Welcome to my stop on the Dead To Me blog tour, hosted by Mary McCoy. I have an interview with the author and enter the giveaway to win a hardcover of Dead To Me. And check out the rest of the tour stops for more fun stuff!!
Dead to Me by Mary McCoy
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
LA Confidential for the YA audience. This alluring noir YA mystery with a Golden Age Hollywood backdrop will keep you guessing until the last page.
"Don't believe anything they say."
Those were the last words that Annie spoke to Alice before turning her back on their family and vanishing without a trace. Alice spent four years waiting and wondering when the impossibly glamorous sister she idolized would return to her--and what their Hollywood-insider parents had done to drive her away.
When Annie does turn up, the blond, broken stranger lying in a coma has no answers for her. But Alice isn't a kid anymore, and this time she won't let anything stand between her and the truth, no matter how ugly. The search for those who beat Annie and left her for dead leads Alice into a treacherous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets--and onto the trail of a young runaway who is the sole witness to an unspeakable crime. What this girl knows could shut down a criminal syndicate and put Annie's attacker behind bars--if Alice can find her first. And she isn't the only one looking.
Evoking classic film noir, debut novelist Mary McCoy brings the dangerous glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age to life, where the most decadent parties can be the deadliest, and no drive into the sunset can erase the crimes of past.
Describe Dead To Me as if you were going to tweet it.
What if Philip Marlowe was a 16-year-old girl? Find out in this film-noir inspired YA mystery set in 1948 Hollywood!
What would you do if you were in the same position as Alice? And how would you react to first seeing Annie in a coma?
I mean, I'd like to think that I'd solve the crime, lock up the bad guys, and ride off into the sunset, but I probably wouldn't be that brave. As far as finding Annie in the hospital, I think I'd probably react like Alice did. When the book begins, Alice is almost in a state of shock. She's been sitting next to her sister's hospital bed for over a day when the private detective shows up. She's trying to process what could have happened to her sister, and on top of that, she's reliving the circumstances that drove her sister away in the first place. It's a lot to deal with at once.
What was your favorite scene you wrote? And what part was the most difficult to write?
There's a flashback to Alice's 12th birthday dinner at Musso & Frank Grill, which is an old Hollywood restaurant where lots of movie stars and writers used to go. I went there a couple of times while I was writing the scene for research purposes, so that was fun!
It took me forever to come up with the last line of the book. Nothing seemed right, no matter what I tried. But then the last line that stuck came to me, all at once and out of nowhere, and I knew that it was perfect.
What did you think when you first saw the cover for Dead To Me? Was there any other covers or titles that didn't make the final cut?
I saw a comp cover first, but it was always the concept you see here, and I was always in love with it. One change from the comp cover to the final cover was that they doubled the size of the blood stain - I really appreciated that!
Are there any new projects you have? Can we expect a sequel to Dead To Me?
I have an idea what happens to all the characters after the book ends, but I like the story ending where it does. What I'm working on right now is completely different.
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Mary McCoy is a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. She has also been a contributor to On Bunker Hill and the 1947project, where she wrote stories about Los Angeles's notorious past. She grew up in western Pennsylvania and studied at Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin. Mary now lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Her debut novel, Dead To Me, is a YA mystery set in the glamorous, treacherous world of 1940s Hollywood.
Win (1) hardcopy of DEAD TO ME by Mary McCoy (US Only)
Sooo want to read this. I've seen people comparing it to Veronica Mars. I adore VM, so if this book is anything like it, I'm sold :)
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