Fire & Ice Blog Hop: Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill - Guest Post + Giveaway

I am sooo happy to be taking part in the Fire & Ice Blog Hop!  I'm also super excited to be featuring the author of my new favorite YA contemporary!  My 4yo daughter even loved the cover so much it inspired this post.  So, without further ado, I'd like to welcome Lauren Morrill, author of Meant to Be, to the blog today!

A lot of my readers have asked me if I'm writing a sequel to Meant to Be, and the answer to that is ... not right now! I wouldn't rule it out, but I'm pretty pleased with how Meant to Be ended. However, I do like to think about what Julia and Jason did after they left London. Which is why I'm bringing you -- exclusively! -- Julia & Jason's first date after they get back to Boston ... well, Cambridge! I think Julia would have insisted on paying a visit to the mothership, aka Harvard University. You know she's busily preparing her application!

Dinner at Bartley's Burger Cottage

Bartley's is a Cambridge landmark, and with Julia and Jason both sharing healthy appetites for junk food, I can only imagine that Bartley's would be one of their favorite places. Julia would order the Tom Brady (a burger topped with cheddar, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, and red onion) and a side of fries, while Jason would favor the Mark Zuckerburg (boursin cheese and bacon) with sweet potato fries. If it was a particularly warm night, they'd take one of the sidewalk tables, where Jason would slip fries to all the passing dogs.

Movie at the Brattle Theater

After dinner, the pair would wander through Harvard Square, stopping for a movie at the historic Brattle Theater. Here, they'd partake of a little Brit flashback, with a double feature of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian. It would be the perfect movie compromise for Julia and Jason: he goes for the slapstick, she goes for the smart British humor. Popcorn and cokes, of course!

Dessert at LA Burdick

After a double feature, they're ready for dessert, and there's no place better than LA Burdick. As much as Julia would like to split a famous chocolate frappe with two straws, they both know they'll need their own! They'd also order an assortment of Burdick's chocolate goodies. Jason would take a bite out of everything, while Julia methodically worked her way through trying to figure out her favorite item. I think she'd be partial to the raspberry macarons, while Jason would be wolfing down their chocolate mice.

A stroll along the Charles

After a sugar boost, Julia and Jason would cap off their evening with a stroll along the Charles River, where Jason would attempt to reenact their London pond plunge (but this time, Julia knows what's up and dodges!).

Thanks for letting me share Julia and Jason's first date with you! It let me relive my four years I spent living in Boston and Cambridge, and if you ever see on Twitter that I'm visiting, you'll now know where to find me! And if you look hard, you might just see one tiny little swimmer with a book in her purse alongside a gangly redhead in a Red Sox cap!

Holy WOW!  I love this post!  Julia & Jason's first date!!!!  And we got to be a part of it!  Thanks ever so much to Lauren Morrill for putting this together for my readers!

Title:  Meant to Be
Author:  Lauren Morrill
Series:  stand-alone
Publisher:  Delacorte
Publication Date:  November 13, 2012
Purchase:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Meant to be or not meant to be . . . that is the question.

It's one thing to fall head over heels into a puddle of hazelnut coffee, and quite another to fall for the—gasp—wrong guy. Straight-A junior Julia may be accident prone, but she's queen of following rules and being prepared. That's why she keeps a pencil sharpener in her purse and a pocket Shakespeare in her, well, pocket. And that's also why she's chosen Mark Bixford, her childhood crush, as her MTB ("meant to be").
 
But this spring break, Julia's rules are about to get defenestrated (SAT word: to be thrown from a window) when she's partnered with her personal nemesis, class-clown Jason, on a school trip to London. After one wild party, Julia starts receiving romantic texts . . . from an unknown number! Jason promises to help discover the identity of her mysterious new suitor if she agrees to break a few rules along the way. And thus begins a wild goose chase through London, leading Julia closer and closer to the biggest surprise of all: true love.
 
Because sometimes the things you least expect are the most meant to be.

About the author:

LAUREN MORRILL grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, where she was a short-term Girl Scout, a (not so) proud member of the marching band, and a trouble-making editor for the school newspaper. She graduated from Indiana University with a major in history and a minor in rock & roll, and now lives in Macon, GA with her husband and their dog, Lucy. When she's not writing, she spends a lot of hours getting knocked around on the track playing roller derby. Meant to Be is her first novel.

Find out more about Lauren & her novels:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

And to support the author and celebrate my love for this book, I'm giving away a Meant to Be prize pack featuring:

• a copy of Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill
• a pocket Shakespeare (you'll understand it's significance once you read MtB)
• a set of Shakespearean magnetic poetry

Rules:

• This giveaway is open to residents of the US only, sorry.  But I do have another international giveaway coming soon!
• One entry per household.
• All entries will be verified.  Any entry found to be falsified will result in disqualification of all entries for that participant.
• Winner will be notified via email.  Winner will then have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be selected.  Please check your SPAM folders!
• I am not responsible for lost packages.

And now on to the fun stuff!  You only have to follow my blog to enter, but all other entries/follows are appreciated!  :D

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you enjoyed this peek at life after Meant to Be for Julia and Jason!  Thanks for stopping by & happy reading!