Waiting on Wednesday: Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakley Cartwright and David Leslie Johnson

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Description

The body of a young girl is discovered in a field of wheat. Her flesh mutilated by telltale claw marks. The Wolf has broken the peace. When Valerie learns that her sister has been killed by the legendary creature, she finds herself at the center of a dark mystery, one that has plagued her village for generations. It is revealed that the werewolf lives among them, and everyone in the village immediately becomes a suspect. Could her secret love Peter be behind the attacks on her town? Is it her betrothed, Henry? Or someone even closer to her? As the men in the village hunt for the beast, Valerie turns to her grandmother for help. She gives Valerie a handmade red riding cloak, and guides her through the web of lies and deception that has held her town together for so long. Will Valerie discover the werewolf's identity before the town is ripped apart? This is a dangerous new vision of a classic fairy tale, the happy ending could be hard to find. 

About the Author

Sarah Blakley-Cartwright is twenty-two years old and is a recent cum laude graduate of Barnard College, the greatest place on earth. She is the recipient of the 2008-2009 Mary Gordon Fiction Scholarship Award and the 2009-2010 Lenore Marshall Barnard Prize for Prose. She splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. Despite what the book may say, she actually prefers wolves to people.

Raised in Mansfield, Ohio, David Leslie Johnson began writing plays in the second grade and wrote his first screenplay at age nineteen. A graduate of Ohio State University in Columbus with a bachelor of fine arts degree in photography and cinema, Johnson worked as a production assistant on the Academy Award-nominated film The Shawshank Redemption, and spent five years as an assistant to the film's director and writer, Frank Darabont. Most recently Johnson wrote an original screenplay for the film Red Riding Hood, directed by Catherine Hardwicke and he has several projects in development. Johnson lives in Burbank, California, with his wife, screenwriter Kimberly Lofstrom Johnson, and their son, Samuel.

Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Poppy (January 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316176044
• ISBN-13: 978-0316176040

Full disclosure:  I know one of the authors....