25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Abria Mattina + A Giveaway!

I am absolutely delighted to welcome author of Wake, Abria Mattina to the blog today to share a 25 quirky facts about herself!

Her debut, Wake has had a lot of great response. Readers have praised Mattina for her eye-opening and realistic novel that  is about the struggle to redefine life after experiencing cancer and caring for an ill loved one.

So without further ado let me turn the blog over to Abria Mattina- An author, fellow blogger and the brilliant mind behind Letters From Real! ;)

25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About 
Abria Mattina

1) I frequently go back to my alma mater to write, because I did a lot of writing in study spaces and hallways over the years and I still like the atmosphere. I just carry a backpack instead of a professional bag and I blend right in. 

2) I’m super jealous of people who speak more than one language.

3) I don’t have a favourite book. Rather, I have a small collection of books that changed my life or shaped the way I think about the Big Questions.

4) I have mixed feelings about my decision to major in English at university. On the one hand it led to shaky job prospects, but on the other hand I learned valuable things about storytelling, which I consider my “real” career. 

5) My biggest pet peeve is when people don’t take me seriously. I look younger than I actually am, so this problem comes up a lot. I still get asked what grade I’m in. 

6)I can’t write if I know there are people behind me who can see my screen. It used to be that I couldn’t work unless my back was to a corner, like a Sicilian mobster, but I’ve relaxed ever so slightly. I don’t like people to see my drafting process, because the initial draft of everything is pure garbage. 

7) I have synaesthesia, a neurological disorder with many advantages, such as improved memory. The disadvantages are that I can barely stand oral stimulation (food and kissing, anyone?) and I have mild dyscalculia. You should see me try to dial a phone. 

8) I used to be an Irish step dancer. For a long time it gave me an even greater high than writing. I stopped when I went to university, but that was probably a good thing because I was well on my way to destroying my knees. 

9) I write my fiancé into every single book I create, even the putter drafts that never turn into real books. He knows it, too, and has taken to asking, “Who am I this time?” He actively “helps” by getting into character and trying to give me material. 

10) I’m attracted to sad, dark, twisted books. My idea of a “tearjerker” is the average person’s idea of a soul-crushing tragedy. 

Letters From Real - A Postcard Project

Letters from Real is short fiction tumblr blog where author, Abria Mattina shares about the postcards that she mails out to anonymous readers. When I stumbled across this project I was immediately curious so I've invited Abria to share the behind the scenes scoop on this brilliant project!
>>>
What inspired you to start Letters from Real, the postcard exchange project? 

It’s not an exchange project precisely. I just send postcards, but I’m not set up to receive them. Maybe in the future I’ll open a P.O. box for that purpose, but for the time being it’s just me sending out postcards to random people, written in the voice of fictional characters. I do it because I think it’s a fun and interesting way to engage with new people. I’m also a dork who thinks that snail mail is fun to send and receive.

The project itself, though, was inspired by my mother. When I was in my second year of university she started sending my postcards from a character named Henrietta Von Espy, world-traveller and Victorian countess. She kept the same character across a long series of postcards, but I like to switch it up every time. When she got sick in 2012, I sent her a postcard every day for months. 

Please share your favorite postcard to date, and tell us what makes it special. 

Most of the postcards I received from my mom are pasted into my journals, but here are three of the loose ones. They all come from a postcard/calendar flipbook with pictures of doors from the Scanlan Portfolio. Every story featured the person or family Henrietta Von Espy met behind that door. 

25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About M G Buehrlen + A Giveaway!

I am absolutely delighted to welcome author of The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare, M G Buehrlen to the blog today to share a 25 quirky facts about herself!

Her debut, The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare has had a lot of great response. Readers have praised Buehrlen  for her unique novel that combines time travel, fantasy and romance!

So without further ado let me turn the blog over to Buehrlen - An author, a coding demigod, a musician and a survivor of an Asian Carp attack! ;)

25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About 
M G Buehrlen 

1) If I hadn’t become an author, my secondary dream was to become an exotic animal trainer for TV and film.

2) I went urban exploring in Detroit for book research, and it was the most intense experience of my life. 

