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WORK TITLE: The Other New Girl
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.lbgschwandtner.com/
CITY:
STATE: VA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 86102303 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n86102303 |
| HEADING: | Gschwandtner, Laura B. |
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| 100 | 10 |a Gschwandtner, Laura B. |
| 400 | 10 |a Gschwandtner, L. B. |q (Laura B.) |
| 670 | __ |a Gschwandtner, G. Supersellers, c1986: |b CIP t.p. (Laura B. Gschwandtner) galley (L.B. Gschwandtner) |
| 953 | __ |a be15 |
PERSONAL
Married Gerhard Gschwandtner; children: three daughters.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, editor. Selling Power Inc., multimedia company, cofounder with husband; Selling Power magazine, VA, editor-in-chief, 1983–; author, 2010–.
AWARDS:Writing awards from Writers Digest and Lorian Hemingway fiction competitions.
WRITINGS
Stories and articles have been published in journals and anthologies.
SIDELIGHTS
L.B. Gschwandtner has been the editor of Selling Power magazine since 1983, and with her husband, Gerhard, she cofounded their multimedia publishing company, Selling Power Inc. In 2010 she turned fr0m business writing to fiction with her self-published debut, The Naked Gardener. Gschwandtner has followed this up with a collection of stories, a middle-grade fantasy novel, a vampire satire novel, Foxy’s Tale, written with Karen Cantwell, a supernatural romance, Carla’s Secret, and the coming-of-age novel, The Other New Girl.
The Naked Gardener
Katelyn Cross is an artist in The Naked Gardener, and she has come to a crossroads in her life. She is in love with Greg Mazur, but has reservations. Partly these are due to her own previous relationship that has made her gun-shy, and partly because Greg lost his first wife to cancer and she worries now that he might be looking for a replacement. To help her figure things out she agrees to go on a canoe trip with five of her best friends, but the trip is far from relaxing. The first day out, the group is struggling to stay alive in raging water. Managing to come out of it in one piece, Kate is filled with a new resolve about her life and ready to confront the real Greg.
Reviewing The Naked Gardener in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Online, Lori Hedgpeth had praise for this debut, noting: “Overall … I thought The Naked Gardener was a satisfying read with an underlying female empowerment theme. It left me feeling grateful for the circle of female friends I have and desiring a girls’ weekend with them (although perhaps not canoeing!). I would not hesitate to recommend The Naked Gardener as a subtle, yet fulfilling, read.” A Romancing the Book website contributor similarly observed: “Beautifully written, artistic, and touching, The Naked Gardener is a novel of coming to terms. Each character has to discover, reveal, and accept who they are, the changes they face, and the lives they are living at that moment in time.”
Foxy's Tale and Carla's Secret
The protagonist of Foxy’s Tale, Foxy Anders, has fallen on hard times. She is a former beauty queen without a guy, and a shopper with not a lot of extra cash on hand. Her daughter Amanda loves to post snarky blogs about her mom and has now fallen for a cute guy at school, Nick, who brings a bit of chaos into things. Foxy also has an assistant, Knot, who is great at selling her antiques but not so great with her own love life. And then there is Foxy’s new tenant, Myron, who is hoarding vials of blood for some mysterious reason. A Romancing the Book website contributor noted: “Foxy’s Tale is humorous, engaging, and a bit confusing. I definitely recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor that likes chick lit, paranormal, a little romance, a lot of laughs, and a few young adults who capture the story.”
Gschwandtner turns to paranormal romance in Carla’s Secret, part of her “Wish Granters” series. Carla Patterson does have a secret, a violent attack in her youth that she thought she had left behind, now building a successful life with a restaurant and taking care of strays both two- and four-legged. Then her life changes when she meets a man she feels she could let into her life, Detective Lou Matthews. He is not looking for love, either, but sees the chance for happiness. To help Carla in his decision, Joe and Alanna, two wish granters, are dispatched, but it turns out they also have their own problems to deal with in Transition–the state between life and not life. A Romance Novels in Color website contributor commented: “All in all, it was a great read. … Carla’s Secret was a definite page turner with a satisfying ending. I can’t wait to see where my favorite wish granters end up next.”
