First Line: The dead man smiles at me.
Dead Letter Office takes us into the life of sixteen year old Celia Jane, who moves with her mother from San Diego, CA to New Orleans, LA after Celia's dad dies in Afghanistan. During Celia's first few days in New Orleans she finds a centuries old letter hidden in a tree in her "New Orleans royalty" grandparents back yard. The letter leads Celia, ghost-hottie Luc; witch-friend Tilly; and live-hottie & Sheriff's son Donovan on the trail to solving a modern-day murder.
So how did I get to choose what happened? Why with the handy-dandy Kindle buttons! For example, Celia's first day at her new high school brought her face-to-face with the queen-bee of popularity, Peyton and eclectic witch and social outcast, Tilly. Both invite Celia to do something that evening, which just happens to be Halloween. Each time I read Dead Letter Office I chose a different option - the first time, Celia went to Peyton's party. The second read-through, I chose Celia hanging out with Tilly at her aunt's famous voodoo shop. Both times I read Dead Letter Office I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, finding that being able to choose the next step engaged me deeper into the plot.
Dead Letter Office would be an entertaining young adult paranormal mystery all by itself. With the added pleasure of choosing options throughout the novel, all I can say is I can't wait to read Parish Mail # 2!
Authoress Kira Snyder on active fiction:
My background is in TV writing and computer game design - Coliloquy lets me play in both those worlds. I love TV-style serial storytelling, getting to know characters over time and unfolding a big "mythology" mystery, while at the same time giving each episode a satisfying mystery story that's wrapped up by the end. I'm so excited that Coliliquy is bringing the serial novel back, and into the 21st century.Dead Letter Office, Parish Mail #1 is available exclusively for Kindle users and can be found in the Amazon Kindle Store
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Sharing the Love of Reading!
I love the idea of having a choice in the story. Always thought if i ever wrote a book it would have something like that. Thanks for sharing. :)
ReplyDeleteIt was certainly a lot of fun to read and then go back and read again with different selections! Let me know when you publish that book =}
DeleteI think this is a great hook to get younger readers engaged in reading,
ReplyDeleteMost definitely! And that's a great point that I had not even thought about...
DeleteFun. So did you love it? Reminds me so much of the Choose Your Own Adventures I read as a little girl.
ReplyDeleteI'm not giving up regular books, but active fiction certainly helped to bring me out of reading slump!
DeleteI'm so glad you liked DLO, Stacy! I'm hard at work on Book #2...
ReplyDeletehurry! hurry! I want to see who she chooses!
DeleteVery cool, Stacy! Like I said on your other post introducing active and interactive fiction (are those the same, is there a difference?), I bought this book and I'm really excited about it. If I end up enjoying it, I'll probably try Witch's Brew too. :)
ReplyDeleteYep - you're absolutely correct - active/interactive fiction is one in the same! What's even cooler is that the author can look back to see the percentages of choices made on differing scenarios and then write the next book taking the reader's choices into consideration! Love that! And let me know what you think!
DeleteThat sounds like fun … and perfect technology to read it on.
ReplyDeleteyep! that's probably the best word to sum up the experience - pure fun!
DeleteThis is so cool, and reminds me of those Choose Your Own Adventure books I read as a kid! I need to try this out! Great review!
ReplyDelete