SciFiction’s Owen C. Cotter interview caught up with Claudia at Star Wars Celebration 2019 to talk Leia: Princess of Alderaan, Lost Stars, and Master and Apprentice. Click here to watch!
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Category: interviews
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Interview with Star Wars.com
To celebrate the arrival of Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, the new novel out now, Claudia recently sat down with StarWars.com to give them a glimpse at what this novel has in store for readers, from the Padawan problems of their early relationship to a deeper look at the treasured lore at the heart of the Star Wars saga. Click here to check it out!
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Interview with What The Force
Claudia joined host Marie-Claire Gould for a talk about Star Wars themes in her books, Star Wars in General, as well as the Force and a little about Master and Apprentice. Click here to heck it out!
First of all, congrats to our next winner — Sarah C., who will be taking home the Bianca doll! She has three nifty outfits: Evernight Academy uniform, formal dress and wraithly jammies (complete with coral bracelet, which is pretty important.) (The doll has these, I mean; I cannot speak to the number of outfits Sarah C. has, nor whether her jammies are of a wraithly nature or not.)
This means we have a few interview Qs for Bianca:
From Rachelle: “Does being in that same outfit (the pjs) make you crazy? Personally if it was me I’d be extremely upset that everyone would see me in my embarassing pjs every time they look at me.”
Bianca: “Well, it gets kind of old. When I turn myself corporeal, I can put on other clothes, but they just fall to the ground when I disappear, and then, boom, pajamas again. It could be worse. At least the pajamas are comfortable. What if I had to wear a strapless bra for eternity? That would suck.”
From Wendy: “Bianca, when you first came to Evernight, did you ever picture yourself where you are now? Why or why not?”
Bianca: “Never ever ever ever ever. That’s true in some bad ways — I never imagined I could be a wraith, or have Black Cross after me, and I definitely never thought I’d be separated from my parents … well, ever, but especially not as unhappily as this. It’s true in some good ones, too, though. I know I’m stronger and tougher than I used to be; I stand up for myself more, and for the people I love. And I never imagined having anyone like Lucas in my life.”
From Rebecca: “In the end would you still have risked everything to be with Lucas, even though you betrayed your parents?”
Bianca: “That’s not an easy question to answer. Well, I mean, it is — yes, I would — but I would have tried harder to get other answers first, and to try to get both Lucas and my parents to understand each other. I don’t know if I would’ve made any headway; possibly the only person in the world more stubborn than my parents is Lucas Ross. But I would feel better knowing I had really tried, and I would feel more like maybe they understood. That’s the worst part about being away from my parents like this — feeling like they’ll never understand me or accept the decisions I made.”
From Cristal: “Well, hello, Bianca, how are you doing today?.. Thank you so much for doing this Interview. I wanted to ask you, if you had a time machine, would you go back in time to change anything that has happened to you from EVERNIGHT to HOURGLASS, and if yes, what would that be?”
Bianca: “How polite you are! I’m doing very well today; once you’re a wraith, you’re pretty much okay on the average day. If I had a time machine, what would I change? I think I’d go back to the beginning, tell Lucas that I knew about him being Black Cross and start trying to find a way to meld our worlds together before Mom, Dad and Mrs. Bethany turned him into public enemy number one. I’d warn Courtney about Charity, too; I mean, I didn’t like Courtney much, but nobody deserved that. And I’d definitely figure out a better way for us to escape from Black Cross. Everything got so out of control afterwards!”
From Alejandra: “Until now we’ve seen how your unconditional love for Lucas has overcome every possible (and impossible) obstacle, but do you think it will also overcome the problems that are about to come after HOURGLASS, and will you do all it takes to save him?”
Bianca: “I don’t know how we get through this — I honestly don’t. It’s like all our worst nightmares have come true at once. But I am not giving up. Lucas is my only constant in a world that seems like it’s gone crazy. I will never give up on him, and I know he won’t let me go either. We’re finding our way through some dark times, but we’re doing it together.”
From Eibhlin: “If Lucas didn’t exist, would you have received Balthazar’s affections for you?”
Bianca: “… wow, I’m not sure. Probably yes. Would we really last, though? I don’t know. It might just have been incredibly hot for a little while… there are worse things. But, happily for me, Lucas does exist.”
From Andrea: “Do you believe in love at first sight like when you saw lucas after he tried to “save” you in EVERNIGHT?”
Bianca: “Since meeting Lucas, I think I have to believe it! But it takes so much more than that first sight to hold on to that love, and to find out who it is you really care about. I think only time can tell whether love at first sight is true. I think ours is.”
**
Only one more doll remains — and that’s Lucas! He and his crossbow long for a new home. And we have only a week and a half until AFTERLIFE comes out in the US! So surreal. Let’s find this Black Cross hunter a home, shall we?
Lucas Doll Contest
1) Send me an email with the header “Lucas Doll Contest” or something similar, at evernightclaudia at gmail dot com.
2) In this email, tell me why Lucas belongs in your home and no one else’s!
3) Also tell me a name and address I can use to send Lucas to you if you win. (And yes, I’ll ship anywhere.)
4) Do all of this before Sunday, March 6, when I will pick the winner!
I realize I owe you guys an Artist’s Way post from last week; the conference I was attending didn’t leave much free time for getting the information online. I’ll try to make up for it tomorrow.
AFTERLIFE — it’s almost here!
I’m sincerely sorry to be a day late with this, guys, but I was prepping for a trip to California yesterday and, in all the hubbub, forgot to pick the winner of Doll Contest #2. But now that I’m outside San Diego, kicking back and relaxing, I have time to announce that congratulations go to Juiliana R.! She chose the oh-so-glamorous Patrice doll, which will be headed to her soon, complete with both Evernight Academy uniform and gorgeous evening gown.
In celebration of this win, and of Patrice’s return to the story in AFTERLIFE, we have a few interview questions for her:
From Camille: “Will you ever come back? I kinda miss your character!”
Patrice: “I’m back, darling. Read AFTERLIFE and you’ll find me again. But I haven’t been wasting time; there are stories about me in two anthologies that tell you all sorts of things about my past, both when I was alive and a certain romantic misadventure of mine during World War II.”
From Joelene: “How will you feel about your friend Bianca now that you know she’s a ghost? Will you stand by her and try to help her figure things out?”
Patrice:</b> “Wraiths don’t bother me nearly as much as they do some vampires. The reasons for that … well, they’re complicated. But I don’t go running away in terror the first time I see a little frost on the windows.”
From Rachelle: “What do you have against humans? Is it just because they’re not like you or is there more to the story?”
Patrice: “It’s not that I hate humans. I’d even say I have a bit of a weakness for human men — but I’m getting off the subject. Let’s just say that I try not to fool myself that humans and vampires can have much to do with each other anymore. I’ve made that mistake before; I’d prefer not to do it again.”
From Alejandra: “Why whenever nobody was around were you all nice to Bianca, but whenever somebody came around you hated her….and also why did you have a change of heart on how you felt about Bianca at the end of Evernight?”
Patrice: “I never hated Bianca; I just wanted her to get with the program, you know? She acted like everybody at school was out to get her, all the time, which was crap. Then she expected me to feel all sorry for her. Um, sorry, I believe you make your own fate in this world. Plus, she was not the world’s best roommate. Do you ever in these books read about her cleaning up our room? Yeah, that would be because I had to do it myself, because somebody‘s too busy being in eternal love to get her towels up off the floor. But I didn’t hate it. When she was chilling out about stuff, I really kind of liked her. And I felt bad when Lucas turned out to be Black Cross – I mean, ouch.”
From Sarah: “Because you have been a vampire for a long time, did you know that if you were born a vampire, you would turn into a wraith just like Bianca?”
Patrice: “I can’t give away too much about AFTERLIFE, I’m told, so let’s just say that I know a lot more about wraiths than most vampires do. That’s largely due to this wonderful woman I met soon after I died in New Orleans; Marie Leveau knew all kinds of interesting things …”
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The interview’s got to be cut a bit short — if I’m going to get to my dinner party on time, it would probably be nice to be, like, dressed and have my hair dried. It’s classier, you know? So I’ll go over some of your votes for your favorite scene – and open up the next doll contest (Bianca and Lucas still remain!) — later on tonight or first thing tomorrow. Keep watching this space!
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Interview with Nicole Murphy!
