Alexis Bass's Blog
December 29, 2015
What’s Broken Between Us ~ #JustBtwnUs
It took me many years to figure out how to properly express the way it feels when you lose someone in a drunk driving accident—how in high school the halls feel emptier, and later in life, the world seems darker, and that the real clincher was always that these deaths were entirely preventable.
When we hear about drunk driving in the news, we hear a lot about statistics–and those are important because they’re astonishing. We also hear a lot about the lack of punishment for this kind of a crime: too-short sentences, expensive lawyers who specialize in getting people off for just this kind of arrest.
I started writing What’s Broken Between Us because I wanted to talk about what really happens in the aftermath. When someone causes an accident this horrific, the fallout grows arms and legs and reaches so many people–beyond the girl throwing the party, the boy who drove drunk the same night and got home fine, the people at the party who watched them leave, the others in the car. I wrote this book with the hopes of digging into the gray areas of these situations, the many ways people grieve, how remorse sometimes presents itself in the form of self-destruction, and how if you search for fairness or justice, you won’t find it.
Every time (okay, both times) I’ve had a book released into the world I feel an immense amount of gratitude. For my critique partners who assured me on I was onto something, for my agent who read so many early version of this story, for my editor who helped me guide these characters. And especially for the readers, who want to think and feel and explore even the hardest topics, and who know how to keep hope.
Available for purchase:
*Follow #JustBtwnUs for more information about the book
December 21, 2015
Blog Tour Schedule: What’s Broken Between Us
December 23rd – December 29th – What’s Broken Between Us Blog Tour, plus a chance to win a $25 Barnes & Noble eGift Card.
December 23rd:
A Reading Nurse & The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club – Welcome Post
December 24th:
Chapter by Chapter – Interview
Istyria book blog – Review
the bookdragon – Review
Ink of Blood – Review + Dream Cast
December 25th:
Seamless Reader – Review + Favorite Quotes
Library of a Book Witch – Review + Playlist
Reading Wonderland – Review + Favorite Quotes
One Night Book Stand – Review + Playlist + Dream Cast
December 26th:
The Magic of Words – Guest Post
Teen Readers’ Diary – Review + Playlist
Neon Yeti Reads – Review
Lekeisha The Booknerd – Review
December 27th:
Bookish Lifestyle – Guest Post
Such a Novel Idea – Review + Playlist
Here’s to Happy Endings – Review
Writer For Misfits – Review + Playlist
December 28th:
The Cover Contessa – Review
Downright Dystopian – Review + Playlist
Lost in Literature – Review
Wishful Endings – Review
December 29th:
Curling Up With A Good Book – Interview
The Bookish Angel – Promotional Post
Buried Under Books – Review
Next Page Please! – Review
November 23, 2015
reviews and other theories
Gr 8 Up–Amanda and Henry have danced around their feelings for each other the entire time their siblings, Jonathan (Amanda’s brother) and Sutton (Henry’s sister), have been dating. They finally decide to act upon them the night of Jonathan and Sutton’s graduation, not knowing tragedy is about to strike. While the two of them leave a party for privacy, Jonathan, Sutton, and their best friend Grace head to another party. Jonathan, drunk, crashes the car, killing Grace and nearly paralyzing Sutton. A year later, he is being released from prison and Amanda, now a senior, is not sure how she feels about everything. Her feelings for Henry still exist, but she’s spent the last year keeping all of them pent up. Henry, trying to help Sutton, wants Amanda’s help keeping his sister and Jonathan apart. Amanda is more worried about her brother staying out of prison. Amanda and Henry have to decide if they are ready to heal and focus on each other. The narrative is told from Amanda’s point of view, starting before Jonathan’s release from prison and flashing back to the events that changed everyone’s lives. Jonathan, Grace, and Henry are fully fleshed out, and even the secondary characters are distinct. References to drinking, sex, Alcoholics Anonymous, and drug testing are included throughout the story. This well-done realistic novel presents an honest look at the aftermath of bad decisions. VERDICT: hand this to fans of Lurlene McDaniel and Simone Elkeles; purchase where realistic YA fiction is in demand.–Natalie Struecker, Atlantic Public Library, IA
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates):
It is not the life Amanda thought she would be living. Her senior year seems to consist of being careful, of being aware of how she is at every moment. Her brother was driving drunk when he crashed a year ago, killing one of his passengers and seriously injuring another. He will soon be released from jail and Amanda is pretty sure that will not make anything easier at school or at home. The waves of guilt and blame from the accident affect everything.
