Books Direct: "The Princess of Baker Street" by Mia Kerick

REVIEW and GIVEAWAY

The Princess of Baker Street

by Mia Kerick

The Princess of Baker Street by Mia Kerick is currently on tour with Xpresso Book Tours. The tour stops here today for my review, an excerpt, and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.

For more books by this author, please check out my blog post on The Weekend Bucket List, my blog post on My Crunchy Life, my blog post on Love Spell, and my blog post on The Art of Hero Worship.

Description

“Always wear your imaginary crown” is Joey Kinkaid’s motto. For years, Joey, assigned male at birth, led the Baker Street kids in daring and imaginative fantasy adventures, but now that they’re teenagers, being a princess is no longer quite so cool. Especially for a child who is seen by the world as a boy.

Eric Sinclair has always been Joey’s best friend and admirer - Prince Eric to Joey’s Princess Ariel - but middle school puts major distance between them. As Eric’s own life takes a dangerous turn for the worse, he stands by and watches as Joey - who persists in dressing and acting too much like a Disney princess for anybody’s comfort - gets bullied. Eric doesn’t like turning his back on Joey, but he’s learned that the secret to teenage survival, especially with an absent mother, is to fly under the radar.

But when Joey finally accepts who she is and comes to school wearing lip gloss, leggings, and a silky pink scarf, the bullies make her life such a misery that she decides to end it all. Eric, in turn, must decide who he really is and what side he wants to stand on … though no matter what he chooses, the consequences with be profound for both teens, and they’ll face them for years to come.

Is there a chance the two teens can be friends again, and maybe even more?

Excerpt

Every day’s basically the same—it’s like the lunchtime bullying plan is set in stone, and it’s only the end of September. And it’s way worse than it was last year, even though he sat alone then too. Travis gets to sit at the jock table, seeing as he’s on the county football team. He starts in on Joey as soon as he sets his rear end on the bench and drops his lunch tray onto the sticky table. For Travis, “bullying Josie” is sort of like a bad habit he just can’t kick. But I’m pretty sure he’d say it’s more like a hobby he’s real good at.

“All the way through sixth grade, Kinkaid wore a dress, like, every day after school—I kid you not.” He announces this loud enough for the jocks and the entire hot-girl table, and of course, lonely Joey, to hear. And even though Joey wasn’t hiding that he wore his mom’s purple dress after school when we all played together, blabbing about it makes me feel like we’re ratting him out.

An imaginary knife stabs into my gut and twists around. I try not to squirm and to keep my face blank, but it’s next to impossible because my belly hurts like I’m having a baby.

“You’ve got to be kidding me—he wore a freaking dress?” Miles Maroney is always the first guy to jump in whenever things start getting mean and dirty. “But I betcha Josie looked cute, if you go for gays.”

We all laugh, and I mean all of us.

I laugh even though I don’t want to. Because I still remember how it was: Joey was the Princess of Baker Street, and Travis and Emily and Lily and me all looked up to him as much as middle school kids look up to the guys on the soccer team now. Joey was the neighborhood kid with all the best ideas. None of us cared what he wore out to play—not even Travis.

“What a freaking princess!” yells Noah Mayer, and we all laugh some more because Noah is the starting forward on the soccer team, and we pretty much have to laugh at everything he says when he’s trying to be funny, or he won’t pass to us. Maybe I forgot to pay my brain bill, but I know how shit like this works.

[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]

Praise for the Book

“What a fantastic story. Heartwarming, sad, and brave! I have never read a Mia Kerick book before, but kudos to her for being such a brave edgy writer! This left me definitely wanting to read more.” ~ Wall-to-wall books

“This book tore my heart up in the best ways. […] This book is so beautifully written and so heartbreaking at the same time. […] This is a special book.” ~ DiverseReader

Mia Kerick’s young adult coming of age novel, The Princess of Baker Street, is a beautifully written and compelling story about a transgender teen and her childhood friends. I loved witnessing the story through Eric’s eyes and felt for him as he struggled to keep his awful home situation a secret. While Joey’s story is the dominant theme here, Eric’s tale is equally transfixing, and their interactions make this coming of age novel an unforgettable one. Kerick’s depiction of a transgender teen and the stresses and strains of life both at home and in school experienced by her is right on point. Kerick’s characters are remarkably real, and her storytelling is powerful. The Princess of Baker Street is most highly recommended.” ~ Jack Magnus for Readers’ Favorite

“The story was a perfect portrayal of how things change as children grow older. Their innocence and acceptance is replaced by what adults and society ingrain in them as the ‘norm’.” ~ Shirley

My Review

By Lynda Dickson

Eric and Joey have been friends all their lives, but things change when they start middle school. Joey defies gender norms and has always been a bit of a princess. Eric decides it’s time to ditch him for a more popular crew, the jocks, which includes Travis, also once Joey’s childhood friend but now his biggest bully. Eric has problems of his own, but Joey takes most of the attention off him and he can hide in plain sight. Eric’s home situation goes from bad to worse, while his relationship with Joey progresses to a whole new level, making it harder and harder for him to remain inconspicuous. Eric must decide which is more important, self-preservation or loyalty. Will he make the right choice?

The story is told from Eric’s point-of-view with flashbacks to his childhood with the other Baker Street kids. His grammatically incorrect narration and conversational tone provide him with an authentic his voice. It’s sad to see how Eric’s mother is physically absent, yet always present in Eric’s mind. He never openly resents her and places so much credence in her quirky sayings, drawing on her words of wisdom whenever he’s in trouble. The author presents Joey as a believable character, giving us a clear and accessible description of both the physical and emotional sides of being a transgender youth. This is a heartbreaking story of two damaged souls who don’t yet realize they are the only ones keeping each other alive. Thankfully, the book ends on an uplifting note. The only problems I had were with characters being called alternately by their first or last names (which can become confusing) and the similarity between Eric’s and Joey’s last names (Sinclair and Kincaid).

Warnings: LGBTQ themes, bullying, attempted suicide, child abuse.

About the Author

Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children - a daughter in law school, another a professional dancer, a third studying at Mia’s alma mater, Boston College, and her lone son off to Syracuse. She writes LGBTQ romance when not editing National Honor Society essays, offering opinions on college and law school applications, helping to create dance bios, and reviewing English papers. Her husband of twenty-four years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about this, as it is a sensitive subject.

Mia focuses her stories on emotional growth in turbulent relationships. As she has a great affinity for the tortured hero, there is, at minimum, one in each book. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with tales of said tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to her wonderful publishers for providing alternate places to stash her stories.

Her books have been featured in Kirkus Reviews magazine and have won Rainbow Awards for Best Transgender Contemporary Romance and Best YA Lesbian Fiction, a Reader Views’ Book by Book Publicity Literary Award, the Jack Eadon Award for Best Book in Contemporary Drama, an Indie Fab Award, a Royal Dragonfly Award for Cultural Diversity, a Story Monsters Purple Dragonfly Award for Young Adult e-book Fiction, among other awards.

Mia Kerick is a social liberal and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of human rights. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.