@TheBookSlayer
When two gorgeous, popular witches clash over a man, it’s magical mayhem in this conclusion to the Life’s a Witch trilogy!
It’s been a trying year for teen witch Hadley Bishop—she led her coven into battle against the Parrishables and lost her mother in a surprise attack. Now that the Parrishables and their leader, Samuel Parris, have been defeated, Hadley is looking forward to a relaxing, love-filled summer with boyfriend Asher Astley.
Hadley’s summer plans take an unexpected turn though when she and her coven head off to a witchy summer intensive. Once there, Hadley immediately finds herself in a power struggle with Brooklyn Sparks. Like Hadley, Brooklyn is gorgeous and popular, but she’s also…Asher’s ex-girlfriend?!
As if this news isn’t enough to rattle Hadley, there are rumors of a rogue witch in the woods, and someone is playing dangerous pranks around camp. Hadley suspects that Brooklyn is behind the pranks, but is she willing to risk losing her friends and Asher to prove it? In this electrifying conclusion to the Life’s a Witch series, Hadley will discover that love is more powerful than any spell—but it comes with a price.
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Biography
Brittany Geragotelis is living the dream. After 10 years of rejection from the publishing industry, she began to post her original novel, LIFE'S A WITCH, on the online writing site, Wattpad, hoping that others would enjoy reading her book. A year after the first upload, the book had received 19 million reads, which caught the attention of Publisher's Weekly, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
Brittany Geragotelis is living the dream. After 10 years of rejection from the publishing industry, she began to post her original novel, LIFE'S A WITCH, on the online writing site, Wattpad, hoping that others would enjoy reading her book. A year after the first upload, the book had received 19 million reads, which caught the attention of Publisher's Weekly, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
After building up some buzz in the industry, she hooked up with her agents who instantly received interest from publishers and movie/tv producers. Within weeks, LIFE'S A WITCH went into auction between four major publishing houses, and in the end Brittany landed a 3-book deal with publishing powerhouse, Simon & Schuster.
The three books in the series, LIFE'S A WITCH, THE WITCH IS BACK & WHAT THE SPELL are all available nationwide now. Brittany's other teen romance novel, KISS & SELL is also available.
When she's not writing, Brittany is obsessing over celebrities, TV shows, movies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, gluten-free food and, of course, books!
Brittany lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Matt, and her two cats, Murray and Cohen.
| Goodreads | Twitter | Website | FacebookBiography
Brittany Geragotelis is living the dream. After 10 years of rejection from the publishing industry, she began to post her original novel, LIFE'S A WITCH, on the online writing site, Wattpad, hoping that others would enjoy reading her book. A year after the first upload, the book had received 19 million reads, which caught the attention of Publisher's Weekly, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
Brittany Geragotelis is living the dream. After 10 years of rejection from the publishing industry, she began to post her original novel, LIFE'S A WITCH, on the online writing site, Wattpad, hoping that others would enjoy reading her book. A year after the first upload, the book had received 19 million reads, which caught the attention of Publisher's Weekly, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
After building up some buzz in the industry, she hooked up with her agents who instantly received interest from publishers and movie/tv producers. Within weeks, LIFE'S A WITCH went into auction between four major publishing houses, and in the end Brittany landed a 3-book deal with publishing powerhouse, Simon & Schuster.
The three books in the series, LIFE'S A WITCH, THE WITCH IS BACK & WHAT THE SPELL are all available nationwide now. Brittany's other teen romance novel, KISS & SELL is also available.
When she's not writing, Brittany is obsessing over celebrities, TV shows, movies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, gluten-free food and, of course, books!
Brittany lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Matt, and her two cats, Murray and Cohen.
Of Book 1 Life's A Wich
It totally sucks being invisible.
Sure, if you had your pick of superpowers, you might wish for invisibility, but when you actually are invisible, the novelty of it all wears off pretty fast. Take my word for it. I’ve been invisible for the past fifteen years of my life.
Not physically invisible, of course—that would be a different story entirely—though I’m sure there’s a spell for that. No, my ability to walk through life practically undetected is more of a social curse. And the truth is, being so average that you don’t fit in with the nerds or the popular kids sometimes sucks beyond belief. Because in that case, you don’t fit in anywhere.
But tonight my non-life as I know it will be over and everything will change.
“Ooof,” I choked as my shoulder was nearly taken off by a member of our school’s football team slamming past me. “Hey!”
Brad Pinkerton, who’d scored more than half the team’s points at last week’s football game, looked back at me curiously before turning around and continuing on his way. My mouth fell open as I realized his eyes had focused on the space right above my head and not even on me. Chances are, he forgot about running into me almost as soon as it happened; I wasn’t even a blip on his radar.
Figures.
I rubbed my shoulder and thought about how there was a reason football players wore padding. That bump was really going to leave a mark.
Awesome.
Happy birthday to me.
Turning back around, I shuffled on down the hallway, listening to the lively chatter coming from the cafeteria. The mixture of conversation and laughter made my heart race as I got closer and closer to the hub of the school. I stopped just outside the door and surveyed the scene.
There were all my classmates, having fun with their friends, eating their lunches, catching up on gossip. Each table was like its own little stereotype. There were the jocks, the alterna-kids, the drama group, the band geeks, the metrosexuals, the losers—every type was represented, and everyone fit somewhere. Only, one group in particular stood out above them all.
The Elite.
Just the name alone was enough to make you wish you could be a part of it. They were the ones who ruled the school, set the status quo, decided who was popular and who would be social outcasts. The Elite were both revered and feared. It was a widely accepted fact that its members were as dangerous as they were beautiful. Whatever they wanted, they got—no matter what rules or laws stood in their way. Of course, no one knew anything for sure, but there were enough rumors floating around—blackmail, cheating, and stealing, to name a few—that I couldn’t assume they were all made up.
But their supposed run-ins with authority seemed to only add to the attraction, because they were put up on pedestals around here. Literally. Their table was the only one located on a slightly raised section at the back of the caf, which was probably a makeshift stage at one point but now acted as prime lunch real estate. The Elite were like teen royalty, and just like Kate and William, they had a loyal following.
I studied the group’s two leaders, Gigi and Camden. They were Clearview High’s golden couple. Both were seniors, both were ridiculously good-looking, and both were from wealthy and powerful families. The two even looked alike. It was almost narcissistic—like they’d sought out the opposite-sex version of themselves. Blond hair, big blue eyes, amazing bodies—if they weren’t always locking lips, you’d wonder if they were related.
The Queen G herself looked every bit the part. She had perfect posture and walked around with her head held higher than anyone around her. This not only made her seem like she was about ten feet tall, but it gave the feeling that she was always watching over you. She was impeccably dressed and perfectly coiffed, and when she smiled, you couldn’t tell if she was truly happy or planning something devious. As the head of the debate team, Gigi could argue anything—and you didn’t want to be on the other side of that disagreement.
And of course every queen has her king, and Camden was it. He was president of the student council, played on the school’s lacrosse team, and apparently planned to go into politics one day. Either that or he’d follow in his father’s footsteps and end up running his own Fortune 500 company or something. The fact that he looked like he’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog didn’t hurt his cause either.
I was still watching them when Camden leaned over and planted a kiss on Gigi’s cheek, causing the whole student body to let out a collective “Awwww.”
The moment was immediately broken up by the two guys to Camden’s right, Rhodes and Wheatley, who exchanged a comment under their breath and then laughed loudly. Wheatley used to be on the football team but was kicked off for being too rough on the field. Apparently he’d averaged at least two concussions per game—giving, not receiving. Standing an intimidating six foot three, he was considered the muscle in the group, which meant that most people left him and the other Elite alone. And if they didn’t, Wheatley took care of them.
He and Rhodes were a package deal, though the two were complete opposites. Where Wheatley was aggressive, Rhodes was easygoing—and definitely the brains in the group. He had a photographic memory and could recall just about every fact he’d ever learned. People around school called him the walking computer, because there wasn’t a single topic he didn’t know about. Word was that Harvard had been recruiting him since he was a freshman, and if you’d ever seen the guy in action, you’d know why. This was probably why he was a part of the group—being able to hack into any system on the web no doubt came in handy. And the fact that he was as good-looking as he was smart didn’t hurt either.
My eyes swept over to the only other girl in the group: Eliza. It was hard not to envy Eliza. Her dad was the bona fide movie star Kyle Rivers; sure, he seemed to be doing more behind-the-camera work these days, but he had his own star on the Walk of Fame for God’s sake. As Kyle Rivers’s only daughter, Eliza was your typical rich kid. She always had the newest Louis Vuitton and upgraded her sports car every year. What she lacked in brains, she made up for in dramatic interpretation. The girl was obviously her father’s daughter and could cry on a dime, which made it difficult to trust any emotion Eliza showed to the rest of us.
Together, the five of them reigned over the student body. They were treated better than anyone else because they’d convinced us they were better than everyone else. And of course no one challenged them for the throne. To be honest, why would you want to? They were pretty, popular, and powerful. They were elite.
And I wanted desperately to be a part of their group.
Sighing, I headed toward the cafeteria’s shake station to pick up my drink of choice: the Monkey Business. A combination of banana, chocolate, peanut butter, and fro-yo. It was the opposite of healthy, but it was the epitome of deliciousness. And it was my daily treat to myself for weathering another day at this school. Besides, I didn’t exactly have anyone to impress.
Been there, tried that.
The first couple of weeks of my freshman year, I’d had the misguided impression that I was going to be able to start fresh in a new school. Middle school hadn’t been entirely good to me; I’d had a friend for half the time I was there, but Kai was an exchange student who barely spoke English. And if I was really honest with myself, we were more like loners who chose to be alone together rather than friends. But when she returned to Europe, I went back to being on my own.
I was hoping that graduating to a new school, one where only a quarter of the people there had any chance of knowing who I was before, would be my chance to reinvent myself. During the first few weeks, I tried my best to dress like the other kids in my class, fix my hair like the girls in Seventeen magazine, and mimic the actions I thought would gain me a gaggle of friends.
It was when nobody noticed the change in me and I was left with no more friends than I’d had before that I made my biggest discovery thus far in my short life.
You can’t will yourself into popularity. It is bestowed upon you if you are found worthy enough to have it. You either are or you aren’t. And it had been decided by the powers that be that I wasn’t.
After that, I sort of gave up trying. What was the point if things weren’t going to change?
And the alternative was worse as far as I was concerned. Other wannabes tried to force themselves into the circles of popular kids at our school, and it was like watching a train wreck. They tried too hard, offering to do the bidding of those with a higher social standing in the hopes that they’d edge their way in. But all they did was embarrass themselves as the popular kids treated them like slaves and then laughed at them behind their backs.
So, in a way, I guess there was a fate worse than invisibility.
I paid for my shake and then began to walk back across the cafeteria, taking a huge slurp of my Monkey Business. My eyes gravitated toward The Elite. Eliza was cutting an apple into smaller and smaller halves, and Gigi was sipping her Diet Coke out of a straw. I bet neither of them had ever had a shake in their lives.
How sad is that?
I was so focused on The Elite that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking, and before I knew it I was falling. Moments like this always seemed to happen in slow motion in movies, but for me, it all happened incredibly fast. I let go of my Monkey Business and reached out in front of me. A second before my hands hit the floor, the shake made impact and exploded. All over me. It was like a chocolate tsunami and there were no survivors.
As I attempted to lift my upper body from the linoleum, I could hear people laughing around me. Without opening my eyes, I knew that they were probably pointing, cell phones out, ready to capture the moment and then post it on the web later.
“Omigod, who is that?” someone asked not so quietly.
“Hard to tell now,” another responded.
“What a loser.”
The conversation grew around me and I wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. If there was ever a time when I’d welcome invisibility, this would be it.
I pushed myself up onto my knees and wiped at my eyes. Monkey Business dripped off my lashes and onto my lap. I looked around to see that everyone was still staring, some in horror and others with amusement.
I had to get out of there.
Leaving the remaining contents of my shake on the caf floor, I grabbed my bag and ran out the door as people began to clap behind me.
I went back and forth between walking fast and jogging, not wanting to get stopped along the way by any teachers before I reached my safe haven. In less than a minute, I burst through the guidance counselor’s door and tossed my bag onto a nearby chair before sitting down in the other.
“Oh. My. God,” Ms. Zia said as she hopped up out of her chair and reached for the box of tissues on the edge of her desk. She took a few out and handed them to me.
“Thanks,” I said grudgingly. There was chocolate everywhere. In my hair, my ears, down the front of my shirt—I’d be cleaning it off me for the rest of the day. Starting with my face, I sopped up the brown liquid the best I could and then looked at her miserably.
“Who did this to you?” Ms. Z. asked, handing me a few more tissues. I placed the used ones in a pile on the corner of her desk.
“Me,” I said. “I did this to me. My clumsiness struck again.”
She looked at me sympathetically. “Oh, Brooklyn. What happened?”
“I wasn’t watching where I was going and tripped over something. Maybe a chair, or it’s possible it was over my own feet. Lord knows that happens often enough.” This was just one more way that I seemed to be socially cursed.
Ms. Zia leaned forward and wiped a bit of banana off my cheek. “And this is . . . ?”
“Monkey Business.”
“Oh.” Ms. Zia handed me the box and then went back behind her desk and sat down. “Sounds like you’re having a rough day.”
“Aren’t I always?” I grumbled, taking off my stained shirt to reveal a significantly drier tank top underneath. Reaching into my backpack, I grabbed the clean tee I kept in there for emergencies—believe it or not, spilling on myself happened more frequently than I’d like to admit—and pulled it over my head. I used the ruined shirt to soak up the rest of the milk shake from my hair before twisting it into a messy bun.
“I’m guessing this was just the tip of the iceberg, then?” Ms. Zia asked.
She pulled out a Tupperware container full of what I knew without looking was some sort of elaborate, healthy salad. I’d never seen her eat anything but a salad for lunch. Sometimes it had walnuts and fruit in it, other times it was heavy on the veggies. But it was always a salad. I looked down at my own sack lunch, which contained a PB&J and chips. It wasn’t exactly the lunch of champions, but Ms. Zia never judged. That’s why I always spent my lunch hour in her office. That and the fact that she was my only friend at Clearview High. Lame, I know, having a teacher for a friend, but Ms. Zia was actually really cool. Unlike the rest of the student body, I felt like she really got me.
She was like the older sister I never had.
“Brad Pinkerton practically tackled me in the hallway, and it was like he didn’t even feel it. I swear, it’s like I’m—”
“You’re not invisible, Brooklyn,” Ms. Zia said firmly.
“How can you be sure?”
“Um, because I can see you.”
“Yeah, but how do you know that you don’t just have special powers that let you see invisible people like me? Or maybe I’m a ghost and you’re the whisperer. I bet this place is full of them. Kids are probably dying of boredom all the time,” I said.
“Ha, ha,” Ms. Zia said sarcastically, placing her salad container on the desktop. “Look, we’ve talked about this. High school isn’t really reality. All the people who are popular now and all the things that seem important won’t be when you leave this place. I know you think life would be better if you had different friends—”
“If I had any friends.”
“—but none of that’s going to matter once you graduate and go out into the real world. I’ve told you what happened to me,” she said, lowering her voice a bit. “Please just trust me. Popularity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and in the end, nobody’s going to care who you were in high school. And by this time tomorrow, everyone will have forgotten about your milk shake mishap.”
That was easy for her to say. She had no idea what high school was like for me.
Ms. Zia picked up her lunch again and took a dainty green bite. Silently, I unwrapped my sandwich. I knew this topic was a personal one for her, since she’d experienced it herself. Only, she’d been popular growing up. Quite possibly the most popular girl in her school. With gorgeous dark hair and a figure to die for, Katerina Zia turned heads everywhere she went. She’d been the homecoming queen, had the athletic boyfriend, dictated what was cool, and pretty much ran her school.
And then she graduated.
When she got to college, nobody cared who Katerina Zia was. Suddenly, her good looks weren’t enough to let her continue coasting through life, and people no longer focused on a social hierarchy in which she was at the top. After a tough transition freshman year, Katerina decided to study education and psychology and eventually became a guidance counselor. Now, as Ms. Zia, she’s come to look at high school differently.
And she was constantly trying to get me to do the same. Sometimes she took the older sister thing a little too far and I couldn’t help but get annoyed. But in the end, I knew she did it because she cared. And the thing we argued about most often? My school situation. She thought she knew better because she’d lived the life I wanted.
But I wanted the chance to be popular on my own terms.
“It matters to me,” I said quietly. “You of all people should understand.”
Ms. Zia remained silent as my statement hung in the air. Both of us—one a has-been and the other a wannabe—were haunted by our teenage selves. It was sort of tragically poetic when you thought about it.
I stole a glance at her and once again marveled at how beautiful she was. She was older than me, of course, maybe in her mid- to late-twenties, but she still looked young enough to be a college student, with skin like porcelain and thick brows like you saw on runway models these days. Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe her, yet I wondered if she even knew it.
Though Beauty and the Beast was exaggerating a bit, I knew that my looks paled in comparison to hers. My hair hung just past my shoulders and was a blah brown color that neither shone in the light nor did anything for my skin. My cheekbones were prominent, but not quite in the right way, and my face was bumpy to the touch thanks to a mild case of keratosis pilaris, a fun little skin condition that ensured I’d never have smooth, model-like skin. I was skinny, but tomboy skinny, and longed for some of the curves that my classmates had. Bottom line: it wasn’t like I was ugly, but I wasn’t really anyone’s idea of pretty, either.
“Well, I hope you get everything you want,” Ms. Zia said, sounding like she meant it. Suddenly, she reached down underneath her desk. “And to help those wishes come true, and to make up for what should have been a much better day, I’ve got a little something for you.”
After some shuffling, she popped back up, this time holding a single cupcake with a candle on top.
“Ms. Z.—you didn’t have to do that!” I squealed, grateful that no one else was around to hear how excited I was over getting baked goods.
“Happy birthday, Brooklyn,” she said with a big smile. I blew out the flame and watched as the smoke swirled up into the air, making designs as it lifted and then disappeared. Ms. Zia took out a plastic knife and cut the cupcake in half, letting me choose my piece first. I reached out and grabbed the chunk closest to me, shoving half of it in my mouth at once. It was chocolate with a peanut butter filling and buttercream frosting. I nearly fainted with delight as I licked the leftovers from my fingers.
Ms. Zia delicately pulled a piece off her own section and popped it into her mouth. How did she manage to make everything look effortless? I made a note to try to be more like her when I was eating.
“So, any plans for the big day?” she asked, changing the subject. “You having a party or just taking a spin now that you’re officially a licensed driver?”
“Nah, we’re not really doing anything big,” I said, waving off the idea.
My parents actually had offered to throw me a big party in honor of the occasion, but then I would’ve had to invite people. And when nobody showed, my parents would’ve found out that I didn’t have any friends, and that was a conversation I really didn’t want to have. So I’d said that I just wanted to spend the night with them. They didn’t question me about it, since they knew they couldn’t give me my birthday present when people were around anyway.
“Do you think there’s a set of keys in your future?” Ms. Zia asked, suddenly sounding like a giddy teenager. “Man, when my parents gave me my first car, it was like love at first sight.”
I laughed as she got a dreamy look in her eyes. “They might let me take the old Ford around the block once or twice,” I said.
“I’m telling you, Brooklyn, you’re going to enjoy your freedom,” she said. “It’s going to change your life.”
I nodded, because it was true. My life was about to change—but not for the reasons Ms. Z. was thinking.
The truth was, I came from a family of witches, and up until now, I hadn’t been allowed to use my powers. But my parents had promised to unbind my gifts the day I turned sixteen. I knew through witching chat rooms that most magically inclined kids learned how to cast around the same time they learned how to walk. My parents, however, were beyond strict about magic. Their reasoning behind binding my powers was that they thought I should be mature enough to handle the responsibility it took to do magic safely. I think that, to them, magic equals freedom and my parents just weren’t ready to let go. They probably still weren’t ready, but they’d promised me that tonight was the night I would come into my heritage. After so many years of wishing I could use magic, I was itching to take my powers out for a test run.
And I already knew what my first spell was going to be.
“I think you’re right, Ms. Z.,” I said. “I have a feeling things are about to change around here.” - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/What-the-Spell/Brittany-Geragotelis/Lifes-a-Witch/9781442467071/excerpt#sthash.HbGqgEQV.dpuf
Sure, if you had your pick of superpowers, you might wish for invisibility, but when you actually are invisible, the novelty of it all wears off pretty fast. Take my word for it. I’ve been invisible for the past fifteen years of my life.
Not physically invisible, of course—that would be a different story entirely—though I’m sure there’s a spell for that. No, my ability to walk through life practically undetected is more of a social curse. And the truth is, being so average that you don’t fit in with the nerds or the popular kids sometimes sucks beyond belief. Because in that case, you don’t fit in anywhere.
But tonight my non-life as I know it will be over and everything will change.
“Ooof,” I choked as my shoulder was nearly taken off by a member of our school’s football team slamming past me. “Hey!”
Brad Pinkerton, who’d scored more than half the team’s points at last week’s football game, looked back at me curiously before turning around and continuing on his way. My mouth fell open as I realized his eyes had focused on the space right above my head and not even on me. Chances are, he forgot about running into me almost as soon as it happened; I wasn’t even a blip on his radar.
Figures.
I rubbed my shoulder and thought about how there was a reason football players wore padding. That bump was really going to leave a mark.
Awesome.
Happy birthday to me.
Turning back around, I shuffled on down the hallway, listening to the lively chatter coming from the cafeteria. The mixture of conversation and laughter made my heart race as I got closer and closer to the hub of the school. I stopped just outside the door and surveyed the scene.
There were all my classmates, having fun with their friends, eating their lunches, catching up on gossip. Each table was like its own little stereotype. There were the jocks, the alterna-kids, the drama group, the band geeks, the metrosexuals, the losers—every type was represented, and everyone fit somewhere. Only, one group in particular stood out above them all.
The Elite.
Just the name alone was enough to make you wish you could be a part of it. They were the ones who ruled the school, set the status quo, decided who was popular and who would be social outcasts. The Elite were both revered and feared. It was a widely accepted fact that its members were as dangerous as they were beautiful. Whatever they wanted, they got—no matter what rules or laws stood in their way. Of course, no one knew anything for sure, but there were enough rumors floating around—blackmail, cheating, and stealing, to name a few—that I couldn’t assume they were all made up.
But their supposed run-ins with authority seemed to only add to the attraction, because they were put up on pedestals around here. Literally. Their table was the only one located on a slightly raised section at the back of the caf, which was probably a makeshift stage at one point but now acted as prime lunch real estate. The Elite were like teen royalty, and just like Kate and William, they had a loyal following.
I studied the group’s two leaders, Gigi and Camden. They were Clearview High’s golden couple. Both were seniors, both were ridiculously good-looking, and both were from wealthy and powerful families. The two even looked alike. It was almost narcissistic—like they’d sought out the opposite-sex version of themselves. Blond hair, big blue eyes, amazing bodies—if they weren’t always locking lips, you’d wonder if they were related.
The Queen G herself looked every bit the part. She had perfect posture and walked around with her head held higher than anyone around her. This not only made her seem like she was about ten feet tall, but it gave the feeling that she was always watching over you. She was impeccably dressed and perfectly coiffed, and when she smiled, you couldn’t tell if she was truly happy or planning something devious. As the head of the debate team, Gigi could argue anything—and you didn’t want to be on the other side of that disagreement.
And of course every queen has her king, and Camden was it. He was president of the student council, played on the school’s lacrosse team, and apparently planned to go into politics one day. Either that or he’d follow in his father’s footsteps and end up running his own Fortune 500 company or something. The fact that he looked like he’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog didn’t hurt his cause either.
I was still watching them when Camden leaned over and planted a kiss on Gigi’s cheek, causing the whole student body to let out a collective “Awwww.”
The moment was immediately broken up by the two guys to Camden’s right, Rhodes and Wheatley, who exchanged a comment under their breath and then laughed loudly. Wheatley used to be on the football team but was kicked off for being too rough on the field. Apparently he’d averaged at least two concussions per game—giving, not receiving. Standing an intimidating six foot three, he was considered the muscle in the group, which meant that most people left him and the other Elite alone. And if they didn’t, Wheatley took care of them.
He and Rhodes were a package deal, though the two were complete opposites. Where Wheatley was aggressive, Rhodes was easygoing—and definitely the brains in the group. He had a photographic memory and could recall just about every fact he’d ever learned. People around school called him the walking computer, because there wasn’t a single topic he didn’t know about. Word was that Harvard had been recruiting him since he was a freshman, and if you’d ever seen the guy in action, you’d know why. This was probably why he was a part of the group—being able to hack into any system on the web no doubt came in handy. And the fact that he was as good-looking as he was smart didn’t hurt either.
My eyes swept over to the only other girl in the group: Eliza. It was hard not to envy Eliza. Her dad was the bona fide movie star Kyle Rivers; sure, he seemed to be doing more behind-the-camera work these days, but he had his own star on the Walk of Fame for God’s sake. As Kyle Rivers’s only daughter, Eliza was your typical rich kid. She always had the newest Louis Vuitton and upgraded her sports car every year. What she lacked in brains, she made up for in dramatic interpretation. The girl was obviously her father’s daughter and could cry on a dime, which made it difficult to trust any emotion Eliza showed to the rest of us.