3) My exciting job history includes: service dog trainer for people with disabilities, Pizza Hut waitress (so hot!), exotic fish salesperson, shipping/warehouse factory worker, WalMart cashier (even hotter!), and a tour guide at a tourist farm (where I got to shovel poo and sing to goats!). 

4) I soldered my first circuit board at age 9. I built my first computer at age 13. 

5) I’ve been coding and designing websites since 1997. (Speak HTML to me.)

6) I like to eat salsa with Doritos. Plain tortilla chips lack the proper pizzazz. 

7) I drink chocolate milk with a spoon. A straw just doesn’t allow for adequate savoring. 

Interview: Dracian Legacy - Priya Kanaparti

I am absolutely delighted to welcome author, Priya Kanaparti to the blog today as part of the blog tour for Dracian Legacy. 


I had the privilege of  reading Dracian Legacy when it was first published in 2013 and boy, did I love it!

You can read my 4.5 star review of Dracian Legacy and my interview with the characters, Axel and Dean HERE.

So read on to find out what makes this book awesome!
The Interview

• For those who are new to Dracian Legacy, how would describe your debut?

Getting right down to the hard question first huh? Okay, let's see. Dracian Legacy is about a hidden race that's been battling war against Telalians for centuries. The story is about how a girl, who's lived a sheltered life, is the center of this war and what she's willing to sacrifice to save those she loves.

• Tell us a little about your journey from a self published author to an Indie published author.

It's been quite the journey. Being a self published author, it was like trying to run a business single handedly. Don't get me wrong, I've met some AWESOME people during that process, but it was exhausting. So I started to look for a publisher that I thought would be best for my needs and personality. So after several queries and rejections (from both the publishers and myself), I finally found Reuts!  And let me tell you, so far the journey with them as been wonderful, to say the least! 

• What book/s will you never get sick of reading no matter how many times you read it?

Interview + Giveaway with Matthew Turner

I am absolutely delighted to welcome New Adult Author, Matthew Turner to the blog today. 
As a male New Adult author whose books, TICK to the TOCK and Beyond Parallel are more than just steamy romance novels Turner is a breath of fresh air. 

What inspired the idea of TICK to the TOCK?

My first novel, Beyond Parallel, was set around the notion of 'What If'. TICK to the TOCK isn't about the what, rather the WHO & WHY. I'm a curious mind so often think about my past and my future and the journey I'm on. My biggest fear is looking back as an old man with regret, and I suppose this is what spurred me on during TICK to the TOCK.

It forced me to consider who I am right now, and if it was all taken away from me, would I be happy... be at peace... 

and accept who I am and where I've come from.

Most of my writing is based around self reflection, and I often try to place myself in a difficult situation and imagine what it would be like. I don't think it's healthy to do this all of the time, but most people could benefit from a little wayward wandering.

Is there a genre that you would like to try or one that you would avoid as a writer?

Although I do write Contemporary Romance, I can't imagine writing anything too steamy. Simply put, I'm far too awkward. As for future genres, well, I sometimes imagine what it would be like to create an epic Sci Fi or fantasy piece. This would be far from my comfort zone, and I'm not sure I'd ever do it, but I do think about it from time to time - being the geek I am, and all.

What books are currently in your reading pile?

Interview: Destiny Gift - Juliana Haygert

I am absolutely delighted to welcome New Adult Author & Co-founder of NA Alley Juliana Haygert to the blog today!
I have not had the opportunity to read her book, Destiny Gift yet but a lot of readers have described as a book that offers something for everyone! There's a bit of mythology, fantasy, paranormal romance and dystopian.

So without further ado let me turn the blog over to Juliana....

Meet Juliana

- Describe yourself in a tweet (less than 140 characters) 

I’m a loving wife, a dedicated mother, a good friend, an inspired writer/author, an avid reader, and a fun, crazy lady ;)

- When exactly did you realize that you wanted to be a writer? 

I've always loved books - I started reading "big" books when I was very young, thanks to my mother and her love for books.

When I was in 8th grade (in Brazil), my Portuguese teacher assigned us a group project: to write a short book. So, I got together with my 4 best friends (with whom I'm still best friends with) at my house and we started talking about the book. When I realized, I was writing the damn book all alone - not because they didn't want to, but because I didn't let them lol I was so in love with it, that each time we got together to work on the book, I would bake brownies and rent a movie so to keep them busy while I wrote the book lol I would write when they were gone too. And that's how I became a writer.

