Spin-offs

I love getting to spend some extra time with a secondary character. Whether it's a second book in a series that focuses on the secondary (of course, she's not a secondary anymore), or a spin-off TV show, I love me some secondary characters.

For books...I adore all those historical romances that focus on a big family or group of friends. I particularly love Eloisa James' duchesses and of course, who can resist Julia Quinn's Bridgertons?

I'm a 90's girl, so one of my fave all-time TV spin-offs was Melrose Place. I never related as much as I did with Beverly Hills 90210 (although let's face it...I had little-to-nothing in common with any of those kids, but at least I was closer in age...to the age they were supposed to be, not their real age, of course), but I was such a major Nine-Oh geek that I'd watch anything in that franchise. Once I learned that they were going to create a whole series around the hot carpenter that remodeled before Kelly Taylor's mom's wedding, I knew I had to watch.

I write a YA mystery series. Like many of the other gals from this blog, I  follow the same heroine throughout the series. At one point I'd considered featuring a different friend for each book, but I decided to stick with Dani (good thing, since it's called the Dani Spevak Mysteries ;) ). Since my characters are teens, I'm pretty much never going to have a happily-ever-after ending because, well, my heroine is 14! But there will eventually be a HFN, with the romantic arc taking the entire course of the series to play out. (Because let's face it...teen girls like teen boys.)

But you know what? I really like her spunky pals, Maya and Analisa. And readers seem to like them, too. I get a lot of fanmail asking me if they'll ever get their own books. And the answer is YES.

(Isn't that a great cover?! I'm so in love! I've truly been blessed by the cover gods.)

Later this fall (before Christmas is the plan), my friend Leslie DuBois and I will be releasing a YA dance anthology, of sorts. We'll each have a novella in the upcoming book, Behind Barres.

My story (as yet untitled) focuses on Analisa San Miguel, one of Dani's friends at Mountain Shadows Academy of the Arts. She's away at a summer intensive workshop at the Manhattan Ballet Conservatory. She's never known her dad -- her mom claims he died before she was born, but Analisa has always suspected she there was something more to the story, and is convinced that she'll learn the truth if she studies at the school her mother attended before she made her big decision to leave the dance world and move back home to a small town in California.

It's not a mystery, per se, although Analisa definitely feels compelled to answer the big question of who her dad was. But it's really more of a straight-up contemporary, with strong romantic elements of course. (See comment above about teen girls and teen boys.)

Can you help me title this story? I love punny titles with a nod to dance (Codename: Dancer, Pointe of No Return, "Barre Hopping at Midnight", Pas De Death).

If I choose your title, I'll send you a free copy of the ARC later this fall!