BooksChatter: ☀☄ Queen of Likes: M!X

Thank you for joining us on the Release Day Party and virtual tour for Queen of Likes, a Middle Grade novel by Hillary Homzie (5 April 2016, Aladdin, 272 pages).

This is the third book in the M!X series, written by Hillary Homzie.

Don't miss our interview with author Hillary Homzie.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, trailer and excerpt below, as well as details of the other two books in the series written by Hillary Homzie.
Read various excerpts with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Hillary Homzie will be awarding a $50 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Teaser | Trailer | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

A tween social media queen is forced to give up her phone and learn that there’s more to life than likes in this M!X novel from the author of The Hot List.

Karma Cooper is a seventh grader with thousands of followers on SnappyPic. Before Karma became a social media celebrity, she wasn’t part of the in-crowd at Merton Middle School. But thanks to one serendipitous photo, Karma has become a very popular poster on SnappyPic. Besides keeping up with all of her followers, like most kids at MMS, her smartphone—a bejeweled pink number Karma nicknamed Floyd—is like a body part she could never live without.

But after breaking some basic phone rules, Karma’s cruel, cruel parents take Floyd away, and for Karma, her world comes to a screeching halt. Can Karma—who can text, post photos, play soccer, and chew gum all at the same time—learn to go cold turkey and live her life fully unplugged?

Teaser: Excerpt

     “So we’re come up with a new punishment,” says Dad. “Something that will get your attention.”
     Dad looks at Mom and Mom looks at Dad and I can tell that they are a united front against me. “We’re going to close your Snappypic account,” states Dad.
      “What?” My stomach dips as if I’ve just dropped from highest part of a roller coaster. I want to flop against the nearest car in the parking lot. “You can’t do that. It’s my account. It’s private. You can’t.” Every day, I get smiley faces and hearts and balloons and LIKES. All of the time. Waking up and not being able to se what my followers are up to? Being totally cut off like that? My parents might as well send me to Antarctica because I’m going to be frozen out of everything. “This must be some kind of hallucination,” I say. “The parents I know would never do this to me!”
     “Karma, I’m sorry,” says Mom. “But I think you are over-reacting. You knew the rules.”
     “Please.” I clasp my hands together. “Please, please. Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll babysit Toby as much as you want. I’ll clean the house every single day. I’ll make dinner I’ll—”
     “It’s a final decision,” says Dad.
     “But I’m like… a professional. I have more followers than some companies.”
     “Exactly our point, Karma,” says Mom. “You’re not a company. You’re our daughter and still a kid. And I don’t really love this obsession of yours.”
     The parking lot is practically spinning. “You just don’t want me to grow up!” I fling up my arms. “Please,” I beg. “Don’t do this.”

Queen of Likes
Available NOW!

The Series: M!X titles by Hillary Homzie

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Things Are Gonna Get Ugly

When Ernestine Smith moved to California, she reinvented herself as Taffeta— so successfully that she’s now the leader of the most popular clique at La Cambria Middle School. That is, until she’s caught cheating off brilliant but geeky Winslow Fromes and her teacher gives her the option of a fresh start.

What Taffeta doesn’t realize is that Mr. Dribble can magically turn her back into Ernestine. The only way to become Taffeta again is to dance with Winslow at the Winterfest dance, but even Winslow wants nothing to do with a loser like Ernestine.

Unexpected story twists and an accessible, cinematic style make H. B. Homzie’s first tween novel a perfect M!X book.

[Published 23 June 2003, 276 pages]

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The Hot List

Sophie Fanuchi and her BFF Maddie Chen posted the “Hot List” as a joke—just a silly tally of the cutest boys at Travis Middle School. But the list takes on a life of its own, and the girls are thrust into the popular crowd, which pleases Maddie to no end…and angers Sophie.

As Sophie and Maddie’s friendship begins to unravel, Sophie makes a bet that will expose the list as meaningless: She has to make over their wacky classmate, Squid, and land him on the list.

Can Sophie turn a nottie into a hottie…and can any bet or list replace the importance of friendship?

[Published 8 March 2011, 256 pages]

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About the Author

Hillary is the author of the tween novel, THE HOT LIST (Simon & Schuster/M!X) which Booklist says “captures the angst of young teen friendships and fragile identities.” She’s also the author of the middle grade novel, THINGS ARE GONNA GET UGLY (Simon & Schuster/M!X), a Justice Book-of-the-Month, which was just optioned by Priority Pictures, and the forthcoming QUEEN OF LIKES (Simon & Schuster/Aladdin M!X, April 2016), which is about social media, as well as the humorous chapter book series, ALIEN CLONES FROM OUTER SPACE (Simon & Schuster/Aladdin), a Children's Book-of-the-Month Best Books for Children. Emmy-nominated Suppertime Entertainment developed the books to become an animated television series and it was sold to ABC Australia.

Hillary’s young adult fiction has been published in TEEN MAGAZINE and anthologized (MUDDVILLE DIARIES, Avon Books). She has sold non-fiction and fiction projects to Klutz Press/Scholastic Books, The Learning Company and John Muir Books.

With her frequent writing partner, Steven Arvanites, she has had film projects developed by Brooklyn Weaver’s Energy Entertainment.

Hillary got her start performing and writing sketch comedy Off-Broadway, and was a Heideman Playwrighting Award Finalist.

Hillary holds a master's degree in education from Temple University and a master’s of arts degree from Hollins University in children's literature and writing. Currently, she’s a visiting professor of children’s literature and writing at Hollins University.

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