- If writing didn't work out, what job would you image yourself having instead? 

If we were living in Brazil, I would probably be an English teacher. Here in the US, I don't know, honestly. I have a BA in Arts but I'm terrible at it. I would have to go back to school and do something else.

- What inspired the idea of Destiny Gift? 

Destiny Gift (and other books in the series) came to me after a question my husband asked me when we were talking about elements we liked in fiction. He always said I should write about gods, since he loves mythology, but to make a different spin, he asked "what if they thought gods were immortal, but they aren't? And one of them comes back to life as a human?" That simple question gave life to 3 novels and 1 novella!

Daria's 25 & The Anatomy Series Giveaway

1) I believe “sexy ugly” is way more attractive than conventionally cute. 
2) I still own, and occasionally wear, slap bracelets. (But not stick-on stones.)

3) Sometimes when I walk into a library or surf the web, my heart fills with dread over how much I’ll never know or understand. But I guess it’s better to acknowledge your ignorance than to feel arrogant. 
4) If I wrote a memoir, each chapter title would be the name of an anti-acne medicine I tried in vain.  The Clearasil Years during middle school were especially brutal.  
5) Don’t shoot me, but I prefer ebooks to hardcovers.
6) I also prefer movies to books. {dodging bullet}
7) I’m much more comfortable with one or two friends than with a big crowd of people. 
8) My new favorite snack is kale chips:  Just de-stem and de-rib the leaves, toss with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, spread on a baking sheet and bake for twenty.
9) If I were bright enough, I’d go into ovarian cancer research.  
10) I don’t understand the appeal of big stadium concerts. Parking’s a nightmare, everyone stands even though there’re seats (and sometimes they stand on the seats), and the act’s too far away to see anyway so you just end up watching the screen.
11) I used to be able to recite the entire script of When Harry Met Sally… from memory. 

12) I’m grateful to heartbreak for making me more compassionate.
13) My favorite Brontë sister is Anne. 

Author Interview + Giveaway: A Class Apart

Title: A Class Apart
Author: Stephen Henning
Published: October 11th 2011 by Elucidox Ltd
Synopsis:

Teenage twins James and Samantha Blake are caught up in a seemingly random terrorist bombing while on a school trip. Many of their friends are killed. When the twins wake up in hospital, their lives have changed forever. 

The doctors are amazed at the speed with which James and Sam recover from their injuries and, when the twins begin to exhibit extraordinary powers, it is obvious that something incredible has happened.

As James and Sam attempt to overcome their fears and embrace their new abilities, a series of murders and disappearances start plaguing the hospital. The twins aren’t the only ones with special abilities and it becomes apparent that someone is coming for them. 

Will James and Sam be able to survive the nightmare into which they have been plunged? Who, or what, is behind the murders at the hospital? And was that terrorist incident quite so random after all?

                  Author Interview

1. Describe A Class Apart in one sentence and if you can give a tagline for it, what would it be?

OK. Teenage twins James and Samantha Blake are injured in a bomb explosion, wake up in hospital, discover they now have superpowers, but then realize something even more powerful is coming to get them!

A tagline for the Class Heroes series, hmmm, you’ve made me think now! It hadn’t occurred to me to do that before, thank you Rachel. Yes. I know what sums up the ethos of the series:

“Today could be the day that your life changes forever.”

2. What makes the Class Heroes series stand out from the rest of the other YA books out there?

I think the main characters and the general background of the seriesis more grounded in reality than other YA books.

I think what YA books do well is to create a heightened, fairy tale ideal of our world.  Love stories are powerful and all-consuming, main characters are driven by a sense of destiny, the fate of worlds is held in the hands of higher beings. I think that’s great because it fires the reader’s imagination.

