Happy Monday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for GIRL OVERBOARD! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Sandra Block to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so excited to for you to find out more about it!
Girl Overboard by Sandra Block Published on May 3, 2022 by Underlined
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller, YA
Pages: 256
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram
This fast-paced thriller about a girl who investigates her friend's disappearance during their cruise ship vacation is Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 for teens--and it's a paperback original!
Izzy is reaching peak boredom on a cruise with her parents until she meets daring new friend Jade, with whom Izzy can barely keep up. But a shock wave runs through the cruise ship when Jade goes missing in the middle of the night, leaving behind a cryptic note.
Izzy digs deeper into Jade's disappearance, but someone doesn't want to find the truth. And if she's not careful, Izzy might not get off this ship alive . . .
Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror paperback original titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it.
What would you do if you spent the day with Izzy? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?
First off, we would go to a bookstore of course! We’d leisurely browse around our local indie Talking Leaves or good old B&N. Izzy’s always hungry, so afterwards we’d hop over to the Original Pancake House near my house. Then we’d walk my adorable dog, because she’s adorable and Izzy would love to meet her of course. ☺
If Izzy were to hang out with other fictional characters, who would they be and why?
I’d say she’d love hanging out with Dash and Lily, from the Rachel Cohn and David Levithan YA holiday romance. If you haven’t read it (or seen the Netflix version), Lily leaves a red note-book of dares on a bookstore shelf for some lucky passerby to discover. When Dash finds it, he plunges ahead with the first dare, and returns the favor with dares of his own. Just like Lily, Izzy feels brainy and insecure, so they would be bookish friends. And I have a feeling she would fall for Dash too, (if she ever gets over Luke.)
If there was one fictional place you could travel to for a day, where would it be and why?
I’m going to cheat here. I would go to Newcastle in the Northumberland. Yes, this is a real place. But, no, there is no police station there, and no DCI Vera Stanhope from the Ann Cleeves novels. Still, I would love to tag along with the no-nonsense Vera on a murder case (fictional of course), walking through the moors, or along the moody beachside on the river Tyne. Fun fact: they actually offer half and full day Northumberland tours to Vera filming locations! I would sign up, but not sure I could convince my kids to come along for the ride.
If you buried a time capsule with three items inside, what three items would you choose and why?
- A mask. We might still be using them twenty years from now or not, but the item would be a shorthand way to remember the pandemic, especially in the first disjointed, mind-boggling months.
- A program for a Sabres game. I am a rabid hockey fan, and my beloved Buffalo team might finally be on a cusp of success. Once we’ve won a few Stanley cups, it’ll be fun to look back at where it all started.
- A copy of the New York Times review for my debut, Little Black Lies. Yes, I still have the newspaper!
What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?
I’ll turn this around and mention a bit of research that I did end up unintentionally using. In my original version of Girl Overboard, Izzy’s mom uses a paperclip to jimmy open a lock. Rock star (and NYT best-selling author) April Henry was kind enough to read and blurb the book. She also schooled me on the art of lock-picking, which requires two wires, one as a pick, and one as a tensioner. As she routinely posts her Houdini-like escapes from hand-cuffs on Twitter, I listened to her advice! We solved the problem by having the industrious mom snap the paperclip into two pieces.
What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Girl Overboard?
My favorite scene would be where Izzy and Jade, her new, thrill-seeking, rule-bending friend sneak into another passengers’ room to steal from their mini-bar. Of course, the passenger-couple comes back to the room, forcing Izzy and Jade to dash under the bed. There they lie, holding their breath, as the couple debates a romp in the sheets. Thankfully, they decide on a bird-watching lesson instead, and the girls flee from the room as quickly as they can!
About Sandra Block
Sandra A. Block graduated from college at Harvard, then returned to her native land of Buffalo, New York for medical training and never left. She is a practicing neurologist and proud Sabres fan, and lives at home with her husband, two children, and impetuous yellow lab. Her work has been published in the Washington Post. Little Black Lies is her debut, a finalist in the International Thriller Awards, and The Girl Without a Name and The Secret Room are the other books in the Zoe Goldman series, and What Happened That Night her standalone. Girl Overboard is her first Young Adult thriller.
What do you think about Girl Overboard? Have you added it to your tbr yet? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
