Navigation Home Blogroll Reviews Contest Challenges RAK

Monday, January 14, 2013

Bad Apple by Barbara Morgenroth


Bad Apple
Book One
Barbara Morgenroth

Genre: Mature YA
Publisher: DashingBooks

ASIN:  B0045JK2XW

Word Count: 39,000

Cover Artist: Photo by Aleshyn Andrei.  Cover design by Barbara Morgenroth


Book Description:

“You tell and next time you won’t even be able to crawl away.”

Neal Marchal lived with this threat for the next eight years. When she finds her neighbor murdered, she knows who did it. The why is the secret the family has been keeping forever. The reminder to never reveal the secret is her limp.

She rebuilt her life and now Neal has everything to live for—music, performing and a growing affection for the young man who pulled her to safety.

Then Joe comes home. Neal knows Joe’s going to finish what he started 8 years ago because she told. But this time Neal vows the outcome will be different.


Review:

4 stars

Neal Marchal has survived more than any young woman should know, but when she loses a close friend who gave her hope, even momentarily, she worries that her stepbrother maybe back.  Neal has been holding a secret that if told could result in her death if she tells.

When she meets Truly who wants her to sing with his band, she is weary about the kindness he is showing as well as drawing attention to her limp.  What develops is a fragile friendship with the only person she trusts, when she comes clean with her past she does it knowing that her stepbrother will hunt her down and nothing will stop him until she is dead.

Haunting story, it had a poetic feel to it. Neal and Truly are opposites in every way, but Truly sees something behind the surface in Neal and he wants to let her see it to.  Intense plot line, an excellent read.



About the Author:
Barbara was born in New York City and but now lives somewhere else. By now, she thinks of herself as a country girl and knows more about gardening and animals than how to ride the subway.

Starting her career by writing tweens and YA books, (and did the cover photography for her first two books published by Atheneum so continuing to do the covers to her ebooks is predictable), she was actually aiming at the small screen. Television seemed like the perfect place for her even if she had no clue how to get there. Life is funny and often presents opportunities. Advice--Grab Them! Through a neighbor, Barbara wound up getting an introduction to a lower honcho at ABC and an audition to write for them. Her hopes were more than dashed, they were disintegrated, evaporated, demolished when ABC couldn't find a place for Barbara on General Hospital. (No Luke and Laura in her future!) To ease the crushing disappointment, Barbara wrote “In Real Life I'm Just Kate” about a 17 year old girl who becomes a star on a soap opera. That became an open sesame moment and shortly thereafter Barbara became the last headwriter for NBC's daytime serial, The Doctors, where she was ordered by the network to kill Alec Baldwin, shooting him not once but twice. With two different guns. From different directions.

Ah, good times.

You can read the book that started Barbara’s television career as the Kindle YA ebook, “Just Kate”, now with a substantial tweak because living life made her smarter.

You can also read about some could-be-hers-could-be-rumors experiences gleaned during Barbara’s stint in daytime television in the Kindle romantic comedy, In Under My Head.  Barbara is a recipient of a Writers Guild of America Best Writing Award for her work on One Life To Live.

Whether you're looking for a Mature YA or a romantic comedy, Barbara has a book for you!




2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the very kind review. I hope you go on to read Burning Daylight and Rise and enjoy them as well.

    Barbara Morgenroth

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nominated you for Liebster Blog Award! Check out the latest post in my blog!

    ReplyDelete