Welcome to the Prep School Confidential tour! Today, I have a guest post with Kara Taylor, and a giveaway! Enjoy!
Read my review HERE.
Follow the tour HERE.
Meet Kara Taylor!
Read my review HERE.
Follow the tour HERE.
Meet Kara Taylor!
About the Location of Prep School Confidential
Lots of people ask me why I chose to set PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL in Massachusetts. So today I’m going to talk a little bit about what inspired Wheatley, the fictional town outside of Boston where Anne is exiled after being kicked out of her posh Manhattan prep school.
I’m a New Yorker, and I spent a year away at college in Boston. So the silly rivalry between Boston and NYC has always fascinated me. But it’s true: People in New York have total preconceived notions about Bostonians, and vice versa. That’s why Anne feels like a total fish out of water going from a school here:
Upper East Side
Photo Credit: Angela N (via Flickr)
To here:
Cambridge Commons
Photo credit: Christopher Schmidt (via Flickr)
At Anne’s old school in Manhattan, her classmates were the children of rock stars and actors. The type of kids who are always in the gossip column of the New York Post. At her new school in Massachusetts, the kids’ parents have more power than everyone at her old school combined. All of the Wheatley kids are children of politicians, diplomats, and Boston’s elite…Anne even makes friends with a girl who is related to John Adams. (Yes, like the President!)
Wheatley, home to the Wheatley School, was inspired both by Horace Mann, an elite boarding school in New York, and Phillips Academy, Andover Massachusetts. The nickname for the Wheatley School is “Baby Harvard,” and the town of Wheatley is inspired by Cambridge, MA. It’s a quaint town that is known for the looming, prestigious school atop the hill. The Wheatley School is hidden behind iron gates, and surrounded by a lush yet creepy forest. Wheatley is ranked #2 on the list of Safest Prep School Campuses…allegedly.
Moving to Wheatley is a culture shock for Anne, because she was raised in the concrete jungle of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. While Boston is a mere train ride away from Wheatley, there are more trees than Anne has ever seen in her life. Including those in the totally creepy forest…and scene of a brutal murder.
The boarding school setting easily provides for some freaky moments. The Wheatley School is hundreds of years old, and one of the first institutions in New England. Anne never knows where she’ll find a spooky, decades-old message engraved in a wall, or what secrets lay beneath Amherst, the girls’ dormitory. The Wheatley School has a storied history and campus full of secret passages that only the most elite students know about.
Building the world of Wheatley is my favorite part of this series—and also the most important, because Anne will be back at the Wheatley School for the next book in the series (out March 2014).
About the Author:
Kara has a BA in English/Secondary Education from Stony Brook University. She loves New Girl, sushi, and puppets that say rude things. It’s her dream to own a bakery someday.
Kara was inspired to start writing in part by her grandmother giving her Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and in part by her father’s bizarre antics, such as blow-drying his car. Her father looked like Borat in the 80′s.
Kara lives on Long Island with a Chihuahua named Izzy and a kitten named Felix. Her favorite authors are Gillian Flynn, Maureen Johnson, and Nelson Demille. She writes full-time, both on the PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL series and on an untitled television pilot for Warner Brothers Studios.
About the Book:
Prep School Confidential by Kara Taylor
Book One of the Prep School Confidential series
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: July 30, 2013
Summary (from Goodreads):
In this breathtaking debut that reads like Gossip Girl crossed with Twin Peaks, a Queen Bee at a blue-blooded New England prep school stumbles into a murder mystery.
Anne Dowling practically runs her exclusive academy on New York’s Upper East Side—that is, until she accidentally burns part of it down and gets sent to a prestigious boarding school outside of Boston. Determined to make it back to New York, Anne could care less about making friends at the preppy Wheatley School. That is, until her roommate Isabella’s body is found in the woods behind the school.
When everyone else is oddly silent, Anne becomes determined to uncover the truth no matter how many rules she has to break to do it. With the help of Isabella’s twin brother Anthony, and a cute classmate named Brent, Anne discovers that Isabella wasn't quite the innocent nerdy girl she pretended to be. But someone will do anything to stop Anne’s snooping in this fast-paced, unputdownable read—even if it means framing her for Isabella’s murder.
The Giveaway:
