Featured New Release: Turning Point by Melissa Luznicky Garrett

Ahh, blogosphere. Connecting writers to writers and writers to readers and readers to writers and everything bookish like that.

Today’s Featured New Release comes from an author I met online, Melissa Luznicky Garrett. Or, rather, she met me. I think she surfed over to check out some of my fiction — always the perfect reason to be here — and stayed. A friendship struck up, as it often does with me (as many of you know first-hand).

Which means that when I got word that Melissa had a new book coming out, you know I had to rush over there and ask her the Famed One Question Interview: What song makes you think of your book?

This question was super easy for me to answer. Although there were many songs that got me through the writing of TURNING POINT, only one became the unofficial anthem. And that’s Bling (Confessions of a King) by The Killers. I have no idea how or why they ended up giving the song that title, but I’m sure someone smarter than I can probably figure it out!

As is often the case when I’m writing a book, I listen to music. Usually it serves as nothing more than background noise. It’s not like I play music with the intention of finding my book’s theme song. But usually I just know, without a doubt, when I’ve come across that special song, the one that makes me think specifically of my book. Sometimes it’s the tone of the music, or a certain phrase. Sometimes it’s one specific word in the lyrics! (example: the word “perforated” from Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism – that song became the theme for my first book, PRECIPICE)

From the very beginning, I had a younger version of Brandon Flowers (lead singer of The Killers) in mind for the role of Dominic. Brandon sometimes has this vulnerable look about him that makes the audience instinctively feel “something” for him, and that’s the way Jenna (TURNING POINT’s MC) initially felt about Dominic. She couldn’t put her finger on why she felt so instinctively protective of him, she just did. It wasn’t until she figured out who he really was that she realized just how much he needed her. In fact, his life depended on her helping him out of a really crummy situation.

There are certain lyrics in the song that I can just imagine Jenna speaking to Dominic:

“When I offer you survival,
you say it’s hard enough to live.
And I’ll tell you when it’s over . . . Shut up . . .” (that makes me laugh, because Jenna would *totally* tell Dominic to shut up!)

and then

“Higher and higher, we’re gonna take it down to the wire, we’re gonna make it out of the fire . . .” (they have to go through A LOT of bad stuff before it gets better)

The LIVE version of this song is especially good. The energy is AMAZING, and it makes me want to jump up and down and scream: “Go Jenna! Go Dominic! You can do it!”

This is one of those songs that is so awesome, all I can say is, “Dude! This rocks!”

Here’s the blurb for Turning Point:

Convinced a fresh start is all she needs to escape the problems at home, seventeen-year-old Jenna Lyons runs away in the middle of the night. But when her car breaks down on the outskirts of La Grange, Missouri, population less than a thousand, she gets sucked into the small town, and one family in particular. Jenna discovers there’s a liar in La Grange, and he’s deceived everyone. Now she must decide whether to run away from the truth, or blow his secret wide open.

Here are some buy links!
Smashwords
CreateSpace
Amazon

**
Melissa left us a comment: When your readers are done here, they should click over to my site for the TURNING POINT Book Launch & Giveaway and enter to win one of five print copies.

The link to her website is above… use it well.