New Release & Preorder Available NOW

Caron High News
by Annabelle Jay
100 pages / 26900 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-945-2
$3.49

Buy Link: http://www.prizmbooks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=102&zenid=e92e3362232ddd9f2470b92499879071

Blurb:

Caron High News begins on the day of the first GSA, or Gay-Straight Alliance, meeting at Nissa Falenbach’s school. The club was started by Principal Perry to give Nissa a community after the school’s first hate crime that past summer, but unfortunately, no one shows up. As Nissa leaves the school she sees Bethany, her former best friend and now popular girl, crying in the middle of the quad because she was just dumped by her boyfriend, Lenny, for not being sexually adventurous. The two agree on mutually advantageous terms: they will pretend to date until Lenny wants Bethany back, and in return, Bethany will draw ten new GSA members into their group. The novel is a split narrative between Nissa and Audrey, the school gossip newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief, who creates scandals that both help Nissa’s cause and, in the end, reveal her true motives. But neither Nissa nor Audrey could have predicted what happens at the Holiday Assembly after Audrey plays a recording of Nissa and Bethany’s bathroom confession.

Available for Pre-Order NOW

Coming 8/5/15

The Camp
by Victoria Zagar

Jesse Harvan comes home from school one day to find his parents have discovered the gay pornographic magazine hidden under his bed. Disgusted, they decide to send Jesse to Camp Grady, a summer camp which prides itself on converting people’s sexuality.

Once at the camp, Jesse meets the other inmates: Charlie, a disabled African-American gay teenager, Natalie, a transgender girl, her sister Lita, Japanese lesbian Sakura, and last of all, Minister Grady’s son Jacob, who works for the camp under duress. These teens must learn to bridge their differences and get along if they’re to beat their common enemy and keep their identities–and sanity–intact.

Releasing 8/5/15 - Available Pre-Order: http://www.prizmbooks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=31&products_id=103

New Releases & Pre-Order Available

New Releases 7/8/15

Destroying Angel
by Missy Wilkinson
Pages: 216 / Words: 62000
ISBN:978-1-61040-937-7
PRINT ISBN: 978-1-61040-938-4
$5.49

Buy Link: http://www.prizmbooks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=101

Blurb:

Gates McFarland’s mother has just been proclaimed brain dead by a neurologist. But fifteen-year-old Gates doesn’t believe it’s true, because she hears her mother’s voice in her head. The command is simple: Find my heart. It’s the last thing Gates hears from her mother before the neurologist pulls the plug.

After contacting the Organ Procurement Agency, Gates learns there is no record of her mother’s organ donation. She meets Dr. Ascuitto, her mother’s neurologist. A menacing figure, he threatens to institutionalize Gates if she continues her inquiries.

Determined to find the truth, Gates gets help from John Ed, a street-smart, sixteen-year-old recovering addict. Together, they navigate an underworld of body theft, interstellar drug trafficking and doctors who double as dealers. She finds herself attracted to John Ed’s musical talents and emotional strength even as she is drawn ever-deeper into an alien world accessible only by use of a hallucinogenic spore. Hostile and governed by a sinister waif named Penny, the world holds secrets about Gates’ mother’s death…and the key to Gates’ survival.

Available for Pre-Order NOW

To view all of our current pre-orders: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=200

Coming 7/29/15

Caron High News
by Annabelle Jay

Caron High News begins on the day of the first GSA, or Gay-Straight Alliance, meeting at Nissa Falenbach’s school. The club was started by Principal Perry to give Nissa a community after the school’s first hate crime that past summer, but unfortunately, no one shows up. As Nissa leaves the school she sees Bethany, her former best friend and now popular girl, crying in the middle of the quad because she was just dumped by her boyfriend, Lenny, for not being sexually adventurous. The two agree on mutually advantageous terms: they will pretend to date until Lenny wants Bethany back, and in return, Bethany will draw ten new GSA members into their group. The novel is a split narrative between Nissa and Audrey, the school gossip newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief, who creates scandals that both help Nissa’s cause and, in the end, reveal her true motives. But neither Nissa nor Audrey could have predicted what happens at the Holiday Assembly after Audrey plays a recording of Nissa and Bethany’s bathroom confession.

Releasing 7/29/15 - Available Pre-Order: http://www.prizmbooks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=31&products_id=102

Different kinds of research behind "Blood and Ink"

When writing "Blood and Ink", I went down two paths for research. The first path, involved more expected research tools, like memoirs and historical records. The second resource I used, much less removed and scholarly, was my mother's memories of her own childhood of poverty and displacement.

Stories of displacement and itinerant populations are already part of the post-settlement history of Western Australia. I read some of the transcribed oral histories of women affected by social upheaval and loss recorded in Nothing to Spare, all contributed by women who were born from 1890 onwards (Carter ix). Their stories of hardship and endurance, of the children they raised and then lost in the Great War, are personal stories, fragments of a larger past. The Stockrider's Daughter in Nothing to Spare describes being forcibly moved from Carrolup settlement to Moore River settlement. She says, "They had kerosene buckets with tea in it and they'd brought boxes of bread" (cited in Carter 1981, 25).

My mother was born in the Great Depression and lived through World War Two in England. Her childhood was one of poverty and upheaval. Her stories of ingenuity and compromise influenced how I wrote Annie and her family in "Blood and Ink". My mother was always very fond of mashed banana sandwiches (a British delicacy that possibly no other country has adapted). When she was a child, there were no bananas, due to food rationing, so "mashed banana" sandwiches were made by boiling and finely mashing parsnips, then adding sugar and yellow colouring. My mother assured me the sandwiches were delicious, particularly at birthday parties. This story from her gave me a window into Annie's world.

The Stockrider's Daughter's story of forced migration is is generations old now. My mother's story is not. Writing Annie and her family, and the world of "Blood and Ink", was based in part on these stories, of making do and being hungry.

Reference:

Carter, Jan. 1981. Nothing to Spare: Recollections of Australian Pioneering Women. Ringwood: Penguin Books Australia Ltd.

Annie's grandmother knows old secrets, and Annie is strong and smart. Together, they keep the family safe through the drought. Then bigger trouble comes to their city, and Annie will need more than quick thinking if they are going to survive. Can Annie learn Grandma's secrets in time?

Find "Blood and Ink" here 

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