The Other New Girl
The Other New Girl is set in the 1960s and features Susannah Greenwood, a sophomore in high school who is sent to Foxhall School, a coed Quaker preparatory academy. There she falls in with the popular group of girls, joins the diving team, and has a romance with a senior. She also makes friends with the other new girl at the school, the socially inept Moll Grimes. The school prides itself on teaching the morals and ethics of the Quaker faith and is led by the strict Miss Margaret Bleaker. Susannah has a sassy side to her nature and enjoys pushing the boundaries, but she is soon caught between loyalty to authority and loyalty to a friend when Moll runs away from the school, shamed by Miss Bleaker. With her job on the line, Bleaker comes to Susannah for help in finding Moll. Now Susannah is confronted with a basic problem: should she help Miss Bleaker or keep Moll’s secret, as she promised she would?
A Children’s Bookwatch reviewer had high praise for this work, commenting: “An impressively crafted novel that reveals author L.B. Gschwandtner’s genuine flair for creating memorable characters and a consistently engaging story, The Other New Girl is unreservedly and wholeheartedly recommended.” Similarly, a Kirkus Reviews critic noted: “Gschwandtner … is a gifted storyteller who ably balances the past and present throughout the novel and never puts a foot wrong. Susannah’s keen observations of life at the school and of her mother’s erratic behavior are sharp and perceptive. … A potent exploration of youth, innocence, and the abuse of authority.” Further praise came from Clarion Reviews contributor Linda Thorlakson, who observed: “The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Children’s Bookwatch, December, 2017, review of The Other New Girl.
Clarion Reviews, November 28, 2017, Linda Thorlakson, review of The Other New Girl.
Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2017, review of The Other New Girl.
ONLINE
Book Sparks, https://gobooksparks.com/ (June 25, 2018), “LB Gschwandtner.”
LB Gschwandtner Website, http://www.lbgschwandtner.com (June 25, 2018).
Novelette Website, http://thenovelette.com/ (June 25, 2018), “LB Gschwandtner.”
Reader Views, https://readerviewsarchives.wordpress.com/ (February 26, 2018), Megan Weiss, review of The Other New Girl.
Romance Novels in Color, http://romancenovelsincolor.com/ (July 17, 2013), review of Carla’s Secret.
Romancing the Book, http://romancing-the-book.com/ (July 27, 2011), review of The Naked Gardener; (June 1, 2012), review of Foxy’s Tale.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Online (Seattle, WA), https://www.seattlepi.com/ (April 26, 2011), Lori Hedgpeth, review of The Naked Gardener.
She Writes Press, https://shewritespress.com/ (June 25, 2018), “LB Gschwandtner.”
LB Gschwandtner's work has appeared in various journals and anthologies. She has received awards from the Writer's Digest and the Lorian Hemingway short fiction competitions.
Books in print and ebook are listed here: The Naked Gardener (upmarket women's fiction), Page Truly and The Journey To Nearandfar (children's middle grade), Shelly's Second Chance (paranormal romance The Wish Granter's book 1), Carla's Secret (paranormal romance The Wish Granter's book 2), Maybelle's Revenge (short story collection), and Foxy's Tale (with Karen Cantwell -- vampire satire).
Her next book, The Other New Girl, will be released on September 26, 2017.
Contact me:
email: lbgschwandtner@gmail.com
website & blog: www.lbgschwandtner.com
LB Gschwandtner has attended numerous fiction writing workshops – the Iowa Writers Workshop and others – studied with Fred Leebron, Bob Bausch, Lary Bloom, Sue Levine and Wally Lamb, won awards in Writers Digest and Lorian Hemingway fiction competitions and published 4 adult novels, one middle grade novel and one collection of quirky short stories. She lives on a tidal creek in Virginia.
About L B Gschwandtner
Artist, writer, magazine editor, businessperson, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend … that sums it up. This site is a way to encompass all my interests and provide a place for emerging writers to share with a community of writers and readers.
About the site
Concept by L B Gschwandtner.
Design, programming and execution by Sara Cormeny at www.paperlantern.com. Thenovelette.com uses WordPress to manage text and Gallery to manage images.
