Anyone But You by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes: Promo and Giveaway

Authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes are excited to offer a sneak peak at the third book in their “Twisted Lit” series of Shakespeare-inspired YA novels. This time around, they’ve put their unique spin on Romeo & Juliet. Published by Merit Press, Anyone But You will be released in January, and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s.

Anyone But You: A Modern-Day Spin on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet

by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes

(Book #3 in the Twisted Lit series)

Summary:

Two Italian restaurants, both alike in dignity, in Chicago’s Little Italy where we lay our scene... After her family’s struggling eatery, Cap’s, falls prey to another of the Monte clan’s vicious and destructive pranks, sixteen-year-old Gigi Caputo finds herself courting danger during a clandestine encounter with Roman Monte, the very boy whose relatives have brought her family such grief. When the daughter and son of these two warring factions fall for each other, their quest to mend this bitter family feud turns out to be a recipe for disaster. Their story is irrevocably linked to the summer of 1933, when two twelve-year-olds, Benny and Nick, hop the turnstile at the Chicago World’s Fair. While enjoying some of the fair’s legendary amusements, Nick has a “love at first sight” encounter with Stella, a young girl who unintentionally causes a lasting rift between the two boyhood pals. Deftly winding its way through past and present day, this modern take on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet has much to do with hate — but more with love.

About the Authors
Authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have been writing together since 2004, when they launched Romancing the Tome, a blog dedicated to their obsession with book-to-film adaptations. For more information on the books in their Shakespeare-inspired series, visit TwistedLitBooks.com.

Giveaway: 

Win a Twisted Lit novel!

Amy and Kim have generously offered a copy of Exposure: A Modern retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth to one of my blog readers. 

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Get A “Twisted Lit” Character Named After You!

In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday (celebrated on April 23), authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes, have dropped by with a guest blog post to announce a special contest!

Get A “Twisted Lit” Character Named After You!

We reimagined William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and “Macbeth,” with our “compulsively readable” YA books, Tempestuous and Exposure. Ever since the novels were published a few months ago through Merit Press we’ve encountered a frequent question: Which of Shakespeare’s plays will inspire your next books in the Twisted Lit series?

While we’re currently hard at work putting our own spin on the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet” we thought we’d look to you, the readers, to help us pick the fourth Shakespeare play that will inspire our next book in the series. Got a hankering for a new spin on “Hamlet?” Love to see “King Lear” get a YA update? Would you make much ado over our take on “Much Ado About Nothing?”

Go to our Facebook page (Facebook.com/Twistedlitnovels) and write on our wall to weigh in on which Shakespeare play you’d like us to revamp next. In doing so, you’ll be entered to have your very own name mentioned in one of our upcoming books (either as a character or some other fun reference). If you’ve always wanted to see your name in print — in a YA novel, no less — now’s your chance! The winner will also receive autographed copies of our first two novels, Tempestuous and Exposure.

We’re looking forward to hearing your suggestions! (And don’t forget to follow us on twitter at @kaskew and @amyhelmes.)

* Winner will not be compensated for use of his or her name, and publication is not guaranteed. Details of plot and character used in connection with the name as it appears in the book are up to the sole discretion of the authors. Contest ends June 1.

Kim & Amy

About the Authors
Authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have been writing together since 2004, when they launched Romancing the Tome, a blog dedicated to their obsession with book-to-film adaptations. For more information on the books in their Shakespeare-inspired series, visit TwistedLitBooks.com.

Guest Post: Twisted Lit authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes

Welcome Twisted Lit authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes!

Anyone who’s ever read Shakespeare’s Macbeth knows it’s incredibly dark, and, well...basically a complete bloodbath. It’s one of our favorite Shakespeare plays  — (uh...what does that say about us?) — and we knew we wanted to tackle it for our YA Twisted Lit series. But how do you approach characters that are ambitious to the point of being despicable? Rather than being pure evil, we wanted the characters in Exposure to struggle with the morality of their decisions, especially when unforeseen events spiral out of their control. Our book is told from the point of view of the best friend, Skye (who parallels the character of Banquo in The Bard’s play). She’s an outsider looking in at people who are caught in a downward spiral of cover-up and calamity. You’ll undoubtedly develop strong feelings (of love and/or hate) for the high school students in our novel, and we venture to guess you’ve never read a take on "The Scottish Play" quite like this one!