While I’m here in Australia (in Cairns right now, actually, though only on a tourist basis), I thought it would be great to talk to an Aussie author. Happily, I got a chance to talk with Nicole Murphy, the author of SECRET ONES, about the lines between fantasy, urban fantasy and romance; hot guys named Lucas; and whether e-readers will kill us all —
CG: Tell us about the Asarlai trilogy and the world you’ve built for it — and specifically how we learn about that world in SECRET ONES.
NM: The world revolves around the gadda – they look like us, live amongst us but come from different ancestry then humans and as a result can access the energy of the world around them and use that power in ways we’d describe as magical (they HATE human terms like that). For a variety of reasons, the gadda keep themselves secret from humans, however this means that their abilities are also kept secret. One person – Asarlai – has decided this isn’t such a good idea – what’s the use of having all this power if you aren’t the ones WITH all the power. So Asarlai has set out to change all that, and it’s up to the six guardians of the gadda to stop her.
In SECRET ONES, we’re introduced to the world of the gadda and Asarlai’s plans through the romance of Maggie Shaunessy and Lucas Valeroso. Maggie’s a troublemaker – she’s not all that happy about being gadda and tries to avoid it as much as she can. Lucas used to be a bad boy, but he’s turned his life around and is now a well renowned scientist. What Lucas doesn’t know is that a secret race lives on Earth, and that he’s one of them. Now he has to find a way to bring it all together and win the girl, while she’s struggling with finding her destiny is much more gadda then she’d like.
The great thing about Lucas not knowing he’s gadda is that I get to introduce the readers to the world through him – the infodumping is actually part of the story.
CG: So, I see you, too, have a male lead named Lucas. Why is that name so darned sexy?
NM: I’ve been thinking about this – notice that most male heroes names are quite short – one to two syllables? And there’s generally a hard sound in the middle of it somewhere. For me, there’s a feeling in my mouth as I say a name that works for the image I’m trying to project. Lucas is a strong, sharp name that can also be drawled in a very sexy way – perfect 🙂
CG: I am all for sexy drawling of Lucas’ name. I want this on the record. Now, back to book talk: My personal experience with EVERNIGHT was that I knew from the start that I’d be writing a series — but not how long that series would be. Did you know the Asarlai books would be a trilogy from early on, or did you discover this as you worked?
NM: I knew they were three books almost from the start, but not that it would be an interlinked trilogy. Initially they were three romance novels and the world of the gadda was just a setting. They shared characters, followed each other chronologically but there was no shared storyline. It wasn’t until several years after the first drafts, when I went back to work on them, that a reader suggested an overarching storyline. It made it a more difficult task for me – covering a romance in each book plus the storyline of Asarlai – but I think it’s worked really well.
CG: Urban fantasy has been one of the most popular genres since it emerged about 15-20 years ago. Why do you think that is?
NM: I think there were a lot of women (like myself) who were reading fantasy but were getting heartily sick of not seeing strong female characters portrayed. So that’s what urban fantasy gives us – the fantasy escape that we love, but we’re also seeing women and we’re seeing them strong and sassy and sexy and everything that women can be in reality but weren’t being on the page. And there’s also men who aren’t afraid of seeing a strong women, so they joined the bandwagon too.
CG The Asarlai books are categorized as urban fantasy, and yet they don’t follow all the conventions of the genre. In what ways do your novels fit in with the best of urban fantasy, and in what ways did you want to strike out on your own path?
NM: I didn’t see it as urban fantasy at all – I came at it from the romance angle, not the fantasy angle. As the fantasy got overlaid, it strengthened and became the frame within which the romance took place. So I think that’s why I’m not following all the conventions eg first person, the noir feel. My novels are definitely at the lighter end of urban fantasy – I can’t really do dark – and I think they really mix in well with the desire (particularly with as dark as our world has been lately) to believe that there’s more than what we’re seeing in our every day lives. I think they also showcase great female characters – not the kick-arse vampire-hunting type (which are FABULOUS) but strong women within their personality, their life – I want to celebrate all the ways in which women can be strong.
I think the difference is that I’ve got a strong fantasy storyline that melds strongly with the romance which was my aim in writing the trilogy. You can’t separate the two, so it’s not just a paranormal romance, but it has the happy ever after that isn’t always necessary in urban fantasy. I also enjoy some of the political intrigue that I’ve got working there – I grew up in Australia’s capital city so thinking of politics is ingrained in me 🙂
CG: Will e-readers kill books or save us all — or something in-between?
