The Next Big Thing Blog Tour! Whoo!!
What is the Next Big Thing? It is an author blog tour. What’s a blog tour? A blog tour gives those on the tour a chance to meet different authors by way of their blogs. The Next Big Thing began in Australia. Each week a different author answers specific questions about his or her upcoming book. The answers are posted on author’s blogs. Then we get to tag another author. On and on it goes.
The tour came to me from Gail Gauthier and Linda Urban who was tagged by Deborah Heiligman. You’ll have to get to the bottom of things to find out who I’m tagging.
First, the questions.
What is the title of your next book?
MOXIE AND THE ART OF RULE BREAKING: A 14 Day Mystery. It releases on July 11, 2013 and is the first in a three book set. I can't wait!!
A little about it: Moxie Fleece knows the rules and follows them--that is, until the day she opens her front door to a mysterious stranger. Suddenly Moxie is involved in Boston's biggest unsolved mystery: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist. Moxie has two weeks to find the art, otherwise she and the people she loves will be in big-time danger.
Her tools? Her best friend, Ollie, a geocaching addict who loves to find stuff; her Alzheimer's suffering grandfather, Grumps, who knows lots more than he lets on; and a geometry proof that she sets up to sort out the clues.
It's a race against the clock through downtown Boston as Moxie and Ollie break every rule she's ever lived by to find the art and save her family.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
On March 18, 1990, two thieves dressed as Boston police officers were let into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum after hours. They tied up the guards and walked away with 13 works of art, which have never been seen since. I live outside of Boston, and from the very first time I stepped into the Gardner, I've been fascinated by the theft. What happened to the paintings? Why haven't they turned up? Who has them? I had to write about it. So I thought about it for years until I finally found a character who figured into the story of the heist: Moxie Fleece.
What genre does your book fall under?
Contemporary mystery/adventure middle grade fiction
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Oooh....I'd LOVE Kiernan Shipka, who plays Sally Draper on Mad Men, to play Moxie. Her best friend, Ollie, is biracial: Caucasian and Korean. I'd like to see an unknown play him--and then he can star in the companion movie to MOXIE.
Who is publishing your book?
Penguin's Dial Books for Young Readers imprint
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I started writing it in 2010, and finished a draft in 2011. It took about a year--and then the revisions began!
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My fascination with the Gardner mystery really inspired the novel, as did my love of my adopted hometown of Boston. There are a ton of Boston landmarks and Boston-isms in the book. I really wanted readers to feel what it's like to live here.
What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
Oh--so many things! There's Boston punk music, geometry, geocaching, and a really bad guy named Sully Cupcakes. It's a race-against-the-clock mystery and is super exciting.
Okay, I'm tagging Ellen Booraem next. Her book is also set in Boston. Wait'll you hear about it!