LB Gschwandtner is the author of four adult novels, one middle grade novel, and one collection of quirky short stories. She has attended numerous fiction writing workshops—the Iowa Writers Workshop and others—and studied with Wally Lamb, Lary Bloom, and Suzanne Levine in Praiano, Italy and Fred Leebron and Bob Bausch in the US. She has won writing awards from the Writers Digest and Lorian Hemingway fiction competitions and been published in literary digests and magazines. She lives on a tidal creek in Virginia with her husband of forty-five years, with whom she cofounded the multimedia company Selling Power Inc. LB has been the editor of Selling Power magazine for more than thirty years. She and her husband have three adult daughters and two grandchildren.
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LB Gschwandtner is the author of four adult novels, one middle grade novel, and one collection of quirky short stories. She has attended numerous fiction writing workshops—the Iowa Writers Workshop and others—and studied with Wally Lamb, Lary Bloom, and Suzanne Levine in Praiano, Italy and Fred Leebron and Bob Bausch in the US. She has won writing awards ? Writers Digest? and Lorian Hemingway fiction competitions and been published in literary digests and magazines. She lives on a tidal creek in Virginia with her husband of forty-five years, with whom she cofounded the multimedia company Selling Power Inc. LB has been the editor of Selling Power magazine for more than thirty years. She and her husband have three adult daughters and two grandchildren.
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Fiction author -- latest release = The Other New Girl
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Editor of Selling Power magazine.
Fiction author -- latest release = The Other New girl.
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QUOTE:
An impressively crafted novel that reveals author L. B. Gschwandtner's genuine flair for creating memorable characters and a consistently engaging story, "The Other New Girl" is unreservedly and wholeheartedly recommended
The Other New Girl
Children's Bookwatch.
(Dec. 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
Full Text:
The Other New Girl
L. B. Gschwandtner
She Writes Press
www.shewritespress.com
9781631523069, $16.95, PB, 328pp, www.amazon.com
During her first week at coed Quaker prep Foxhall School, sassy Susannah Greenwood, one of two girls who've entered as sophomores, gets pulled into the cool girls' clique. While the school is instructing her in the moral and ethical tenets of the Quaker faith, the cool girls allow her to enter their world beyond the rule book. But in trying to find a balance between idealistic faith and the reality of a competitive system, Susannah runs afoul of the school's most authoritarian dean and befriends the only other new sophomore, a brainy, socially inept outcast. Then her new friend runs away after being shamed by the dean, and Susannah finds herself caught between the two forces of loyalty and authority: Should she cooperate with the unforgiving, and now vulnerable dean, who, with her job on the line, is pleading for information from Susannah about her runaway friend? Or should she keep the secret she's sworn to protect? An impressively crafted novel that reveals author L. B. Gschwandtner's genuine flair for creating memorable characters and a consistently engaging story, "The Other New Girl" is unreservedly and wholeheartedly recommended for both high school and community library YA Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "The Other New Girl" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $8.69).
Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Other New Girl." Children's Bookwatch, Dec. 2017. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522760082/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=5a04bc06. Accessed 19 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A522760082
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QUOTE:
is a gifted storyteller who ably balances the past and present throughout the novel and never puts a foot wrong. Susannah's keen observations of life at the school and of her mother's erratic behavior are sharp and perceptive.
