For the rest of PRIDE, my young adult novel PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE is on sale at AMAZON! Get the Kindle at AMAZON USA for only $2.99 for the rest of June!
The first draft of this novel was written at the 2015 Muskoka Novel Marathon, after a long (hands-free) phone call with Lorraine Segato during my 2-hour drive to Huntsville, Ontario. Lorraine, who is the lead singer of PARACHUTE CLUB, called in response to my request to use both her and her song, RISE UP, in the novel that I had yet to write.
I had this big plan to use Lorraine as a walk-on character in the same way I used Gordon Lightfoot as a walk-on character in my novel SEBASTIAN’S POET. Gordon had jumped on right away and given his consent. With him, though, the pages were already written…it was just a matter of him reading them and giving me his blessings. With Lorraine, the book was not yet written.
I barrelled down the highway towards Muskoka, explaining my very loose plan for the novel to Lorraine. In the end, she gave me a lot of advise, and her blessings on using the song…but felt that the ‘scenes’ in which she was to be included wouldn’t actually be something she would do in real life. I did NOT want to put false words into the mouth of an idol from my teen years. So I thanked her profusely for her time and the gift of the song. And I wrote my novel!
Pick it up this month on Amazon!
Synopsis:
Ezra Caine is gay. He’s sort of out at school but not at home, where he fears the wrath of his father’s bigotry. When Ezra’s flamboyantly out friend Alex Mills takes one too many beatings from homophobic bully Will Carter, Ezra finally snaps. Fed up with the situation at school, he decides to do something about it. With the help of his BFF, Nettie, and some unlikely allies, Ezra rallies to create their small-town school’s first gay-straight alliance. The Rainbow Alliance Club is formed. But the changes don’t come without hiccups, one of which being a messy scandal involving Alex and a gay hook-up app. As Ezra and his friends attempt to sway their school into an alliance of tolerance and acceptance, Ezra experiences a few surprises of his own on the home-front. He also learns the hard way that friendships out of convenience aren’t always a good idea, just as some enemies might not be as bad as he originally imagined them to be.
BUY PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE ON SALE FOR $2.99 AT AMAZON USA!
I will leave you with RISE UP, the song I borrowed from Parachute Club as the theme song throughout PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE! Thank you, Lorraine!
KEVIN CRAIG 