Chocolates, First Loves and Book Crushes: Shannon M. Parker (Interview + Giveaway)

Chocolates, First Loves and Book Crushes is a blog event featuring debut authors answering questions that I have sent them as they talk  about their Valentine's day routines, love, book crushes and more. For a list of all the participating authors, check it out here.

Shannon Parker lives on the Atlantic coast in a house full of boys. She’s traveled to over three dozen countries and has a few dozen more to go. She works in education and can usually be found rescuing dogs, chickens, old houses and wooden boats. Shannon has a weakness for chocolate chip cookies and ridiculous laughter—ideally, at the same time. The Girl Who Fell is her first novel.

FIND SHANNON: Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram

1.    Have you always seen Valentine’s as an important event? What do you usually do on Valentine’s Day?

• Definitely SO important when I was young. It mattered if 3rd grade Chip Armstrong gave me a Valentine’s Day card with a legit hand-written note on it. It mattered how many flowers I got from friends as a freshman. It mattered if my boyfriend took me to dinner in his bitchin car senior year. Sure, it mattered. Because it’s the one day everyone wants to be loved and worried that they won’t be. (Okay, maybe that’s every day—but on Valentine’s Day people are watching). Now I make Valentine’s cards with my kids. I get a secret smile when they write hand-written notes to the other kids.

2. What is your fondest memory about Valentine’s Day? Can you go into details about it?

• I had just moved to a new city and a boy asked me to go out with him. I didn’t want to. I was starting fresh and I wanted to be me and free for a while. But he insisted. I caved. I had my whole speech ready to tell him about how I just wasn’t in to dating, blah, blah. But then he told me I’d been calling him by the wrong first name for weeks. (WHAT? How could I even, right?) But turns out? Yep. Wrong name. I felt like an idiot. He smiled. Told me a ridiculously invented story about the wrong name being his CIA cover. This story made me laugh hard enough to see him as something new. Bright. Maybe even mine. That was twenty years ago. He still makes me laugh every day.

3. What has always been your idea of the perfect date?

• I’m a pretty fierce friend and have always preferred date night with my girls over going out with a boy. So, a perfect date with my girls is to laugh until we hurt. Let go of everything except joy.

4. Has it always been a walk in the park or had there been any Valentine’s Day disasters you’ve encountered? (Maybe about your own or someone you know who you would like to share)

• Chip Armstrong did not give me a hand-written note in 3rd grade. He wrote a poem for Amanda Myrna. That still stings.

5. Can you tell us about your first love? What was he/she like? 

• My first love was brave and beautiful. Strong and sweet. He set the bar high, and I am grateful. I loved him deeply, enough that he stays in the corners of my memory still. Loving him was beautiful and rare and something I have always considered a gift. 

6. Any book crushes/boyfriends?

• Joe from Jandy Nelson’s The Sky Is Everywhere is my jam. Sa-woooon.

7. Are the characters in your upcoming novel big romantics or total party poopers?

• My debut novel deals with toxic love, but there is all the swoon of first love. The risk. The danger. The jumping off into the oblivion of love. It’s all there.

8. If you can go out on a date with a character in your book, who would it be and why?

• Gregg Slicer is nicknamed ‘The Slice on Ice’ because he is the best hockey player in the history of my book’s fictional high school. Gregg is the best friend a girl could have. He’s charming and hilarious and gorgeous. But more than any of that, he is fiercely loyal. I’d dig on a date with any dude like that.

9. What would you like to say to any reader out there this Valentine’s season?

• Be kind to yourself. 
• Be kind to others.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Title: The Girl Who Fell                              

Author: Shannon M. Parker

Publication: March 1st 2016, Simon Pulse                     

Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | National Bookstore / Fully Booked (PH)

The Girl Who Fell earned a starred review from School Library Journal. SLJ praised The Girl Who Fell as “an invaluable addition to any collection”.

His obsession.
Her fall.

High school senior Zephyr Doyle is swept off her feet—and into an intense relationship—by the new boy in school.

Zephyr is focused. Focused on leading her team to the field hockey state championship and leaving her small town for her dream school, Boston College.

But love has a way of changing things.

Enter the new boy in school: the hockey team’s starting goaltender, Alec. He’s cute, charming, and most important, Alec doesn’t judge Zephyr. He understands her fears and insecurities—he even shares them. Soon, their relationship becomes something bigger than Zephyr, something she can’t control, something she doesn’t want to control.

Zephyr swears it must be love. Because love is powerful, and overwhelming, and…terrifying?

But love shouldn’t make you abandon your dreams, or push your friends away. And love shouldn’t make you feel guilty—or worse, ashamed.

So when Zephyr finally begins to see Alec for who he really is, she knows it’s time to take back control of her life.

If she waits any longer, it may be too late.

Thanks so much to Shannon for being such an amazing person and a sport with her answers. Chip must be in a good place now, hopefully! If you get a chance, grab a copy of her book! Check out next week's list of authors!!! There'll be 3 of them! Crazy, right? I'm excited!