A potent exploration of youth, innocence, and the abuse of authority
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Gschwandtner, L.B.: THE OTHER NEW GIRL
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 1, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Gschwandtner, L.B. THE OTHER NEW GIRL She Writes Press (Indie Fiction) $16.95 9, 26 ISBN: 978-1-63152-306-9
A surprise encounter prompts a woman to recall her experiences at a parochial school in Gschwandtner's novel. In the early 2000s, Susannah Greenwood travels from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, and on her way to her hotel, she runs into Daria McQueen, a former classmate from Foxhall, a co-ed Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania. The meeting takes Susannah back to the fall of 1960, when she entered the school as a sophomore. Foxhall offers its students a fresh start from tumultuous home lives, and she quickly falls in with a clique of popular girls-- Daria, Jan, Faith, and Brady. She joins the diving team and falls in love with a senior named Wes Ritter and also begins a friendship with another new girl at Foxhall, the academically brilliant but socially awkward Moll Grimes. In addition to classes, Quaker meetings, and dances, Susannah experiences the heavy-handed authority of the stern, unyielding headmistress, Miss Margaret Bleaker, who has high expectations for Foxhall students. The tension resulting from the youthful desire to test boundaries eventually culminates in a dramatic misuse of power with devastating consequences for Moll and Miss Bleaker, leaving Susannah to ponder the cost of protecting a vulnerable friend. Overall, this is a deftly constructed coming-of-age story with well-drawn characters and the narrative momentum of a thriller. Gschwandtner (Carla's Secret, 2013, etc.) is a gifted storyteller who ably balances the past and present throughout the novel and never puts a foot wrong. Susannah's keen observations of life at the school and of her mother's erratic behavior are sharp and perceptive. As the titular "other new girl," Moll is depicted as bright but painfully shy, offering a sympathetic contrast between Susannah's and Moll's experiences. The supporting characters are equally well-developed; Wes, for example, struggles to reconcile his Quaker faith with his reluctance to register as a conscientious objector, and Miss Bleaker's devotion to her position and the school is shown to be all-consuming. A potent exploration of youth, innocence, and the abuse of authority.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Gschwandtner, L.B.: THE OTHER NEW GIRL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. Book Review
Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502192085/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=f82d0583. Accessed 19 May 2018.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A502192085
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QUOTE:
The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between.
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The Other New Girl
Linda Thorlakson
Clarion Reviews.
(Nov. 28, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 ForeWord https://www.forewordmagazine.net/clarion/reviews.aspx
Full Text:
LB Gschwandtner; THE OTHER NEW GIRL; She Writes Press (Fiction: Literary) 16.95 ISBN: 9781631523069
Byline: Linda Thorlakson
The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between.
The Other New Girl is much more than a suspense-fueled coming-of-age novel.AaAaAeAeAaAeAeA L. B. Gschwandtner employs mystery and metaphor to exca relationships within a unique community. The truths she ultimately exposes -- unadulterated by environment, era, or age -- prove to be universal.
The story, related decades after the fact by Greenwood, one of two new girls who joined a Quaker boarding school's co-ed class, is launched with an abundance of intrigue about what happened to "the other new girl." More immediate mysteries and relationships quickly demote the other girl, though. In the first two thirds of the book, she is as insignificant as a character as she was insignificant to her classmates for the majority of her first semester.
The other new girl earns her appellation by being so bland in appearance and personality that nobody, except Greenwood, knows her name. Until she becomes conspicuous through her absence, Moll is not anything more than an occasional, passive presence in the story.
The book's metaphors and descriptions of people and places are as evocative as they are unobtrusive, enhancing the plot and character development without sacrificing momentum. Even graphic metaphors, such as "After it was all over, a bloodstain the size of a VW Beetle covered the floor under her bed," modestly serve as reminders of the era.
Individuals are fleshed out within moments of being introduced through the distinctive features -- whether a name, demeanor, quirk, favorite object, or dearest diversion -- that best epitomize their complexities. In rare instances, setting descriptions impede forward movement by focusing too much on nearby structures or landscapes that are irrelevant to the book's current trajectory.
Greenwood is a grandmother by the time she narrates the story. She skips forward and backward through her lifetime as she untangles the most alluring loose threads, tugging at suspiciously taut
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ones to see where they might lead.
Suspense emanates as much from strategic gaps in the chronology as it does from the judicious foreshadowing of events yet to take place in the girls' story. Scenes are deftly managed, dropping in and out of sequence in an engaging way. In a few scenes, the sequence is murky, but by the time frustration threatens to pounce, the fog has already lifted.
Just as the other new girl is remembered more for her absence than for her presence, Greenwood's story is all about the self-discovery that comes from sifting truth out from expectations. Who Greenwood becomes has little to do with who she thought she was as a teen and everything to do with how she discovered who she was not.
The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Thorlakson, Linda. "The Other New Girl." Clarion Reviews, 28 Nov. 2017. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517313921/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=4540ca90. Accessed 19 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A517313921
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QUOTE:
All in all, it was a great read. T
Carla’s Secret was a definite page turner with a satisfying ending. I can’t wait to see where my favorite wish granters end up next.