NM: In-between. Reading habits will change – I’ve been reading electronically for a few months now and it doesn’t give a freedom books don’t have. I’m in New Zealand at the moment and was able to come with half a dozen books to read in something I hold in my palm – not possible normally. I think people will read more as it becomes easier to cart books around. I think paper books will become a specialised thing – it’s going to be a long time (if ever) before people give up books and bookshelves and the smell and the feel of books. You’ll have your favourite books in a physical form, and the rest on your e-reader. That’s my view at the moment. I’ll see what I’m thinking in a year or so 🙂
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Thanks to Nicole for talking with me! More Aussie travel reports as the great trek continues —
Sorry for the delay in announcing the winner of PERSONAL DEMONS Contest #2, but I delay no longer: Congratulations, Lauryn S.! I’ll get your books in the mail to you this week.
And the author of PERSONAL DEMONS, the awesome Lisa Desrochers, took time out of her busy schedule (as in, during her trip to Singapore) to talk with me a little about her debut novel:
CG: Your MC, Frannie, has a truly enormous mission to fulfill, even by the standards of paranormal heroines. Without giving too much away, how did you set out to build a character dynamic enough to carry such a burden?
LD: Honestly, I wasn’t thinking in terms of “dynamic” when I started writing Frannie. I was thinking more in terms of “real.” As the story progressed, she found herself in tough situations and she had to figure out how to deal with them. It was really a matter of her character learning to roll with the punches, and, on occasion, punch back. But most of all, I wanted her reactions to come across as genuine.
CG: PERSONAL DEMONS has plenty of sizzling sexual tension. If you were going to name one cardinal rule for creating that kind of chemistry on the page, what would it be?
LD: I didn’t really know what I was doing when I wrote Personal Demons, so to break it out into “rules” is hard. I guess chemistry goes back to what I said in the last question. It needs to be organic to feel genuine. In other words, it needs to flow from the characters. They have conversations in my head and I take dictation. It’s when I try to manipulate those conversations that I get into trouble and lose the chemistry.
CG: This book is your debut novel. Can you talk a little bit about your path to publication, and what parts of the publishing process have been most surprising to you so far?
LD: I think my road has been pretty standard. I wrote Personal Demons in February and March 2009, revised and polished it in April and May, queried in June and July, and landed my truly fabulous agent in September. The part that hasn’t been standard is Macmillan putting Personal Demons on the shelves in nine months. That would be the most surprising thing so far. Personal Demons sold at auction Christmas week and I thought we were looking at a summer 2011 release, so when my editor told me September 2010 was our target, I almost fell off my chair.
CG: Frannie’s family is much different from most of those in YA fiction, as is the role they play in the book. Can you talk a little about the importance of her parents’ influence?
LD: Frannie comes from a religious family, with the traditional Catholic upbringing, including a parochial school education. Her family has been through some rough patches, however, that have Frannie questioning their belief system. The biggest of those is the accidental death of her twin brother, which both she and her mother have taken especially hard. She and her sisters (all four) have learned to cope in their own way, but her mother still struggles with the loss ten years later, so her father is the primary emotional support system for the family—but he’s also much more. (That’s an Original Sin teaser :p)
CG: Where do you usually like to write? What’s the most unusual place you’ve ever ended up writing a chapter?
LD: I like to write in my family room. My “office” is the loveseat, one end of which is piled with books. I started writing there because, until I had my agent, my husband didn’t know I was writing (I know: #wifefail) so we’d sit together in the family room and I’d write while he was watching TV in the evenings. The most unusual place I’ve ever written was last summer in a turn out of a windy little road that lead down to Monterosso al Mare, Italy when my husband stopped to take some pictures (he still didn’t know I was writing) and I scribbled about three pages on some napkins in the glove box.
CG: In what ways are you like Frannie? In what ways are you totally different?
LD: Frannie has her insecurities, but she puts up a tough front. She doesn’t want anyone to know when she doubts herself. I’m also like that, especially in the writing and publication process. I’ve had huge moments of self-doubt, but I just smile and pretend that I couldn’t be more confident. We’re different in a lot of ways. For one, I don’t have a drop-dead gorgeous angel to protect me, or a totally hot (both literally and figuratively) demon after my soul. Seriously, Frannie is a much more emotional creature than I am. Because of that, she doesn’t let go of things very easily. But she’s passionate about the things she believes in—something I could learn from her.
