HERE I GO AGAIN by Jen Lancaster

Here I Go Again

Jen Lancaster

I am here, I am here, I am here, and I'm really sorry to have been gone for so long, and there's too much to say about what's been going on, so let me just not even go into it but let me bring you an amazing book to start off the New Year for you on Booking with Manic!

We all love Jen Lancaster don't we??

I hear you all squealing! Well, this time it's not a memoir, it's fiction, and I'm just going to put it out there for you to die over.

HERE I GO AGAIN is her absolute, best, most amazing, incredible book EVER written!

There. I said it.

Yes, we all know that Jen is a fabulous memoirist who has cracked us up over her witty tell-all true stories. But could we have ever expected that she is a MASTERMIND of fiction?

Truly! A MASTERMIND!

In Here I Go Again, we meet Lissy Rider, who is the girl we all love to hate in high school. I mean, she has EVERYTHING. The perfect pink car, the perfect hot boyfriend, the perfect crew of friends who do anything and everything she says, the perfect parents who dote on her.

The girl we can't stand! And in the beginning of Here I Go Again, you really HATE her. Like you want her to fail in every possible way! And things do start looking bad for poor Lissy Ryder. And then, by some magical elixir, she finds a way to go back in time, to try to save herself from a horrible future.

And then she keeps bee-bopping back and forth in time, and IT'S AWESOME! I'm amazed at how fluidly Jen Lancaster can transform Lissy Ryder back and forth and in such a way that it's believably done!

I think someone said it or maybe it's on the back of the book, but this is truly Mean Girls meets Back to the Future. It's Lindsay Lohan vs. Michael Keaton in the best possible way. You'll tear through these pages to see what happens and even though you'll loathe Lissy Ryder at page one, you'll cheer from the sidelines at the end and want her to be so happy at the end!

Supporting characters and very fun '80s nods add so much to the book, plus the fact that there are so many mentions to places where I used to hang out when *I* was in high school -- Oak Brook Mall, Hinsdale, Lyons Township was one of our rival high schools… it was so cool to think I might have been a part of Lissy's hate club back in the day (she never would have deemed ME cool enough to hang with her!) the book is so much fun to read!

If you'd like to win a copy of HERE I GO AGAIN here's what you have to do… since Whitesnake music is such a big part of the book, tell me three songs/CDs/cassettes/albums/8-tracks/MP-3s that played a big part of your high school existence.

Here are 3 of mine that for no other reason, they come to me at the top of my head right now:

Midnight Blue by Lou Graham

Anything by Boston

And I just had to look up Howard Jones because we played that cassette tape all the time in my Pontiac J200 -- that was my car that I drove in high school--and I had two bumper stickers -- FLORIDA NATIVE and PARTY ANIMAL on the back!

PLEASE READ BELOW -- SOME THINGS HAVE CHANGED!
NEW TO BOOKING WITH MANIC?  

If you're new to Booking with Manic, thank you for stopping by! We love new readers! Some notes - If you're entering to win a book, please leave a comment on this post and use an identifying name when commenting. It's usually a great idea to include an email, which I will never give out to anyone else. You can only enter once please. You'll need to check back here in a few days to see if you've won the book -- I will highlight the winner's name at the top of this post, or tell you where you can find the winner's name at the top of this post. I do NOT personally contact the winners. It is YOUR responsibility to come back to see if you've won. Most books are supplied directly through publishers, publicists and the authors. Winners will receive books directly from the publisher or author within 3 weeks from the time you provide me with your address, unless I send you the book (sometimes I will). Sorry, but we can only ship to U.S. and Canada so if you're from another country, thank you for coming by to read and discover new authors, but we can't send you a book. Any questions on how I run the blog or suggestions on who you would like to see featured, please email me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com. Thank you for your support!

Really, it's 2013?

I wasn't sure if I was going to write a New Year's post. I am not even sure what I'm going to do with this blog. I've been writing as Manic Mommy or some sort of 'that' person when I first posted this blog post on December 23, 2004 when I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to say. How did I know that I would still be blogging 8 years later?

I truly thought a month ago that I was going to take two or three months off from this blog to focus on getting my own novel done. And that the only way to do that was to let something go. I'm not sure if I can let this blog go. I don't know what I'm going to do. All I know is that when I think of the things I want to do or the things I want to be, two things come to mind, well, aside from being a wife and a mother… two things: I want to be a writer, and I want to read.

And part of that means sharing books with you guys. I would hate to not be able to do that. But I need to find some time to get my own work out there. Last year I promised to bring one book a week to the blog. Turns out I featured more than 100 here. I wasn't able to read them all, but I gave away that many. It is a lot of work, and a lot of hours. I love doing it. I love connecting with you guys. I love finding new books and authors to fall in love with. So, I will probably continue to do that. Whether it be 10 this year, or 100 this year, I have no idea. But this blog will probably morph into something different for 2013.

Things changed in 2012… I wrote more openly since I had to - my son was diagnosed with epilepsy (Great news -- today marks Luke being three months with no seizures!), I had some ups and downs with depression, which, if you have read ANY of the past 8 years of this blog, you already know, I struggle with living in AZ… I don't know if this will all be about books anymore. I might mix it up -- maybe share more about me getting my new novel, What She Left Us, out into the world, and then my other novel out there too -- I have two done, and my agent didn't do much to help, and I've seen many independent authors do it on their own, so I might try that. It seems better than having my books sit on the computer alone…

So, I'm rambling, but I wasn't even going to write tonight, so this is a start. If you come back, that's great. If you don't that's OK too. I know blogs are a pain in the butt to keep track of these days. I personally prefer FB to keep tabs on my friends. I'm just going to use this space as I personally see fit from now on, and if there's a cool new book I'd like to share with you,  you can bet I will be letting you know about it. Among other things…

Hope you are all blessed and loved, happy and healthy in 2013! I've loved having you along and hope you'll continue to stop by, wherever this path takes Manic!

PeaCe uP, always uP!