Review of Carla’s Secret (The Wish Granters Book 2) by L.B. Gschwandtner
Jul 172013 by Laurel
Carla Patterson is hiding something. After a violent attack in her youth, Carla was determined to move on with her life. Running a successful, local eatery and taking care of all kinds of strays (human and animal) was only one facet of her life. One night, her life takes a turn as she stumbles across someone who reminds her of everything she’s lost and the one thing she wants.
Enter wish granters, Joe and Alanna. They are under orders from their boss, Morgan, to grant Carla’s wish, if they can figure it out. Along the way, though, they have to deal with their own pasts and current situation, suspended between life and not-life – in Transition.
Detective Lou Matthews is not looking for love, but there’s something about Carla Patterson that calls to him. She’s open, trusting, dependable… a good person. But there’s something behind her eyes. Something that makes him want to protect her.
Wow! Carla is one character that I completely adored. I was rooting for her from the beginning. There was just something about her I loved. She was a woman who was running from her past and closing herself off to love. She’d never let a man near her until Detective Matthews breezed into her life.
Ms. Gschwandtner did an awesome job of propelling me into Carla’s world. The characters seem to come alive on the page. Not only was I invested in Carla, but the author did a great job of weaving the Joe and Alanna’s stories in as well. Ultimately, this is a story about the choice between the past and a possible future. Will Carla make the right choice? Will Alanna and Joe choose to remain wish granters? Will Joe choose to let his partner’s death go?
All in all, it was a great read. This was book 2 in a series. At times, I felt lost because I had not read book 1 and knew nothing about how Joe and Alanna came to be wish granters. There was one loose end that frustrated me, but I have a feeling that it will be addressed as the series continues. But Carla’s Secret was a definite page turner with a satisfying ending. I can’t wait to see where my favorite wish granters end up next.
-Reviewed by Leslie
Buy it now: Amazon
Laurel
Laurel Cremant is an opinionated author and reader of romance with a wicked sense of humor. RNIC was smart (or crazy) to bring her on as a blogger. In 2016 she took over the management of this site and relishes her new title of “Overlord of Awesome”
http://laurelcremant.com
QUOTE:
Foxy’s Tale is humorous, engaging, and a bit confusing. I definitely recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor that likes chick lit, paranormal, a little romance, a lot of laughs, and a few young adults who capture the story.
Review: Foxy’s Tale by Karen Cantwell & L B Gschwandtner
Posted on June 1, 2012 by Jen @ RtB
Foxy’s Tale by Karen Cantwell & L B Gschwandtner
Series: The Reluctant Vampire Series (# 1)
Release Date: March 12, 2011
Publisher: Novelette Books
Pages: 251
Source: Booklending.Com
Foxy Anders, retail spender with no money to spare and former beauty queen with no man in her life, has a teenaged daughter, Amanda, who likes to blog secretly about her biggest problem – Foxy.
Foxy’s assistant, shoe-fettishista Knot,can talk wealthy Washington A-listers into buying Foxy’s antiques but can’t seem to get his love life into the win column.
They’re a quirky threesome to be sure, but when mysterious, bumbling, Myron Standlish arrives on the scene with a suitcase full of Yiddish-isms, he brings along his own set of problems, larger and stranger than all of theirs put together. Oy vey. How will Myron’s personal journey affect their lives? Well … that’s Foxy’s Tale.
Review: I have to say that this is one of the ODDEST books I have read in a long time. I don’t necessarily mean odd in a bad way, it was actually a really cute book that I enjoyed!
Foxy will never win Mother of the Year and a lot of mothers will probably dislike her for how absolutely clueless she is about raising her daughter, Amanda. Yes, I know it’s a book, but really…she makes you wanna throttle her due to how absolutely selfish she is!
Amanda is one of the most captivating young adult protagonists that I’ve read lately. She’s vulnerable, yet strong. She’s very self-sufficient and though she goes through the typical Goth stage that nearly all teens go through, she finds her own path once she starts to gain some confidence in herself.
The other characters – Knot, Myron, Congressman X, and Nick – bring a lot of funny subplots to the book. Knot is your somewhat typical gay guy with a great sense of style, able to cook, in lust with all the wrong men and able to charm the money out of rich women when it comes to selling antiques. Myron is just adorable in that weird, foreign, old man type way. I don’t mean that as a slight, he truly IS a weird old foreign man! I wish there was a bit more depth to Nick and that his story was a little more fleshed out, but overall he was a good match for Amanda.
There were flaws with the editing that could do with some tweaking. There were some random grammar errors – cars have brakes to help slow them down, not breaks. There were a lot of what I felt were unnecessary sentences and some sentences that weren’t really sentences at all that were just thrown in there for no reason other than to add to the word count. BUT, overall, it was an amusing book that kept my attention and has me wanting to read the sequel.
Foxy’s Tale is humorous, engaging, and a bit confusing. I definitely recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor that likes chick lit, paranormal, a little romance, a lot of laughs, and a few young adults who capture the story.
Favorite Quote: “Myron, you are still a putz.”
“The Other New Girl” by LB Gschwandtner
Posted on February 26, 2018 by Reader Views
TheOtherNewGirlTHE OTHER NEW GIRL
LB Gschwandtner
She Writes Press (2017)
ISBN 9781631523069
Reviewed by Megan Weiss for Reader Views (2/18)
“The Other New Girl” by LB Gschwandtner stars Susannah Greenwood, a 15-year-old who is resistant when her parents decide to ship her off to a Quaker boarding school as she’s about to start 10th grade. Upon arrival, she is quickly accepted into a clique of popular girls, while the “other” new girl, Moll, gets lost in the background. Where Susannah is sassy and clever, Moll is fearful and insecure. Yet Susannah finds that the two are some kind of kindred spirits. While they never develop an inseparable bond, Susannah takes it upon herself to take Moll under her wing when possible and help the skittish young girl to become more confident in herself and her abilities.
“The Other New Girl” is a thrill ride from beginning to end, because the pace of the book and the new questions posed with each passing chapter make it hard to put the book down. Susannah is an incredibly strong narrator whose voice pulls a reader through the story effortlessly as she lives through her sophomore year of high school in this strange place. This book falls well into the category of young adult fiction, though it seems that anyone with a penchant for mystery would enjoy the plot. Gschwandtner gives you just enough bait to keep you turning the pages while still leaving enough on the table to have surprises turn up around every corner.
One thing I did notice was that while there was an air of suspense throughout the novel, sometimes emotions seemed to fall a little flat. This may partially be a purposeful literary device, as it is made obvious that our protagonist’s mother suffers from some type of personality disorder. Emotions are something that are made to seem a bit scary, which to a 15-year-old, in general, is quite true. In all, the tone of the story captures that atmosphere of high school wonderfully. Despite taking place some sixty years ago, it is apparent that while technology has evolved and new trends have emerged, teenagers have always been teenagers, and something this book seems to portray is that everyone at some point in their life went through some sort of high school trauma. This was a book that was easy to relate to.
“The Other New Girl” brings a new kind of tension to young adult literature that can often be missing many stories. While I am undoubtedly a huge fan of the traditional young adult romantic comedy type stories, there is something really special about young adult literature that is powerful enough to influence a young person’s thinking. That is what I like most about young adult literature which, unfortunately, often gets overlooked simply due to the name of the genre: it deals with the most fundamental emotional and psychological troubles that we all face in life. Books like “The Other New Girl” are important to the genre and to the world of literature in general because they have real life lessons to offer readers of all ages.
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Reader Views is an Austin, Texas, based company. We started late December 2005 as a book review service. Shortly after the company's birth we expanded into offering a variety of services for authors such as book publicity services, editing, author interviews, literary book awards, as well as coaching to write book proposals.
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QUOTE:
Overall, though, I thought The Naked Gardener was a satisfying read with an underlying female empowerment theme. It left me feeling grateful for the circle of female friends I have and desiring a girls’ weekend with them (although perhaps not canoeing!) I would not hesitate to recommend The Naked Gardener as a subtle, yet fulfilling, read.
Book Review: The Naked Gardener by L.B. Gschwandtner
By LORI HEDGPETH, BLOGCRITICS.ORG Updated 4:56 pm, Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Naked Gardener by L.B. Gschwandtner is like a slow, sweet dance, nothing showy or fancy and not a lot of explosions but with a stable steady progression into women’s friendships.