Tellulah's 25 & My Ex From Hell Giveaway

 1)  In the geek vs nerd breakdown, I fall on the geek side of things. I think nerds are slightly smarter but I have better social skills.
2) Some people know their credit card numbers by heart. I know my library card number. I think that’s cool. Discuss.
3) When I was 3, I fell into a neighbour’s pool. Underwater, I saw a window, with a battle raging on the other side. With cannons. A man, who I later realized was a Viking, came to the window and told me I couldn’t come through. At that moment, my uncle grabbed me and pulled me out of the pool. I have no affinity for Vikings. True story.
4) I like to Statler and Waldorf my way through life – overheard conversations, Oscar awards, commercials featuring wide-eyed puppies – all are heckling fodder.

5) I love to sing and do so often. My apparent inability to carry a tune, and tendency to sing lyrics phonetically as opposed to what they really are, are not my problem.

6) When driving, I swear like a sailor.
7) The plan when I grew up was to live in a penthouse apt. in NY with my pet black panther Sebastian, and throw glittering salons filled with fabulous creative types. I’m currently writing this in my basement office in Canada, with one foot thrown over a portable heater because I’m freezing. No view. No glitter. Not sure how the plan went so horribly wrong. Granted, it wasn’t much of a plan. I do have a black cat though.
8) Jerricho Barrons is my book boyfriend. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.
9) Being married to me/birthed from my body gives me rights in perpetuity to use you for comic creative license. This seems fair to me.
10) I believe the world needs more choreography. Just saying.
11) Archer is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. It’s an inappropriateness I can totally get behind.

Wide Awake-Shelly Crane: Review + Giveaway

Author: Shelly Crane
Title: Wide Awake
Synopsis:
A girl.
A coma.
A life she can't remember.

When Emma Walker wakes up in the hospital with no knowledge of how she got there, she learns that she's been in a coma for six months. Strangers show up and claim to be her parents, but she can't remember them. She can't remember anyone. Not her friends, not even her boyfriend. Even though she can't remember, everyone wants her to just pick up where she left off, but what she learns about the 'old her' makes her start to wish she'd never woken up. Her boyfriend breaks up with the new girl he's dating to be with her, her parents want her to start planning for college, her friends want their leader back, and her physical therapist with the hazel eyes keeps his distance to save his position at the hospital.

Will she ever feel like she recognizes the girl in the mirror?

Don't forget to add it on your TBR list! :)

Although I have seen Shelly Crane's books around the blogosphere a LOT, this is the first time I read one of her books. And I'm glad I did so .

The story is narrated by Emma Walker who wakes up from her six month coma to find out that she has no memory whatsoever of her life prior to the accident. She's wakes up and realizes that she has a family of who she has no recollection of. Finding out that pre-accident Emma was a bitch with a capital B was the icing on the cake.

Her friends, her family and her 'boyfriend' expect her to go back to being the pre-accident Emma. But post-accident Emma is nothing like the pre-accident Emma. Shelly Crane paints a clear picture of the struggles that Emma faces during her journey to find herself. Shelly forces the readers to experience every ounce of frustration, disappointment, regret and hope that Emma feels. Despite Emma's history it was hard not to like her and empathize with her. 

Mason is her physical therapist-the guy who both literally and figuratively helps Emma stand on her own two feet. He was a refreshing change from the bad boys that seem to be taking over the Contemporary Romance genre. He was honorable, caring and he did the sweetest things ever for Emma!

"More than a poor boy that had nothing to offer, more than a tattooed guy who always had to prove he was something from judging eyes, more than I deserved. 

I took her face in my hands and then took her mouth. That mouth that owned me, that mouth that made me forgot who and what I was and made me feel like I was better than all that."

Afterlife Academy: Excerpt + Author Interview + Giveaway

Title: Afterlife Academy
Author: Jaimie Admans
Published: March 15th 2013
Purchase Links: Amazon |
Amazon UK
Synopsis:

Even being dead isn’t enough to get you out of maths class.

Dying wasn't on sixteen-year-old Riley Richardson's to-do list. And now, not only is she dead, but she's stuck in a perpetual high school nightmare. Worse still, she's stuck there with the geekiest, most annoying boy in the history of the world, ever.

In a school where the geeks are popular and just about everything is wrong, Riley has become an outcast. She begins a desperate quest to get back home, but her once-perfect life starts to unravel into something not nearly as great as she thought it was. And maybe death isn’t really that bad after all... 

