Mom With A Kindle: BLOG TOUR [Guest Post +Giveaway!] SHATTERED by Aubrey Coletti

SHATTERED
By Aubrey Coletti
The Academy Series, #2
Publisher: Escape Artist Press
Young Adult Thriller/Romance/Sci-Fi

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School’s in session at J. Alter Academy, and for Toni, Joseph, Ann, Charlie, and their boarder friends, that means they are still at the mercy of its draconian ways. While suffering the harsh consequences of their attempted escape, the seven teensmust also contend with the formidable Headmistress and her taste for human experimentation — with the boarders as her favorite subjects. The seven friends play a delicate, dangerous game as they seek to discover the secrets behind their school and their own unique abilities. Yet as they move closer to uncovering the truth, will one of them be forced to pay the ultimate price?

ALTERED
The Academy Series, #1

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When Toni, Joseph and Charlie arrive at their new boarding school, they are glad to leave their families – and respective problems – behind. Isolated as boarders, they meet a handsome senior with a personality like iced snake’s blood, teachers with a penchant for physical punishment, and four other outcasts who reveal that their being brought to the Academy wasn’t random at all. When the arrivals discover that their new school is engaged in “behavior modification” through electric shocks, isolation, restraints, and an ever-evolving set of methods to “fix” them, they declare war on their Academy. During their campaign of sabotage, they fight, hate, scorn, love, and begin to uncover the reasons why they were brought to the school. But as their war against the school escalates beyond their control, will they become the very things the Academy believes they are: dangerous, delinquent – and mad?

FACTS ABOUT THE ACADEMY SERIES

By Aubrey Coletti

1.) J. Alter Academy, the school in Altered and Shattered, is inspired by various behavior modification centers, schools, and camps throughout the United States. These places use methods such as food deprivation, isolation, skin shock, forced hikes and walks, and physical restraints to “help” their students/clients/patients — as does J. Alter Academy.

2.) I began writing Altered during the summer before my sophomore year of high school. I finished the rough draft in the summer before my senior year of high school.

3.) When creating the schizophrenic experiences of the character Charlie Persan, I drew not only upon first person narratives by people like Elyn Saks, but also upon second person information from my own family members. Both my maternal great-grandfather and great uncle suffered from the disease. My grandmother and mother were invaluable in speaking about the exchanges and difficulties in living with those struggling with the illness. My mother also worked for many years in residences as a counselor, and shared many stories of times when she literally had to “talk people down” from psychotic episodes.

4.) Much of the dialogue in Altered and Shattered is real, culled from my many interesting, wordy friends! Before and during the writing of “Altered” and “Shattered” I was constantly running to my notebook to take down all their juiciest sayings and quotes for use in the books.

5.) I suffered a severe writing block while working on Altered during the winter of my sophomore year due to my anorexia. When I finally began eating again, and thus was able to write again at last, I watched the movie The Great Escape over and over about ten times in a week, to get my creative juices flowing.

6.) The title Altered is a clue to one of the major revelations about a main character revealed in the final chapter of the novel. Points if you can guess what it is!

7.) When writing Shattered, I had the ending clearly figured out before the rest of the book. So the whole challenge of writing it was to figure out how all of the characters get there.

Aubrey Coletti is the twenty-one-year-old songwriter, dancer, and author of the Academy series novelsAltered and Shattered. She is currently working on the third book in the Academy series.

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