Happy Birthday to Me, with a Guest Post and Giveaway!

Hey, everyone, I'm so excited today because, well, first it's my birthday, but second, I have author Merrie Destefano, author of "The Lost Girls", here to do an exclusive guest post! So first of all, a bit about the book, but make sure you read to the end of this post, because I have an extra special surprise in store!!!

Book Info:

Book Title: Lost Girls

Author: Merrie Destefano

Release Date: 1/3/17

Genre: YA contemporary, YA psychological thriller, YA dark contemporary

Purchase Link: http://entangledpublishing.com/lost-girls/

Synopsis: Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift, curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life.

She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s popular. She wears nothing but black.

Black to cover the blood.

And she can fight. Tell no one.
She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls.

But the more she discovers, the more her memories return. And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still craves—the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win—something she can’t resist, that might still get her killed…

The only rule is: There are no rules.

Author Bio:

Born in the Midwest, magazine editor Merrie Destefano currently lives in Southern California with her husband, two German shepherds, a Siamese cat, and the occasional wandering possum. Her favorite hobbies are reading speculative fiction and watching old Star Trek episodes, and her incurable addiction is writing. She loves to camp in the mountains, walk on the beach, watch old movies, and listen to alternative music—although rarely all at the same time.

Author Links:

Website: merriedestefano.com

Blog: merriedestefanoauthor.blogspot.com                                                   

Tumblr: http://merriedestefano.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MerrieDestefano

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/merrie.destefano

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/merriedestefano/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/816280.Merrie_Destefano

Newsletter: http://merriedestefano.weebly.com/newsletter.html

So I asked my guest author, Merrie Destefano, if she could put a playlist of songs together for me for this post. It could be either songs that inspired her during her writing process, or songs that she thought her characters would love, or songs that reminded her of certain scenes in the book, or even just her favourite songs of the moment. Merrie was happy to oblige, and here is what she said:

Music and headphones are two of the Must-Have items I need when I’m going to write. In fact, having the perfect playlist is so important I’ve been known to search through my existing songs for almost an hour, sometimes even hunting through iTunes for new music, before I can even begin writing. I need the right tempo, the right voice, the right intensity and just the right combination of songs that meet all three of those criteria. Below are some of the songs I listened to over and over again while writing Lost Girls. If you listen carefully to these songs, you’ll hear the angst in the main character, Rachel Evans’ heart as she is desperately searching for clues to her past, clues that will help her understand the person she has mysteriously changed into during the past year—for this is a person even she doesn’t recognize. Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds wrote “I Bet My Life” about his relationship with his parents and, to me, this is the song Rachel Evans would sing to her father.

1.       “West Coast” by Lana Del Rey

2.       “Ultraviolence” by Lana Del Rey

3.       “I Come With Knives” by IAMX

4.       “The Last High” by The Dandy Warhols

5.       “Bohemian Like You” by The Dandy Warhols

6.       “Ordinary Love” by U2

7.       “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by Raign

8.       “Red” by Taylor Swift

9.       “Seven Devils” by Florence & The Machine

10.    “Hurricane Drunk” by Florence & The Machine

11.    “You’ve Got The Love” by Florence & The Machine

12.    “Blinding” by Florence & The Machine

13.    “Letters From The Sky” by Civil Twilight

14.    “Counting Stars” by One Republic

15.    “I Bet My Life” by Imagine Dragons

Wow, thanks so much Merrie! I've heard of some of these songs, but not all, so I'll be checking them out really soon!

And now for the icing on the cake (which I'll hopefully be eating later tonight, heehee!): Merrie and the folks at Entangled Teen are allowing me to give away a finished copy of "The Lost Girls" to one lucky commenter! Isn't that INCREDIBLE???!!! All you have to do is leave me a comment, answering Merrie's question to you:

Have you ever read a book that reminded you of a song? If so, which book and which song?

Contest open to US/National