LGBTQIA2 Pride – Why I Still Love PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE

5 years ago today, I received the ORANGE BANNER treatment on Amazon for my brand new young adult novel PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE! For those who don’t know, the orange banner indicates BEST SELLER. You get it when your book hits #1!

Happy 5th Anniversary of being #1, book!

It was such a moment, writing Pride Must Be A Place! I remember where I was, who I was…everything about the experience! Such a pivotal moment. What a rush!

I wrote quite a lot of it at the 72hr Muskoka Novel Marathon during the summer of 2015. A week later, Michael and I spent a week at his sister’s cottage and I wrote the remainder of the novel. We would take long walks during the day and discuss the story-line. It was a magical time I still hold dear.

Whenever a writer thinks back on a book they wrote, it’s often that time in their life that they reflect on. It makes them either love or hate their book more…the book is like a litmus test to the time in which they wrote it. That’s the way it works for me, anyway. I LOVE this book! I still love the book because it immediately brings me back to that time when I wrote it!

Desk shot – Muskoka Novel Marathon.

Click THIS LINK to visit my post about how Pride Must Be A Place is tied in with Lorraine Segato of The Parachute Club.

PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE 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.

I know it won’t get to the ORANGE BANNER status again, but if you haven’t read PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE…consider picking it up today! It’s good!

AMAZON USA: Pride Must Be A Place

AMAZON CANADA: Pride Must Be A Place

 

Teen Book Talk – Relationships in Young Adult Books, Cristy Watson and Lyndi Allison

Fellow young adult author and friend, Lyndi Allison, has included The Camino Club in their recent discussion on RELATIONSHIPS in YA on their YouTube channel.

Lyndi discussed one of my favourite characters. Bastien is the elderly man my six teen characters stumble into (one of them–Diego–quite literally) on the Camino de Santiago as they make their way from Ponferrada, Spain to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

I’ve been thrilled by the way readers have embraced Bastien, a character I created to honour a Bastien-like character I myself met on my own pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago.

Listen to Lyndi’s discussion with Cristy Watson on YA relationships at the YouTube like below. You can also check out their books!

LYNDI ALLISON AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

CRISTY WATSON AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

Make sure to check out Lyndi Allison’s website too! Not only are they an author, but they also run a retreat in Panama! CLICK HERE TO VISIT TRANQUILO RETREAT or to learn more about Lyndi’s books.

Here’s some links to THE CAMINO CLUB:

THE CAMINO CLUB (Duet Books/Chicago Review Press) After getting in trouble with the law, six wayward teens are given an ultimatum: serve time in juvenile detention for their crimes, or walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across Spain over the summer holidays with a pair of court-appointed counselor guides. When it becomes clear the long walk isn’t really all that much of an option, they set out on a journey that will either make or break who they are and who they are to become.

Amazon USA | Amazon Canada | Chicago Review Press | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Book Depository | BookShop | Indigo-Chapters | IndieBound | Kobo USA | Kobo Canada | Interlude Press/Duet Books | WalMart USA | Target | Blackwell’s (UK) | Booktopia (Aus) | APPLE Books | Goodreads