If Mom Told About Being Starstruck...

The next author guest for May’s “If Mom Told the Story” Mother’s Day theme is Brenda Hiatt. I always get excited when she visits, because she has so much fun with the writing challenges. Today she shares a little prequel to her hit YA science fiction novel Starstruck where we get to know a little of what was going on in Rigel’s mom’s head before the whole story begins. If you haven’t started her series yet, you definitely should. These books are great fun, and super romantic. The first novel is free for Amazon Kindle too! Links below. Also below is a place to leave comments, and you can scroll back and see some of the other fun posts.

Brenda Hiatt:
Rigel’s mother, Dr. Ariel Stuart, keeps a secret holographic diary, genetically coded so that only she can access it. This diary is normally disguised as an innocuous but pretty hair clip – which she even wears occasionally! What follows is an important entry she made almost a year before the beginning of STARSTRUCK:

What an exciting evening! Certainly far more exciting than any of us expected. Van and I drove up to Jewel, just an hour north of Indianapolis, to watch Rigel’s very first away game since joining the high school football squad last month. He warned us that he probably wouldn’t play as a freshman, but we wanted to be supportive. Then, as it turned out, Rigel got to play after all! He was sent in to replace the starting quarterback early in the second half, after the other boy hurt his shoulder – and Rigel played so well! So well, in fact, that we worried a bit that he might be giving himself away – his origins, I mean.

Van and I had agreed to speak to him about that on the way home, but before we could, he told us he felt sure he’d received a “boost” from something else – someone in the stands. In other words, the very person we’ve been searching for these past few years, the person who might be the answer to all of our hopes. To think that she might actually be a student at Rigel’s school! Or, I suppose, she might possibly be a student at Jewel High, though that seems less likely as Rigel was much closer to the visitor bleachers.

First thing tomorrow, we’ll call Shim and let him know. Then he and the Council can decide what our next step should be. I do hope they’ll agree to let Rigel finish out his freshman year at Center North High School. We’ve uprooted him so many times already in recent years in pursuit of the Princess. I'd especially hate to do it again mid-year, and just when he has impressed his football coach with tonight’s performance. Even if the girl should turn out NOT to be a student there, surely next fall will be soon enough for Rigel to attempt locating her in Jewel? Given the current political climate on Mars, I can’t imagine a year will really make much difference… but that will be for the council to decide. I simply want what’s best for my son as well as for our people.

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Here’s the actual book blurb for Starstruck, the first of a four-part series.
Nerdy astronomy geek Marsha, M to her few friends, has never been anybody special. Orphaned as an infant and reluctantly raised by an overly-strict "aunt," she's not even sure who she is. M's dream of someday escaping tiny Jewel, Indiana and making her mark in the world seems impossibly distant until hot new quarterback Rigel inexplicably befriends her. As Rigel turns his back on fawning cheerleaders to spend time with M, strange things start to happen: her acne clears up, her eyesight improves to the point she can ditch her thick glasses, and when they touch, sparks fly--literally! When M digs for a reason, she discovers deep secrets that will change her formerly humdrum life forever . . . and expose her to perils she never dreamed of.

Get your copy today at:
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New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nineteen novels to date, primarily Regencies and historicals from Harlequin and HarperCollins, Brenda Hiatt is now indie publishing her historical backlist and continuing to write and publish new books, to include her first mystery, OUT OF HER DEPTH, from Bell Bridge Books. STARSTRUCK, the first novel in her new teen science fiction romance series and her first completely indie project, launched in September 2013. For the past dozen years, Brenda has collected data on writers’ earnings, which she shares at her website, http://brendahiatt.com 

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