove to myself that I wasn’t an idiot incapable of mastering a “simple” game) I went onto the Zoo Tycoon website. I read the tips and the additional instructions and tried again.

This time things got so bad that virtual-protesters showed up to protest the living conditions of our animals.

When that happened I actually perked up for a moment. Clearly this wasn’t just any zoo. This was the San Francisco zoo! I know how to deal with San Francisco activists. All I had to do is grab a bullhorn and loudly explain that the poor state of the zoo could be blamed on federal budget cuts--budget cuts that wouldn’t have been necessary if it wasn’t for the very expensive and extremely unpopular Iraq war. But no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find a blame-the-Bush-Administration task bar.

Eventually I turned to my son with a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried to figure this thing out but it’s just not happening. We keep getting pop-up windows telling us our guests and dinosaurs are unhappy and I have no idea how to get rid of those protestors."

My son looked at me with his sparkling blue eyes and said, “I know how to get ride of the protestors.” And with that he dragged the mouse over to a miniature bulldozer on the left side of the screen and proceeded to bulldoze the fence surrounding our Allosaurus.

And you know that Allosaurus gobbled those protestors right up.

Technically I think we lost the game but as far as I’m concerned we scored a big victory. After all, the first priority of a zookeeper should be the well being of the animals and if nothing else, we were able to make sure that all our carnivores were well fed.

Have a great forth of July!!!!


Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte IN STORES NOW!!!
Order Passion,Betrayal And Killer Highlights online now!
Pre-Order your copy of So Much For My Happy Ending
For The Love Of A Dog--A fun online read