Bass has no real answers about overcoming tragedy and infamy, but she shows how different people react to this kind of tragedy and how it affects victims, perpetrators, and others in unexpected ways. There is no end to the reverberations and Amanda will never get the life she thought she was getting. She might be able to move on from the accident, even her brother might move on, but their world is forever changed. There is no “problem of the week” movie ending, reconciliation, or redemption, but life asserts itself and change occurs. The book has plenty of drama, drinking, cussing, and sex, but it does not feel exploitive or over the top. This might not be everyone’s experience of high school, but it is, in varying degrees, what many students are trying to navigate. Readers who gravitate towards more somber realistic fiction will enjoy traveling Amanda’s road with her.—Suzanne Libra.
September 28, 2015
Publishers Weekly Review: What’s Broken Between Us
Very excited to share this review from Publishers Weekly!
In a story about sorrow, regret, and love, Bass (Love and Other Theories) traces high-school senior Amanda’s struggles during the aftermath of tragedy. On the night Amanda’s older brother, Jonathan, graduated from high school, he was responsible for a drunk-driving accident that left a friend dead and his girlfriend, Sutton, nearly paralyzed. While Jonathan spent a year in jail, Amanda brooded that she should have done more to prevent him from getting behind the wheel. After Jonathan is released, community members complain that his sentence was too light, and Amanda feels guiltier than ever. Told from Amanda’s point of view, this novel offers a frank, thought-provoking account of one teen’s response to an unbearable, irrevocable situation. The relationship between Amanda and Sutton’s brother (whom she has been avoiding) unexpectedly deepens into romance, making her emotions all the more complicated. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s reconnection with Sutton may be more detrimental than therapeutic. Rather than placing judgments, Bass focuses on her characters’ emotional scars and strained relationships as they quietly grieve lost life and innocence. Ages 14–up. Agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary & Media. (Dec.)
June 25, 2015
ALA Weekend: San Francisco Events!
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO:
Sunday, June 28th 3:30-4:00 p.m.: Signing at the HarperCollins Booth (#3100) ~
Monday, June 29th @ 9:00 a.m.:
Panel: New and hot in debut YA fiction with members of the Class of 2K15 (featuring Courtney Alameda, Alexis Bass, Virginia Boecker, Fonda Lee, and Valynne Maetani), and moderated by Nicole Maggi.
April 2, 2015
Welcome to the YA Scavenger Hunt!
Welcome to the YA Scavenger Hunt!
On this hunt you will be able to gain access to exclusive bonus material, sign up for giveaways, and get an all access pass to top secret insider information. The Spring YA Scavenger Hunt goes live NOW and ends on Sunday, April 5th at noon Pacific time.
I’m excited to announce that I’ve got a LOVE AND OTHER THEORIES bonus scene hidden in the hunt, told from the point-of-view of Nathan Diggs. 
Directions:
Go to the website for each author in the team
On each hunt post, there is a NUMBER (hint, look for the numbers in RED text here)
After you’ve gotten all the NUMBERS on each post, add them up and fill out the ENTRY FORM to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Good luck!
Rules: *Only one entry per person per team *If you win, you must claim your prize within 48 hours or the prize will be re-drawn *You must be 16 years or older, or have the permission of a guardian to enter *Duplicate entries will be deleted
(For detailed instructions go HERE)
On with the HUNT!
I’m happy to be hosting the fabulous Amalie Howard, the author of the amazing book: Alpha Goodess.
