GCC Tour - The

Yay! I'm touring the paperback edition of one of my favorite writer's books: Melissa Senate's Theodora Twist.



Order the book!

“Senate sets up a tantalizing premise and the plot is equally entertaining.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“Theodora Twist has sugar and spice and everything nice. I loved it!”
–Sarah Mlynowski, bestselling author of Spells and Sleeping Bags

“A fun read!”
–Teen People magazine

You’re sixteen. A high school junior. A major teen celebrity like Blake Lively or Amanda Duff or Vanessa Hudgens moves into your house for a month and shares your bedroom, your friends, your clothes, your school. Your entire life. And it’s all caught on camera, for all of America to see. This is what happens to Emily Fine in Melissa Senate’s debut young adult novel, THEODORA TWIST (Delacorte Press). One day she’s ordinary nobody Emily Fine, practically invisible to everyone (including her own mother) and the next, she’s roommates with teen idol Theodora Twist and co-star of a TV reality show.

Theodora Twist is Hollywood’s hottest young actress—the girl everyone wants to be. Producers court her, tabloids love her, fans mob her, and US Weekly has covered every catfight with her co-stars, her ongoing feud with her mother, her yo-yo dieting, and her threesome with two Hollywood it-boys. Needless to say, Theodora doesn’t have the best reputation around.

So when Theodora’s publicity team decides to clean up her act with a reality show called Theodora Twist—Just a Regular Teen!, they send Theodora back to her hometown to live with Emily’s family for a month. Theodora has to do everything Emily does: attend high school, care about grades, friends, boys, the prom, zits (as though Theodora has ever had one). And a very unlikely friendship is formed.

Read an excerpt at Random House Teens (RandomHouse.com/teens) and visit Melissa’s website at MelissaSenate.com



Here are Melissa's answers to my GCC questions:

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR TYPICAL “WRITING DAY”?: Now that my son is in kindergarten, I have set hours to work that don’t require paying a fortune. Love that. I reread the last two chapters of my WIP, then go from there, usually getting a scene down and the bare bones of the next two.

DO YOU RECALL THE KERNEL OF INSPIRATION FOR THIS BOOK?: I was mindlessly watching MTV or VH1 and caught a show about Christina Aguilera visiting her hometown, camera crew capturing her every move. The next morning I woke up with the idea for Theodora Twist, about a teen movie queen with a seriously bad reputation who is forced back to her hometown to film a reality TV show about how she’s really just a regular teen. (She’s not!)

PICK A CHARACTER IN THE BOOK AND TELL US WHAT TRAIT YOU SHARE (OR COME CLOSEST TO SHARING) WITH THAT CHARACTER.: No matter what else you can call her, Theodora has a good heart. I’d like to think I do too.

IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND, WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE A MAGICAL TRUNK THAT GAVE YOU LIMITLESS BOOKS TO READ, OR A LIMITLESS SUPPLY OF PAPER ON WHICH TO WRITE?: Limitless books to read. I can make up my own stories in my head, but I can’t make up other people’s.

BEER OR WINE?: Red wine.

CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?: Chocolate!

WHAT’S YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK? I have so many, but the one I’ve loved the longest is Anne of Green Gables.



About Melissa

Melissa Senate is the author of several novels for adults, including the bestseller See Jane Date, which was made into a TV movie. Before becoming a writer, Melissa was a New York City book editor and worked on many teen novels. She now lives on the southern coast of Maine, where outside her door is foot of fresh snow.