**Competiton Winners** Hush Hush AND Troubadour

Ach, friends of MFB, we have to apologise for slipping up and not announcing the winners for the Hush Hush competition on Monday past. A bug crept into the system (read Liz was too busy writing to pay attention to her bookbabies) and the announcement is a bit late.

So without further ado - the winner of a shiny new paperback copy of Hush Hush by Becca Fitzgerald is: Alexandra G...please check your email and let us have an address!

And the winner for a hard back copy of Mary Hoffman's amazing Troubadour is: Carole C from Blackburn.

Massive congrats to the two winners and best of luck to the other entrants the next time around. More competitions soon - stick around! Also huge nod to Random.org for taking the choice of winners out of our grubby little paws.

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick - an interview with a difference

Last week, during some of the most vile weather London has ever seen, the amazing marketing team from Simon & Schuster pulled a marketing stunt which made several newspapers and industry publications.

Naturally Mark and I turned up for this, along with Kaz Mahoney and Tiffany Trent. We got drenched but it was worth it - there was a good turnout at Trafalgar Square eventhough we had to canoe there. The Editorial Assistant, Lydia got herself up onto the fourth plynth at 8pm for a reading of Hush Hush. She wore feathery wings and looked wet but determined. We loved her for it. This is the direct link to the entire event.

In the spirit of this amazing event, I decided I had to get more information about Hush Hush from Simon & Schuster's marketing team. So I sent them a stack of interview questions and they kindly answered them.

Here we go:

What makes Hush Hush stand out from the other urban fantasy young adult novels you’ve seen recently?

Hush, Hush, simply put, is a brilliant read. It stands out because it is well written, well plotted and has strong characters that are engaging, likeable and intriguing – it’s a breath of fresh air in a genre that has become oversaturated and stale.

Who would play Patch in your ultimate (no expenses spared) movie of Hush

Hush?

Having thought long and hard about it, we’ve decided that Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl) has the dark hair, dark eyes and dark moods to fulfil the role! We know he can pull off an American accent, too…

When thinking of the characters, your own reactions and the story in Hush Hush, do you think there is a song which could be used as the theme song?

I think we’d have to look to Becca Fitzpatrick for the final say - she has a playlist on her website, www.beccafitzpatrick.com. Her playlist has a really cool 70s and 80s focus, so if we had to pick a modern theme song, perhaps Muse could offer something suitably atmospheric!

How on earth did you manage to get space on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square? Was it difficult?

It wasn’t difficult, as anyone could enter – you just had to register your name in the lottery at www.oneandother.co.uk, and they picked 2400 people to take part out of the 34,000 or so who entered. So not too difficult to enter, but very surprising to be picked!

What did you do whilst you were up there?

I read the first two chapters of Hush, Hush aloud – yelling most of them as the rain got in the megaphone! And I gave everyone a shout out to the author, watching from the states. I did that for the first 45 minutes, and then moved on to my own agenda, which was mostly saying hi to all my friends watching from overseas, and telling some really bad jokes!

What was the event like as it turned out to be a rather awful wet day?

It was great! Very exhilarating, but as it poured rain the whole time the logistics were a lot trickier than we thought – towards the end I didn’t use my umbrella as I was already soaked through, and my poor copy of the book is now one big wet lump of paper. And people still turned up to support which was really encouraging, so we gave away lots of free books to those who made it. I wouldn’t change it really as it was a great experience, but I can’t lie - it would have been nice to do it in the dry!

I was one of the lucky people who received the card extract and feather to promote Hush Hush – I loved it! Who came up with this excellent idea?

This idea was thought up by all of us in the children’s publicity team – everybody likes a teaser! The book lends itself perfectly to feathers as part of the package, so a black feather to represent Patch was perfect.

Will we be seeing Becca visiting the UK at all in the near future?

There are no plans as yet for Becca to visit the UK.

What has been the reaction to Hush Hush in the teen market?

So far, there seems to have been a brilliant response. All the bloggers I have seen are very excited about the book, and those that have read it have loved it. There seems to be a real buzz surrounding anything Hush Hush – which can only be a good sign! The book is still over a month away from its UK publication, but the sense of excitement is very apparent.

Who do we think will win in a fight between Edward and Patch?

Patch!!!

Have we got any idea what will be happening on the follow-up novel? Maybe even just the tiniest of hints?

Not a clue! I wish I did! There is a title, Crescendo, but no further info yet…

Why do you think we love bad boys in literature so much?

I think there is more than one answer to this question, but generally I would say that bad boys are well loved because they pose a challenge. In literature, a big enjoyment of reading is the mystery of what is going to happen at the end; that’s essentially what keeps you hanging on to any plotline. When the mystery inevitably becomes wrapped around the resident bad boy of the novel, we are dragged not only into the plot and the intrigue – but the character surrounding it.

I think another strong element of this is usually see the bad boy through the eyes of the female protagonist, and our connection to them puts us in the perfect position to be drawn to the bad guy too…

Not to mention they are usually blessed with shockingly good looks and a tendency to get rain soaked!

Who would play Nora in the movie?

We’ve wracked our brains on this one… Nora is a toughie to cast! But we’ve cast Selena Gomez – she’s dark, gorgeous and the perfect age for Nora!

When can we expect Becca’s new novel?

Exact dates are TBC, but hopefully the new novel will drop in the UK for autumn 2010.

Thanks so much to Team S&S for this fab fun interview. Now for the good stuff!