Together, the five of them reigned over the student body. They were treated better than anyone else because they’d convinced us they were better than everyone else. And of course no one challenged them for the throne. To be honest, why would you want to? They were pretty, popular, and powerful. They were elite.
And I wanted desperately to be a part of their group.
Sighing, I headed toward the cafeteria’s shake station to pick up my drink of choice: the Monkey Business. A combination of banana, chocolate, peanut butter, and fro-yo. It was the opposite of healthy, but it was the epitome of deliciousness. And it was my daily treat to myself for weathering another day at this school. Besides, I didn’t exactly have anyone to impress.
Been there, tried that.
The first couple of weeks of my freshman year, I’d had the misguided impression that I was going to be able to start fresh in a new school. Middle school hadn’t been entirely good to me; I’d had a friend for half the time I was there, but Kai was an exchange student who barely spoke English. And if I was really honest with myself, we were more like loners who chose to be alone together rather than friends. But when she returned to Europe, I went back to being on my own.
I was hoping that graduating to a new school, one where only a quarter of the people there had any chance of knowing who I was before, would be my chance to reinvent myself. During the first few weeks, I tried my best to dress like the other kids in my class, fix my hair like the girls in Seventeen magazine, and mimic the actions I thought would gain me a gaggle of friends.
It was when nobody noticed the change in me and I was left with no more friends than I’d had before that I made my biggest discovery thus far in my short life.
You can’t will yourself into popularity. It is bestowed upon you if you are found worthy enough to have it. You either are or you aren’t. And it had been decided by the powers that be that I wasn’t.
After that, I sort of gave up trying. What was the point if things weren’t going to change?
And the alternative was worse as far as I was concerned. Other wannabes tried to force themselves into the circles of popular kids at our school, and it was like watching a train wreck. They tried too hard, offering to do the bidding of those with a higher social standing in the hopes that they’d edge their way in. But all they did was embarrass themselves as the popular kids treated them like slaves and then laughed at them behind their backs.
So, in a way, I guess there was a fate worse than invisibility.
I paid for my shake and then began to walk back across the cafeteria, taking a huge slurp of my Monkey Business. My eyes gravitated toward The Elite. Eliza was cutting an apple into smaller and smaller halves, and Gigi was sipping her Diet Coke out of a straw. I bet neither of them had ever had a shake in their lives.
How sad is that?
I was so focused on The Elite that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking, and before I knew it I was falling. Moments like this always seemed to happen in slow motion in movies, but for me, it all happened incredibly fast. I let go of my Monkey Business and reached out in front of me. A second before my hands hit the floor, the shake made impact and exploded. All over me. It was like a chocolate tsunami and there were no survivors.
As I attempted to lift my upper body from the linoleum, I could hear people laughing around me. Without opening my eyes, I knew that they were probably pointing, cell phones out, ready to capture the moment and then post it on the web later.
“Omigod, who is that?” someone asked not so quietly.
“Hard to tell now,” another responded.
“What a loser.”
The conversation grew around me and I wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. If there was ever a time when I’d welcome invisibility, this would be it.
I pushed myself up onto my knees and wiped at my eyes. Monkey Business dripped off my lashes and onto my lap. I looked around to see that everyone was still staring, some in horror and others with amusement.
I had to get out of there.
Leaving the remaining contents of my shake on the caf floor, I grabbed my bag and ran out the door as people began to clap behind me.
I went back and forth between walking fast and jogging, not wanting to get stopped along the way by any teachers before I reached my safe haven. In less than a minute, I burst through the guidance counselor’s door and tossed my bag onto a nearby chair before sitting down in the other.
“Oh. My. God,” Ms. Zia said as she hopped up out of her chair and reached for the box of tissues on the edge of her desk. She took a few out and handed them to me.
“Thanks,” I said grudgingly. There was chocolate everywhere. In my hair, my ears, down the front of my shirt—I’d be cleaning it off me for the rest of the day. Starting with my face, I sopped up the brown liquid the best I could and then looked at her miserably.
“Who did this to you?” Ms. Z. asked, handing me a few more tissues. I placed the used ones in a pile on the corner of her desk.
“Me,” I said. “I did this to me. My clumsiness struck again.”
She looked at me sympathetically. “Oh, Brooklyn. What happened?”
“I wasn’t watching where I was going and tripped over something. Maybe a chair, or it’s possible it was over my own feet. Lord knows that happens often enough.” This was just one more way that I seemed to be socially cursed.
Ms. Zia leaned forward and wiped a bit of banana off my cheek. “And this is . . . ?”
“Monkey Business.”
“Oh.” Ms. Zia handed me the box and then went back behind her desk and sat down. “Sounds like you’re having a rough day.”
“Aren’t I always?” I grumbled, taking off my stained shirt to reveal a significantly drier tank top underneath. Reaching into my backpack, I grabbed the clean tee I kept in there for emergencies—believe it or not, spilling on myself happened more frequently than I’d like to admit—and pulled it over my head. I used the ruined shirt to soak up the rest of the milk shake from my hair before twisting it into a messy bun.
“I’m guessing this was just the tip of the iceberg, then?” Ms. Zia asked.
She pulled out a Tupperware container full of what I knew without looking was some sort of elaborate, healthy salad. I’d never seen her eat anything but a salad for lunch. Sometimes it had walnuts and fruit in it, other times it was heavy on the veggies. But it was always a salad. I looked down at my own sack lunch, which contained a PB&J and chips. It wasn’t exactly the lunch of champions, but Ms. Zia never judged. That’s why I always spent my lunch hour in her office. That and the fact that she was my only friend at Clearview High. Lame, I know, having a teacher for a friend, but Ms. Zia was actually really cool. Unlike the rest of the student body, I felt like she really got me.
She was like the older sister I never had.
“Brad Pinkerton practically tackled me in the hallway, and it was like he didn’t even feel it. I swear, it’s like I’m—”
“You’re not invisible, Brooklyn,” Ms. Zia said firmly.
“How can you be sure?”
“Um, because I can see you.”
“Yeah, but how do you know that you don’t just have special powers that let you see invisible people like me? Or maybe I’m a ghost and you’re the whisperer. I bet this place is full of them. Kids are probably dying of boredom all the time,” I said.
