What’s one of your favorite first sentences from one of your favorite books?

SJ: From The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot:

Sometimes it seems like all I ever do is lie.

Why do you think that first sentence works so well?

SJ: I love how we’re plunged straight into the mind — and angst — of her main character. It’s a bold statement and immediately makes you curious to know why the main character thinks she’s such a liar.

Why did you choose to start your book with this first sentence:

All in all it was a good day to die.

SJ: I couldn’t think of a better way to open a zombie novel. It’s provocative, but not too terribly depressing, since you know from the blurb that our heroine is going to have a nice, interesting “Undeath.”

About My So Called Death

One second, freshman Karen Vera’s on top of the most fabulous cheer pyramid ever. The next, she’s lying on the pavement with seriously unflattering cranial damage. Freakishly alive without a pulse, Karen learns that she’s a genetically undead zombie.

Suddenly, Karen’s non-life is an epic disaster. She’s forced to attend a boarding school for the “death-challenged,” her roommate is a hateful wannabe-Goth weirdo, and she’s chowing down on animal brains every day to prevent rot (um, ew?). Even worse, someone is attacking students and harvesting their brains for a forbidden dark ritual. And it might be the hottest guy at DEAD High, the one who makes Karen’s non-beating heart flutter!

Armed with a perky smile and killer fashion sense, it’s up to Karen to track down the brain snatcher and save her fellow students from certain zombie death.

About Stacey Jay

Stacey Jay is a workaholic with three pen names, and a sick sense of humor. She loves creepies, crawlies, and of course, romance. What would a zombie novel–or any novel–be without kisses that make your toes tingle?

Stacey has been a full time writer since 2005 and can’t think of anything she’d rather be doing. Her former careers include theatre performer, professional dancer, poorly paid C-movie actress, bartender, and waiter.

What’s one of your favorite first sentences from one of your favorite books?

SJ: From The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, some bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

Why do you think that first sentence works so well?

SJ: It paints such a strong visual image, while conveying this ominous sense of foreboding. I love it.

Why did you choose to start your book with this first sentence:

Okay, this was it.

SJ: Wow. That is a short sentence. You can tell I wasn’t obsessing about the perfection of those first few words, lol. But honestly, I was wanting to jump right into a high-energy, high-stakes moment, and for my main character, Megan, this really is “IT”, a moment she’s been anticipating for a long time.

About Undead Much?

Even Zombie Settlers with Super Hot Boyfriends get the Blues…

A few months ago I was a normal girl with a normal life. But that was before my power to Settle the Undead returned and someone tried to kill me with zombies.

Now I work magic and practice kicking butt while trying to find time for pom squad and my boyfriend, Ethan, and trying NOT to think about how freaky my life has become. It can be tough. Still…things could be worse…

Oh yeah, right:
1. Feral new super-strong zombies. Check.
2. Undead psychic hottie predicting a zombie apocolypse. Check.
3. Earth-shattering secrets that could land me in Settler prison for life. Check.
4. Cheerleader vs. pom squad turf war threatening the end of the half time as we know it. Check.

I’m going to need therapy (and a cookie) if I live through the week. Unfortunately I’m learning that’s not something Zombie Queens can take for granted.

About Stacey Jay

Stacey Jay is a workaholic with three pen names, and a sick sense of humor. She loves creepies, crawlies, and of course, romance. What would a zombie novel–or any novel–be without kisses that make your toes tingle?

Stacey has been a full time writer since 2005 and can’t think of anything she’d rather be doing. Her former careers include theatre performer, professional dancer, poorly paid C-movie actress, bartender, and waiter.

What’s one of your favorite first sentences from one of your favorite books?

ED: First sentence of Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White:

Where’s Papa going with that axe?

Why do you think that first sentence works so well?

ED: It works because it has drama, mystery, a little danger, and drops you RIGHT into the middle of the action — all in six words!

Why did you choose to start your book with this first sentence:

I hadn’t figured out a way to stop time, join the circus, or make myself invisible.

ED: Originally, I set Total Tragedy two weeks before school started — and the book went through several drafts that way. Thankfully, before my editor saw it, I realized that I was starting the story too early — it was taking waaay too long to gear up. So I chopped the first 12 pages and reworked the opening to begin right as Hamlet, her mom, and Dezzie are walking in to the first day of school. The humiliation Hamlet feels at her family comes across right away (at least, that’s the goal).

About The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet

Hamlet Kennedy just wants to be your average, happy, vanilla eighth grader. But with Shakespearean scholar parents who dress in Elizabethan regalia and generally go about in public as if it were the sixteenth century, that’s not terribly easy. It gets worse when they decide that Hamlet’s genius 7-year-old sister will attend middle school with her — and even worse when the Shakespeare project is announced and her sister is named the new math tutor. By the time an in-class recitation reveals that our heroine is an extraordinary Shakespearean actress, Hamlet can no longer hide from the fact that she — like her family — is anything but average.

About Erin Dionne

Erin Dionne’s debut novel, Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies, was inspired by events that occurred in seventh grade, when she wore a scary peach bridesmaid dress in her cousin’s wedding and threw up on her gym teacher’s shoes (not at the same event). Although humiliating at the time, these experiences are working for her now. Erin lives outside of Boston with her husband and daughter, and a very insistent dog named Grafton. She roots for the Red Sox, teaches English at an art college, and sometimes eats chocolate cookies.

Kicking us off is author Shani Petroff, whose second novel, Bedeviled: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress was published last month.

What’s one of your favorite first sentences from one of your favorite books?
SP: One of them is definitely the first line from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Why do you think that first sentence works so well?
SP: It really gives a sense of the main character—the voice is present from the first sentence—and it made me want to keep reading to find out more about him.

Why did you choose to start your book with this first sentence:

I unintentionally declared my undying love for him. IN WRITING. AND. HE. SAW. IT.

SP: I thought a lot about how to start this book. It’s the second in the series, and I wanted to jump right into the action. I actually ended up splitting the first sentence into several smaller sentences, to show how much impact the situation has on my character’s life.

About The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress

Angel Garrett knows two things for sure. The first is that she inherited her devil-dad’s powers. The second is that she wreaks havoc whenever she tries to use them. Especially when she’s trying to impress her crush, Cole. Angel’s only solution is to stay as far away as possible from him until she learns how to harness this new gift. But how do you avoid someone and get him to ask you to the school dance at the same time?

About Shani Petroff

Shani Petroff is a writer living in New York City. In addition to tween and teen books, Shani writes for news programs and several other venues. When she’s not locked in her apartment typing away, she spends a whole lot of time on books, boys, TV, daydreaming, and shopping online. She has no devil lineage as far as she knows.