Mara Purnhagen is another debut novelist of the class of 2K10. Her YA romance novel, Tagged,
has just been released by Harlequin Teen. I asked her to give us a
summary of the book and talk about what inspired her to write it.
HOW DO YOU TAKE A STAND WITHOUT STANDING OUT?
Kate Morgan is just as confused as the rest of her classmates when she arrives at Cleary High to find six life-size gorillas spray painted on the side of a building. Could the culprit be one of her friends or classmates? And is the kind-of-amazing creation really vandalism, or a work of art? She's tempted to stay out of it, mostly because, as the police chief’s daughter, she's always accused of being a snitch.
But when gorillas start appearing throughout the state, her investigative instincts kick in. Now Eli, Kate’s favorite co-worker at the local coffee shop, is MIA. With her best friend, Lan, preoccupied with her own boy troubles, Kate needs to figure out some things on her own. Like why she can’t stop thinking about Eli. And what she will do when all clues about the graffiti point to someone she knows...
“What inspired you to write this book?”
Three things collided to inspire Tagged: a reality TV show, a British graffiti artist and my husband’s tool bench, which was sitting in the garage and was decorated with a small picture of a gorilla. If you can find a way to connect three seemingly unrelated things, I think you have the makings for an interesting story.
Now, this is an interesting hook. I'll be thinking about those gorillas and why they are there, until I can actually read the book.
~ Yaya
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Posted by: Yaya | April 18, 2010 at 02:30 PM