Pride Book: If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

In honor of pride month I really wanted to help transgender writers, and I came across this book.

The story follows Amanda Hardy, who moves in her estranged dad to start a new life for her senior year of high school. Amanda is determined to stay under-wraps until she starts falling for football player Grant, an easy going guy who' s interested in her. As she starts to let him in she realizes she deserves to find happiness even if she couldn't be truly faithful about something. Things are going well for Amanda as she now has a boyfriend and friends while carry a dark secret. She's transgender and was previously known as Andrew.

Amanda is worried about what will happen if her secret came out. After what she went through in her old school she realizes that in order to survive she can't let her secret slip.





Review: First off there was so much to love about this book! This is an LGBTQA+ book about transgender girl, written by transgender woman and the model on the cover is transgender! A step in the right way publishing. While this came out in 2016 and I'm just discovering it, shame on me, I found this story lovely! While I am writing a book with trans main character it's not from the POV of trans character.

While some parts were fictionalized it really opened my eyes to transgender community, and I hope to find more books about transgender teens as I think it's such an important topic. Some amazing scenes to note was when Amanda's dad thought Grant attacked Amanda but it was a misunderstandinG. Another was when after her GRS, Amanda sees her mom crying over her photos and accepts that even though she has lost Andrew she has Amanda. Such a powerful scene!
Also this was not a typical story where transgender faces bullying. Instead it was about hope and love and being who you are. I totally fell for Grant.

Two things I didn't like. First off the ending. It really left me hanging. I have no clue what happens it could have elaborated on that! Also it was the flashbacks, the flashbacks were unorganized going from six years ago to three years ago to four months ago.

Other than that I highly recommend reading this!

Writing in Isolation During COVID-19

Hello World,

I hope wherever you are you are trying to stay as safe as possible. This is going to be a difficult next few months. 

My town so far has not had any major issues as our count of the infected is still low, but I am taking extreme precautions. I'm lucky to where my current job allows me to work from home, and I always buy in extra every grocery story run, so I have a good amount of stock. I work part-time as a librarian and until further notice all libraries are closed. 

It's scary. I don't know if it's a sign that I've read too many dystopian novels, but I FEEL like I'm living in a dystopian book where a highly dangerous drug is spreading and killing people. Where food is scarce and everyone is fighting over getting to the stores to buy the last of everything before it runs out. Where the money is dried up and people are struggling. I might have read it in books, but it's starting to seem too real.


On Writing

I have two diverse YA fantasies that I am editing to make sure I have it as perfect as possible to ensure that it's ready for DVpit. In my historical fantasy I'm adding some minor changes to add more magic to the story. My fantasy is loaded with magic. I'm mostly glad I'm getting more time to edit and write it after the past two years of disappointment from contest. Will keep you posted. 

The Big Question I Always Get Asked

When I was in middle school, a very popular book that was released in 2005 about a human girl who was clumsy and fell down all the time and was in a relationship with her very controlling vampire boyfriend.


"Why don't you like that series?"

I get this question A LOT. It came back to me during this semester in children's literature for my MLIS course. We were given a list of books to read Harry Potter was on the list along with that very popular series at the time. I told my professor the issues I had with those books, and she encouraged me to write about that. She said talk about what you don't like about it. 

So when the reflection came, I had to give it a long thought, and it made me go back to middle school and high school.

This may give away my age, but when that book was published in 2005, I read it way before it was a best-seller and became a phenomenon, I was in middle school 7th grade to be exact. 

So as to why I preferred Harry Potter over that series

Simple 

I HATED Bella. Now I did like the other characters in the book, but I hated Bella. She was the most horrible character I had ever read. She was so weak, clumsy and spineless. I didn't think it was possible to get an urge to slap someone in the book and throw the book at the wall. I was horrified. My thoughts were is this something you want to teach young girls? To be a damsel in distress waiting for your boyfriend to save you? Edward was a control freak and a douche bag. I'm a Texan, if big daddy saw my boyfriend be like that around me, daddy would whip out his shotgun. 

Harry Potter had strong characters and good morals. Harry Potter was about being true to your friends and facing your fears. Twilight just seemed to point out that you're nothing unless you have a boyfriend. 

So the difference in Meyer and Rowling. It took Meyer four books to talk about the love story between Edward and Bella whereas Rowling summed it up in half a page.

Another difference was in the main female characters. For example in New Moon, when Edward left Bella,  Bella goes into a depression and isolates herself from the world. In Deathly Hallows, Hermione and Ron were starting their relationship. When Ron left Harry and Hermione, did Hermione go into a catatonic state? No, she stayed to help Harry and saved him during the snake attack. Pretty similar to Katniss in The Hunger Games, when the Capitol had Peeta, Katniss helped in the fight in District 13. 

So it goes to show the differences in the characters, but when the love interest left it did show the difference in the personalities. That is the main reason I dislike Twilight so much. I just felt Bella was horrible character for young girls.

I'll take the Vampire Academy over Twilight any day. 

Son of a Pitch Round One

In 1899 South America Peru’s Adrianna Salazar is the rightful queen, and considered a thief to the throne despite being the sole surviving heir. Battling daily against the feud with her Bolivian cousins to protect her crown against the feud with her Bolivian cousin her cousins’ threats leave their calling in her home, and forcing her to flee to her fiancé Marcelo, Brazil’s future king. Too bad Marcelo doesn’t want her.

While her ladies scheme romance between her and the prince, Adrianna’s feelings blossom for Rafael, Marcelo’s older illegitimate brother. To make court more interesting, Adrianna begins receiving mysterious notes in her room from someone called The Loyal Guard warning her of danger. As strange incidents with corpses are found around court threatening the alliance, Adrianna relies on Rafael, but he’s hiding dangerous secrets of his own. Her heart should lie with Marcelo, but her trust and love lie with Rafael.

As she receives news of Bolivia’s desire to begin a revolution, and the religious war dividing her people Adrianna knows there’s no time to waste. She needs her ladies plan to work fast because Peruvia will cease to exist without her. If she can’t put aside her feelings for Rafael and secure the alliance with Brasilia her entire reign will be in jeopardy. As Adrianna and Marcelo begin to align as rulers the castle seer warns of a danger she’s not sure she’ll overcome.

BRASILIA’S COURT OF BLOOD AND LIES is an alternate historical fantasy complete at 77,000 words. As a Latina interested in historical fiction and fantasy, I wrote this book because historical fiction always takes place in Europe.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my work.







First 250

She was raised to conquer her cousin’s country ending the reign of terror, but failed.

A humid breeze brought the stench of burning corpses to the balcony as she leaned against the silver-plated rail, gazing across her homeland. The fields used to have deep green color, and it didn’t seem coincidence that the King’s death seventeen years prior made the beautiful shades of green a muggy grey with no life sprouting from the ground. A death with the stench of burning corpses wafting on the humid air.

Torture happened to her people on a monthly basis. The events the night before left their marks. The border military stationed miles from the palace stood straight in a single line, protecting their country as if their lives. In front of the militia, commoners threw the officers angered expressions while tossing limbs of the fallen soldiers into the bright orange flames, and ducked as the embers of the flames rose from the new content.

She turned from the balcony, and strode to the wooden trunk at the end of her bed. She bent down, and lifted the heavy bronze lock turning the key until it made the smallest click, and opened it. She lifted the lid, regarding the contents borrowed from the night guards; a sword, a bow and arrow, and an ax. She bent her head over the chest. Her long, curly black hair and tan skin reflected off the sword’s sheen as she gently moved it aside.

“Despite what the council thinks I will never be known as weak,” she whispered.