Competition Time:

We have one paperback copy of Hush Hush - slightly wrinkled from the rain - to give away. This is open to residents in the UK only, I'm afraid - purely because I have to fund the postage myself. So, email us to our usual address with your name. We'll let the comp run till next week Monday, 27th September.

Good luck!

Hush Hush Competition Winner

And the winner of the signed proof copy of Becca Fitzpatrick's lovely Hush, Hush is:

Nina D from London, N1

As decided by Random.org.

Congratulations, Nina - I will be forwarding your details to the peeps at Simon & Schuster so they can send you your winnings.

For those who didn't win THIS TIME AROUND, let me just say: keep an eye out for a further Hush, Hush competition in October. Rumours about hard backs with alternate endings abound...

hush, hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Synopsis

A sacred oath, a fallen angel, a forbidden love...This darkly romantic story features our heroine, Nora Grey, a seemingly normal teenage girl with her own shadowy connection to the Nephilim, and super-alluring bad boy, Patch, now her deskmate in biology class. Together they find themselves at the centre of a centuries-old feud between a fallen angel and a Nephilim...

Forced to sit next to Patch in class, Nora attempts to resist his flirting, though gradually falls for him against her better judgment. Meanwhile creepy things are going on with a mysterious stalker following her car, breaking into her house and attacking her best friend, Vi. Nora suspects Patch, but there are other suspects too - not least a new boy who has transferred from a different college after being wrongly accused of murdering his girlfriend. And he seems to have taken a shine to Nora...Love certainly is dangerous...and someone is going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice for it.

First off, let’s be clear: this isn’t Twilight. No sparkly vamps here, people. The only thing these two books have in common is that it is about a boy and a girl and it’s genuinely a matter of life or death. Not un-death, either. And of course the element of romance with someone that is “other”. It’s a very dark and unexpectedly intense novel as Patch is not your average teen love interest and Nora is well, unique in her normalness – but I'd like to point out that she has enough guts and get-go to not become the irritating damsel in distress.

As a reader you want to be friends with Nora – she’s an average girl, good grades, living a decent life with her mom in a house outside of town. There is nothing odd about Nora at all and it is her utter normality in her personal, home and school life that the author uses to alert us to the danger dogging Nora’s steps.

When she’s teamed up in Biology class with new boy Patch, she is both drawn to him and slightly repulsed by his cocky attitude. He is a strange person, intense, teasing, enigmatic and strangely charismatic. He rubs Nora up the wrong way, refusing to cooperate on their Biology assignment and making her life uncomfortable.

It’s after being teamed up with Patch that her life takes on the weird. The overall sense that someone is watching her grows and becomes truly unpleasant. When she borrows her friend, Vi’s car, to drive home one evening a dark figure wearing a balaclava crashes into the car, doing some damage, almost killing Nora in the process. No one is there to see the accident and she drives back to her friend’s house – once there, there is no evidence of anyone crashing into the car, apart from a small nick in the windshield. Other bizarre things happen around Nora – someone breaks into her house and utterly destroys her bedroom, yet when the cops come to investigate, nothing is there – her room is as before. The story about “the boy who cried wolf” came to mind here! The cops treat her badly and she’s shaken. Needless to say, this isn’t the only weird thing that happens to Nora in the novel and to prevent spoilers, let me just say; the weirdness has her questioning her own sanity. Is she seeing things, is she going mad or someone playing some foul trick on her?

Mix into this uncertainty about her mental state, her friend Vi being attacked and Patch’s reluctance to come clean about his background and his odd behaviour towards Nora, and it makes for very tense sections in the book. Everything points to Patch being the culprit of a variety of misdemeanours and I have to admit I genuinely thought things were becoming unstuck because, you know – our heroine’s love interest can’t be that weird!

And this is the one major difference about the other book that shall not be named – Nora and Vi remark several times on Patch’s odd behaviour throughout the novel. They are wary of him, especially Nora. His behaviour is questionable, every single time he’s in the scene and yet you know there is more to him than you are being made aware of. And this layers a further level of uncertainty about Patch. Regardless of this Nora is inexplicably attracted to Patch even though in her deepest heart of hearts she knows he’s not good for her. It’s interesting to read how the author takes the story and spins it around because you know, you know, that something is going on that you’re not being told. And instead of becoming annoyed and wanting to skip ahead to find out what it is, you are swept up in Nora’s determined quest to find out what exactly is going on.

As the revelations happen they are both expected AND unexpected and I loved it. A strong satisfying read and I’m thinking I’ll have to go and make myself a Team Patch t-shirt now. To match my Team Werewolf t-shirt in honour of Jacob (Twilight) and Sam (Shiver).

As I genuinely hate doing these: “If you like this, you’ll love” comparisons but I’d like to point out that hush,hush is a very unique novel and that although it will appeal to readers of SM's Twilight, it will also appeal to readers who liked Philip Pullman’s books (for the dark undertones) JK Rowling (for the imagination) and Sarah Rees Brennan (for the creation of a top-notch anti-hero) and Richelle Mead (for her character creations).

Find Becca Fitzpatrick’s website here.

COMPETITION NEWS:

Becca’s amazing UK publishers – Simon and Schuster – have agreed to let me have ONE SIGNED PROOF COPY OF HUSH, HUSH to give away.

The competition will run for ONE WEEK only. Final date for entries will be: Wednesday 26th August 2009! The competition is open to UK residents only. Email is through: myfavouritebooksatblogspot(@)gmail.com . The winner will be decided by Random.org.

Good luck!