Blog Tour: The Holders by Julianna Scott

I've got something exciting to share: We are lucky enough to be a part of The Holders Blog Tour, which meant I got to read the novel early and got to ask Julianna Scott some questions about herself, her writing and of course The Holders. Enjoy!

Author interview
Allow me to introduce you to Julianna, author of The Holders.

Julianna was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and spent the majority of her educational career convinced she would be a musician. However, after receiving her music degree from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, she realized that she'd been born in the wrong era for her dreams of singing jazz to adoring fans clad in zoot-suits and flapper dresses to come true, and began to wonder if her true calling might be elsewhere.

While Julianna had always excelled in writing throughout school, she'd never considered it a career possibility until about three years ago, when she'd gotten her first story idea and decided to go for it. She grabbed her laptop, started typing away, and has never looked back.

For those who have not yet heard about The Holders, could you give a short summary of the story?

17-year-old Becca has spent her whole life protecting her brother - from their father leaving and from the people who say the voices in his head are unnatural. When two strangers appear with apparent answers to Ryland's "problem" and details about a school in Ireland where Ryland will not only fit in, but prosper, Becca is up in arms.

She reluctantly agrees to join Ryland on his journey and what they find at St. Brigid's is a world beyond their imagination. Little by little they piece together information about their family's heritage and the legend of the Holder race that decrees Ryland is the one they've been waiting for. However things are not as clear as they once were, and everyone is in for a surprise that will forever change what they thought they knew about themselves and their kind.

A lot of people have described The Holders as a new twist to X-Men. How would you describe the novel yourself, in one sentence?

 Hmm… That’s a tricky one. I guess I would say it’s a story about the bonds of family, the power of love, and the strength you can find within yourself if you are brave enough to look.

Becca is very protective over her younger brother and is rather stubborn and determined. In which ways do you recognise yourself in her character?

Well, I am definitely stubborn, and I always think I’m right. ;-) I am also a caregiver and like to take care of my friends and family. To be honest, I think there will always be a little of me in all of my main characters. If I can’t relate to them in some way there is no way I will be able to write their stories.

The Holders is a very interesting story, in different ways. What would its theme song be and why?

This is a hard one for me, because most of the music I listen to is lyric-less. I went to college for music and some of my favorite songs are either classical, or scores to movies. However there is a composer that I found via YouTube when I was looking for music to inspire THE HOLDERS, named Adrian Von Ziegler. He has a ton of amazing stuff out there, but my favorites—and the ones that I feel best suit THE HOLDERS are Crann Na Beatha, Cliffs of Moher, and Celtic Lore.

What books have influenced your life most?

Romance novels, but not for the reasons you might think. In the aspect of reading, I grew up under something of a rock. I had no idea that there were stories out there about love and relationships that weren’t the horrid cheesey $3.99 romance novels that I saw in the supermarket. :-) When I read my first quality romance—which was actually only about 3 years ago—my literary life was changed.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Oh goodness, there are times when I still don’t. Insecurity is something most writers have a load of and I am particularly bad when it comes to comparing myself with others. I will try to call myself a ‘real writer’ but it seems to always been subconsciously followed by, “but I’ll never be a writer like her/him/them/etc.”

Do you have any writing rituals?

With two little kids, it’s hard to get into a pattern, and I’ve learned to work pretty much anywhere and whenever I can. The only thing I absolutely require is quiet. I can’t have the TV on or music playing, or anything like that, or it is impossible for me to concentrate.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I love to read, but that is probably a given. Otherwise I love spending time watching TV with my husband, cooking and baking, and being crafty.

If you couldn’t be an author, what would your ideal career be?

Not sure, but it would still be something creative. I love making things, whether it’s food, or crafts, or sewing, or art—I love to create!

So, what do you think? Will you be reading The Holders? I'd love to hear!

Author interview: Andrew Hammond.