“Ha, ha,” Ms. Zia said sarcastically, placing her salad container on the desktop. “Look, we’ve talked about this. High school isn’t really reality. All the people who are popular now and all the things that seem important won’t be when you leave this place. I know you think life would be better if you had different friends—”
“If I had any friends.”
“—but none of that’s going to matter once you graduate and go out into the real world. I’ve told you what happened to me,” she said, lowering her voice a bit. “Please just trust me. Popularity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and in the end, nobody’s going to care who you were in high school. And by this time tomorrow, everyone will have forgotten about your milk shake mishap.”
That was easy for her to say. She had no idea what high school was like for me.
Ms. Zia picked up her lunch again and took a dainty green bite. Silently, I unwrapped my sandwich. I knew this topic was a personal one for her, since she’d experienced it herself. Only, she’d been popular growing up. Quite possibly the most popular girl in her school. With gorgeous dark hair and a figure to die for, Katerina Zia turned heads everywhere she went. She’d been the homecoming queen, had the athletic boyfriend, dictated what was cool, and pretty much ran her school.
And then she graduated.
When she got to college, nobody cared who Katerina Zia was. Suddenly, her good looks weren’t enough to let her continue coasting through life, and people no longer focused on a social hierarchy in which she was at the top. After a tough transition freshman year, Katerina decided to study education and psychology and eventually became a guidance counselor. Now, as Ms. Zia, she’s come to look at high school differently.
And she was constantly trying to get me to do the same. Sometimes she took the older sister thing a little too far and I couldn’t help but get annoyed. But in the end, I knew she did it because she cared. And the thing we argued about most often? My school situation. She thought she knew better because she’d lived the life I wanted.
But I wanted the chance to be popular on my own terms.
“It matters to me,” I said quietly. “You of all people should understand.”
Ms. Zia remained silent as my statement hung in the air. Both of us—one a has-been and the other a wannabe—were haunted by our teenage selves. It was sort of tragically poetic when you thought about it.
I stole a glance at her and once again marveled at how beautiful she was. She was older than me, of course, maybe in her mid- to late-twenties, but she still looked young enough to be a college student, with skin like porcelain and thick brows like you saw on runway models these days. Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe her, yet I wondered if she even knew it.
Though Beauty and the Beast was exaggerating a bit, I knew that my looks paled in comparison to hers. My hair hung just past my shoulders and was a blah brown color that neither shone in the light nor did anything for my skin. My cheekbones were prominent, but not quite in the right way, and my face was bumpy to the touch thanks to a mild case of keratosis pilaris, a fun little skin condition that ensured I’d never have smooth, model-like skin. I was skinny, but tomboy skinny, and longed for some of the curves that my classmates had. Bottom line: it wasn’t like I was ugly, but I wasn’t really anyone’s idea of pretty, either.
“Well, I hope you get everything you want,” Ms. Zia said, sounding like she meant it. Suddenly, she reached down underneath her desk. “And to help those wishes come true, and to make up for what should have been a much better day, I’ve got a little something for you.”
After some shuffling, she popped back up, this time holding a single cupcake with a candle on top.
“Ms. Z.—you didn’t have to do that!” I squealed, grateful that no one else was around to hear how excited I was over getting baked goods.
“Happy birthday, Brooklyn,” she said with a big smile. I blew out the flame and watched as the smoke swirled up into the air, making designs as it lifted and then disappeared. Ms. Zia took out a plastic knife and cut the cupcake in half, letting me choose my piece first. I reached out and grabbed the chunk closest to me, shoving half of it in my mouth at once. It was chocolate with a peanut butter filling and buttercream frosting. I nearly fainted with delight as I licked the leftovers from my fingers.
Ms. Zia delicately pulled a piece off her own section and popped it into her mouth. How did she manage to make everything look effortless? I made a note to try to be more like her when I was eating.
“So, any plans for the big day?” she asked, changing the subject. “You having a party or just taking a spin now that you’re officially a licensed driver?”
“Nah, we’re not really doing anything big,” I said, waving off the idea.
My parents actually had offered to throw me a big party in honor of the occasion, but then I would’ve had to invite people. And when nobody showed, my parents would’ve found out that I didn’t have any friends, and that was a conversation I really didn’t want to have. So I’d said that I just wanted to spend the night with them. They didn’t question me about it, since they knew they couldn’t give me my birthday present when people were around anyway.
“Do you think there’s a set of keys in your future?” Ms. Zia asked, suddenly sounding like a giddy teenager. “Man, when my parents gave me my first car, it was like love at first sight.”
I laughed as she got a dreamy look in her eyes. “They might let me take the old Ford around the block once or twice,” I said.
“I’m telling you, Brooklyn, you’re going to enjoy your freedom,” she said. “It’s going to change your life.”
I nodded, because it was true. My life was about to change—but not for the reasons Ms. Z. was thinking.
The truth was, I came from a family of witches, and up until now, I hadn’t been allowed to use my powers. But my parents had promised to unbind my gifts the day I turned sixteen. I knew through witching chat rooms that most magically inclined kids learned how to cast around the same time they learned how to walk. My parents, however, were beyond strict about magic. Their reasoning behind binding my powers was that they thought I should be mature enough to handle the responsibility it took to do magic safely. I think that, to them, magic equals freedom and my parents just weren’t ready to let go. They probably still weren’t ready, but they’d promised me that tonight was the night I would come into my heritage. After so many years of wishing I could use magic, I was itching to take my powers out for a test run.
And I already knew what my first spell was going to be.
“I think you’re right, Ms. Z.,” I said. “I have a feeling things are about to change around here.” - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/What-the-Spell/Brittany-Geragotelis/Lifes-a-Witch/9781442467071/excerpt#sthash.HbGqgEQV.dpuf
Debut Author
I loved this book the most out of all three. I enjoyed that we got both Hadley and Brooklyn in this one. This will deff make the fans of this series happy. Cute and right on point for the teen crowd this one will not disappoint!
@IlsaJBick
In the tradition of Memento and Inception comes a thrilling and scary young adult novel about blurred reality where characters in a story find that a deadly and horrifying world exists in the space between the written lines.
Seventeen-year-old Emma Lindsay has problems: a head full of metal, no parents, a crazy artist for a guardian whom a stroke has turned into a vegetable, and all those times when she blinks away, dropping into other lives so ghostly and surreal it's as if the story of her life bleeds into theirs. But one thing Emma has never doubted is that she's real.
