Guest Post + Contest: Alissa Grosso

I'm the next stop on Alissa Gross's tour for her newest release, Ferocity Summer, and we're going to be talking all about Going Back to High School!

I'm currently on a Blog Tour Road Trip to promote my new book Ferocity Summer, which is now available. Don't forget to read to the end of this post to find out how you can enter a drawing for your very own summer survival pack, which includes a signed copy of Ferocity Summer.

In Ferocity Summer, I decided to do something that I didn't do with my first book Popular. I set the book in an actual place, the town, in fact, where I lived as a teen. Sure, I took a few liberties. The Dairy Queen mentioned in the book hasn't been there in over a decade. The lake where the main character lives, Cherry Blossom Lake, is a complete fabrication, though Byram Township has plenty of other very real lakes.

One place, where I didn't cheat was the high school. (Hey, I just realized that sounded funny, but it's also true, I never cheated in high school!) The high school my main character, Scilla, attends is Lenape Valley Regional High School. It is a very real high school. How do I know? I went there, too.

Back when Ferocity Summer was nothing but an unpublished manuscript, I didn't really worry too much about the many actual places I used as settings in the book. I always figured I could go back and change things later. I did change a few things here and there. I left the high school, though, and even took a trip back there last summer so that we could film some shots of the outside of it for my book trailer. At least from the outside, it doesn't like it's changed much.

I would be lying if I said that I didn't have a misgiving or two about setting my book at the actual high school I attended. Mostly I'm thinking it would have made more sense to throw good old Lenape into a slightly more positive book. Why did I have to use my high school as a setting for a book about an illegal drug and the misadventures of some teens who have difficult time staying on the right side of the law? Surely, I've killed off any chance I ever had of getting invited to the school for an author visit.

I know lots of authors use real places as settings in their books. So, now I close with a question for your, have you ever read a novel and read about a place you know or have been to?


And because what's a road trip without souvenirs, Alissa has a contest going on to win a copy of Ferocity Summer! Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below to enter, but if that doesn't work for you, you can enter by just leaving a blog comment (and a way to contact you).

This contest ends May 20, and is international.


a Rafflecopter giveaway