In Serjana Caelum’s world, gods exist. So do goddesses. Sera knows this because she is one of them. A secret long concealed by her parents, Sera is Lakshmi reborn, the human avatar of an immortal Indian goddess rumored to control all the planes of existence—Illysia (the Light Realm), Earth (the Mortal Realm), and Xibalba (the Dark Realm). Marked by the sigils of both heaven and hell, Sera’s avatar is meant to bring balance to the mortal world, but all she creates is chaos. A chaos that Azrath, the Asura Lord of Death, hopes to use to unleash hell on earth.
Torn between reconciling her past and present, Sera must figure out how to stop Azrath before the Mortal Realm is destroyed. But trust doesn’t come easy in a world fissured by lies and betrayal. Her best friend, Kyle, is hiding his own dark secrets, and her mysterious new neighbor, Devendra, seems to know a lot more than he’s telling. Struggling between her opposing halves and her attraction to the boys tied to each of them, Sera must become the goddess she was meant to be, or risk failing, which means sacrificing the world she was born to protect.
Meet Amalie:
Amalie Howard grew up on a small Caribbean island where she spent most of her childhood with her nose buried in a book or being a tomboy running around barefoot, shimmying up mango trees and dreaming of adventure. 22 countries, surfing with sharks–8, if the rumors are true–and several tattoos later, she has traded in bungee jumping in China for writing the adventures she imagines instead. She isn’t entirely convinced which takes more guts.
She is the bestselling IndieNext author of Alpha Goddess, The Aquarathi series, The Almost Girl series, and the Cruentus Curse series. Her debut novel, Bloodspell, was an Amazon bestseller and a Seventeen Magazine Summer Read. She currently resides in Colorado with her husband and three children. Visit her at www.amaliehoward.com.
Alpha Goddess – Behind The Story
The original idea for Alpha Goddess was inspired by Greek mythology—specifically, the Greek tale of Hades and Persephone. That was the story that really set Alpha Goddess into motion. I’ve always loved that particular myth because I enjoy dark romance. For me, reading about the God of the Underworld kidnapping the Goddess of Spring because he’s in love with her and knows that he could never measure up to her mother, Demeter, was like pure brain candy.
As a child, I was also lucky to grow up with a different kind of mythology, one steeped in East Indian culture. My father is a second generation Brahmin (priest class in traditional Hindu society) so Indian mythology was an integral part of my childhood. Fascinated by stories and legends of various Hindu gods who incarnated as avatars to avert human tragedy, I wanted to write a story that encompassed some of these elements. Inspired by the story of Persephone, I wanted to try something different, as in something radically different. What if I could tie classic Greek mythology into these Indian stories I’d heard as a child? What if these gods and goddesses somehow all knew each other? That got my mind whirring and the concept percolating.
In the beginning, my idea was to bridge Greek mythology and Indian mythology, and it was quite an ambitious idea. Imagine incorporating two entirely different pantheons of hundreds of Greek gods and goddess with millions of Indian ones! However, after a while, finding common ground became difficult. It was too unwieldy to make a marriage between two disparate mythologies, no matter my intentions. It just didn’t make sense and the world building would have been way too complicated. So instead, I found myself inspired by another tale of star-crossed love, this time on the Indian side—the epic tale of Rama and Sita—and I decided to focus on that mythology as the foundation for my story.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Ramayana, it’s a timeless Indian love story in which Prince Rama and his wife Sita were tricked from the throne and sent into exile, where they lived the forest. Similar to Persephone, Sita was stolen away by a ten-headed demon, Ravana, who tried to convince her to marry him. However, her love Rama came to save her, battling the demon to the death with the help of the monkey-king, Hanuman. After the birth of their two sons, Sita’s chastity remained in question and she walked through fire to prove her purity. She returned to mother earth, never to be seen again.