Back in the beginning of September Andrew Hammond's first fictional novel was published. The book is called CRYPT: The Gallows Curse and it is the first book in an exiting new YA series about paranormal investigator Jud Lester. To find out more about the book check out my review here.

Hi Andrew! Thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule to visit us to answer some questions today. 

1.  For those of my readers who have just discovered The Gallows Curse would you please give a short summary of the book using just three sentences?

It’s a fast-paced, gore-filled thriller set in London, home of the CRYPT: the Covert Response Youth Paranormal Team. When crimes are committed and there’s no rational explanation, the police turn to the CRYPT, a secret branch of MI5 devoted to investigating paranormal activity. Jud Lester is their star agent, and with his fellow agent, Bex de Verre, together they face the kind of horrors that terrify even me, and I wrote the book.

2.  The CRYPT is the name of a top secret organization hunting ghosts, it’s so cleverly made up that I’m almost obliged to ask you if you know something that we don’t?

Well, who knows how many MI5 branches are hidden from view? There’s no doubt in my mind that ghosts really do exist, and who better to investigate them than CRYPT agents – teenagers with high levels of extra sensory perception (ESP)?

3.  How did you come to write a main character like Jud? I mean the poor boy has some baggage and as a result he has some major trust issues and he is quite hot tempered.

I’m glad that’s how you see Jud – it’s exactly how I see him. There are too many soppy, sweet heroes in literature. The kind that don’t really exist in life. None of us are perfect and I didn’t want a hero with whom you couldn’t empathise. The most passionate, determined, courageous heroes in real life have flaws too. And besides, when you read Jud’s back story, you’ll see how much the poor guy has had to cope with.

4.  What was it that initially inspired you to choose the Tyburn gallows as the story behind the hauntings in The Gallows Curse?

Lying beneath the majestic Marble Arch and the neatly clipped green lawns lies a soil rich with the rotting corpses of felons hanged and thrown in great pits beneath the gallows. They could hang twenty four criminals in one fell swoop on a giant, three-branched gallows they called the Tyburn Tree. They say up to 60,000 people may have swung there – or ‘danced the Tyburn jig’ as they called it. Why wouldn’t you choose it as a setting for a ghost story?

5.  What did it feel like to visit on the sites that these cruel events actually happen so long ago?

Weird. I have a very vivid imagination and I’m all too easily startled. It could be in the middle of a traffic-filled, bustling day but you can stand at Tyburn or Newgate and hear the shouts and screams and jeers from the blood-thirsty crowds as the condemned men go past. You just have to ‘listen’ properly.

6.  I have to say that I came to regret reading The Gallows Curse in bed one night. My house normally creeks a bit and that night I was expecting ghosts to show up every time I heard a sound. I’ve read that you’re also easily scared and so I wondered how you managed to fall asleep after writing some of these quite scary horror scenes?

With great difficulty. I drink coffee to stay awake and write furiously after the kids have gone to bed and it’s peaceful (I have four of the little angels). But then I find it difficult switching the old brain off. My eyelids give up the ghost long before my brain does. But Chianti helps. 

7.  Choose a theme song for the Crypt series. To make the task a bit harder I’m deciding that Ghostbusters is not an option ;)

I know it’s a cliché, but Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana wins hands down. Always terrifies me, doesn’t matter where I am. If I hear that, I grab the nearest cushion.

8.  The Crypt series will be a five book series and the second Traitor’s Revenge is due out in March next year. Can you reveal a little teaser from the second book?

‘We're coming. The martyrs are awakening. Spirits are gathering. This will be our time...'

   In York and London, strange shapes are taking form, emerging from the shadows. And who is the man who lies in a pitch-black room, listening to a voice that seems to speak from the darkness itself?

9.  You have been working on fictional titles before but The Gallows Curse is the first to be accepted and published. How long have you been writing on this novel?

I was working on Book 1, Gallows Curse, for about a year and a half.

10. You have gone from writing educational books to writing paranormal fiction for young adults. Now that is quite a leap, I would presume, how has that transition been for you as an author?

Yes, it is quite a leap from educational books to fiction, but I was an English teacher for many years and I’ve taught the age of children for whom I’m now writing. I know what interests them, scares them, intrigues them and grips them. I’ve watched trends come and go and I’ve stocked up enough school library shelves to know what works and what doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter how many books you’ve written, read, taught or bought, it’s still a great thrill to see your own in print. 

I can just imagine walking the site and feeling the presence there, even though the surroundings has changed a lot so much horror is bound to leave some energy behind. That is what I think at least. Thank you so much for letting us get to know you and your book a bit better, Andrew.

 

Escape with: Author Paige Harbison

Photo: From publisher, Harlequin TEEN.

When I read Paige Harbison's debut novel Here Lies Bridget I just kept on turning pages. Today I'm so happy to announce that Paige has taken some time out of her day to be with us here at Escape In A Book answering some questions.

For those who might not have heard about your debut novel, Here Lies Bridget, could you please describe it using four sentences?

It’s about a truly horrible girl, no worse than the worst we’ve all known, who freaks out when the spotlight goes off of her and onto the new girl at school. In a fit of selfish distraction she gets into a car accident and wakes up in limbo, where she has to step into the shoes of those she’s hurt most and see herself through their eyes. She then has 24 hours to say goodbye and fix what she’s done. Fourth sentence. J

Bridget, the main character, is an awful bully and readers will dislike her from the get go as I assumed is the point (or else there wouldn’t have been a story to tell). Have you ever known someone like Bridget who has learned her lesson changed for the better?

I have known Bridget, I have hated Bridget, and I have sympathized with Bridget. She’s a character who plays out all of the worst things we think about, and who lets her insecurities drive her and rationalizes everything bad she does by thinking her actions can’t matter that much. As for knowing someone who changed for the better, I know I did. But I also was never as bad as she was. The thing is, particularly in high school, there are a lot of people pushing the boundaries and figuring out who they are and what’s okay and what’s not. I saw a lot of judgmental and awful people in high school who have grown into perfectly normal people.

Photo: Publisher, HarperTeen.

Here Lies Bridget made me feel like I was reading a modern fairytale and that leads me to my next question. What is your favorite fairytale and what is it about that fairytale that makes it so appealing to you? I’m guessing on Cinderella but I might be mistaken.

Hmm…I love all fairytales. Cinderella was certainly on my mind during the book, and is probably tied for my favorite. As a kid I always loved Sleeping Beauty. Also Anastasia. I think I love rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags stories. I love the idea of a big change coming in your life from somewhere you never would have expected. In this one, it was a change that toppled a Queen Bee, but I also love stories about making it up that ladder.

While reading Here Lies Bridget I felt that even if we’re not a Bridget there might be a lesson in the story for all of us. Think twice before opening your mouth, once the words are out you can never actually take them back. Of course you can always apologize but saying sorry isn’t always good enough, and in that sense the story is quite realistic. Where you ever tempted to go a different road with the relationship between Bridget and her best friends?

There is certainly something to take away from it for everyone. Every single one of us is worse than we think. And better than we think, too. But we all need to remember that our words and actions affect those around us. How many times has someone done something to you that embarrasses you and makes you cringe to this day? And how many of the people who did those things look back on the event with the same crystal clear, mortification? Not as many. I can’t say without giving things away what happens in the end with Bridget and her best friends. I can say that it was a difficult choice between giving her what she deserved, which was an opportunity to repent and not have everything work out, and letting her have that one more chance.

The movie rights to Here Lies Bridget have been bought by Galgos Entertainment. What was your first reaction when you heard the news?

Oh, I still don’t even know. I’m overwhelmingly excited, but cautiously so. These things start and stop all the time, so I’m not banking on it, but it sure would be incredible.

You recently finished a book called New Girl, the story is based on Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic novel Rebecca(more information on the book in this interview). What is happening with New Girl now?
I’m going through one more bout where I’m changing a relationship in the book and just giving it one more go-round, but it’s in the final stages. They’re working on a cover right now.

If you were to choose only one novel to read for a good escapism for the rest of your life which novel would that be?

Any single one of the Harry Potter books. I listened to the audio books every single night for about ten years. I still do sometimes. If I had to pick one of them, probably the last one. But I also so like the third….

Is there anything you’re addicted to when you’re writing? Like silence, chocolate, coffee, sitting outside under a tree.

Ha, I’m addicted to almost everything. I love chips & queso (Tostito’s brand Hint of Lime chips and their Queso), Sour Cream and Onion chips (only the ones by Utz), Sour Patch Kids, Sour Skittles, Qdoba/Chipotle….mostly food I like to munch on. It hasn’t caught up to me yet, but I’m sure it will. Haha. Other than that, I like to work in bed with the windows open on a sunny day. I prefer when my golden retriever Rigby is lying next to me and doing one of her creepy stares at me.

I know you have done several interviews lately, is there a question you’ve thought you’d get but never have been asked?

That’s a pretty good question right there! Um, I guess I’m surprised I haven’t been asked whether or not I liked my book. I don’t know that I expected that question, but it’s a pretty good one. The answer is that yes, I liked it. It’s my first book, so there are a lot of things I’d change, expand upon, etc. if I had it to do over, but overall I’m very proud of it.

Thank you so much for inviting me and Bridget to Escape in a Book!

You're most welcome, Bridget. It was lovely to have you here with us :)

Author interview: Pamela Klaffke

A few days ago I posted a guest review of Snapped by Pamela Klaffke, today I post a guest interview. My sister, who also did the guest review, has conducted an interview with author Pamela Klaffke about her novel Snapped :) I'm pleased to introduce author Pamela Klaffke and interviewer Daydreamer:


1.For Sara B. there’s a lot of inner dialog going on, and it’s pretty dark stuff too. Why did you make Sara so violent and at times pretty macabre, in her way of thoughts?

I wanted to illustrate that side of everyone's mind that people generally don't want to admit to having. it's definitely exaggerated, but that's part of the satire. Sara is also in crisis — she's having a breakdown — and anyone who has ever experienced any kind of mental meltdown knows that your thoughts aren't always rational or pleasant, and that life can get pretty dark.

2.How did you come up with the idea of putting two old ladies like Esther and Lila in the story? They sort of don’t fit in at all, and then somehow they do.

i have a great love of vintage clothes and fashion magazines (and a huge personal collection), and i wanted to incorporate this somehow. the characters of lila and esther just made sense to me as i was writing. since i start the process only knowing the beginning, middle and the end of the story (just like in school!) and the main character's voice, it's an adventure for me, too, imagining who sara might run into or meet. specifically regarding lila and esther, their meeting reminded me of the odd and random encounters many of us have n our lives with the most unlikely people; sometimes the friendships stick and sometimes they don't. thankfully, in this case they did, because i love the old ladies, and think they offer a nice counter-balance to sara's erratic behavior.

3.Were you trying to shock or maybe provoke some of the readers with using a very direct and uncensored language? 

no, there was never an intention to shock. the language and thoughts and general vulgarity is simply part of the character. some of it may come from the fact that other than geneieve, sara's friends are primarily male. of course, the book isn't going to be for everyone, and indeed, some readers get quite offended and upset, but it's also important to keep in mind that the book is satire and therefore everything is exaggerated, including the language. (plus, there really are people out there who talk like that!)

4.There’s almost no mentioning of Sara’s family, just that she doesn’t speak to her mother. Where IS Sara’s family?

there's the one brief mention of her mother, but i didn't want to weigh the story down with mother-daughter issues, since i think that would have detracted from the core of the story. i have always imagined that sara's mother is living on the sunshine coast of western Canada with a younger husband and too many face lifts.

5.I kind of got the feeling that the book was cut short. I wanted to know more about everything. But then again, I almost always do. Like what happened to Genevieve and her show, and would she ever forgive Sara? Couldn’t the book have been just a coooouple of pages longer?

the story had to end when it did, or it would have been twice as long. i also didn't want things to be all neatly wrapped up, particularly with genevieve. women's friendships are complicated and i wanted to show that. they can end in the most sudden and unexpected ways.

6. Did you try out different endings to the book? Or was Sara’s destiny written in stone?

the original ending was very slightly different (and actually shorter); sara didn't have the final encounter with the parrot girl, but otherwise, it was pretty much the same. that it ended with a new beginning for sara seemed to fit, and as i said, continuing the story would have made the book very long, really two books instead of one. i sometimes wonder what would have happened to all of the characters, as i suspect many readers so as well, but think it's best left for everyone to imagine their own version of what happens next.

Author interview: A.S. Peterson

I'm happy to announce that the author of The Fiddler's Gun, A.S. Peterson, kindly agreed to an interview. If you are one of my regular readers you probably have noticed how I gushed over Peterson's debut novel(if not then you can read my review here).

So without further ado I welcome you to Escape in a book's first author interview!

First of all can you tell us a little about yourself (what do you do when your not writing, any hobbies?)? I for one am particularly interested in knowing how much Scandinavian blood that runs through your veins, I’m sorry the genealogist in me is just taking over!

First of all, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to talk to new people and especially folks in the "old country", in Scandinavia. My great grandparents immigrated to Massachusetts (US) from Kalmar, Sweden about a hundred years ago and one of these days I hope to get the chance to go back "home" and visit. My brother has been there a few times and always comes home with great stories about his trip. I'd love to go and find some stories of my own. Maybe I'd get a good Viking book out of it, who knows.

When I'm not busy writing I'm generally busy trying to grow the Rabbit Room as a community. We've got a lot of gifted people involved there and one day we'd like to have our own little coffee tavern and bookstore here in Nashville, Tennessee. I think we are slowly moving in that direction but it's a long process.

Outside of work, I really enjoy woodworking. I've built a couple of wooden canoes and even built my own fiddle as I was writing the book. It was a lot of fun and I felt almost like the woodcraft was a part of the writing process itself. The experience of building a musical instrument and a seaworthy vessel definitely informed my ability to write about those things. One of these days I hope to have time to build my own sailboat. That might be wishful thinking, though.

For potential new readers can you please describe your debut novel The Fiddler’s Gun with a few sentences?

It's a historical adventure about a willful young woman who gets caught up in the American Revolution. It's a bit of romance, a few drops of humor, a good deal of historical drama, maybe some Greek-style tragedy, and even a swashbuckling pirate's tale. It's safe to say that it covers a lot of territory and just about anyone will find something about it to enjoy.

Thematically, it's about the choices we make and how they chart the course of our lives. That's where the book gets its title. Fin Button, the main character, inherits a fiddle and a gun and her story can be seen as a constant struggle to decide which of those instruments she'll choose to let define her life.

In a previous interview you mentioned that you haven’t had any particular interest in the period around the Revolutionary war and that after writing a while on The Fiddler’s Gun you went to Georgia to do research for your book. What were the most interesting discoveries you did while you were in Georgia and did those things change the planned course of your story?

When I began writing the book I had a vague idea of the setting and time period. I didn't have many details worked out yet. All I knew was that it began in an orphanage near Savannah, Georgia in the late 18th or early 19th century. After writing a couple of chapters and realizing how much research I needed to do, I decided to start by finding out a little about the history of orphanages in America. Well, to my great surprise, I learned that the oldest orphanage in the country was in Savannah, Georgia right where I had set my story and invent my own orphanage. I couldn't believe it.

