This is One of Those Posts Where I Just Send You to Other Posts

Here's what I did this week instead of writing this blog post (which I am doing now):

1) Los Angeles Review of Books published an essay I wrote for its Revisiting Fairytales series, in which I discuss ASH, Malinda Lo's young adult retelling of Cinderella.

2) Sophia the Writer graciously allowed me to join her Day in the Life series. So here it is, a Day in Sarah Skilton's Life. (Normally, that is summarized as "dishes-laundry-dishes-laundry," but I chose an idealized version to showcase here.)

Recommended Read: Where it Began by Ann Stampler

Where it Began by Ann Redisch Stampler opens with a fairly simple premise: a teenage girl wakes up in the hospital, having barely survived a car accident. She has no memory of the night in question, but she's certain she's to blame.

The narrative voice is fresh, crisp, and incredibly witty. I absolutely loved it. (Also, there is BILLY NASH. BILLY NAAAAAAAAAAAASH.)

What makes the book stand out so much? I shall tell you!

Narrative Voice
Gabby's narration is fabulously sarcastic. She considers herself a "sub-regular" at school, skill-less and destined for some crappy no-name college while her classmates head to Princeton and Stanford, but as readers we quickly realize she has an inaccurate, harsh view of herself. In truth, she's a talented artist, and an extremely witty young woman.

Check out how Gabby describes some of the people in her life:

Boyfriend Billy Nash, polo-playing golden boy of the school: "Billy sticks out his hand like a politician who is pretty damned sure he is going to get my vote. Then he flashes me The Grin. The smoldering, adorable grin. Like he knows that I'm going to race from precinct to precinct and vote for him over and over all day long."

Friend Lisa: "Lisa had been on a religious Outward Bound where she learned to survive if she ever gets stranded in Wisconsin with only dehydrated stew, a toothbrush, and a pocket Bible."

Mother Vivian (always Vivian; never Mom): "She is sitting in the corner on a green plastic chair, maybe too far away for me to see her clearly. Or maybe in her quest to look as if she's made of ten-years-younger, wrinkle-free plastic sheeting, my mother has found a way to get herself permanently, cosmetically airbrushed so nobody can see her all that clearly."

Use of Humor
I really like books that maintain a sharp, biting sense of humor amidst very real, very painful drama. Where it Began does this expertly, placing both elements in stark relief. Gabby has suffered through a terrible car crash; her face is bashed in; her boyfriend seems to have mysteriously abandoned her; and her alcoholic parents who live "in the lower dregs of Bel Air" have pinned all their hopes for social advancement on their daughter's continued attendance at the prestigious Winston School.

Despite the heartache and confusion that swirls around the story, and despite the increased evidence that poor Gabby has been left out to dry, the book is also deeply, darkly hilarious.

As part of his latest probation terms (it turns out Billy is anything but a golden boy), Billy is supposed to be counseling other teens at the Youth League shelter in Santa Monica. Of course, he has no intention of doing this. As Gabby puts it, "The only helpful counseling he could possibly be doing would have to be arriving by astral projection via the psychic cat that's always out there on the Third Street Promenade in a wizard hat making money for his half-zonked owner."

Use of Setting
Where it Began takes place in the Three B's (Bel Air, Brentwood, Beverly Hills), as well as the Valley, the West Side, and all of Los Angeles. Stampler clearly knows this world and fully immerses the reader in it.

Because Billy is easily bored, he takes Gabby all over the city in his beloved Beemer. "The best Pho 999 for Vietnamese noodles so far out on Sepulveda, it is almost at the far end of the Valley"; "hickory burgers on the red faux-leather stools at the counter at the Apple Pan on Pico"; "Versailles for Cuban plantains and black beans in Culver City"; "tacos at La Canasta, which is somewhere so far south and east of downtown that it looks like some whole other country"; "the Cajun place at the Fairfax Farmers' Market that has homemade yam potato chips fried up and ready to eat by ten a.m."

Having been to several of those places, I can attest to the accuracy of those descriptions. Yum.

Billy Nash
Speaking of Billy, he's an enviably well constructed, well written character, equal parts seductive, fascinating, and horrifying. As a reader, I wanted Billy around. Just like Gabby, I yearned for and anticipated his texts, instant messages, phone calls, and cameos. He's impossibly magnetic. He's also an appalling human being, and waiting for Gabby to arrive at this conclusion (as readers will probably do early on) fills the book with tension and occasional frustration, yet I understood completely why Gabby was in love with him and in thrall to him.

