James Dawson has fought hard to win the title Queen of Teen 2014. And now he has been crowned.
All rise for his majesty the queen as James Dawson, the author of Hollow Pike and Say Her Name, becomes the first male winner of the Queen of Teen award for his latest book, Cruel Summer.
After a vigorous social media campaign, Dawson topped a shortlist entirely nominated by teens (Cathy Cassidy, Beth Reekles, Holly Smale, Cassandra Clare, Veronica Roth, John Green, S.C. Ransom, Tonya Hurley, and Natasha Farrant) to join an illustrious cast of previous winners including Louise Rennison, Cathy Cassidy and Maureen Johnson.
Watch out for our report from the awards ceremony and interview with James by site member Alannahbee coming up!
Cruel Summer is a psychological thriller focusing on a group of teens who, one year on from the suicide of one of their friends, try to get over it by going away to a holiday villa in the Mediterranean. But when a new guest, claiming to have evidence that the suicide was actually a murder, is herself found dead, it's clear that one of them must be the killer…
Helloitsheath called it the "perfect balance of murder mystery, teen fiction and horror movie', which at the same time 'manages to be funny, heartwarming and – murder aside – easy for teenage audiences to relate to".
While XoXo Bookworm_98 gushed, "there were SO many times I just HAD to put the book down to take a breather, so that I could process what had just happened – there were just about a million twists that you will Never. See. Coming".
Dawson has been a vocal supporter of LGBT rights (including supporting Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst) and XoXo Boomworm_98 noted that "the LGBT aspect of the book was so different from others I've read, and was a vital, beautiful, heart wrenching part of the tale".
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Remember Bridget Jones's diary entries including this one? "I hate Christmas. Everything is designed for families, romance, warmth." That's from the ground-breaking novel Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding published in 1996. How could Fielding have known that Twitter would be invented and that Bridget's musings are perfect tweets? Fielding didn't know, of course, but she's tweeting now and loving it. "I'm a bit obsessed. I knew if I got on Twitter I would not be able to stop, and that's what's happened," she writes in an email sent to USA TODAY. Fans can find Fielding on Twitter (@bridgetjoneshf), where she voices Bridget in all her neurotic glory, but also Mark Darcy (@markdarcylegal) and Daniel Cleaver (@danielcleaver). There's no publication date set, but Fielding is working on a third novel in the Bridget Jones series. The second, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was published in 1999. Movies based on the two Bridget books, starring Renee Zellweger, were released in 2001 and 2004. "Bridget is just turning 40," writes Fielding of the third book, "and she's struggling with baby issues - that sort of baby panic. Really I guess the theme of the book is expectation: that life never turns out quite the way you expect." Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) reached No. 2 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (1998) peaked at No. 16.