Title: Are You Mine?
Publication Date: August 7th 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis
Human connection? Who needs it?
Ever since she can remember, wealthy but weary Saige Armstrong has felt different from her peers in Pechimu, New Jersey. With only one good friend to her name, she has navigated the complicated halls of high school and is now faced with the timeless question: Now what?
Fox Harrington, a fun-loving, socially charismatic graffiti artist uses his passions to color his world how he wants it. He knows exactly where his life is headed. That is, until he meets Saige.
A summer project links the two together, making a tentative friendship bloom into romance, but despite their affection for each other, fundamental beliefs and ways of thinking threaten to destroy all they have built.
"These moments in life are the best there are. They’re heavy with emotion, messy with the what-ifs, and frightening with the unknowns."
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Review
The story
The story is pretty simple but I think that's one of the best things about this book.
The characters
Saige Armstrong has lost both her parents.She grew up with her grandmother but then she decided to live alone because she always felt that way.She has Myka,her best friend who is kind of obsessed,in a good way, with steampunk and Myka's boyfriend,Val.These two have been the only people she considers her friends for the last few years.Summer is finally here,high school is over and she's finally free from all the people who never talked to her.Everybody thinks she's "toxic" and that she deserves to be alone.That's why she has built her own defense.She's distant,insecure and doesn't care about anyone.But then she meets Fox Harrington.
Fox is good-hearted graffiti artist who always sees the best in people.And that's exactly what he does to Saige as well.He lives with his dad and his mom has been in the hospital since he was six because she is mentally unstable.Moreover,he's dyslexic but that hasn't stopped him from working two jobs and raising money to accomplish his dream which is visit London and more specifically go to the Liverpool Arena and see his favorite players on the field.In the beginning Saige tries to push him away like she does with everybody else but Fox finds that so challenging and when the two agree to work on a graphic novel,let's just say that's going to be a bumpy ride..
Verdict
Are You Mine? is a beautifully written love story.Fox is every girl's dream guy.Sweet,sexy,compassionate and determined to keep the girl he wants.A story full of emotions and discovering yourself.
Author Interview
Welcome to Living in a Bookworld and thank you so much for answering my questions!Can you start by telling us a few things about Are You Mine?
Thanks for having me!Are You Mine? follows the lives of Saige Armstrong and Fox Harrington the summer after graduation. While they know of each other, they don’t start off as friends. Their paths cross briefly at a party, but Saige is quick to shut him down. Her friend, Myka, however, has other ideas.
As he’s an artist and she’s writer, they agree to produce a graphic novel with Myka as the steampunk hero. Through this connection, Fox and Saige begin to figure out who they are, both individually and together.
The story is about how difficult it is to get to know another person, but also how important it is.
How long did it take you to write Are You Mine?
It took me about two and a half months. Most of my projects take me about that time to write, give or take. I try to hold myself to a 1500 words a day goal, so that enables me to spend two to three months on the active writing portion of the manuscript. Then comes the editing, revising, editing some more, revising, confusing myself, and finally, the editing.
What do you like most about writing for this age group?
Aw, man, what don't I like about writing New Adult. There is just something special about that time when you embark on your "new" life as an adult, or at least as a person legally considered an adult. I probably love it because I have such nostalgia for my own transition into an adult. It's amazing how much you don't know when you're that age, and it's equally amazing how clearly you see it all when grow older. There are so many decisions you make during that transition. It's really wild to look back to see how that timeframe really shaped who I am today. I made a lot of strange choices based on firmly held beliefs at the time, but now I can sit back and smile at them because my worldview wasn't nearly as wide as it is now.
I think back on my own time spent as a "new adult" and just love every second of it, even though some of those times weren't the best while I lived them. I just love stories about people becoming a new version of themselves. I love stories about people finding their paths, finding others who want to walk the path with them, and maybe figuring out that the path isn't exactly what they thought it would be or what they wanted.
What is the hardest part of writing a book?
One of the hardest parts is waiting to see if the readers like it as much as I do. Of the process of writing a book, the hardest part is to limit the time I spend on it. If I was a woman of leisure, I'd be able to spend hours and hours and hours a day on storytelling. I'd love to get to that point, but as it stands right now, I have about an hour to two hours a day with which to write. It's hard for me to snap the laptop closed and get ready for my day job when all I want is to spend the next few hours with the characters who keep doing things worthy of being written within my mind!
Do you write more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two?
It's probably a combination of the two. In order to create believability, I have to write with logic in mind. Actions have consequences. That's logic, and without it, readers wouldn't believe the world the writer is crafting. However, a lot of character interaction is intuition. I love people. Okay, I can live without some people and their behavior, but I love studying all types of people. I think watching people is logic which then transforms into intuition.
What are you currently reading?
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling), and I'm starting Reconstructing Amelia by Kimbery McCreight. I'm also re-reading The Time Thief by Markus Zusak. After that, it'll probably be Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Right now I'm working on a novel about a woman who has compromised portions of who she is for years. After a tragedy, she is forced to figure out how to align her current self with her past self to figure out who she is going to be in the future. I'm in the very early stages of that one. I've got some written, but I'm doing some basic character work to flesh out some supporting folks and doing a bit of research into a few things.
I just finished writing Hollywood Sins which will be out next year (July 2014), so I'll be doing some editing on that one while I write my current manuscript. Hollywood Sins takes the readers on the journey being a young starlet in Hollywood and drives home what the true cost of fame may be.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Just thank you for reading. Thank you for being book lovers, supporting authors and publishers, and spreading the love. I appreciate the time people invest in reading a book, so I'm incredibly grateful when people invest in mine. Thank you!
Author Bio
Based in the American Midwest, N.K. Smith is a Technical Writer for a Fortune 100 company. The author of the Old Wounds Series, Ghosts of Our Pasts, and My Only, she is a mother of two who finds the time to write very early in the morning when the rest of the world is still fast asleep.
An avid lover of history, art, music, books, and people, she is interested in telling stories that speak to the human condition.
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