Guest Post and Giveaway ♥ The Sweet Dead Life by Joy Preble

This post is part of the 2013 Summer Author Promo Blitz, organized by Books and Broomsticks. Click on the image below to discover other fantastic authors and enter their awesome giveaways!

Today I am hosting lovely author Joy Preble and her newest book, The Sweet Dead Life. She wrote a guest post on her book and she is also having a great giveaway in celebration. Make sure you check this book out and, if you like the sound of it, enter the Rafflecopter below!

The Sweet Dead Life

by Joy Preble

“I found out two things today. One, I think I’m dying. And two, my brother is a perv.”

So begins the diary of 14-year-old Jenna Samuels, who is having a very bad eighth-grade year. Her single mother spends all day in bed. Dad vanished when she was eight. Her 16-year-old brother, Casey, tries to hold together what’s left of the family by working two after-school jobs— difficult, as he’s stoned all the time. To make matters worse, Jenna is sick. When she collapses one day, Casey tries to race her to the hospital in their beat-up Prius and crashes instead.

Jenna wakes up in the ER to find Casey beside her. Beatified. Literally. The flab and zits? Gone. Before long, Jenna figures out that Casey didn’t survive the accident at all. He’s an “A-word.” (She can’t bring herself to utter the truth.) Soon they discover that Jenna isn’t just dying: she’s being poisoned. And Casey has been sent back to help solve the mystery that not only holds the key to her survival, but also to their mother’s mysterious depression and father’s disappearance.

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THE SWEET DEAD LIFE: A Texas Makeover of the Angel Book

Joy Preble

THE SWEET DEAD LIFE (Soho Press) is a different type of angel tale, narrated by fourteen- year-old Jenna, as tough as she is sentimental, trying to figure out why the universe has sent her stoner brother back as her guardian angel. Her brother Casey—more reluctant-(stoned)-hero-guzzling-Mountain-Dew-and-making-(high)-late-night-runs-for-Jack-in-the-Box-tacos than ripped-hottie-with-girls-falling-at-his-feet—has bitten the dust driving Jenna to the hospital. A mystery ensues, part of which has already been underway before the novel opens. Where did Jenna and Casey’s dad disappear to five years ago? Why can their mom barely get out of bed? And now, who has been poisoning Jenna and why? It is a mystery as much as it is a sibling tale. As Booklist comments, “There’s a whole lot going on here: poisonings, blackmail, sibling relationships, romance, and abandonment, in addition to angels, but the unifying thread is Jenna’s clever, bitter, self-aware, and loving voice.”

Yeah, I was pretty thrilled about that review, especially since they went on to observe: “Preble’s lively descriptions and unusually well-drawn, caring sibling relationship (a topic not usually explored in teen fiction) are especially noteworthy.”

Which gets me to the other thing that makes THE SWEET DEAD LIFE different. This is an angel book without a central romance sparking the action. I’ll quote Kirkus reviews for this: “Hallelujah! A paranormal tale of angels that’s not a romance, making it a novel that breaks the mold.”

Was I nervous about that? Not really. I believe that you need to tell the story that needs telling, and this first book in the series (The sequel, THE A WORD, arrives from Soho Press in May 2014) establishes the over-arching global mystery that will carry throughout the books, sets up a story about a brother and sister taking care of each other in dire albeit sometimes darkly comic circumstances, and establishes the Texas world—specifically, the northern suburbs of Houston— in which it takes place. Romance is a part, but it’s not the main part. That will come in the sequel, where Jenna gets her first boyfriend!

I really love writing Jenna and Casey! I hope my readers find their sibling relationship both authentic and humorous. In my own life, I’m the first born, but I think if I did have an older brother, I would want someone like Casey, faults and all. Because despite everything that he has given up—and continues to give up—he is there for Jenna no matter what. Of course, in book two next year, Jenna has to navigate her first romance with her guardian angel brother looking over her shoulder every second. Not exactly every girl’s dream!

So THE SWEET DEAD LIFE, does, as Kirkus observes, ‘break the mold.’ It is the angel book, Houston, Texas style: Kolaches and cowboy boots and breakfast tacos. The chain store/ mall culture that is a large part of the sometimes wastelands of the northern suburbs. Friday night Texas high school football and marching bands. What better place to have angels walking—looking just like your pot head next door neighbor. Only not exactly. A brother and sister solving a growing set of mysteries. And guiding it all is Jenna’s sarcastic and worldly-wise voice, but also her innocence.

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I hope this makes everyone want to read THE SWEET DEAD LIFE! Thanks for inviting me to the blog today.

Raluca: I loved having you over! Thank you for the chance!

Giveaway

• signed copy of The Sweet Dead Life(US)
• swag pack (INT)
• ebook copy (INT)

Rules:

• 3 winners (one for each prize)
• must be 13+ to enter or have your parents' permission
• winning entries will be checked for accuracy

a Rafflecopter giveaway