Sunday, March 15, 2009

What is Amanda Ashby reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Amanda Ashby, author of You Had Me At Halo and the newly released Zombie Queen of Newbury High.

Among the praise for the new novel:
Zombie Queen of Newbury High is a delightfully fun, fresh, and funny read! Amanda Ashby creates a highly likeable heroine in Mia Everett, who, despite her best intentions, turns her classmates into zombies. And with prom quickly approaching, she must find a way to undo it before, well before she gets eaten! Never again will you look at prom, your classmates, or even zombies in quite the same way!
--Alyson Noel, New York Times bestselling author of Evermore
Ashby's entry begins:
I'm currently reading Colonel Brandon's Diary which is written by a friend of mine, Amanda Grange, and is a retelling of Sense and Sensibility from Colonel Brandon's point of view.

This is Amanda Grange's fifth Jane Austen book (she's done Darcy, Knightley, Captain Wentworth and Edmund Bertram) and it was probably the one I was most curious about since so much of Colonel Brandon's backstory is glossed over in favor of the other stars of the book. I really love the way she's built up his earlier years and it's so in keeping with Jane Austen's own style that I could see threads of Mr. Bennet in the way she created Colonel Brandon's father (though he didn't have the calming influence of Lizzie to help wipe away his mockery).

The other thing I love about reading these retellings is that she isn't trying to change the plot, but rather she's just letting the reader see the same picture but from a slightly different angle. Oh, and her books are funny as well, with all of Jane Austen's humor and a lot of her own.[read on]
Visit Amanda Ashby's website, blog, and MySpace page.

Writers Read: Amanda Ashby.

--Marshal Zeringue