Day Three ~ Amanda Ashby

Hello and welcome to day three of the Forbidden blog party!! Without further ado let me introduce my other CP, NAL and Puffin author Amanda Ashby, who writes about flesh chomping zombies and invisible killer fairies. Zombie Queen of Newbury High was listed by the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age 2010 as well as being nominated for the YALSA popular paperback 2011 ~ yay! And although I know she doesn't like to mention it, she is also David Boreanaz's Biggest Fan! Ha! It's out there now, Amanda!!!

Forbidden

First up I just want to make a very loud and a very undignified YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO to celebrate the release of Christina’s debut book, Forbidden! As one of Christina’s cps, I have been lucky enough to read all of the books she has written over the last six years and I can honestly tell you that this one is her best yet. And yes, I might be just slightly biased, but she truly is one of the most amazing writers I’ve ever met, so it really does give me deep joy that the rest of the world is about to discover what I’ve long known. Christina Phillips rocks!!!!!

And now, you would think that with that sort of glowing, sparkly introduction, Christina would let me off from writing about some kind of forbidden love theme but no, apparently not. Not that I will hold it against her, since it’s her debut and really, it would be petty of me to grumble (but between you, me and the wall, I’m so going to make her re-write chapter twenty-six of her wip as payback!!).

So anyway, back to forbidden love. When it comes to the big FL, I’ve got three words for you. Buffy and Angel. Now anyone who knows me, knows that I’m team Angel and it doesn’t matter how many times I re-watch Buffy and warm to Blondie Bear, I just can’t see Buffy and Spike together. And the reason why? Because the connection between Buffy and Angel is just too strong. They should be together but they can’t.

Like they really, really can’t thanks to a pesky gypsy curse which means Angel will turn back into his evil alter-ego Angelus if he has one moment of pure happiness. Unfortunately, poor old Buffy only finds this out after she gives him one moment of pure happiness. Which, pretty much sucks for her and hence why their love is destined to be forbidden. Forever.

Which, when you think about it, is the whole problem with forbidden love. If you do it right, then the conflict is so strong that it can’t be overcome. So imagine my horror when Christina sent me the first chapter of Forbidden and I realized that, according to history, there was no way this story could possibly end well. Except the more I read, the more I wanted it to be okay and by chapter five, I didn’t even feel like I was critiquing a book, I felt like a desperate reader, urging an author to send me more pages because I quite literally could not bear the suspense of finding out what happened next.

Of course there is no way I’m going to tell you what does happen, so you will just have to go and read the story for yourself, but I can absolutely promise that you will be as enthralled by Christina’s world as I was and that you will be dying to read her next book, Captive, which hits the shelves in February 2011 (see what I did there? Clever, eh!)

Anyway, to celebrate the release of Forbidden, I’m putting a copy of my Young Adult novel, Zombie Queen of Newbury High up for grabs. It has absolutely nothing to do with forbidden love, druids or hot, hot, hot Roman dudes who don’t wear much clothing, but it does mention Buffy (quite a lot) so, you know, it’s almost the same thing!!!! Even better, to win a copy all you need to do is tell me what your favorite forbidden love is (oh, and if you mention Christina’s book, I will definitely give you extra marks!!!!!)

Hahah, thank you for that glowing recommendation, Amanda! (and let me just say, she wasn't joking about the whole chapter twenty-six thing either!)

So to be in the draw to win a copy of the fabulously fun Zombie Queen, what's your fave forbidden love?