Hi guys and gals!
Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.
Today, we're playing host to a stop along the BLOG TOUR for a new Middle Grade Mystery that you'll want to pick up PRONTO. Why? Well, first of all, it sounds pretty darn good. Secondly, it's
available as a FREE DOWNLOAD right now! So, if you'd be so kind to join me as we shine the spotlight on...
by
Tracy Marchini
About the book...
Juliet
Robinson is the only sixth grader in John Jay Jr. High who hasn't
received a "hot ticket" from the mysterious ticket
dispenser. When one of the dorkiest kids in school - Crammit Gibson -
receives a ticket before she does, Juliet decides that the ticketing
system has to stop. With the help of her best friend Lucy, a
Daria-esque Madeline and her almost-crush Crammit, Juliet is
determined to climb a few rungs on the middle school social ladder
and catch the ticket dispenser once and for all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's what some are saying about this curious new release...
“The best thing about Hot Ticket,
however, is the plot. It’s a mystery concerned with exactly the
kinds of things that its audience cares about. It explores ideas of
popularity and exclusion, of peer influence and self-esteem, and does
it in a way that can’t help but hold the reader’s attention.” –
Agrippina Legit
“I felt like I could relate to the
middle school need in this book to fit in and to have your successes
highlighted. I can also relate to how uncomfortable and sad it can be
when you feel like you aren’t fitting in.” – Figuring Out the
Small Stuff
“I also think the concept of the
tickets is a stroke of genius. There have been a lot of stories about
popularity written for this age group, but the idea of an actual
ticketing system is a clever – and cruel – way to highlight who
is hot and who is not. The ticketing system gave the author a lot of
interesting scenarios to play with, and brought new life to an often
overused topic.” – Secrets and Sharing Soda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still need a bit more convincing?
No problem. We got this.
BRING ON THE EXCERPT!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ EXCERPT ~~~
(Backstory: Juliet has just come from
the principal’s office after accidentally hitting the most popular
girl in school in the face during a hallway collision.)
At
lunch detention, all I could think about was how I better get a shame
ticket for accidentally punching Cindy.
There's
just no way the ticket dispenser could ignore the fact that I just
punched the most popular girl in school in the face, right?
But
still, I worried that the dispenser was going to ignore me again.
I'm basically the only sixth grader without a hot ticket. This
wouldn’t be a big deal if I didn’t go to John Jay Jr. High.
(Triple J, for short.) Everything is hard enough as a 6th
grader. We’re the lowest on the totem pole. The tadpoles of the
pond. But it’s even worse to be a tadpole without a hot ticket.
Hot
tickets could be awarded for doing something cool, saying something
funny, or sometimes even just wearing something the ticket dispenser
liked. All authentic hot tickets were two inch by six inch
rectangles made from this orange cardboard material, with “HOT
TICKET” written in big bold letters at the top. Hot tickets first
started becoming popular about a month after school started. Then
there was this rash of copycat tickets on regular paper, but people
just tossed those in the trash. Everybody could figure out it was
one of their friends that made it anyway. But an authentic ticket –
that was something you kept.
Some
people had their lockers decorated in hot and shame tickets. Some
people kept their hot tickets at home to prevent theft.
If
I got a hot ticket, I would definitely keep it taped on the inside
door of my locker. Right now my locker only had a locker mirror, a
picture of Lucy and I from my birthday party at Six Flags and these
annoying cat stickers from the person who had my locker before me.
Fifth
grade did not prepare me for this at all.
Lucy,
my next door neighbor and best friend, came up to my locker between
periods. Her smile was so big I could see the bread from her lunch
stuck all the way back between her molars.
“Why
weren't you at lunch?” she asked.
“Detention,
again. I sorta punched Cindy in the face,” I said.
Lucy's
jaw dropped. “Holy crow! You punched Cindy Newsome in the face,
and you're still alive?! She already hates you because --”
“I
know, I know,” I said. “What's up? You're like, super smiley.”
“Oh
yeah!”
Lucy
pulled a piece of orange cardboard out of her back pocket.
“You
didn’t!” I shouted, prompting stares from the girls next to us.
“I
did,” she said, turning the cardboard over to reveal the words ‘Hot
Ticket’ in big, bold print. “I found it in my locker after sixth
period – another hot ticket!”
Lucy
passed it over and I read the smaller print beneath.
“For
the joke, 'Even Einstein would have trouble in Carmoody’s class.'”
I
looked up as a couple of sixth graders pointed to Lucy’s hot ticket
as they walked by. They smiled at Lucy, but she was still looking at
her ticket.
“Totally
ridic, right? Who could have heard me say that?” she asked.
“It
must have been someone standing next to us in the hallway yesterday.”
“That
could be anybody,” Lucy said as she flipped her hot ticket over in
her hand.
The
bell rang and Lucy and I trudged to our last period, the only class
we had together.
“So
who do you think it is?” asked Lucy.
I
shrugged as another group of sixth graders pointed to the hot ticket
in Lucy's hand. They started guessing what cool thing she could have
done, commenting on her new shoes, and how awesome she did in gym
class today. Suddenly it felt like everybody
in the hallway was saying Lucy's name.
“Who
cares?” I said.
But
I did
care. And if I didn't have at least a shame ticket tomorrow for
punching Cindy, then it was time to find out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the author...
Tracy went to parochial school and was
picked last in kickball for all eight years. Before she graduated
with her B.A. in English, she got into a prank war over Jane Austen
quotes and was out-pranked by the third or fourth day. She ran the
NYC marathon to make up for her years of terrible kickball playing,
but has yet to redeem her sub-par pranking abilities.
She is now a
freelance editor who specializes in children’s and young adult
literature, and holds an M.F.A. in Writing for Children. Her next
book, Rock,
is a YA anthology of stories inspired by her favorite songs, and will
be published on September 6, 2016.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HOT TICKET is available as a free
ebook on Amazon from January 10 – January 14, 2016...and for my fellow "tree book" enthusiasts, it is also
available in print at Amazon
and Barnes
& Noble.
Special thanks to author Tracy Marchini for the chance to feature her work here today. (THANKS!) For more information on this title or the author, feel free to click through the links provided above.
Until next time...happy reading!
Proof I should never judge a book by its cover. Despite what I thought was a plain, unassuming cover the story sounds anything but.
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