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Friday, April 26, 2013

Softly Say Goodbye



About the Book:
Erin Sellers, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, hates teen drinking. She and her three friends – Bill, her guy, Shari and Jake - decide to use Twitter to stop a group, the Kewl Krew, from using their high school as the local bar. But the members of this group are just as determined to stop anyone from messing up their fun. Despite veiled threats to her safety, Erin continues her crusade.
To make matters worse for her, the stress of school and extra curricular work mounts and suddenly, shockingly, booze-fuelled tragedy strikes. Erin is now under greater pressure as she spends all hours to produce a mural and other work to commemorate the death of a teen friend. Bill, Jake and Shari support her in all this...
But more tragedy lurks nearby… until it’s time to softly say goodbye.

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Kj's Review
  My opinion of this book is that it’s a great story, I wish that teens all over would sit down and read it. Honestly I do not think enough kids stand up and say no drinking, or bust those that do in any way for fear of revenge. In today’s world drug use and alcohol use are high, anything to forget whatever pain they are going through. 
  Erin and her friends hate the Kewl Krew’s drinking, and the fact that a couple of their good friends have fallen in with them. They start using Twitter to anonymously report the drinking episodes in an effort to clean up the drinking in the high school. The Kewl Krew tells Erin if they find out she’s behind the whole thing she will pay, scary threat but the group ignores the threats and keeps reporting them. Unfortunately there is a tragedy, it’s bad enough, but the final tragedy rips hearts out and changes everything.
  I wish we could make this required reading for high school students, I all too well remember the pressures that are there. I recommend this to anyone who is a parent of a teen, teachers that work with our children and ANYONE who wants to read an excellent book. Thank you KC for writing this wonderful story and for giving me your book to read and review!!

Excerpt:
“This is my EOC, Erin.” Mr. Janks shakes his head. “You saw the syllabus when you started the class last fall.” He stares at each student, all twenty of us, for a heartbeat. “All of you signed the syllabus, and so did your parents. No excuses. Now—”
“But we have to do all our other studying,” Tiana cries, interrupting him. “When will we have time for your project?”
Slender, sweet, and conflicted, Tiana's cap of brandy brown hair frames her porcelain complexion. Oh, so jealous here. She never has to worry about her hair bushing up on a humid day or the sun giving her freckles like I do with my shoulder-length red hair and uber-pale complexion. Even her eyes drive me nuts. Instead of green like mine, which everyone says look like the local pond's algae, Tiana's are gray. She has more than high school to worry about. Her mom won a court decision only a week ago, forcing Tiana to visit her in prison. The timing can't be worse. The first visit is the same day as the Valentine's Day Dance. Poor Tiana not only has to miss the most romantic dance of the year, she has to listen to her mom grouch about how a judge forced her into a plea deal that keeps her in prison for ten years. The dummy never should have driven when she was drunk. The family she hit is still recovering from their injuries.
“You also have a long term art project,” Mr. Janks says with what sounds like very little patience for our issues. “Now, I have a few things to say about the project since it sounds like most of you can't remember what you signed last August. It will be a major part of your final grade. Just like all your other EOCs.”

About KC Sprayberry


I am happily married to a man I met while in the Air Force. We recently celebrated our 18 years of marriage. Our teen, the youngest of 8, keeps us on our toes with his band activities. Writing is something I've done since I was very young. At first, it was in a diary and then I poured all my energies into English compositions, earning praise from my Advanced Composition teacher in high school for an extremely visual project. While in the Air Force, I placed second in the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge's annual contest and from then on, was hooked. However, the reality of a military career and raising children forced me to put off attempting publication until my husband and I moved to Georgia. It was after the birth of our now teen that I began taking courses through The Institute of Children's Literature, Long Ridge Writer's Group, and Writers Digest in an effort to make my life's dream come true.
We live in Northwest Georgia, in a small town, where I write Romance, Westerns, Young Adult, and Middle Grade stories, both short and book length. More than a dozen of my short stories have appeared in magazines such as Listen Magazine, Brio, and The Pink Chameleon website. I also have short stories in anthologies, Passionate Hearts Anthology, Mystery Times Ten, The Best of Frontier Tales, Vol. I, and Mystery Times Nine. My western stories have garnered interest by avid readers and appear on The Western Online and Frontier Tales.
My work appears under the pen names of KC Sprayberry and Kathi Sprayberry. Softly Say Goodbye, a young adult novel, was my NaNoWriMo winning project for 2010. This story was inspired by a quote from a song and hearing of an auto wreck involving teens and drinking.

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3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the wonderful review and tour post.

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    Replies
    1. You're very welcome, it was my pleasure and thank you for stopping by!!

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  2. great book. Hopefully more young people read it.

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