Then she writes "White Space," a story about these kids stranded in a spooky house during a blizzard.
Unfortunately, "White Space" turns out to be a dead ringer for part of an unfinished novel by a long-dead writer. The manuscript, which she's never seen, is a loopy Matrix meets Inkheart story in which characters fall out of different books and jump off the page. Thing is, when Emma blinks, she might be doing the same and, before long, she's dropped into the very story she thought she'd written. Trapped in a weird, snow-choked valley, Emma meets other kids with dark secrets and strange abilities: Eric, Casey, Bode, Rima, and a very special little girl, Lizzie. What they discover is that they--and Emma--may be nothing more than characters written into being from an alternative universe for a very specific purpose.
Now what they must uncover is why they've been brought to this place--a world between the lines where parallel realities are created and destroyed and nightmares are written--before someone pens their end.
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Among other things, I was an English major in college and so I know that I'm supposed to write things like, "Ilsa J. Bick is (fill in the blank)." Except I hate writing about myself in the third person like I'm not in the room. Helloooo, I'm right here . . . So let's just say that I'm a child psychiatrist (yeah, you read that right), a wannabe surgeon, a former Air Force major--and an award-winning, best-selling author of short stories, e-books and novels. Believe me, no one is more shocked about this than I . . . unless you talk to my mother.
| Goodreads | Twitter | Website | FacebookAmong other things, I was an English major in college and so I know that I'm supposed to write things like, "Ilsa J. Bick is (fill in the blank)." Except I hate writing about myself in the third person like I'm not in the room. Helloooo, I'm right here . . . So let's just say that I'm a child psychiatrist (yeah, you read that right), a wannabe surgeon, a former Air Force major--and an award-winning, best-selling author of short stories, e-books and novels. Believe me, no one is more shocked about this than I . . . unless you talk to my mother.
Q: Where did the first burst of inspiration for your new series DARK PASSAGES come from?
Ilsa: To be honest, one of my daughters gave me the idea when she asked if I was going to kill her off in a particular book. Ever since I used her name as one of the title characters of a short story, it’s been kind of this running gag between us. (On the other hand, her sister is ticked that I have yet to use her name in a story. Actually, I have, but she’s convinced that character is nothing like her and so that doesn’t count.)
Anyway, for my daughter, that particular character in that particular story met a terrible end. Since then, she’s decided that I actually kill her off by proxy somehow or other in everything I write. In some ways, she’s not far wrong. Just depends how pissed off I’m feeling that particular day. (Honestly, you’d think the kid would catch a clue . . . )
Still, I thought her comment was pretty interesting; you know, that she would get so torqued and be convinced that somehow or other what I did to a character’s story had a direct bearing or was a reflection on/of her. It was as if by using her name she somehow became part of the story and what I did to the character was something that I did to her.
Pretty weird, I thought, but I think that’s because my name’s pretty unusual, and I’ve only seen it used twice: as the title of a Madeleine L’Engle book and a character in Stephen King’s DUMA KEY. I’ll be honest. When I saw that L’Engle book (waaayback in the ‘70s this was, an even then the book was old), I was, like, whoa. Felt very . . . karma-esque. (Did I read the book? No. I was in college; I had a shitload of other stuff to do. But I’ll always remember finding the book.) Flash forward then, years later, and I’m reading DUMA KEY. Every time I get to my name, I feel this mental hitch, like I just stubbed a toe. It was pretty freaky, and kind of unpleasant. Like . . . dude, what the hell?
So I guess you could say, I started to feel my daughter’s pain.
Now, we all know that writers frequently use their own experiences in stories. What do teachers always say? Write what you know? (On the other hand, if we all did that . . . I’d be writing about what I imagine happening on the four walls of my office.) But you know what I mean.
Anyway, I began to wonder—and this is the shrinkly self-conscious part of me coming out—what might happen if you put too much of your real life into a book? What would happen to the characters? Even without getting all woo–woo, any writer will tell you that characters take on lives of their own. They say things you don’t expect (and at the weirdest times). No matter how carefully outline that story—and I outline all my novels—the book takes off, goes its own way. I’ve certainly started stories one way and then had them veer off in another. In fact, these days, I write an outline and then never look at it again. It’s as if I need to tell myself the story first, let it get under my skin, and become part of me. Once that happens, then the story takes on a kind of life of its own and begins to tell itself the way it needs to: as if what it really wants is time inside my brain to grow and then find its way out. What Frank McDermott says in White Space says is totally true: stories get under your skin. They’re infections that have to come out, or they’ll drive you nuts.
So, in a way, you could say that part of the inspiration for this book is my attempt to translate what it’s like to be a writer. (I know: terrifically self-conscious. If this was some fancy-schmancy English class lecture on post-modernism, we’ll all get an A.)
But I also started to think about what happens between the lines of a book. Think about this: a word has no meaning—none, zero, zich, zip—unless there’s emptiness around it. Unless it’s bounded by emptiness—by white space—to give it power and definition. A D is a D because there’s space around the letter to make it a D. A word or letter or symbol or sentence means absolutely nothing if you don’t set it off by a lot of white space.
So . . . what is white space? What is the empty space between letters and lines and paragraphs; between chapters in a book? Between scenes (when, all of a sudden, it’s a week later—like, what happened in-between)? I know I’ve driven some of my readers bonkers by ending some books on highly ambiguous notes . . .but I do that on purpose. Guys, that’s what that empty page is for at the end of a book: for you to carry on the story the way you think it should go.
Think about this: what if you didn’t put symbols on white space, but drew them out? You know that expression, falling between the lines? That implies there’s something there, doesn’t it? That the lines are solid, but the space is . . . anything?
I started to wonder what would happen if a character really did just that. Is that character lost, or can she climb out again into another story? What happens if the wrong character gets into the wrong story? I know that sounds kind of freaky, but think of it from the perspective of a writer. There are tons of times that you want to move this idea or that character from one story to the next, or re-use an idea or character or scenario—and it is just totally not working. That’s because the character or idea or scenario comes with a ton of baggage you’re not even aware of as a writer: the book that you never finished; the fight scene that never got written; the kiss that never happened. A pro-writer friend once told me that you should never try to fix a story. Once you set the story down, it’s done. (I’m talking finishing a novel now; we’re not counting drafts where you tinker with this or that.) Now, what you’ve written may not be very good story and you may see a lot of mistakes. But instead of trying to correct the mistakes or fix the plot, he felt and still feels that you need to write the whole story all over again because if you don’t, you’ll end up breaking the story that you had.