In short, I'm rather obsessed with this book and I hope you like it, too. Enjoy!

My Biggest Fear About Being Published

I harbor many irrational fears. As New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane puts it, "Sometimes the brain is a dungeon." Just ask my husband about the phase I went through in college when I became convinced that a cinder block was going to hit me on the head (thrown off a dorm balcony during spring cleaning, of course).

Here's the thing: I'm not scared people will hate my book. (I hope they don't, but if they do, I can accept that. Everyone has different taste in stories. It's really okay.)

No. What frightens me are the people who will dislike what they think has occurred in my book, rather than what has actually occurred. The Misinterpreters, I'll call them.

A friend of mine wrote a project a few years back, in which the words "[FirstName] Effing [LastName]" showed up as a tribute to a celebrity. (You know, like when you think someone's "effing awesome.") This phrase was used on a few occasions, within a larger context of showing that the author had idolized the celebrity and wished to emulate her. Well, an early reviewer claimed that the words, "Eff You, [First Name, Last Name]" were used, and lambasted my friend for being crude and disrespectful toward the celebrity. In short, the reviewer had not only missed the point, he or she had gotten it backwards, and then reviewed the wrong information.

What's frustrating is that there's no recourse in those situations. It's not a matter of opinion or taste, it's a matter of being factually incorrect, but pointing this out risks looking defensive or whiny.

So now you know all about my fear.

Writers: What are your publishing fears?

Reviewers: If you were to misremember or misinterpret something, would you want to be corrected (not by the author, but perhaps by other readers)? Or would you consider that a breach of the reader/reviewer code?

Purposeful Errors

If you knew a book had purposeful errors, would you still read it?

No?

Well, guess what -- you already have. Hahaha!

That was kind of a mean trick question. You see, every single book has purposeful errors.

Let me explain. There comes a time in an author's life when he or she will face copyedits (copy edits?). For me, that time was this week. Copyeditors (or copy editors? I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE) are brilliant, detail-oriented people who not only spot and fix typos, grammar mistakes, and spelling errors, but also serve as continuity experts (comparable to script supervisors in TV and film, which means they notice if your character is wearing a green sweater at the beginning of the scene but a purple one by the end).

In short, they save authors from super embarrassing mistakes and also help prose shine before books get published. They're invaluable.

Sometimes, however, writers choose to keep a sentence or word that's incorrect because it suits their character's voice, either in actual dialogue or in narration.

For example, the main character of BRUISED, my YA novel, is a 16-year-old girl who loves martial arts more than anything. She struggles to make Cs in school, so it wouldn't make sense for her to speak with proper grammar all the time. This is not to say all teenagers spend their days spouting purposeful errors; a different teenager in a different book would speak with correct grammar but my girl Imogen's not one to say "whom."

So next time you read a book and think, "That's flat-out wrong! How did that slip by?" It didn't. It was noticed, possibly agonized over, and deliberately kept.

Observations During a Walk - A Mystery

1. Hipster boy at the elementary school pre-first bell, outside in the recess/lunch area, wearing a baseball cap, tres cool sunglasses, and a necktie over jeans and a T. I'm kind of obsessed. Who is this kid? Is he the school fixer? Where does he fit in the hierarchy, or does he not play those reindeer games? Also: am pleased to see that Converse are still in, for both genders.

2. Tiny sock, missing its mate, under a bit of shrubbery at the edge of the lake. Normally this would've looked sinister, but my own son is constantly kicking his socks off so I know exactly how this happened.

3. Woman in skinny jeans, high heels, and chiffon-like fancy black cardigan walking her dog. Not caring who sees, and despite her ridiculous shoes, she scales the wall to the community clubhouse. It is not a small wall, ya'll.

There's a story in here somewhere, I just know.

Odds & Ends

Today's the last day to bid at Brenda Novak's charity auction for Diabetes research. As of this second, you still have eight hours to win from me a full screenplay critique or 50 pages of a novel critique (presumably the first 50 pages but you know, I'm flexible). Thanks and good luck! If it's too rich for your blood, I'll be participating in another auction next week.