**
I hope to have more interviews — and, of course, more yummy ARC giveaways for you guys in the near future. (And yes, an AFTERLIFE ARC giveaway will be part of that!) But I’m only having one more contest before I leave for my Australia tour late next week (aiee!), and that is a giveaway for a much-anticipated YA werewolf romance I really enjoyed: LOW RED MOON by Ivy Devlin. Want the ARC? Then enter the contest:
1) Email me at evernightclaudia at gmail dot com with the subject line “LOW RED MOON Contest.”
2) In that email, tell me what you like best about werewolf stories!
3) Also in that email, include a name and address where I can send your copy if you win (and yes, I’ll ship anywhere.)
4) Do all this by Wednesday, Aug. 11, when I will choose one winner (just one — I only have the single copy!) at random.
Good luck!
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Interview With Kelley Armstrong!
As anybody who’s asked me this at an event knows, I’m a big fan of Kelley Armstrong’s “Darkest Powers” series, which is only the latest in a long series of incredibly popular books from Kelley, a longtime bestseller in the adult urban fantasy genre. I’m also a fan of Kelley herself, since we were able to tour together on Supernatural Summer 2009, and I got to know what a fun, down-to-earth person she is. So I’m really excited to be able to feature her interview here on the blog — read on to see her thoughts on the transition from urban fantasy for adults to YA paranormal, how she handles her evolving universe, and why your characters can never be too happy.
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CG: So far, I’ve had relatively little input on my covers — though I’ve been lucky to get great ones. But you’re a longtime bestseller in the urban fantasy world, so you must have gotten lots of say in your YA covers, right?
KA: Not…exactly. I was thrilled with the cover design they chose for the YAs, though. Well, except for that changing jewel thing (if anyone ever wants to know why Chloe’s jewel really changes colour, ask me at an event, where I can tell the truth!) I’ve come to accept that a cover is really a marketing thing, and I know nothing about marketing. Ones I don’t particularly like caught the eye of more new readers than the ones I do.
CG: What surprised you most about the move from writing urban fantasy for adults to writing YA as well?
KA: Two things surprised me. One, how little of a difference there was in the actual writing of the books. The YA are paced a little faster and the characters must be teens with teen issues, but otherwise, there’s not much difference. Except for the second thing…the audience. Fantasy readers can become very invested in a series–quick to let you know what they like and dislike. But they have nothing on teens!
CG: I was really impressed by how smoothly you incorporated the universe you’d built in your urban fantasy novels into your YA work; readers were given the exact right amount of information to understand what was going on, even if they were visiting your fiction for the first time. How did you manage to strike that delicate balance?
KA: I have very good editors. Seriously, that’s what it takes. I think I’ve developed a decent sense of how much to give–the balance between giving enough not to confuse new readers but not so much that bore current readers with repetition. But I do lean toward “not enough,” and that’s where I rely on my editors to say “You need to explain this for new readers, Kelley.”
CG: Chloe is a very strong lead character for someone who begins the series in a rather vulnerable position. How do you walk the line between creating a dynamic main character and putting that character in enough jeopardy to keep things entertaining? Is this a tougher line to walk
KA: Characters need to be tortured. It sounds sadistic, but if the character is never “tested” he/she can’t grow and develop. Testing usually means torture, in the sense that life goes very awry. Chloe has led a very sheltered life so when she’s first hit with trouble, she’s very vulnerable and unsure. The options at that point are to curl up in a ball and pray for rescue or to develop the skills to deal with the threat. In fiction, option B is a must, at least for main characters.
CG: Do you ever feel the urge to write non-paranormal/urban fantasy fiction? (“Realism,” I think it’s called; I wouldn’t know personally.) Or is your universe big enough to hold your stories?
KA: I do have two books out in a non-paranormal series–straight crime thrillers. Considering that the main character is a hitwoman, though, “realism” might not be the right term to use! They still gave me a lot of room for world building within a subculture, and I think that’s what I need to keep me interested.
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Thanks to Kelley for stopping by! Hopefully Kelley and I will share some more tour stops in the future — but that’s another announcement for another day.
You still have a little while to win some awesome ARCS, so check out the contest details and enter now!