List mania.

The Absolute Value of -1 appears on a couple of lists this morning.

Kelly at Stacked lists her favorites of 2010. A taste: "Brezenoff's book is the perfect tale of the average kid navigating the tricky terrain, the painful events, and the completely normal aspects of being a teenager in high school."

And Jamie at Bookmarked Reviews includes |-1| on her favorite debuts of the year. "...I think it's probably the most under-appreciated debut of the year." Thanks!

A guest post from Mindi Scott

Today we've got a guest post from fellow Tenner Mindi Scott. This is in fact the FINAL Tenner guest post, because--as you may have noticed--the Tenner year is just about over now. The last Tenner release was last week, I think. I can hardly believe it's gone.

But I digress. I have a tendency to do that. Back to Mindi.

Mindi's debut, FREEFALL, from Simon Pulse (where I totally used to work, thankyouverymuch), is an achievement of the highest magnitude. Seth McCoy is a well realized, superbly voice, and completely believable protagonist. His story is difficult and deep, and Mindi handles the dark and light equally well. It's a fantastic debut, and it's been out since early October, so you should have read it by now.

And now, here's Mindi's guest blog on the usual guest blog theme: fish out of water.

People are always asking authors whether the characters in their books are inspired by people they know in real life. For Freefall, my answer to that question is "no," especially in regards to Seth McCoy, my narrator. He's probably the most truly fictional character I've ever created.

There are a few things that I have in common with him, though. One of those is that the first time I stepped foot at a country club, I felt like a fish out of water. Everything was so elegant and everyone there who wasn't me seemed so oblivious. Like, it was just an ordinary day at an ordinary place, la la la, who cares!

In my book, there is a scene where Seth visits a country club for the first time. The narrative is very much filtered through his point of view and in his voice, of course, but the out-of-placeness he experiences is similar to mine . . . which is cool, because it makes me feel less alone and stuff. ;-)

Thanks, Mindi! Here are some links and such for more info on Freefall and Mindi.

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Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Freefall-Mindi-Scott/dp/1442402784/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283449255&sr=8-1

Links about Mindi:

http://mindiscott.com/
http://twitter.com/mindi_scott
http://www.youtube.com/user/authormindiscott
http://www.thecontemps.com/

And the trailer for FREEFALL: