Published by: Martin Sisters Publishing
Publication date: Summer 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Sole Eaby, seventeen, has a few complaints he’d like to lodge against life, the main one being that his dad, Cedro, has recently quit his job and withdrawn his entire life savings, which included Sole’s college fund. Why? To launch a food truck business he knows nothing about.
To cope, Sole uses his knifelike wit to moonlight as a stand-up comedian, and so far, it’s paying off. He’s not only replenishing his college treasury, he’s making people laugh; but it’s one person in particular he performs for. Her name is Ava. When the fated bond of humor joins the two, and they begin a sort of quasi-romance, things begin to seem somewhat bearable. Of course, that’s when an ill-timed event decides to put another spin on things. Just when Sole is ready to move on with his own life and disconnect himself from his father and the family business, he suddenly finds himself in charge of the food truck he desperately loathes. Here is where Sole must realize that the answers to love and life are not to be found apart but, rather, are more like a savory recipe: only by combining the ingredients will the wonderful flavors reveal themselves. When comedy isn’t enough, the future seems ever bleak, and a fledgling love has barely had a chance to bloom, where will Sole turn?
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H.A.'s love for all things caffeinated is what keeps him awake and alert so he can pursue that glorious tyrant called Nostalgia. And after all, isn't that what provokes most adult authors to write stories about the teenage years they long ago left behind (referring to Nostalgia, not the caffeine...he hopes)? When he isn't writing, H.A. can be found quaffing coffee (Yes, he might be addicted--don't judge) reading, riding his bike, snapping photos, making music, working on his theory of everything, and, on rare occasions, attempting to discover the elusive, and maybe impossible, secret to time travel. H.A. lives in So Cal. Street Food and Love is H.A.'s first novel.
Author links:
Author Interview:
Have
you always wanted to be a writer?
I've
actually known I've wanted to be a writer since I was twelve. The brief excerpt
of that mini epiphany is on my website’s FAQ's. As for YA, I didn’t know I
actually wanted to write for young adults until about eight years ago. This
book made it through the publication portal, but there are other predecessors
on my hard drive, many young adults megabyte format wondering why they never
got to graduate from being mere Word docs to full blown, bound, edited and
printed books.
If
you were a dish on a food truck, what would you be called?
I
would be a patty of thick, ground, kobe beef, topped with cheese, caramelized
onion, tomato, guacamole and a special sauce, all between buttered and toasted,
thick sourdough. I’m simple, like a burger, but I am also not just your regular
driver through or diner burger either (does this sound like some dating site
profile? Ha!). In any case, it would be called the Soul Melt because more than
deeply satisfying the palate, it would penetrate the soul of anyone who ate it.
P.S. I really am into the world “soul” and all it connotates.
Novelists
who inspired you?
The
list is long. In YA we have Sarah Dessen, Gary Schmidt, Caroline Cooney, Ned
Vizzini, I will add that not many people mention Vizzini—God rest his talented
soul, and it’s shocking. He’s been considered a pioneer of the modern YA lit
genre, and I agree. Hopefully, I see him on the other side and we can collaborate.
Talk
about YA Lit.
It
is summarily different than it used to be even twelve years ago. And pre
2000’s—forget it. That was like reading Homer. Seriously, I mean you have to
practice writing effective scenes during commercials (do don’t delete them, you
aspiring YA writers, from your DVR. They may prove to be useful yet) in order
to match the pace of the current ideal YA. Secondly, don’t forget the lingo the
characters used in your favorite sitcom right before the commercial. It should
be transposed to your novel. Remember they used to teach, “Don’t write how you
speak”? Not so anymore. Those teachers, apparently, were wrong. And no, I
haven’t perfectly mastered the art of copy-matching-and-pacing at commercial
speed in my writing style. you remember reading with a dictionary handy? Hey,
with apps now, it should be easier, except that rarely do YA books require
readers to have to use one anymore. Remember when you read something and went
WTF? Even after three reads! And it wasn’t because you checked out. Sometimes
it was like the writer just wrote and invited you to his house but said,
“There’s the fridge and stove. If you’re hungry, do your best.” I’m not saying
I don’t appreciate what is happening now and don’t get it, I do and am not
against it. But something in my writing approach still doesn’t mind if readers
are expected to sort of work through certain language tones and aspects.
Love
and romance aren’t depicted the way the YA genre seems to be going in your
novel. Why?
Have
you been around a high school aged lately? Till death do us part, mad love
isn’t en vogue. Most young adults aren’t really sure where love fits into their
lives, and to begin to truly to answer that is scary enough for many people,
let alone young people. I wanted Sole to reflect a kid who didn’t just zero in
on one girl and know she was the one. That’s usually not how it works anyway,
at least not when your age still has “teen” as a suffix. As for Ava, many young
girls with allure have older guys after them, and that’s why I wanted to show
that in the first chapters. That’s reality for many young adult girls of her
capacity. Sometimes, too, they chose those guys. I don’t think this makes my
book not YA. Upper YA? Sure. But still YA definitely.
I
sense an intentional avenue in your book carved out, specifically referring to
your focus of a father and son conflict. Explain that.
Well,
it’s got nothing to do with my own relationship with my father. We have an
outstanding and close one. But you’re correct about the father and son aspect.
Many fathers take a backseat in literature or are two dimensional caricatures
who are hands off and don’t really permeate the minds of the young adult
protagonist. Really? That is most dads? Huh... Anyway, I wanted to write not for
guys, but so that guys could related to the literature as easily as girls could
and do. Let’s face it: girl readers vastly outnumber young males, and I sort of
wanted both to equally relate here. I can say I’ll probably continue to develop
that in other novels.
You
have a lot of comedy in your book.
What’s the best joke (keep u clean) that you’ve ever heard?
I
heard Dennis Miller onstage and, though I’m not saying this is my favorite,
I’ll mention it because it just came to mind: he was speaking of the past and
with subtlety, in his verbal memoir, he said, “It was hot back then...” and he
paused. It was all about the way he said it. The audience slowly got it. Then
he said, “The sun was still hot then, right?” He was comparing it to the way
people think the past happened in black and white. The genius was, he didn’t
even have to say that part to get audience in on it. Brilliant.
Are
any of the characters in the book based off of someone you know?
Most
characters are concoctions of many people in various forms—those we know, those
we’ve heard about, those we’d like to know and those we knew. Once you
put all that together, my answer, like a writer, would technically be kind of
but not really. Not very technical, is it...
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