Hello everyone, visit this site and welcome to my second stop of the blog tour for the Ontario Teen Book Fest :) You can read my previous stop with Jessica Brody and all other previous stops by clicking the links further down in this spotlight. But let’s jump and start talking about this wonderful event happening next weekend!

When: May 17th, sickness 9 am to 5 pm

Where: Colony High School
3850 E. Riverside Drive
Ontario, cialis 40mg CA 91761

This event is a completely free and un-ticketed event! Priority seating WILL be given to teens, but come one, come all! There will also be giveaways and raffles at the Fest, also free!

You can visit the website, to see the full schedule of the day by visiting the official Ontario Teen Book Festwebsite.

Books WILL be available for purchase at the event, available from Mrs. Nelson’s Book Fair Company :) They are an amazing company so definitely bring your books from home, but try and support Mrs. Nelson’s by purchasing a book!

Its going to be an incredible event and I’m honestly counting down the days! I hope you can come along for the ride, in the days leading up to the event. I’ve got some great bloggers helping me out to profile these amazing authors. Check out the full blog tour here!

May 2nd: Spotlight on Jessica Brody — What A Nerd Girl Says
May 3rd: Spotlight on Elana K. Arnold — Nite Lite Book Reviews
May 4th: Spotlight on Catherine Linka — Fangirl Feeels
May 5th: Spotlight on Livia Blackburne – The Thousand Lives
May 6th: Spotlight on Lauren Kate — She Reads She Blogs

May 7th: Spotlight on Katie Alender — Movies, Shows and Books
May 8th:Spotlight on Lauren Miller — A Bookish Escape
May 9th: Spotlight on Sarah Skilton — Read Now Sleep Later
May 10th: Spotlight on Lissa Price — Recently Acquired Obsessions 
May 11th: Spotlight on Jessi Kirby — What A Nerd Girl Says
May 12th: Spotlight on Katherine Ewell — iFandoms Collide
May 13th: Spotlight on Mary Pearson — The Windy Pages
May 14th: Spotlight on John Corey Whaley — Read Now Sleep Later
May 15th: Spotlight on Robin Benway — Adventures of a Book Junkie
May 16th: Spotlight on Ava Dellaira — Fangirl Feeels

So today’s kick off spotlight of the tour is on the one and only:

Jessi Kirby

Jessi Kirby is the author of  Golden, which will be released in May of 2013, Moonglass, In Honor.  She is also a former English teacher and librarian, wife, mom, beach lover, runner, and lover of Contemporary YA, strong coffee, and dark chocolate.  In that order. You can find her at:

Her Website / Her Facebook / Her GoodReads / Her Twitter / Her Instagram

Her Books

Honor receives her brother’s last letter from Iraq three days after learning that he died, and opens it the day his fellow Marines lay the flag over his casket. Its contents are a complete shock: concert tickets to see Kyra Kelly, her favorite pop star and Finn’s celebrity crush. In his letter, he jokingly charged Honor with the task of telling Kyra Kelly that he was in love with her. 

Grief-stricken and determined to grant Finn’s last request, she rushes to leave immediately. But she only gets as far as the driveway before running into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar opposite. She hasn’t seen him in ages, thanks to a falling out between the two guys, but Rusty is much the same as Honor remembers him: arrogant, stubborn . . . and ruggedly good-looking. Neither one is what the other would ever look for in a road trip partner, but the two of them set off together, on a voyage that makes sense only because it doesn’t. Along the way, they find small and sometimes surprising ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn–but when shocking truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

Interview!

Nerd Girl: All of the characters in your novels have degrees of strengths and weaknesses and go through lessons and self-discovery. Was it important to you to represent these kind of characters in books for young people, especially as a mother?

Jessi: I think all of us, as people, no matter what age, gender, etc., have different degrees of strengths and weakness, and that these things shift and change as we go through, life, with all of its lessons and self-discovery. It’s extremely important to me that my characters reflect that, because that means they’ll read as genuine people, who are strong sometimes, and weak at others, but who are always growing, hopefully for the better. That’s the goal, anyway, both as a writer, and a mother – to portray those things that make us human.

Nerd Girl: Your most ‘recent’ novel, Golden, was published in May 2013. What can we expect from you in the future?

Jessi: I’m very excited about my next book, Things We Know By Heart, which comes out in Summer 2015. It’s about a girl named Quinn Sullivan, who lost her first love in an accident, and as a way to deal with her grief, she reaches out to the recipients of his donated organs. All of these people write her back, except the one she deems most important, which is, of course the one who received his heart.

Unable to let it go, she goes outside of the guidelines for privacy and finds out who he is. She tells herself she just needs to see who he is, see him living his life and then she can let it go, but when she goes to his small beach town and literally runs into him in a cafe, things get complicated fast. He’s completely fast. He’s completely taken with her, and no matter how much she tries to deny it, the pull of him is so strong that before she knows it, she’s falling for him too. The problem is, he has no idea who she is, and a relationship built on omissions and half-truths can only last so long before the truth comes out.

Nerd Girl: Have you always imagined yourself as an author, or did you have other career aspirations in the past?

Jessi: I’ve known since 3rd grade and my first Judy Blume book that I wanted to be a writer. I’ll never forget listening to her words, read by my teacher, and thinking “I want to do this. I want to make stories like Judy Blume.” I started writing then, and never stopped. But in high school, I had an English teacher (Mr Kenny, who is Mr Kinney in GOLDEN), who so inspired me that he got me thinking about teaching as well. I taught middle school and high school English for 5 years, and while trying to inspire these kids to go after their dreams, I ended up prodding myself to do so as well, and started writing Moonglass.

Nerd Girl: What made you want to write about teens instead of adults or children?

Jessi: Like I’ve heard many YA authors say, it wasn’t really a conscious decision. That’s just the way that my first story came out, and it’s the way they all have since then. For that, I feel lucky, because writing about teens is full of so much potential.

Nerd Girl: What are some important things that you strive for when writing your novels, knowing that teens are going to be reading them?

Jessi: I don’t think I treat teen readers any different than adult readers. I just try to tell a story where the characters read as genuine people, who, as you mentioned earlier, have strengths and weaknesses, make mistakes, fall down, pick themselves, grow as people. Those things are for all readers.

Nerd Girl: Have you ever had a fangirl moment and who was it with?

Jessi: I have, and of course it was with the one and only Judy Blume, who I met for a half second where instead of telling her everything that was on the tip of my tongue about how much she inspired me, and how I’ve loved all of her books ever since I can remember, I shook her hand, a friend took a picture of us, and it was over so fast I actually have to look back at the picture to believe it really happened!

Nerd Girl: Because this is for the Ontario Teen Book Fest, all about the teens, what is one of your favorite memories from when you were a teen?

Jessi: Senior prom night — the after party. Someone had rented a condo for the party, and just about everyone from our class was there — we had we had a tiny senior class. It was one of those nights where we all knew the end of the year was coming and everyone was friendly and nostalgic, and we danced all night then watched the sun rise from the roof — (almost) all of us. It was special. Like we could feel how much big chance was coming.

Nerd Girl: Last question: who is your fictional crush?

Jessi: Ooh, that’s a tough one. It has to be a tie — between Wes, from The Truth About Forever, and Dexter from This Lullaby. Dessen writes the best boys!

The prizes include: 

Grand Prize: Ontario Teen Book Fest Poster Signed by All Attending Authors and a Swag Pack!

Of course, its not signed yet but it will be!

First Prize: Ontario Teen Book Fest Signed by All Attending Authors!

Second Prize: Ontario Teen Book Fest Shirt Signed by All Attending Authors!

The shirt will also be signed at the Fest as well!

And its easy to enter, in the rafflecopter below! Sorry, no international this time around!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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