Guest Post and Giveaway: Katie McGarry CLOSED

Today I have the lovely Katie McGarry on the blog to talk a little about her top five YA romances. The woman has good taste – I love Perfect Chemistry and Something Like Normal!

1. Perfect Chemistry ­by Simone Elkeles – I absolutely fell in love with this book and read it in less than twenty-four hours. It is a must-read for fans of realistic contemporary YA romance fiction!

2. Alice in Zombieland  by Gena Showalter – I’ve read the first two books in this series. Okay, you caught me – I’ve read the first two books in this series multiple times. It involves a group of teenagers who fight zombies, and more importantly, there is a very hot guy named Cole. I adore Cole.

3. Stir Me Up by Sabrina Elkins – I was absolutely hooked on this book by page twenty. Sabrina does a fantastic job of highlighting the vulnerabilities of a teenager who is becoming an adult. To top it all off, there is a gorgeous wounded Marine.

4. Something Like Normal by Trish Doller – People who follow me on social media have probably heard me rave about this book and Trish Doller. This is one of the best books I’ve read, plus it is one of the best books from a boy’s point of view. All I can say is hot guy saving baby seea turtles. That is all.

5. Twilight – I can expect to get some gleeful clapping and some eye rolling on this pick. There’s a reason why it’s on the list and I’ve decided, for the first time, to share my reason why.

The fourth book of the Twilight series was about to be released when I first picked up this title. Several people had mentioned it to me, but I sort of shrugged it off. Finally, to get people to stop bothering me about it, I bought the book and read it.

And I read it.

And I read it again.

I should probably paint a picture of my backdrop. At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom of three very, very young children. My husband was working easily sixty hours a week, plus he was working on his Master’s degree. He was hardly home and when he was home, he was either tackling schoolwork or sleeping.

I wasn’t mad at him. This was a joint decision we had made to improve our family, but still...I missed him.

Life was like this for a couple of years and then I read Twilight. One night, I was downstairs at the kitchen table flipping through my favourite scenes when my husband sat down beside me and asked why I liked the book so much.

When I looked up, he had dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a mess and he had a few days’ rough stubble on his jaw. He should have been upstairs asleep, but instead he hunted me out.

My forehead wrinkled as I flipped through the pages, trying to find the right answer and when it hit me, I honestly swayed. It had nothing to do with the book, it had everything to do with the man sitting next to me. “You used to love me so much that I could barely breathe when you looked at me.” A lot like the way Bella felt around Edward.

He placed his hand over mine and squeezed. “I still love you like that.”

Warm tears filled my eyes and that one statement was able to help me get through the last two years of his degree.

So, yeah, Twilight is a favourite.

Thank you so much, Katie. That’s a wonderful story.

To read more of Katie’s writing, I’d strongly suggest entering my contest to win one of two sets of all three Pushing the Limits novels thanks to MiraInk! Simply fill in the rafflecopter form below and cross your fingers!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only, ends Monday 4^th February at 6pm GMT.

Good luck!

EDIT: the winners have now been drawn and contacted. 

Sophie