NICOLA MORGAN

NOTE: there’s a special blog for WASTED, and that’s where the chat and info is. I have stacks of different activities and things to think about. Hop over and join as a follower. You can add reviews and comments, too.

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Some review comments:

Rhiana Reads: "I thoroughly recommend Wasted; it has strong vivid characters, romance and originality. It’s thrilling and will leave you breathless at times. It’s thought provoking, dark, edgy, very clever, fun and touching. A truly exciting novel you won’t want to put down."

Amanda Craig in The Times: "Wasted dramatises the power of first love and how easily a young life can be derailed. It’s a gripping, original and stylish read that should cheer teens up by making them sob their eyes out."

The Scribbling SeaSerpent blog review here

Five-star reviews on Amazon - here

"This book feels like a stroke of genius, combining a fast-paced story with romance and danger, success and family drama alongside some seriously thought-provoking happenstance. Fantastic." Bookseller, Cat Anderson

Vanessa Robertson, bookseller - on Twitter @edinbookshop
  Wasted is an outstanding book. If it doesn’t sell hugely and win awards ... there’s no justice.

Clare Donaldson – parent and reader
WOW! I was riveted, from the brilliant first chapter right through to the end - I had to finish it tonight as I didn’t want to be having nightmares. I HAD to know how it (potentially!) ended. Sinister, chilling, contemporary, pacy, thought-provoking and highly original in presentation - if you don’t have huge success with this there is something VERY wrong with the market.

I’ve enjoyed all the books of yours that I have read, particularly "Sleepwalking", but this is in a different league and deserves to attract a whole new set of readers, including adults. You seem to have managed a balance of making it a challenging read but not so challenging as to be overwhelming.

My daughter, at 13, also raced through it and I was fascinated to see how excited she was by it - it’s a while since I’ve seen that particular response from her.

Nikki Heath – school librarian
Oh, my gawd, Nicola! Your book arrived at work today and I brought it home to read. It was supposed to last the weekend but I just could not bring myself to put it down and only reluctantly did so to cook tea. I adore it. Love the apparent randomness that isn’t, the sadness of the 2 mums and the alcoholic mum theme. 2 kids who could have been incredibly messed up but aren’t.

Would happily give it to both girls and lads. Want to go read it again NOW.

It’ll fly off the shelves! It’s such a different format to others out there in a way and I LOVE it!!

It’s just such a shame we broke up yesterday as I can think of at least 40 kids I want to give it to who I know will love it and tell others about it! And a pile of staff in the Reading group. Teens love randomness and a sense of uncertainty and ’Wasted’ does both! Can’t wait for the blog to go live.

Linzi Heads – school librarian
Wow! (More to follow!)

One magazine reviewer is currently writing a review – meanwhile she said “Wasted is the best thing you’ve done.”

Diana Esland – Head of English, The Mary Erskine School
The repetition of the turn of the coin, where the reader can make choices (I read all the options every time because I had to know what the alternatives could be), increased the tension and ratcheted up the need to know which kept the pages turning far into the night. The similarity of the two chapters where choices are made, up to and including the exact point where the change occurred, was fascinating. Jack’s need to let fate decide has echoes of Romeo and Juliet and it makes the reader think about their own habits where luck, or the absence of it is concerned. The tensility of the narrative is gripping and there is a mixture of a kind of shadenfreude mixed with doubt that kept the plot on a tightrope between believability and the hope that there may be a happy ending.

From Lucy Coats - author
Just finished Wasted (and yes, I did play Jack’s Game and it came out heads). I can only say that I was hooked and entranced right from the first page and now I think even more than before about choices and whether or not they will make a difference—I was always horribly superstitious anyway. What a brilliant idea—I love it. And I love seeing all those different angles and aspects of the plot. In both real life and in my writing head I am constantly asking the question ‘what if?’ What would my life be/have been if….What would my characters do if…. Wasted is so absolutely my kind of book, and I know it’s going to get a lot of well-deserved praise and attention.

Iffath at lovereadingx blog – you are a genius! Wasted is awesome! (From Twitter)

Catherine Hughes – reader with teenagers
I’ve read several of Nicola’s books and this is the very best of them. I absolutely adored this book. … Nicola tells me that she isn’t a singer and yet she writes about how it feels to be able to sing with such authenticity and feeling that it brought tears to my eyes. I am lucky enough to have that ability and I know how it feels to silence a room with a song, just as Jess does. I have to confess that the appeal of the book for me lies mainly with its beautifully-drawn characters. I sang in a band as a teenager and I remember it well; ’Wasted’ evokes those memories perfectly.

Middle daughter (13) read ’Wasted’ at the highest speed I’ve yet seen her devour a book. She was absolutely fascinated with the interactivity of the book - the chance to toss a coin herself and become involved with the story. Her favourite character was Jack, but she too recognised how-it-feels-to-sing. And we’ve had a few philosophical discussions prompted by what she’s read in the book.

Jo Treggiari – author and reader, works with teenagers
I just finished Wasted. It kept me up for two nights and it kept me from revising my own book (damn you Nicola). I found it intriguing, exciting, and touching. The different narrative perspectives were unique and interesting, and I liked that we were inside each of the main characters’ heads and also seeing things from the point of view of an omniscient God-like figure. I was so caught up in Jack and Jess’s lives that at the end, when the reader is asked to flip a coin to determine what happens next, I was really nervous. Fantastic, thought-provoking read. Great writing.

