Friday, December 02, 2022

What is Amanda Sellet reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Amanda Sellet, author of Belittled Women.

Her entry begins:
I am never not reading, at least for a few minutes at the end of the day, but the choice of material is driven by two things: mood and due dates. My library hold list is one of the main ways I keep track of upcoming releases, right up there with the random scraps of paper littering my desk.

For most of the fall I was on a tight deadline, so my taste in leisure reading ran to lighter fare, with a spate of catching up on the physical TBR once I finished drafting. Looking back, I can see that I read mostly in genres and categories I have written, am writing next, or hope to write in the future.

Ruby Fever by Ilona Andrews

I finished writing a new book on a Friday afternoon, ordered pizza, and immediately opened the latest installment in the Hidden Legacy series. For pure escapism, there are few things I find more entertaining than urban fantasy/paranormal romance. The snark, the action, the magic, the tension – it’s all there. The first three books set in this world are among my most re-read ever, so this is...[read on]
About Belittled Women, from the publisher:
Sharp and subversive, this delightfully messy YA rom-com offers a sly wink to the classic Little Women, as teenage Jo Porter rebels against living in the shadow of her literary namesake.

Lit’s about to hit the fan. Jo Porter has had enough Little Women to last a lifetime. As if being named after the sappiest family in literature wasn’t sufficiently humiliating, Jo’s mom, ahem Marmee, leveled up her Alcott obsession by turning their rambling old house into a sad-sack tourist attraction.

Now Jo, along with her siblings, Meg and Bethamy (yes, that’s two March sisters in one), spends all summer acting out sentimental moments at Little Women Live!, where she can feel her soul slowly dying.

So when a famed photojournalist arrives to document the show, Jo seizes on the glimpse of another life: artsy, worldly, and fast-paced. It doesn’t hurt that the reporter’s teenage son is also eager to get up close and personal with Jo—to the annoyance of her best friend, aka the boy next door (who is definitely not called Laurie). All Jo wants is for someone to see the person behind the prickliness and pinafores.

But when she gets a little too real about her frustration with the family biz, Jo will have to make peace with kitsch and kin before their livelihood suffers a fate worse than Beth.
Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

Q&A with Amanda Sellet.

The Page 69 Test: By the Book.

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet.

--Marshal Zeringue