I actually did that, too—for ASHES. That first book was a completely different animal the first time I thought I’d actually finished and written it. By the time I got around to looking at it again—I think a month or two had passed—I saw all these problems and knew that I couldn’t fix them. That story was . . . that story. So I tore it all up and started over from scratch because I knew that I couldn’t fit in sentences and chapters and characters written months before . . . by a different person, you come right down to it. The Ilsa J. Bick of the first draft was not the Ilsa J. Bick of the second.
Anyway, there’s a lot more to WHITE SPACE—like the nature of reality; how anyone can actually know they’re real; and, if the multiverse theory is correct, just how many alternative versions of you are out there all convinced they’re the original—but I’ll take pity on your readers. 
Q: After writing an 700-page blockbuster finish to the ASHES trilogy was it difficult to write a story from the beginning again? Did you have any processes to follow through with when you began working on WHITE SPACE?
Ilsa: Actually, no, not at all. I wrote WHITE SPACE in between ASHES and SHADOWS. What was harder was coming back to WHITE SPACE after finishing the ASHES trilogy and getting back into those characters again, enough so that I could write the sequel. In fact, I’m just finishing up THE DICKENS MIRROR now. It was, like . . . damn, I had this wonderfully polished book, MONSTERS, and then what I saw as this shambles of WHITE SPACE (because, remember, a different Ilsa read that book again after many months of living with Alex and Tom and Chris and Ellie). That was the hard part: having faith that I could pull this off again.
As for processes… I’m not sure what you mean. Are you talking about writing outlines? If so, yes; I write an outline for every book that I do. As I said above, sometimes I don’t follow them very closely. It just depends. More often than not these days, I let the story go its own way once I’ve told it to myself for the first time in an outline. It’s really the only way that a story comes alive, at least in my book (ohhhh . . .).
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Ilsa: Well, I think I gave you a pretty detailed answer in the first question about what I’m after in WHITE SPACE. It’s a horror/psychological thriller with a dash of sf . . . and kind of self-conscious, too. That is, I’m trying to talk a bit about what it’s like to be a writer and set characters in motion.
As for the Dark Passages, if you want to be metaphorical, you can think of them as the dark spaces in my brain where stories are born. But if we’re operating in the context of the story, then it’s where energy resides between worlds or what I call Nows: multiverses or timelines where different versions of you – whether you’re an idea, a character in a book, or an actual person – reside. I guess you could think of what’s in the Dark Passages as dark matter or dark energy, something that exists between universes but which you can steal in order to craft new Nows or, as in the case of Frank McDermott (Wisconsin’s Most Famous Crazy Dead Writer), book-worlds, or anything you want to infuse with energy so as to capture someone’s interest and help them get lost in your story or work of art.
Of course, steal too much or let that energy get loose, and then you got some real problems.
Q: Are any of the characters in WHITE SPACE based off of yourself or others? What is a striking characteristic and/or personality trait of each of the characters that readers might relate to?
Ilsa: Well, like I said in your first question, writers use their own experiences all the time. So every single one of my books has me in it as well as everyone I know. I mean, how can they not? They’re coming out of my head. Yet, despite what my daughter thinks, I don’t ever really set out to create a specific character based on a particular person—unless she’s really pissed me off.
I’m not really sure how to answer that second question. What might appeal to one person might not appeal to another. (There is, for example, no love triangle here. Sorry. Sad but true.) But I think what’s universal is that, sometimes, a crisis brings out the absolute best in people. (Sometimes the worst, too; we saw all kinds of nastiness in the ASHES trilogy.) In WHITE SPACE, my characters are forced into circumstances they really don’t understand, battle against their own demons and nightmares that come to life in this very strange place, and have to weigh their own needs and, in a few cases, their lives. In the end, each has to be willing to sacrifice for the other. If anything, my characters, who don’t know each other before the start of the story, develop tremendous bonds forged by adversity and strengthened by true compassion and self-sacrifice.
I know: incredibly heavy. But true.
Q: You’re a child psychiatrist, film scholar, wannabe surgeon, and a former Air Force major – how in the world did you end up becoming an author as well? More importantly, where and how did you learn to slow time? Teach me!
Ilsa: Oh, that’s a really long story. Let’s just say that I get really bored really easily. While I was in college, I majored in both biology and English literature. By the time I was a psychiatric resident, I found myself needing more of a challenge. So I was a resident by day, while at night I went back to school to get my masters. At first, I focused on literature, but then I took a class on Hollywood cinema—I think it was something on film noir—and really fell in love with the idea of studying film. More to the point, the possibility of applying psychoanalytic principles to the study of film and television was very intriguing. I’ve always been interested in the narrative psychology of films and television shows. To put it more baldly—and using only one example—I’m a big fan of Star Trek. I just love that show, but why do I love it? What is the show doing; how does it tick; what psychological concerns do shows and movies like Star Trek or Alien or The X-Files tap into? Why do we care about these characters so much? So those kinds of questions drove me to do more in-depth critical work on film and television, and I wrote a ton of articles, did a lot of presentations, and, in general, had a good time going to the movies.
It was my husband who dared me to try fiction. I think he saw all my essays and papers as the sublimations they were: a way I could enjoy myself creatively while not admitting that I wanted to be creative. (He’s a pretty insightful guy, but I suppose that happens when you hang with a shrink long enough.) Specifically, he understood that I’d always wanted to write myself into a Star Trek book. (Yes, it’s true; Kirk had a chest to die for—and didn’t I just say that all writers put pieces of themselves in their books?) So he dared me to try, and I don’t back down from dares.
So I started writing. Did six terrible, deservedly unpublished novels (although one came close) and about thirty, forty equally awful stories before I published my first story, and that was a prize winner (and I’d been ready to give up, too). And it was Trek, to boot. What’s not to like?
Interview taken from BookProbe ~ http://bookprobereviews.com/interview-ilsa-j-bick/
This one I had to put down for a little while. My head just couldn't wrap itself around it. But when I came back to it and sat down and made sure I wasn't going to be bothered. It turned into a very good creepy read. Ilsa J. Bick has a way to draw you into a story and freak the crap out of you. White Space is trippy, gripping, read. You will be asking yourself OMG what did I just read. Then you will prob want to read it again. This would be a great book to buddy read so you can read a little and talk about it. lol. I know it helped me.
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