A Surprise Review on Amazon

A great review suddenly appeared on Amazon regarding my time travel novel IN THE NICK OF TIME. Mahalo! It was a nice surprise! 

"Andy's a strong, brave kid. I like him, and I kept turning the pages of In the Nick of Time until the book was done. The adventures Andy has in this book could only happen to someone who's brave enough to risk not knowing all the answers. He's also a boy whose grandmother isn't like other grandmothers. Yay for Andy, and for J. Lee Graham! Is there a sequel out there somewhere?"

Yes, Reviewer, there is! It's called THE TIME OF HIS LIFE. 

Middle Grade Mania Blog and a call to other MG Authors!

I just joined the Middle Grade Mania Blog, and it is a brilliant source of all things Middle Grade (and then some!) What an excellent place to browse and interact. I love talking about my Time Travel MG novels IN THE NICK OF TIME and THE TIME OF HIS LIFE, but enough about me! 

Any writer of MG who wants to be interviewed by me, feel free to contact me! It would be a pleasure!

Peace, 
J. Lee Graham

Indie Stores on the Decline?

A great article from Raleigh, North Carolina regarding the fate of our beloved Indie Stores. I love them.  The article focuses primarily on its Quail Ridge Books and Music Store and the age old fight for Independent book stores and how important it is to patronize them.

Sadly, not all indie stores will carry my books (due to their being self-published), but most of them will put my books on the shelf for a commission. That's fine with me! 

Support your local businesses and avoid the big box. More money from Local Businesses goes back into the community compared to Corporate Chains... Think about that.. 

Peace, 
J. Lee Graham

Q&A with Jamie Deacon

I had a great time being interviewed by Jamie Deacon from England about my YA novel THE PROMISE OF LIVING. You can read the entire interview here.
You can read her review of the novel on her blog as well as read an excerpt from the book. You can also sign up for a free give away for THE PROMISE OF LIVING too. 

Book Review for THE PROMISE OF LIVING

Thank you Jamie Deacon for a terrific review of THE PROMISE OF LIVING. Jamie has a blog entitled "Boys on the Brink" where YA gay novels are discussed and celebrated! 

Part of the Review: 

The Promise of Living certainly isn’t a novel for the faint-hearted. It has more than its fair share of harrowing moments, and one twist in particular shocked me so much that I had to put the book down for a while before going back to it. For all the grimness, however, there are some tender scenes, and overall I found it incredibly inspirational.

In defiance of the tough hand fate deals him, Ryan somehow comes through his ordeal, not only stronger, but the kind of young man any parent would be proud of.

If you enjoy novels that combine the clairvoyant with harsh reality, and which don’t shy away from the more disturbing aspects of life, you may well want to give this one a go.

To read the full review, please click here! 
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-promise-of-living/

A book review for IN THE NICK OF TIME

Thank you Susan from her blog timetraveltimestwo where she wrote a review of my time travel novel. This was such a surprise and I was extremely flattered. Mahalo!

In The Nick of Time

Posted on December 10, 2012 

In the Nick of Time, J. Lee Graham (2008, 99 pages), is a straightforward time travel tale in which three 13-year-old kids–Andy, Roger, and Miranda–go to a plantation in Georgia in 1858 where slaves are used. The story is given added drama because Roger is African-American, and the other two are white, and so only Roger finds himself a slave. As in a YA time travel book I admired, Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun by Arvella Whitmore, the stakes are very high as the kids are stuck in slave times until they can figure out how to return to their present.

Andy’s aunt, with whom he was very close, dies at the beginning of the story. She was a mystical personality and believed she could communicate with the dead. She had been a world traveler and picked up spiritual souvenirs from all over the world. The time travel starts when Andy’s family is cleaning out her house and Andy finds some mysterious incense that had been hers. He lights it and is transported back to the scene of the Boston Massacre of 1770. This foray into the past is brief and is not really connected to the main time travel in the story. I think the only reason for this trip in the narrative is to show what is needed to return to the present. Andy is able to return home when he relights the incense stick.

Not knowing where it will take them, Andy invites Roger to go on an adventure via another incense stick. He figures they can just relight the incense to return home. But this time he drops the incense stick just as they are leaving his bedroom. They have lost their return ticket! Miranda wasn’t invited, but happens upon the scene and inhales some of the incense smoke, so is also whisked away. The three find themselves on the plantation.

Roger finds he is part of a family of slaves living in a shack, while Andy and Miranda live in the fancy house of the owners of the plantation. Roger must do the back-breaking work of picking crops and is treated horribly by the white overseer of the plantation. Meanwhile, Andy and Miranda come to believe if they can find the herb that smells like the incense and they burn it, they will be able to return home. They begin a desperate search to find the mystery herb.

I admire the author for taking on such an important topic as slavery. The storyline would be easy enough for younger middle grade readers to follow, but because Graham does not shy away from the ugliest aspects of slavery, including whippings and even a hanging, a teacher or parent would have to decide if their children were ready to emotionally deal with this subject matter even if they were able to read the book. Once the kids arrived at  the plantation, I appreciated that the story kept a clear focus on how awful and unfair slavery was. I also liked how the story was not merely a time travel adventure, but also a tale of friendship, and how much can be forgiven in friendship.

In the Nick of Time is not to be confused with Nick of Time by Ted Bell which is also a  time travel story, or with the numerous other books of the same title!

Radio Interview with WRPI

Thanks to Dr. Ray Werking and the great folks at WRPI for my radio interview last Sunday, November 11. It felt like I was coming home. It was a great pleasure, and the guys there in the station had a terrific sense of camaraderie as we discussed my Young Adult novel THE PROMISE OF LIVING. Dr. Ray was so insightful and warm and it was if we were traveling on the same wavelength. He saw what I am trying to say with this particular novel, and he delighted in its refreshing themes. A big MAHALO to Dr. Ray and his WRPI team!