Welcome to the Uninvited blog tour hosted by Xpresso Book Tours
On The Cover Contessa's stop today, you'll get to read my review of the book and you'll also get to hear about how the authors were able to pull off writing a book together!
First, let's see what this book is about, shall we?
When Alley started her senior year at Upper East High in the South Hills area, it was supposed to be the usual drag of hanging out with people who spent more on one outfit than Alley did on her entire wardrobe. That was until Kirsten, a girl in their clique, suddenly goes missing and the only people who seem to care are her friends. All evidence leads to the new comer Shane, a cocky and self-pretentious person in Alley’s opinion, but the police seem uninterested so she and the rest of the girls start a little investigation of their own. But they are nowhere closer to finding Kirsten than when they started and now they had the police’s attention; just not in the way they expected. The girls have to start over and discover that maybe it wasn’t an outsider who took Kirsten, but someone within their own clique who has something to hide; a secret that just might have gotten Kirsten killed.Uninvited by Leah Spiegel and Meg Summers
Series: South Hills Sidekicks #1
Publication date: February 11th 2012
Genre: Humorous YA Chick-Lit
Sounds good, right?
Let's hear how Leah and Meg were able to work together to create this book!
Welcome ladies!
In general Leah spends the day writing while Megan is at school teaching. Then we go to the pool to swim laps. After our laps, we tread water for at least forty minutes and discuss/plan the book. Later on at night, Megan will read what Leah wrote during the day and give her two cents and they will re-plan.
As far as ideas, we are sisters and spend a lot of time together so we are always sharing about our lives outside the book. Often people or events in our lives influence us such as Val stemmed from a teacher that works with Megan. Val ends up being her own character but at first she is similar to our friend: passionate, impulsive, and confident, never met a stranger, and literally teaches in high heels all day long! Buddy, is an actually dog that we met while taking our Yorkie to pet training classes. This huge boxer, Buddy, practically slept through the class every time we met. Anytime the instructor wanted to show us how easy it was to teach a dog something, she would wake Buddy and he would do it the first time. We fell in love with Buddy and the stories his owner would tell us about having to carry him out to pee at night!
Together we make a great team. If you have ever watched Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel, we often compare Leah to Todd and Megan to Dave. Leah is the dreamer, the idea maker, and business person. Megan is the reader and the logical person. When we butt heads, and we do, it is usually because of those two things is not meshing well. There are parts of reading that Megan wants to be more logical and there are parts of the business that just are not logical.
Thanks for the insight, ladies! So great to hear how you make your team work!
The Cover Contessa's Review:
I want to thank the authors for providing me with a copy of
this book to read and give an honest review. Receiving this book for free has
in no way influenced my opinion or review.
Normally, I'm not much of a contemporary read fan. I do,
however, enjoy the YA variety. Usually it's much more tame than NA, and there's
so much more of a story line. This book was no exception. Not only was it a
contemporary read, but it was a mystery, as well. It was fun and I was
intrigued the entire time!
When I first saw the cover of this book, I really liked it.
First of all, I am totally a pink person. So that drew my eye. And the green
offset it nicely. Plus it was just so simple and fun.
I started reading and I wasn't sure what to expect. I was
introduced to a group of high-school girls who were worried about hair,
make-up, clothing, etc. And, while this is the norm for HS, it wasn't something
I was obsessed with during that time. So it was fun to watch things unfold and
see how the girls interacted.
I love how Alley is the level headed one of the group. She's
the one who can stop and think as opposed to jumping in with both feet when the
situation calls for something different. She's kind of the inbetween when it
comes to where she falls in the crowd. She's part of the "in" crowd
because her best friend, Val, is part of it, but she doesn't really fit in. All
her friends are rich, while she's not; all her friends dress in ritzy clothing
and drive ritzy cars while she drives an old Jeep. The other girls accept her,
but they don't at the same time. And, of course, this wouldn't be a YA book
without a little bit of romance. What I like is that the romance does not
overshoot the actual story line. It's kind of in the background, just floating
there as Alley tells us her feelings here and there.
Now, what I was not expecting from this book was the girls
becoming these sort of detectives after their friend goes missing. It's fun to
watch them find clues and seek out the truth. Often they get themselves in
situations they really can't handle, but they always get out of it somehow
(sometimes with help, sometimes without). And you have no idea who to trust.
You know that someone directly involved in Alley's life is doing something
wrong, but you don't know who and I really could not figure out who it was
until the very end! I liked being kept in mystery.
While the girls were sometimes annoying, I kind of
understood why. They were high-school girls trying to piece together a grown up
situation. The book was fun and entertaining and I highly recommend it for
anyone who likes to watch kids be detectives, make mistakes and learn along the
way. It's a light and fluffy read, with some seriousness as far as issues
involving drugs and sex. If you want a cute mystery with some underlying
romance that's an easy and fast read, then South Hills Sidekicks is for you!
Although we moved down to North Carolina several years ago, we’re originally from the Pittsburgh area. (That’s why a lot of our characters either live in the Burgh or reference our hometown football team, The Pittsburgh Steelers.) And yes, we even have the Southern accents to show for it now. Although Megan’s is considerable thicker, Leah still can’t understand the locals.
We are known as ‘the sisters’ among our neighborhood; when actually we’re probably really known as ‘the sisters with the Yorkies’. Our pups, Skippy Jon Jones and Captain Jack Sparrow, were given long names to compensate for their small size but not their large personalities.
If Leah’s not glued to her electronic devices, AKA her Kindle Fire and various laptops, you can find her training ‘the attack dogs’, running on the treadmill while conceiving the next great book idea with the Dave Matthews Band, Muse, Florence and the Machine, The Lumineers, and Pink (just to name a few) blaring out of her earphones.
If Megan’s not glued to her electronic devices AKA her iPad and Nook Color, you can find her teaching fourth graders, swimming marathon style at the pool, or cuddling with ‘the attack dogs’ as she watches Duck Dynasty, Gold Rush, Scandal, Person of Interest, Morning Joe, etc.
Leah graduated from Edinboro University with a BA in Art Education. Megan received her teaching degree from Edinboro University and Masters in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Technology from Grand Canyon University.
Author Links:
If Leah’s not glued to her electronic devices, AKA her Kindle Fire and various laptops, you can find her training ‘the attack dogs’, running on the treadmill while conceiving the next great book idea with the Dave Matthews Band, Muse, Florence and the Machine, The Lumineers, and Pink (just to name a few) blaring out of her earphones.
If Megan’s not glued to her electronic devices AKA her iPad and Nook Color, you can find her teaching fourth graders, swimming marathon style at the pool, or cuddling with ‘the attack dogs’ as she watches Duck Dynasty, Gold Rush, Scandal, Person of Interest, Morning Joe, etc.
Leah graduated from Edinboro University with a BA in Art Education. Megan received her teaching degree from Edinboro University and Masters in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Technology from Grand Canyon University.
Author Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
I find this so quirky and cute! :)
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