Katiaesque

  • “Sandrine’s Letter to Tomorrow,” by Dedra Johnson

    Ig Publishing (a small press), 2008 I am now in the midst of my favorite part of the research process, as I compile my grand list of contemporary historical fiction. The favorite part is reading, discovering all kinds of original voices I probably wouldn’t have heard, if not for this great task before me. Anyway, Dedra…

    Katia Raina

  • “The Disappeared,” by Gloria Whelan

    Dial Books 2008 What a find! Set in Buenos Aires in 1977, the year of my birth, this one definitely goes on my super-amazing grand MASTER list of kick-ass contemporary historical fiction. In sparingly told alternating chapters, young Silvia and her older brother Eduardo write letters to each other, which they might never get to send, after…

    Katia Raina

  • “Prada and Prejudice” By Mandy Hubbard

      Razorbill, 2009 Can this story be considered historical? 🙂 I say yes. Well, kind of. A few months ago, everyone was talking about this book, and here I am finally catching up. An American girl on a class trip to London buys a pair of red Prada shoes to impress her obnoxious classmate, and when she puts them on,…

    Katia Raina

  • “Young Goodman Brown” (Short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 19th century)

     Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Short Stories: “Young Goodman Brown” I can’t believe I was so scared to read these. Having heard the gentle complaints of some of my classmates in lit.class, also remembering my own reading habits – how important it is for me that the author keeps things exciting – I was opening this short story collection with dread. I…

    Katia Raina

  • “The September Sisters” by Jillian Cantor

          Laura Geringer Books, Harper Teen 2009 This is another title from my agent’s amazing list. The only reason I’m writing about so many of those right now is because that’s what I am reading. Damn, my agent has good taste! 🙂 It hurt to read this book. Really hurt. I cried. The crazy thing, I…

    Katia Raina

  • “Wondrous Strange,” by Lesley Livingston

    Right away I must disclose, I feel awed and humbled to be sharing a literary agent with the author of this book. 🙂 HarperTeen 2009, paperback It was magic. Lesley Livingston tore open the universe for me, and invited me into another realm, at once wondrous and strange. An intelligently written page-turner, how can one not…

    Katia Raina

  • “Hate List” by Jennifer Brown

    As I read it – got consumed by it, really (and in the midst of some hardcore revisions of my own, which is saying a lot!) – the writer me kept thinking, what an incredibly difficult book this had to have been to create. How do you give any depth to such a crucial character as the school…

    Katia Raina