Blog Tour- Deadly Cool by Gemma Halliday

"First I find out that my boyfriend is cheating on me. Then he’s pegged as the #1 suspect in a murder. And now he’s depending on me to clear his name. Seriously?

As much as I wouldn’t mind watching him squirm, I know that he’s innocent. So I’m brushing off my previously untapped detective skills and getting down to business. But I keep tripping over dead bodies and I’m still no closer to figuring out who did it. And what’s worse: all signs seem to point to me as the killer’s next victim.

I really need to pick a better boyfriend next time."- summary from Big Honcho Media


Gemma Halliday started writing fiction in 2002 and after winning several awards as an unpublished writer, her career kicked into high gear in 2005 when she won RWA's prestigious Golden Heart Award. One month later she was offered her first book contract, saving her from adding another dead-end to her eclectic employment history. After stints in Portland and Los Angeles, Gemma now makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is hard at work on her next book.

and now here's Gemma talking about her teen years:

Thanks so much for having me! On this leg of my DEADLY COOL blog tour, I’m talking about my life as a teen. DEADLY COOL follows sixteen-year-old Hartley Grace Featherstone as she investigates a murder, tries to keep her GPA up, and tries not to fall for her high school’s resident bad boy. Along the way, Hartley finds herself wrapped up in the super cliquey social groups that control Herbert Hoover High School. Since high school social groups play such a huge part of the story, one of my readers recently asked me which social group I belonged to as a teen. And I had to answer: all of them!

The Jocks:

In DEADLY COOL, Hartley’s boyfriend Josh is a total jock. He’s on the cross country team, the water polo team, and just about every other team. Josh’s bedroom is littered with sports trophies. While I wasn’t on every school team imaginable, I did spend my teen years studying marital arts, which meant I spent a fair amount of time training with the jocks in high school. (Just on case you’re wondering, I hold belts in both Tae Kwon Do and American Kenpo, a form of street fighting.) In fact, my high school prom date was a hot karate guy and a totally cute jock. So I can relate to Hartley when she falls hard for Josh.

The Goths:

As Hartley investigates the murder at her school, she comes across a likely suspect in Shiloh, the hot goth girl who hangs out across the street smoking cigarettes at lunch break. I’ll admit, I was Shiloh for a short period of my life. Only back when I was a teen the reigning anti-establishment group were more grunge than goth. (Nirvana, anyone?) I wasn’t actually a smoker, but all my friends were and we delighted in standing just outside the 100 yard boundary from the school where smoking was prohibited. Take that, administration!

The Cheerleaders and Color Guard Girls:

At Hartley’s fictional Herbert Hoover High there are two warring factions: 1) the tattooed, short-skirted, slutt-tastic cheerleaders and 2) the 4.0 GPA, chastity club joining, volunteering Color Guard Girls. Though I never took life to the extreme in either way as a teen, I did have a 4.0 GPA in school and I did try out for cheer my freshman year. Unfortuntely, I did not make the squad as I wasn’t able to do a full side splits. An unrealized skill that haunts me to this day.

So what social group did you belong to as a teen? Even more dishy… which one did you despise as the evil force of your high school?

(P.S. Join me on the next stop of my tour where I’ll be chatting about what I wanted to be when I grew up.)

~Gemma
www.gemmahalliday.com