Main character Katelyn is the naked gardener of the title. That would certainly make her interesting enough — honestly, have you ever met a naked gardener or tried naked gardening? I haven’t, but I found the premise stirred my interest. Katelyn not only gardens naked, but she lives with her boyfriend in a renovated chicken coop on a farm in Vermont during the summers. It’s Katelyn, surprisingly, who is wary of marriage and seemingly happy with the status quo of co-habitating.
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I found the pace of the book to be as leisurely as a Sunday afternoon down south. So much so that I had to remind myself during the course of the book that it takes place in Vermont and not south of Virginia. For that reason, The Naked Gardener may not be for every reader. If you are looking for a book chock full of action, explosions and/or supernatural events, The Naked Gardener is definitely not for you. Rather than the excitement-a-minute found on each page, The Naked Gardener is a study in characters and the diversity found in relationships.
For me, the relationships between Katelyn and the five ladies who accompany her on a canoeing trip is the best part (and majority) of the book. Each woman is individually distinct and brings an engaging aspect to the overall plot. It’s rare that it’s the supporting characters who bring so much shine to a novel, but it so happens in this case. In fact, I enjoyed Erica, Hope, Charlene, Roz and Valerie so much that I hope Ms. Gschwandtner writes a follow up to The Naked Gardener focusing on the exploits of these ladies, either separately or together. Each of them has a worthy story that would make for an excellent follow up.
I did wish, however, that there was a bit more development for Katelyn’s boyfriend Maze who felt a bit lacking to me. We did get some background on his previous relationship but he was very much a secondary character to Katelyn and her coterie of friends.
Overall, though, I thought The Naked Gardener was a satisfying read with an underlying female empowerment theme. It left me feeling grateful for the circle of female friends I have and desiring a girls’ weekend with them (although perhaps not canoeing!) I would not hesitate to recommend The Naked Gardener as a subtle, yet fulfilling, read.
View the original article on blogcritics.org
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Columnist Joel Connelly has written about politics for the P-I since 1973.
Email Joel at joelconnelly@seattlepi.com and follow him on Facebook.
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Beautifully written, artistic, and touching, The Naked Gardner is a novel of coming to terms. Each character has to discover, reveal, and accept who they are, the changes they face, and the lives they are living at that moment in time.
Review: The Naked Gardener by LB Gschwandtner
Posted on July 27, 2011 by Romancing the Book Reviews
The Naked Gardener by LB Gschwandtner
Release Date: August 17,2010
Publisher: CreateSpace
Page Count: 209
Source: from the author
In a remote forest of northern Vermont, Katelyn Cross takes five women on a wilderness canoe trip where they hope to come up with ideas for saving their dying town. Although the river is not always what it seems and the women have not left their problems behind, a painting ritual creates a new way for them to look at the world–and themselves.
Review: Six women, three days, and one river. When I first read the blurb, I was afraid I was about to read Deliverance with women.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Naked Gardener is the story of six women of varying ages, walks of life, and personalities coming into themselves. It’s a poignant story of discovery, self-acceptance, and understanding.
Katelyn had always wanted to canoe down the Trout River, more specifically the Trout River Falls.
And when the women of the city council need a gimmick to save their dying town, the ladies use brainstorming ideas as the perfect excuse for the “girls only” weekend canoe trip. It is the quintessential “girls night out”–on steroids.
But the trip turns out to be much more than a way to figure out how to save the town. Each woman brings her own individual angst, issues, and problems on what turns out to be a very enlightening and fateful trip.
Beautifully written, artistic, and touching, The Naked Gardner is a novel of coming to terms. Each character has to discover, reveal, and accept who they are, the changes they face, and the lives they are living at that moment in time.
There’s a piece of every one of these women in us all. Hope the virgin, Valerie the aging beauty queen, and Katelyn who’s afraid to get her heart broken again. As for the others? Well, I can’t spoil the story. You’ll just have to read it for yourself.
Quote: From Katelyn “Artists have all of the same struggles everyone else has. Except they rarely make enough money to live on, and they have the extra burden of being pushed internally by ideas and visions that nobody else has. It’s not a decision. It’s built in.”
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