  
Exposure: A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Double, double, toil and trouble. Sometimes, the quest for high school royalty can be deadly! In this emotionally-charged twist on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a self-conscious shutterbug named Skye Kingston navigates a treacherous school year in Alaska fraught with unspoken secrets and tragic twists of fate. Along the way she encounters three strangely prophetic BFFs; one social-climbing, sociopathic cheerleader; and a heart-stopping hottie named Craig MacKenzie: the man who would be Prom King. Can Skye save the boy she loves — and herself — before they get caught in the crosshairs?

 

Goodreads * Amazon * Barnes & Noble

About the Authors
Authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have been writing together since 2004, when they launched Romancing the Tome, a blog dedicated to their obsession with book-to-film adaptations. For more information on the books in their Shakespeare-inspired series, visit TwistedLitBooks.com.

Love My Indie with Authors Amy Helmes and Kim Askew

Love My Indie is a feature where fellow bloggers, readers, and authors tell me about their favorite independent bookstores. I love the feeling I get when I go into an independent bookstore - like it is filled with hidden treasures just waiting for me to find them.

Showing some Indie Love today are:

Amy Helmes and Kim Askew 

authors of Tempestuous and Exposure

We spend numerous hours lost in the shelves at Los Angeles’s Skylight Books, which is conveniently located between our two houses in our east side neighborhood, Los Feliz. Skylight carries a great collection of literary journals, zines, children’s books, art and coffee table books, and graphic novels, but our favorite section is undoubtedly fiction. It’s incredibly curated, allowing for really great, unexpected "discoveries" like the English translations of the detective series the Marseilles Trilogy by French writer Jean-Claude Izzo.  

Skylight’s event calendar is packed with readings from some of the most talented writers around, including A.M. Homes and local author Aimee Bender, as well as up-and-comers like Emma Straub. They also hosted our friend, Andrea N. Richesin, when she launched her anthology Crush. We can’t wait to have our first reading of the Twisted Lit series there on February 2. For bibliophiles, Skylight is truly the heart and soul of our neighborhood!

Small World Books on the Venice Boardwalk is probably the best bookstore you’ve never heard of. Blink and you’ll miss the entrance, too--it’s almost lost among the jostling crowds next to an outdoor cafe with a literary-themed menu. Small World has a surprisingly large collection of New York Review of Books Lost Classics and a fab mystery collection, all guarded by the bookshop’s fluffy feline, Conan the Librarian.

About the Authors
Kim Askew and Amy Helmes are the authors of the Shakespeare-inspired YA series Twisted Lit. Tempestuous is available now and Exposure will be available January 18, 2013 from Merit Press. For more information, visit TwistedLitBooks.com.
 

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Guest Post: Twisted Lit authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes

Welcome Twisted Lit authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes!

Hey everyone!

Call us crazy, but we happen to think English dramatist William Shakespeare could be classified as the original YA author. Just hear us out on this one: Be it Romeo and Juliet’s desperate passion, Hamlet’s stepdad-directed rage, the delinquent follies of a young Henry V, or Cordelia’s frustrations with her impossibly bitchy older sisters, the Bard had a knack for understanding the type of volatile emotions that can spring from an adolescent heart. With that in mind, we’re dusting off Shakespeare and reinterpreting his works as modern YA reboots. Regardless of whether you’re a classic lit geek like us (or an incurable Shakespeare-phobe), the first two novels in our Twisted Lit series have been called "compulsively readable." Here’s a quick glimpse at what you can expect:

 
Tempestuous: A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s 
The Tempest

Recently banished by the cool clique, Miranda Prospero finds herself in a brave new world: holding dominion amongst a rag-tag crew of geeks and misfits at the food court of her local mall. When the worst winter storm of the season snows in workers and last-minute shoppers to be snowed-in for the night, Miranda seizes the opportunity to get revenge against the catty clique behind her social exile. With help from her delightfully dweeby coworker, Ariel, and a sullen loner named Caleb who works at the mall’s gaming and magic shop, Miranda uses charm and trickery to set things to right during their rollicking night in captivity.

Goodreads * Amazon * Barnes & Noble

About the Authors
Authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have been writing together since 2004, when they launched Romancing the Tome, a blog dedicated to their obsession with book-to-film adaptations. For more information on the books in their Shakespeare-inspired series, visit TwistedLitBooks.com.