Also I'm writing this from beyond the grave because the latest episode of Mad Men was so depressing I would've given it 5 out of 5 razor blades had I reviewed it. Instead, I send you to a terrific analysis at Salon.com

Los Angeles Novels for Every Mood

I started Jennifer Bosworth's STRUCK this week, a YA book about a teenage lightning addict living in post-Apocalyptic Los Angeles. The setting is pitch perfect and Bosworth clearly knows her L.A. stuff.  It got me thinking about my other favorite novels set in L.A. -- novels that absolutely couldn't be set anywhere else:

1. THE LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler (classic hardboiled mystery)

2. DOGTOWN by Mercedes Lambert (gritty, unglamorous East L.A. of the 1980s)

3. MY HOLLYWOOD by Mona Simpson (overpriveleged families of Santa Monica, seen through the POVs of immigrant nannies)

4. WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch (the brutality of the foster care system)

5. HOLLYWOOD by Charles Bukowski (hilarious and insane look into alcholic writer's movie-making experience)

What Having A Baby Has Taught me About Life, The Universe, and Everything

1. Turns out it's possible to function on 4 hours of sleep a night. Had I known this sooner, I could've written twice the number of manuscripts currently under my bed.

2. Babies appreciate every minor sensation the world has to offer because it's all new to them. As a writer, this can be invaluable to observe. (Yes, you know what, Elliot? You're right: The way light comes through the window and creates shadows along the wall IS beautiful and worth staring at.)

2a) What once seemed like minor scenarios have become highlights of my life. Like Elliot dancing, teaching himself to roll over, splashing in the bath, and blowing raspberries. Each milestone squeezes my heart. And he'll never be this small again, so each day is acutely poignant.

3. Sometimes a 2-hour commute on the 405 on a Monday morning is a welcome, restful respite from the 96 hours that preceded it.

4. Changing diapers, long feared, ended up being nothing whatsoever and the least of my worries.

5. I always knew Joe was my partner, but now he's really been in the trenches with me. And there's something sexy about a guy who knows how to rock a baby to sleep.

6. With time to read at a premium, only good books make the cut. (Sorry, bestseller that shan't be named. You've sapped my will to live. Although the extraordinarily repetitive nature of your prose does make it easy to drift off, which is sometimes helpful.)

7. My respect for other parents -- particularly my own -- has increased one million fold.

8. Just when I think my friends, loved ones and neighbors couldn't be kinder, someone does something so generous and thoughtful it blows my mind. Example: my cousin sending me a sleep mask and a bright red leather bag so I would feel pampered as a new mom. And the things my parents and in-laws have done for us are too numerous to even grasp or summarize.

Getcher Novel or Screenplay Critiques Right Here

I'm participating in Brenda Novak's Annual Auction for the Cure to Diabetes. As you may have guessed, it's an auction, and it raises money to find a cure for diabetes.

Do you have a novel or screenplay that you'd like me to critique? Come place a bid! Don't be nervous. I do this for a living. (Wow, that sounded dirty.) I just mean, I read screenplays for a living, and when I'm not doing that, I'm writing novels for my other living, so I have experience and knowledge and all that good stuff.

I'll stop blathering now and let someone else blather.

The lovely, gracious, and talented Melanie Bennett won a novel critique from me last year. Here's what she has to say (thanks, Melanie!):

"Sarah critiqued a manuscript for me and her smart advice and insightful comments were a big part of why that manuscript earned me three offers of representation. She critiques in a way that helped me feel her experience with my work as a reader, but she backed it up with the writerly know-how of strategies for fixing issues. It's a great combination and well-worth a big, fat donation to a charity if you get the bonus of her mad skills."

Sound good? Operators are standing by and I'd love to help you whip your writing project into shape. Please let your writer friends know about the auction, and please consider helping out a good cause.

You can bid here until May 31st.

Thanks!

I'll be particpating in another fundraiser on June 2nd. More details to come...

Recipe for Successful Line Edits

1. An editor who's smarter than you (Maggie is wicked smaht and insightful; together we're conspiring to make me look like less of an idiot).

2. A cooperative, sleepy baby who'll take naps so you can work.

Okay, so I'm not exactly working.

3. A sense of humor. My all-time favorite line edit concerns whether a character would be eating Pop-Tarts vs Toaster Strudels. (It's an issue of icing.) We've both done research and a winner will be crowned any day now.*

And in this corner...

4. The desire to tweak. Just call me Tweaker Sarah**! I love tweaking lines to get just the right phrase, mood, and style. Line edits give me the opportunity to do this to my heart's content.

Watch out for the Dough Boy. He'll cut ya.

I know you are dying to find out whether we went with Pop-Tarts or Toaster Strudels. You'll just have to buy, steal or borrow BRUISED next Spring.
*Unsurprisingly, Maggie was correct.
**Now I sound like a meth head

Barnes & Noble Binge

You may have noticed I didn't review Mad Men on Monday. Basically, it was impossible to be depressed this week because three friends' debut books came out!*

1) Sarvenaz Tash's Middle Grade adventure, THE MAPMAKER AND THE GHOST. I read the book last year in ARC form, and now I get to own a copy.

It was thrilling to see her book "in the wild." I also got to interview Sarvenaz at the Lucky 13s blog.

2) Publishing-mate Shelley Coriell's fabulous Young Adult novel, WELCOME, CALLER, THIS IS CHLOE. (Bonus: It was shelved next to THE GIRL IN THE PARK, the newest release from one of my favorite authors, Mariah Fredericks!)

3) Agency-mate Jennifer Wolf's YA, BREAKING BEAUTIFUL. I've heard nothing but amazing things about her work so I'm excited to dive in; I ordered a copy and hope to pick it up next week. Jennifer was also interviewed over at Lucky 13s.

*Okay, so I haven't watched it yet. Apparently raising a baby cuts into one's TV schedule. Who knew?

Line Edits!!!

My line edits arrived this week. I can haz feelings of being a real writer?

For those who don't know, line edits are the low-down nitty-gritty edits. I've already been through the broad, plot-based edits. Now my fabulous editor, Maggie Lehrman, is focusing her genius brain on phrasing, sentence structure, word use, character emotions, etc.

The last time I felt this excited, book-wise, was during my trip to New York City last summer to meet my agent and editor.

There are certain milestones in the life of a debut novelist that instill soul-numbing terror or heart palpitations of delight (and I have an irregular heartbeat to begin with). Line edits cause both.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled.  I'm in the game; I'm part of the great writing conversation. THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING.

On the other hand, THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING. This is officially the penultimate chance to fix, you know, every single word in my manuscript because PEOPLE ARE GOING TO READ IT NEXT YEAR.

Next come copyedits, and then THIS IS REALLY, REALLY HAPPENING.

Mad Men 5x4: Forever Plaid

Who among us hasn't wanted to see Pete receive a beat down? That it came at the hands of Lane Pryce was surprising but still satisfying; I don't think Roger would've been up to the task. Besides, Roger's style of punishment is verbal abuse.

Prostitutes automatically ensure a base rating of 1 razor blade, and Pete's whiny "I have nothing" confession in the elevator is worth half a razor blade, I suppose. Also, a guy named Handsome stole Pete's jail bait target right out from under him. Ha!

What a difference a year(?) makes. This time last season, Don was getting slapped by a "woman of the night," and living in a hovel. Now he's attending suburban soirees with his wife and actually remaining faithful to her, not to mention giving Pete the stink eye for messing around.

This is a short review because I'm having difficulty typing. I'm still blinded by the "festive" dinner jackets everyone wore to Pete and Trudy's.

1970s, I see you on the horizon and you're not pretty.

"What makes a book well written?" My Useless Response to a Tweet

Last week on Twitter I observed that whenever a book is praised for "getting people to read" it's never because the book is well written.

To which another Tweeter asked, "What does a well written book have? I am trying to write one... what do you think makes a book well written?"

Hmm. That's pretty subjective. Also, it's easier for me to list what makes a book poorly written, so naturally I am taking the easy way out.

Don't Do This:

1. Unoriginal characters (and/or characters you don't care about)
2. Telling instead of showing (don't say things, prove them)
3. Cliches
4. Carelessness
5. Poor use of language
6. Overused or redundant phrases and descriptions
7. Inexplicable behavior (if I don't believe your characters would do something, or if I don't understand why they have done something, it throws me out of the story)

There! A perfect blueprint! Go forth and write!

Oh, was that not helpful?

Hmm, again. It's hard to make a list of what well written means. It's like pornography: you know it when you see it.

If I wish I'd written it, and/or I momentarily consider quitting writing altogether because Now There Is No Point, that means it was well written.

What do you think makes a book well written?

Mad Men 5x3: Rickets From the Haunted Mansion

Okay, no need to prolong this.

Let's just jump right in and award the latest episode of Mad Men 4 rusty razor blades out of 5 on the Depressing Scale (tm).

