BLOGAVERSARY DAY #8 - Gwendolyn Heasley's Playlist

Where I Belong (Where I Belong #1)
by Gwendolyn Heasley
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 8th 2011

Synopsis:

Meet Corrinne. She's living every girl's dream in New York City—shopping sprees at Barneys, open access to the best clubs and parties, and her own horse at the country club. Her perfect life is perfectly on track. At least it was. . . . When Corrinne's father is laid off, her world suddenly falls apart. Instead of heading to boarding school, she's stripped of her credit cards and shipped off to the boonies of Texas to live with her grandparents. On her own in a big public school and forced to take a job shoveling manure, Corrinne is determined to get back to the life she's supposed to be living. She doesn't care who she stomps on in the process. But when Corrinne makes an unlikely friend and discovers a total hottie at work, she begins to wonder if her life B.R.—before the recession—was as perfect as it seemed.

Corrinne is a total uptown girl before she moves to Broken Spoke.

Eventually, Manhattanite Corrine adjusts to Broken Spoke and grows to love it…and feel like it’s home.

A Long Way from You
by Gwendolyn Heasley
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: June 5th 2012

Synopsis:

For too long, Kitsy has had to satisfy her dreams of becoming a real artist by giving her friends makeovers before prom. So when her best friend Corrinne's family offers to sponsor her for a summer art course in New York City, Kitsy bids a temporary good-bye to Texas to say hello to the West Village.

Between navigating the subway and the New Yorkers—namely, the Art Boy who has a nice trick of getting under her skin—Kitsy knows that this summer is going to be about a lot more than figure drawing.

All her life, Kitsy has grown up dreaming about New York and this is—in my opinion—the most quintessential New York song.

Even though Kitsy loves her adventures in the big city, she’s still always thinking about her hometown.

The Art of Goodbye (Where I Belong #1.5)
by Gwendolyn Heasley
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: March 4th 2014

Synopsis:

The heroine of Where I Belong is back in The Art of Goodbye, a romantic digital original novella about first loves and second chances.

It's Corrinne Corcoran's last night in town before heading off to college, and she's determined it'll be the most epic night ever. She's planned every detail of each hour of the night, from what dresses she'll wear, to what parties she'll hit, to which of her best friends will be with her. But Corrinne's perfect plan for her last night in New York goes awry when she runs into a ghost from her past, and the boy she's never been able to forget—her ex-boyfriend, Bubby, from Broken Spoke. And Corrinne starts to wonder if her expertly planned goodbye to New York City was as perfect as it seemed. . . . Set over the twelve-hour period before Corrinne sets off for college, The Art of Goodbye will make you believe that true love can find you when you're least expecting it . . . again.

This is a song from my generation, but it’s the perfect song for moving on….and The Art of Goodbye is about that last night with all your friends before life changes.

This song is about reflecting on old relationships and what went wrong…and what you’d change. And Corrinne does a lot of this in the novella.

Don't Call Me Baby
by Gwendolyn Heasley
Publisher: Harper Teen
Release Date: April 22nd 2014

Synopsis:

All her life, Imogene has been known as the girl on THAT blog.

Imogene's mother has been writing an incredibly embarrassing, and incredibly popular, blog about her since before she was born. Hundreds of thousands of perfect strangers knew when Imogene had her first period. Imogene's crush saw her "before and after" orthodontia photos. But Imogene is fifteen now, and her mother is still blogging about her, in gruesome detail, against her will.

When a mandatory school project compels Imogene to start her own blog, Imogene is reluctant to expose even more of her life online...until she realizes that the project is the opportunity she's been waiting for to tell the truth about her life under the virtual microscope and to define herself for the first time.

Don't Call Me Baby is a sharply observed and irrepressibly charming story about mothers and daughters, best friends and first crushes, and the surface-level identities we show the world online and the truth you can see only in real life.

Don’t Call me Baby is set in Naples, Florida and Imogene loves the landscape and nobody says Florida more than Jimmy Buffet.

Gwendolyn Heasley is a graduate of Davidson College and the University of Missouri-Columbia where she earned her master’s degree in journalism. When she was a little girl, she desperately wanted to be the next Ann M. Martin- the author of the beloved The Baby-Sitter’s Club series. She’s incredibly grateful that the recession rendered her unemployed and made her chase her nearly forgotten dream. Her third novel Don't Call Me Baby comes out in April and her digital e-novella The Art of Goodbye (the sequel to Where I Belong) comes out in March.