So a week or two later I drove up to see it and that visit really cemented the place in my mind: the look of it, the order of it, the smells and textures. Several characters in the book were vaguely based on portraits in the museum there and many of the names are taken directly from the historical register of the town's citizens.

I don't know that the visit changed the course of the story but the providential nature of the the discovery certainly helped to assure me that I was on the right track.

Your manuscript was submitted to some of the really big publishers and some of them liked The Fiddler’s Gun but they found it difficult to pin it down in to just one genre and target it for a specific audience. So instead of changing Fin’s voice you chose to publish your debut novel by way of independently publishing. The Fiddler’s Gun is the first independent novel I’ve ever read and I don’t think it will be the last. What have you learned from this whole process from submitting your manuscript to deciding to publish your book independently?

Wow, that's about four questions in one! Yes, we did submit it to quite a few of the big publishing houses and they all had kind things to say about it. I think one editor even claimed that they were 'almost fatally in love with it" But in the end they all said no, and it came down to the fact that it's a difficult book to classify. It's not quite romance, or historical fiction, or adventure, or young adult, or women's lit. It's a little bit of all those things. At first you'd think that was a good thing, and in many ways it is, but from a business perspective it just makes it hard to know how to sell it. Most publishers need to be able to say "this book is definitively paranormal romance" or "historical fiction" or "urban fantasy" and I completely understand that. A lot of self-publishers are bitter about the way the industry works; I'm not. It works that way for a reason.

A lot of people might have put the book away and gone off to write something more easily marketable but I, and the people who had read it, felt like it was just too good a book to put away and forget about. So my brother and I, who had been developing the Rabbit Room community for a couple of years decided to let that evolve into our own publishing house. So we did all the legwork, made the contacts we needed, and figured out how to publish a solid professional book that would be equal to anything else on the shelf in a bookstore. In the end we learned a lot. It's a complicated business. But I've loved every minute of it. We're are working on the next couple of Rabbit Room Press titles right now and I'm excited about them.

If I’m correct the second and last installment about Fin Button, The Fiddler’s Green, is due in December this year. Will we be seeing more of A.S. Petersons work in the years to come(I for one certainly hope so)?

You are correct that Fiddler's Green will be the conclusion of Fin's story. I think of the first book as being about getting lost and I'm looking forward to finishing the next one because, in my mind, it's about finding your way home again and I really look forward to bringing resolution to Fin's story.

I hope there will be many more books to come. I have a young adult book that's about half-written and I'm excited about getting back to work on it when I've said my final goodbye to Fin. I think it's going to be great and I can't wait for people to read it. That's definitely still a few years off, though. I guess only time will tell. Right now I'm focused on trying to get the word out about The Fiddler's Gun and I'm incredibly grateful for people like you who have read it and then gone the extra mile to review it and tell other people how much you enjoyed it.

Word of mouth is the best thing a book can have and I appreciate all the support I've gotten from book bloggers. You guys are my heroes.

Is there a question you wished you had been asked in an interview?

I would love to point out that I've put together a great package of extras for any book club that wants to read the book. If anyone is interested they can contact my via my website at thefiddlersgun.com and I can set their club up with custom bookmarks, special book pricing, a discussion guide, and free digital copies of a companion book called The Fiddler's Gun: Letters. I think it's a book well-suited to clubs because it offers a lot of points for discussion.

Once again, thanks for having me here on the blog, Mari. And thanks for reading. You honor me with your time.

Want to learn more about A.S. Peterson and his writing? Check out these interviews:

• One Persons Journey Through a World of Books
• My Friend Amy
  

Thank you so much for answering all of my questions, Pete! I really enjoyed reading your answers and getting to know you a bit better. My dear readers, I hope you'll check out The Fiddler's Gun! Do come by tomorrow as A.S. Peterson has kindly offered a copy of his book and a copy of a collection called The Fiddler's Gun: Letters(note: that Letters are printed in a limited run of 100 signed and numbered copies) for a giveaway here at Escape in a book. As always the contest will be international.