My re-imagining of Rama and Sita’s epic love story takes place with a fictional account of how they find each other in another future lifetime—this time within the world of Alpha Goddess in a contemporary setting. I wanted to remain true to several key elements of the mythology, however, I also wanted to use my creative license to really make this story my own. Although Alpha Goddess is indeed a work of fiction (there are elements in my story that certainly don’t exist in any mythology), my inspiration for the characters and the world-building in this novel was based on actual Hindu mythology. In a world fissured by gods and demons, by good and evil, can these two star-crossed lovers find each other, and save the mortal realm in the process? Or will they become undermined by friends, family and evolving loyalties?
Ready for the next link in the Hunt? Go HERE.
March 28, 2015
YA Scavenger Hunt
Hello!
I’m so happy to introduce to you the Spring 2015 YA Scavenger Hunt Authors!
We have eight outstanding teams this season. I am going to be a part of #TeamRed! The Scavenger Hunt runs from April 2nd through April 5th beginning and ending at noon Pacific time on those days.
If you’ve never been a part of the hunt before you should give it a try. It runs like a giant blog hop, introducing you to new YA authors and books along the way. There are tons of prizes including a grand prize for each team. If you win one of the grand prizes you will get a book from each author on that team! For more information and to make sure you get hunt updates, sign up for news on the #YASH website.
I will be hiding an exclusive bonus scene from LOVE AND OTHER THEORIES, told from the POV of Nathan Diggs. You don’t want to miss out on this fabulous and fun event, but play fast because the hunt is only live for three days.
And now, here are the teams:
I hope you are all as excited as I am!
THE HUNT BEGINS 4/2/15!
February 13, 2015
Valentine’s Day Books (ish)
It’s no real secret that my literary sweet-tooth is best served with a side of bitter. For those of you who like your love stories a little darker, a little (or a lot) on the sad side, with equal parts swoon and sorrow, have I got some YA novels for you:
Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy
Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
Bleed Like Me by Christa Desir
Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
The Summer Series by Jenny Han (okay, so this one has a lot of sweet to it, but still enough sad to satisfy me.)
Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook
The Forest of Hands and Teeth Series by Carrie Ryan
The Chemical Garden Series by Lauren DeStefano
The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott
The Six Rules of Maybe by Deb Caletti
February 12, 2015
#AuthorsLoveTeachers
Valentine’s Day is coming! Or, as I like to call it: Excuse To Eat My Weight In Chocolate Day! Either way, it’s almost here, and as a way to celebrate that won’t leave you with a chocolate hangover, a group of middle grade and young adult authors wanted to show our love with a giveaway for teachers!
For a chance to win one of the YA titles shown below click on the Rafflecopter link at the bottom of this post.
To enter the middle grade giveaway, visit Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s blog for more information. Both giveaways run through February 17.
Good luck!!
Click HERE to enter the giveaway!
December 30, 2014
Love & Other Theories is out today!
So the day is finally here. I have a novel out in the world officially. And it feels surreal and wonderful and exciting, but mostly I feel very lucky and extremely grateful.
I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who helped make this book possible (cue the music) from my critique group to my beta readers to my agent and my editor and the team at HarperTeen, and I especially want to thank everyone who received an ARC, wrote a review, told your friends, took to social media. Books come alive when people talk about them.
Every writer knows how hard it is to fit the thing you want to say into a story that is both entertaining and well-paced and moving in the way you want it to be. (We all have that shelved nothing-but-witty-dialogue manuscript, yes?) I wrote Love and Other Theories hoping to capture all the frustration and frenzy of the final months of high school, and the pressure and longing to live out those last days blissfully and invincibly.
The girls in L&OT carry all of the fears I’ve ever had about love and loss, the burden of being the ‘cool girl,’ and the temptation to turn jaded after so much unrequited love and so many crushes gone wrong. Aubrey, Shelby, Danica, and Melissa are extreme and mad and afraid, unforgiven and naïve, and I am so happy their complicated story enters the world today.
Thank you for reading!
xo,
Alexis Bass
And be sure to check out the Love and Other Theories FFBC Blog Tour, hosted by The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club & A Reading Nurse. Go HERE for the schedule to catch up with the tour and enter the giveaway!
