Defy the Stars by Stephanie Parent.
Audience/Genre : Young Adult/Verse Novel, Contemporary.
Publication : August 1st 2012 by Stephanie Parent.

Julia Cape: A dedicated classical piano student just trying to get through her last semester of high school while waiting to hear from music conservatories.

Reed MacAllister: A slacker more likely to be found by the stoners’ tree than in class.

Julia and Reed might have graduated high school without ever speaking to each other…until, during a class discussion of Romeo and Juliet, Julia scoffs at the play’s theme of love at first sight, and Reed responds by arguing that feelings don’t always have to make sense. Julia tries to shake off Reed’s comment and forget about this boy who hangs with the stoner crowd—and who happens to have breathtaking blue eyes—but fate seems to bring the two together again and again. After they share an impulsive, passionate kiss, neither one can deny the chemistry between them. Yet as Julia gets closer to Reed, she also finds herself drawn into his dark world of drugs and violence. Then a horrific tragedy forces Julia’s and Reed’s families even farther apart…and Julia must decide whether she’s willing to give up everything for love.

Defy the Stars is written in an edgy free-verse style that will appeal to fans of Ellen Hopkins and Lisa Schroeder; however, the writing is accessible enough to speak to non-verse fans as well. The novel’s combination of steamy romance and raw emotion will appeal to fans of Gayle Forman, Simone Elkeles, Jennifer Echols, and Tammara Webber. With a story, language and form that both pay homage to and subvert Shakespeare’s play, Defy the Stars is much more than just another Romeo and Juliet story.

Stephanie Parent, newly self-published author of Defy the Stars is providing us with an excerpt of her new novel and a giveaway of her e-book and $5 Amazon giftcard today! So check it out =)

Excerpt.

A quiet morning,

an empty practice room,

and Chopin’s first Ballade—

this is the best part of my day.

I’m done with the dull scales and arpeggios, the thorny
new Czerny étude, and as always—at least since November’s
auditions—I end my practice session with Chopin.

Two months ago, I played this Ballade before tables of stern
judges, knowing they held my future in their furiously
scribbling pens, and I really don’t need to practice it anymore—

—but I do, every day, because it feels like welcoming home
an old friend. The trills and flourishes are so familiar
by now, they flow from my fingers with little effort.

And that feeling—the music carrying me along, as though I’m
swept up by a current on a gentle, sun-warmed sea—reminds me
why I love piano so much, why all the hard work is worth it.

More than that, the Ballade reminds me that I can play,
that I may not be a prodigy worthy of Juilliard, but I
nailed this piece at my auditions.

Two months from now, I’m sure, at least one acceptance letter
will be on its way to my mailbox, offering me a place at a good
music conservatory—Oberlin or Eastman, or even the Peabody.

By next fall, I’ll be miles away from Fairvern, from
Mom’s charity balls and Dad’s business dinners. From
the exhausting rounds of who-likes-who, the endless
drama that fills up the equally infinite hours of high school.

Good-bye to calculus, chemistry, world history; hello to Chopin,
Copland, Tchaikovsky. I’ll be learning what matters to me,
surrounded by other people who get it—it being music, obviously—
and for the first time in my life, I’ll feel like I’m really part of something.


I just have to make it through this last semester of high
school…

…and then my future will begin.

Giveaway Terms and Conditions :

• Giveaway is International.
  
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• Giveaway ends on August 31st, 2012.

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Stephanie Parent is a YA author repped by Brenda Bowen of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. She is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts as a piano major.

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