Isla – teenage reader
I think “Wasted” is a really good book and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I have never read anything like it before. I especially liked the parts of the book where there are two possible paths for the book to follow, with the slightest variations leading to huge differences in the story. … “Wasted” is definitely a book for deep thinkers. It makes you think of all the possibilities and consequences that could arise from your actions, even just by varying them in the tiniest way. It makes your mind boggle!

As I was reading “Wasted”, I found it hard to put it down! It was gripping and also slightly eerie, what with Kelly and her gang and the knives and the fortune-teller, Farantella. That brings me to the coin and Jack’s Game. What a unique idea!

I also like how you have written the book as though a narrator is reading out the story or watching from above, controlling everything that happens. I think that this is a great way to show that there could be some greater force out there, like “Chance” or “Fate” that can control our every move. It is almost like the narrator is another character in the book, the main character, who controls the destinies of all the other characters.

I really enjoyed reading “Wasted” and would recommend it to other readers of my age or older. I think perhaps you should send a copy to my English teacher, to show her what kind of great books teenagers of this day and age should be reading!

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What is the book about?

A love affair. And the collision of danger, passion and chance. It’s a risky book: it will challenge your mind and maybe change you. It’s for deep readers, readers who like to fly and are prepared to go with me on an unpredictable ride.

The blurb on the back: "Jack worships luck and decides his actions by the flip of a coin. No risk is too great if the coin demands it. Luck brings him Jess, a beautiful singer who will change his life. But Jack’s luck is running out, and soon the stakes are high. As chance and choice unravel, the risks of Jack’s game become terrifyingly clear. An evening of heady recklessness, and suddenly a life hangs in the balance, decided by the toss of a coin. In the end, it is the reader who must choose whether to spin that coin and determine: life or death."

Let me tell you a bit more: A couple of times during the book, the reader watches alternative scenarios unfold. When I was writing it, I tossed a coin to "choose" which one would happen and then one scenario disappeared. You are left wondering, what if... What if the coin had landed the other way? But that’s life - our lives depend on tiny random events, chance meetings, going down that street instead of this one, leaving the house five minutes later, missing a train, saying the wrong thing, making small choices. We aren’t aware of how things would be different, but in WASTED you see how Jack and Jess’s lives are changed by chance.

Here’s an example: Imagine the scene: Jack and Jess in a club, wrapped up in each other. An enemy, Kelly, waits her moment to spike Jess’s drink. Another girl is outside, trying to get past the bouncer, who may or may not let her in. He might be distracted or annoyed: such small things will make all the difference. If she gets in, she’ll distract Jess’s friends and they won’t see the drink being spiked. If she doesn’t get in, Jess’s friends will see what happens and save her.

In WASTED, you see alternative results unfold and disappear as the lives of Jack and Jess spin out of control. Finally, it is you who must take the risk and toss a coin to determine the ending. Their lives are in your hands.

Jack and Jess

Jack and Jess are my favourite characters of any I’ve written about. They are brilliant at music – Jack has a band and Jess joins it as the singer. Jess is gorgeous – amazing half-Italian-half-Norwegian eyes and skin, and Jack is one of those trendy musical types with a clever hair-style and poetic eyes. They meet by chance (and you see exactly how those chances coincide to create a meeting that easily might not have happened) and fancy each other immediately. They are strong, clever, and very ready to leave school and fly out into the world – and in fact, they will both finish school in two weeks. But their lives are not perfect. Jess’s mother is becoming an alcoholic and Jess is worried - Jess’s father left years ago and she knows that her mother is terrified about Jess leaving home. Jess loves her mother - an artist, floaty, flighty, dippy, fragile - but wishes she could be stronger.

 

Jack is obsessed by luck, risk and chance. He was very unlucky as a young child - his mother died twice, by horribly bad luck, which wouldn’t have happened if Jack hadn’t been there.  Although it wasn’t his fault, he can’t help thinking about how easily she might not have died. This obsesses him, so now, aged 18, he often sacrifices himself to luck – by tossing a coin and promising to do whatever the coin says, however dangerous. This is how he thinks he keeps himself lucky, and he thinks that Jess coming into his life is proof of his system, proof that if you spin the coin the right way, make the right choices, take the right turnings, luck will follow.

But Jack’s luck is about to run out, horribly and terrifyingly. And only chance can save him – but will it? At the end of the book I present two endings and before you read them you have to toss a coin to determine the ending for Jack and Jess. Life or death. But you find that it’s not as simple as life or death. You may find that there’s no such thing as luck, or chance, or choice. Which is a scary thought, but Jack and Jess are strong enough to think that deeply.

One more thing I’d like you to know

There’s a scene where a pigeon smashes through a window. This actually happened to me while I was writing Wasted. If it hadn’t, the book would have been quite different, which just goes to prove how chance events affect our lives. I’d love to know if you predict the pigeon incident before it happens...

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Would you like to read an extract?

Go here - it’s on the blog, along with lots more stuff

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