After a series of extremely uncomfortable meals (which is also an efficient summary of Inglorious Basterds, FYI), Joan dumps her rapey husband and decides to raise her baby solo. It's horribly sad that the little guy won't have a father, but it sounds like he wouldn't have had much of a father, anyway; without consulting his wife, Greg signed up for another year in Vietnam, explaining that "they need him" over there. And isn't the baby actually Roger's anyway? Wait, that just makes it all the more depressing. This isn't helping. Never mind.

Elsewhere, Sally is abandoned to her nutty step-grandma for an evening of horrors. Grandma forces Sally to eat a sandwich, "crusts and all," and later relishes in sharing lascivious information about a serial killer with the sleepless, terrorized child. Then she GIVES SALLY A SLEEPING PILL. You remember Sally, right? THE LITTLE GIRL? (And possibly the best actor on the show?) Sally proceeds to heartbreakingly fall asleep under the couch.

"Victimized females under couches/beds" was a theme. Apparently that's how the only survivor of the aforementioned Chicago-based serial killer's rampage managed to save herself. So in Don's literally feverish portion of the plot, Don dreams that he has strangled a former lover and shoved her corpse under the bed. She's wearing one heel (which ties in with the Cinderella-style ad campaign he didn't want to do).

Other depressing things, in case that's not enough: Peggy gets da-runk and wonders if Dawn, the black secretary, might possibly steal the money Peggy blackmailed Roger into giving her. (The blackmail part was hilarious, actually; Peggy got Roger good.)

Lastly, Megan endures the longest elevator ride of her life when a random woman throws herself at (male, white) Don.

I'm sure there were other depressing things but that's enough to make my case I think.

Back to Work

I love my job, and I love my co-workers.

But heading back to work after my maternity leave has been tough. Luckily, my husband is a magician who works from home, so he'll be on Daddy Duty while I'm at the office. Last Thursday we did a trial run. It went like this:

Joe: It's your day off from Elliot. What do you want to do?
Me: Spend it with you and Elliot.

Eventually I headed to the computer to catch up on emails and stuff, but it was so hard not to respond when I heard Elliot fussing or crying in the other room. Joe's an excellent father and I trust him implicitly to do a great job -- but I have to admit, I wanted to step in constantly, such as when I heard things like this:

Joe: I'm going to go upstairs now. I am covered in poop.

Joe: I don't know what your deal is, little man, but you're clearly fidgety.

And of course I wanted to join in on the fun:
Me: So! What are you guys up to? Are you going on a walk? ...Can I come?
Joe: We already went on a walk.
Me: Oh.

~An Hour Passes ~

Me: Ooooh, you could Skype with my grandma. She would LOVE that. Here's my phone, her number's right there, do you need me to set it up or show you how to do it? (Keep in mind my husband is much more technologically savvy than I am.)
Joe: Um, I think I can figure it out.

~Twenty Minutes Pass ~

Me: You know what you could do right now? You could read him a book! Or tickle his feet! Or do Tummy Time! Or listen to music and dance! Or --- oh GOD I JUST WANT TO SNUGGLE HIM AND KISS HIM ALL OVER BUT I CAN'T FOR FOUR HOURS AND TEN MINUTES.
Joe: I got this. Just, go do your thing until 6 o'clock.

Mad Men 5x2: We Need To Talk About Betts

Oh, Betty.

Betty.

Betty.

Mad Men pulled a switcheroo and got me to care again about Betty. BETTY. I've always found her fascinating, and often pitiable, but in recent seasons she's become downright villainous toward Sally, which is obvs not okay. I also found her storyline with Henry Francis to be less than compelling during seasons three and four, but now I feel bad for both of them. Henry swears he doesn't even notice Betty's weight gain.

First, we wonder if she's a suburban cliche; then we fear she has cancer; and then we realize, no, she's a suburban cliche. And in that last scene, scored to Sound of Music's "I am 16, going on 17," we watch Betty devour not one but two hot fudge sundaes -- the second being a discard of her daughter's, whom Betty accused a while back of being "pudgy" herself. Eek.

This "Betty almost dies; no wait, she's just eating too much" subplot earns the ep 3 razor blades all by itself. Add to it Pete's public, office-wide dis of Roger, and my "Dawning" realization that I don't even feel bad for Roger -- who not only mocks the new black secretary behind her back but exhibits not a single iota of sympathy toward Don regarding Betty's possible demise -- and you've got 3.5 out of 5, baby.

Recommended Read: ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL

Even as a delirious, sleep-deprived mother of a 10-week-old boy, I read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews in two days!

What makes it so awesome?

1. Our narrator, Greg, a senior in high school, behaves the way a real person would, teenager or no. I LOVE THAT. Upon hearing that his sort-of ex-girlfriend from middle school has leukemia, and that his mother wants him to reach out to her, here's how he reacts: "Urgh!"

Mostly, he's inconvenienced by Rachel's imminent demise, claiming several times that it, and their forced friendship, has "ruined" his life. This is how people think. As a result, I wasn't thrown out of the story by a perfect protagonist, yet Greg remains sympathetic because he genuinely tries to keep Rachel's spirits up by going over to her house every day and making her laugh.

2. Different scenes are presented in different formats, such as screenplay style, bullet points, or outlines. Besides being hilarious, it keeps information brisk and entertaining. Even descriptions of the movies Greg and Earl make are written like quick film reviews, with star ratings at the end.

3. The whole book is funny as hell. My favorite part is when (minor spoiler alert or whatever) normally straitlaced Greg and (less straitlaced) Earl accidentally get high after drinking their favorite teacher's mysterious soup. HAAAA! And then they can't decipher a text message, and it cracked me up like crazy.

4. Greg regularly breaks the fourth wall, referencing the fact that we're reading something "he" wrote, and how awful the book is, and how it may cause us to "want to do a homicide."

If you're looking for a YA book that works on about a thousand levels, add Earl to your list.

Mad Men 5x1: A Bold Bean Ballet

This season started like a squillion months late, but here we are! As usual, I'll be rating new episodes of Mad Men based not on the quality of the show -- which tends to be uniformly high --  but on how suicidal it makes the viewer.

Using a scale of 1 to 5 razor blades, I'll discuss the most depressing aspects of the program. It doesn't help that the show airs late-ish on Sunday nights, when most of us are already quivering wrecks of dread anticipating the work week ahead of us.

However, last night's two-hour season premiere really wasn't particularly depressing.

I mean, black protestors getting hit with water bombs from an office building was certainly depressing; a wrecked, exhausted-looking Joan fighting with her mother was depressing; and Pryce's lack of respect toward his black cab driver was uber depressing; but Crane describing what he'd do to Zou Bisou Bisou was more funny than depressing (though not from Megan's perspective I guess). In fact the entire episode was more funny than anything else.

Observe:

1) Roger Sterling: "Why don't you sing like that?"
Jane Sterling: "Why don't you look like him?"

2) Everyone playing a frantic round of Pass the Baby when Joan stopped by

3) Pete's power play against Roger that sent Roger to the Staten Island Ferry at 6 am

4) All the partners squished on the couch in Pete's office (where they couldn't even smoke to deal with the situation!)

5) Megan summing up the rest of the cast with this reasonably astute assessment: "They don't smile; they smirk."

6) Pryce has what amounts to phone sex with Dolores, of the lost wallet; and Don and Megan play a kinda weird "you can't look at me while I clean in my underthings" sex game.

So all in all, 2 razor blades out of 5. Which is probably for the best, because with a double episode you really don't want more than a 3 rating. Still, I was a tad disappointed that no one got drunker at the surprise party. This is Mad Men, after all. I was probably drunker than any of the characters, and I was only sipping wine.

Question: was the wallet owner supposed to be a mobster?

Results of my First Book Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who participated in the lottery* to win a copy of Samuel Park's terrific historical novel, THIS BURNS MY HEART.

I put numbers in a hat and pulled out #8, Julie Musil. Congratulations! Please DM or email me your address.

I also asked commenters to list their favorite historical novels. Mine is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. (Have you seen my coming-of-age smackdown analysis of Scout vs Francie?)

Here's what others said, if you're into that sort of thing (bulking up your To-Read lists):

• BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY by Ruta Sepetys
• THE DOVERKEEPERS by Alice Hoffman
• HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford 
• THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett
• Anything by Phillipa Gregory (like THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL)
• ORCHID HOUSE by Lucinda Riley
• GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
• THE BOOK THIEF by Marcus Zusak (three votes)
• JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE series by Sandra Gulland
• FOREVER AMBER by Kathleen Winsor
• SHOGUN by James Clavell

*Whenever I see the word lottery now, I think of that gut-wrenching scene in Waiting for Superman.