How Bad Blood became a “new adult” title…

…and Tori almost became 18 instead of 17.It wasn’t the cursing. Although looking back, my love of the f dash dash dash probably would’ve been an issue. No, it was this one pesky scene.

The scene is mostly innocent actually. Two characters end up in an… err… awkward situation due to mostly innocent circumstances. You know, the kind where hands “accidentally” end up on bare flesh. And I ain’t talking ankles here folks.

So I have this scene, and it’s my favorite in the entire book, and I’m proud of it and want to show it off… so I send it to my husband.

I like to imagine that he read it, and steam came out of his ears. Mainly because it makes a better story, but also because it was maybe 2 minutes after I hit send that we got into the fight. (He would like me to clarify that it wasn’t a fight since that makes him sound like a jerk. So it wasn’t a fight, it was a “discussion.”)

See, we have a daughter. And I just wrote a YA book with a 17 year old main character involved in an… err… awkward situation. I countered that girls have sex at 17. He should know. We were dating when I was 17.

For the record, once you have a daughter, reminding your husband what teenage boys are like is not a good idea.

In the end he tells me that this is not what he considers YA, and if it is YA than my daughter is not allowed to read.

I, in turn, did what any rational woman would do. I popped open an e-mail to my girls Jena and Amber and sent them the scene and a detailed recounting of the fight. BAM! Take that husband! Prepare to be the subject of an estrogen bitch fest. All I had to do then was sit back and wait for their obvious “of course you’re rights” to flood my inbox.

Except that they didn’t.

In fact, they agreed with my husband.

TRAITORS!
You know, looking back at the scene, it was probably the use of the word “nipple” that did me in.

After getting what ended up being a fourth and fifth opinion, I changed the genre from Young Adult to New Adult.

But Tori was still 17, so there was another “discussion” with the husband. Another “discussion” that I lost. For the record, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong to lose these “discussions” but I think it has something to do with the fact that my husband is VERY persuasive and has the tenacity of a badger. I still had to change the scene. It’s vaguer now than it was previously.

In the end though, it all kind of worked out. See, the scene that ended up in the book is far better than the original. Probably due to the two years of writing experience between the crafting of take one and take two.

Plus I got to use the word “gurhungle.”

Bad Blood By Ginny Lurcock

Urban Fantasy/Mature YA
Release Date: February 5, 2013

High school senior Victoria “Tori” Reeve has it pretty good. She’s rich, she’s smart, and she’s popular. What more could a girl ask for? Sure, she’s a little lonely, what with being single and her best friend going off to college and all, but she’s got her work at the Spaulding Crisis Center to keep her busy. When she gets a new boss in the very easy on the eyes form of Isaac Larsen, suddenly her volunteer work feels a lot less like work. Even if he does seem to cause Tori to break out into spontaneous fits of foot in mouth disease. Somehow in spite of her blunderitis, Isaac still seems to be interested in her in a more-than-employer or even more-than-friends kind of way.

So really she should have known that things would go sideways.

Trouble comes to Spaulding, and that trouble seems to be centered on Tori and the Crisis Center. Is she really the focus? Or does this all have to do with the new mysterious man in her life? In her efforts to find out, Tori stumbles across some secrets. Skeletons that might have been better off left in the closet. As it turns out, Spaulding is a hot spot for bad blood…

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About the Author (taken from the back of Bad Blood)

I am so bad at these, that it causes me physical pain. No wait, that was a splinter… Never mind.

Ginny Lurcock lives in New Hampshire with her husband whom she adores, her daughter, whom she also adores, and their cat. Who she likes alright. Oh, and her father, his two cats, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend.

When not writing she enjoys playing games (of the board and video variety) or reading to the point of obsession (she’s not an addict, she can quit whenever she wants), watching intelligent television, mindless television, sports, movies and listening to music. Basically, she likes all the things. ALL.THE.THINGS

And somehow she still manages to find the time to be bored.

She also breaks the seal.

Contact Links

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