VIDEO MAGIC has received another favorable review. (Scroll down to find the review.) Heather Ames over at Blog Trek recently posted her review on Amazon. Heather did a great job of capturing the essence of the story, and I'm delighted that she saw how the book is so clearly more than romance.
Simmons shows the pitfalls not only of jealousy but rivalry. The students of this second book in a series about Northrupp High School are struggling to complete projects, prepare for future careers and manage their personal lives. The pressures of modern-day life are clearly reflected in choices made and decisions that could dog these characters long after they leave high school.Lovers of romance will find satisfaction here, as Kimberly and Greg find more than the video project occupying their thoughts. Their characters evolve with the plot, and as the stakes grow higher, they become people the reader will root for until the last, satisfying page.
(Heather Ames, Amazon Review of VIDEO MAGIC)
I should tell you Heather is an old friend. In fact, we met years ago when we took our writing classes at the Houston Community College and became critique partners and conference rovers for the next six years. Heather saw the genesis of VIDEO MAGIC. She even shared in the St. Louis celebration when VIDEO MAGIC won the RWA Golden Heart Award for Young Adult Novel in 1993. But then life put a twist in our writing relationship and she moved to Phoenix, then Boston, and now resides in L.A. Several years ago I picked up VIDEO MAGIC (VM) and completely retold the story before submitting it to Awe-Struck. (As it happens, although written after VM, DIVIDED LOYALTIES became my first teen novel published.) Over the years I developed a potential series concept for my teen books and wove that into the story, too. With all the changes, I wondered how Heather would react when she finally sat down with the actual book. Even with good friends, writers wait with trepidation to hear what their friends truly think about their writing efforts. I'm glad she liked the new version and so completely "got' what I was doing with the story.
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