Front and Center

October 4, 2009

Fan favorite D.J. Schwenk is back!!Front and Center

FRONT AND CENTER
Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
$16.00 Hardcover
ISBN 978-0-618-95982-2
Teen fiction set in small town Wisconsin

This season, D.J. Schwenk steps behind the free-throw line to confront the perils of love and life in this highly anticipated final book in Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen trilogy.

 ”This time D.J. spends her junior year in high school dealing with basketball, boys, and the Big Ten, not necessarily in that order. It’s fun to watch how she perseveres over her various challenges and develops the courage to make difficult decisions.  I’d like to see how D.J. deals with the future she has chosen!”
– Carl Wichman, NDSU Bookstore, Fargo, ND

“Hysterically laugh-out-loud funny. And inspiring. I loved it.”
—Kristin Cashore, author of Graceling

Catherine Gilbert Murdock burst on to the scene of young adult literature with her debut novel, Dairy Queen, winner of  the 2007 Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, the 2007 Great Lakes Booksellers Children’s Literature Award, the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award, and Borders’ Original Voices Award. Reviewers, booksellers, and readers from across the country embraced D.J. Schwenk, rejoicing in her refreshing honesty, wit, and, most of all, determination to do something different. Dairy Queen’s sequel, The Off Season, soon followed and met with the same success, prompting e-mails from teens celebrating the return of D.J. and thanking Murdock for creating someone to whom they could relate.

To give her fans a chance to talk with Catherine Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is hosting a D.J. Schwenk Fan Club meeting on Facebook, on publication date—October 19, 2009—where readers can interact with Catherine, win books and prizes, and connect with each other.  Join the action and sign up today for Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Facebook fan page!

In addition to this online outreach, Ms. Murdock is visiting schools, bookseller trade shows, and stores throughout the Midwest.

FRONT AND CENTER is perfect for teen book clubs and reading groups!  October is National Reading Group Month, so get your group together to read and discuss this terrific new Dairy Queen novel!

Featured now in the 2009 MBA Catalog –
Books – A Reader’s Catalog
– at participating MBA member bookstores!

Be sure to buy this book from your favorite locally owned and operated Midwest independent bookseller!
Click here for the directory of our member bookstores.

MBA BOOKSELLER INFORMATION

Booksellers — Earn up to $100 in rebates from MBA for promoting FRONT AND CENTER! 
Midwest Connections rebate form for FRONT AND CENTER (PDF)

FRONT AND CENTER is available from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Fujii Associates, or from your preferred wholesaler.  Be sure to contact your HMH or Fujii rep for more information about this title.

FRONT AND CENTER will be featured in the 2009 MBA Catalog, which will be available at the beginning of November.

If you would like to inquire about setting up bookstore or reading group events or phoners with author Catherine Gilbert Murdock, please contact publicist Karen Walsh, 617.351.3647, Karen.Walsh@hmhpub.com.

MBA and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt want your comments and reviews for this new novel that’s sure to be a hit with teen readers.  Please send them to us so we can share your endorsements with your fellow MBA booksellers and with your customers!

Also available:

DAIRY QUEEN, ISBN 978-0618863358, $8.99 trade paperback
THE OFF SEASON, ISBN 978-0618934935, $8.99 trade paperback

DOWNLOADS

ABOUT THE BOOK

Front and Center finds D.J. Schwenk back in Red Bend, Wisconsin, planning to fade right back into the background where she’s comfortable. Turns out that other folks have big plans for D.J. Like her coach. College scouts. All the town hoops fans. A certain Red Bend junior who’s keen for romance and karaoke. Not to mention Brian Nelson, whom she really shouldn’t be thinking about! Whom she’s done with, thank you very much. But who keeps showing up anyway . . .

 For Murdock, the success of the Dairy Queen books came as quite a surprise. She never meant to write a sequel, much less a third book, but the volume of fan mail was overwhelming and the demand from readers so great that she soon found herself thinking about what else was in store for D.J. and her family. When asked about the volume of this mail and its intensity, Murdock says, “I don’t know if it’s her personality or her voice or her everygirl quality, but D.J. inspires the most passionate, heartfelt, unvarnished—certainly un-spellchecked!—correspondence I’ve ever seen. At first I thought this was normal for authors, even though my agent and editor kept saying no. Now that Princess Ben has been out for a year, I finally understand how right they are. My Princess Ben mail is lovely: ‘Thank you for the wonderful book. Please write more fairy tales, as I truly enjoyed your volume.’ Whereas DQ and TOS produce—and I quote—‘Your my favorite author . . . You are an exceptional righter.’ Isn’t that completely endearing?” Though she finds herself thinking about what might happen to D.J. when she enters college, Murdock has decided to allow herself—and her readers—to answer those questions individually.

 Since their debut in 2006, the books in the Dairy Queen series have sold nearly 150,000 copies in hardcover and paperback and continue to be nominated for numerous young reader awards, including nominations in Illinois, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Washington.

 ABOUT THE AUTHORmurdock$catherine_hres

Catherine Gilbert Murdock and her sister, the best-selling novelist Elizabeth Gilbert, grew up on a tiny farm in Connecticut. She now lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and two children, where she is slowly transforming her yard into a wee but flourishing ecosystem. In addition to her books in the Dairy Queen trilogy, Ms. Murdock is the creator of Princess Ben, a delightful fractured fairy tale that received numerous starred reviews and was welcomed by fantasy readers everywhere.

Please visit Ms. Murdock’s website, www.catherinemurdock.com , for more information about the author, including glimpses of her work in progress, discussion questions for readers, an up-to-date appearance schedule, and playlists of songs that kept her going while writing!

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