Welcome to Afterlife Academy, where horns are the norm, the microwave is more intelligent than the teachers, and the pumpkins have a taste for blood.

Excerpt

           CHAPTER 1

I have always been a good girl. I’ve always been a girl who never gets into trouble. In fact, the one and only time that I do something even vaguely wrong, do you know what happens?

I die.

At least, that seems like the most logical explanation, given the circumstances.

I remember impact.

And then nothing.

I open my eyes and look around. I am standing in front of the school gate.

Of all places.

It’s freezing. Something feels wrong. I’m just pulling my jacket further around myself when I hear a voice to my left.

“You,” it says angrily.

It startles me and I spin around to see Anthony.

Of all people.

Somehow I have gone from being in the car with Wade to standing in front of the school gate with the geekiest, most boring, weirdest nerd boy from my form.

“You,” I snarl back at him.

He sighs.

I huff out a breath, which appears in front of my face because it’s so cold. It’s the middle of April. It shouldn’t be this cold.

I look around and realise something is really wrong with this place.

We’re standing on the road outside our school gate.

Except we’re not.

On the road, that is.

I mean, we’re outside the school. Our school. And we’re standing on a road. But this isn’t the road. There are no cars. No houses. No sandwich shop opposite. There’s nothing but an endless country lane. There is nothing in either direction. Just a plain tarmac road. And trees. Lots of trees.

I glance back at Anthony to see if he’s seeing this too. Obviously he is because he’s looking around, clearly just as bewildered as I am.

“What happened?” I say, more to myself than to him.

In Your Dreams: Author Interview + Giveaway

Title: In Your Dreams
Author: Amy Martin
Published: August 16th 2012 
Purchase : Amazon | Smashwords | B&N
Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Zara “Zip” McKee lives for three things: basketball, books, and bailing out of tiny Titusville, Illinois, where the junior high and high school are in the same building and everyone’s known everyone else since birth. But when Kieran Lanier moves to town and passes out on her desk on his first day at school, Zip’s life gets complicated in a way she never dreamed. 
Kieran has narcolepsy, and although he sometimes struggles to stay awake, he has no trouble capturing Zip’s heart and trusting her with his most guarded secret–he sees bits and pieces of the future in his dreams. 
But just when Zip thinks that maybe she can handle having a boyfriend who sees things before they happen, her budding relationship with Kieran gets a jolt when Kieran’s parents reveal that his sleeping disorder is not what it seems and may be putting them in harm’s way. And when Zip begins to have unsettling dreams, she must decide if she can live with knowing the future in advance when she’s afraid of what might happen.

                                    Interview with Amy!

Hi Amy, welcome to Say It with Books!

Narcolepsy, that's a never seen before approach in YA-Was there something in particular that inspired you to address this issue?

I knew I wanted to address dreams as part of the books, and waking dreams can be a symptom of narcolepsy. I also wanted to give Kieran and Zip a challenge that isn't normally seen in YA--they're struggling with all of the usual relationship drama, but Kieran's condition adds a twist. I've also had family members who suffer from dementia and related memory issues, so I'm just fascinated in general with how the brain works (or doesn't).

How do you react to a bad review of one of your books?

I accept the criticism, eat some chocolate, and move on. If I see the same types of negative comments popping up in reviews, that's a clue to me that I need to work on something in my writing. So, in that sense, there's really no such thing as a bad review.

What book/s will you never get sick of reading no matter how many times you read it?

Wow--this is hard. One that comes to mind is Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes, which has finally been made into a movie (I'm so pumped!). I think I read that book a million times when I was in grade school and early high school. Even now that I'm long past adolescence, that book still rings true for me.

The Bad Girls' Club: Author Interview + Giveaway

Title: The Bad Girls' Club
Author: Kathryn O'Halloran
Published: December 22nd 2012
Purchase Links:
Amazon | Kobo | B&N | iTunes
Synopsis:

The Bad Girls' Club: it's about sex, it's about dares but most of all, it's about friendship.

When Imogen, Juliette and Beth are seated together at a wedding, they have nothing in common but their resentment of the bride, Poppy. A risque prank draws them together and they decide to form the Bad Girls Club - a last ditch effort to free them from the shackles of keeping themselves nice. 

The club rules are simple. Each girl must complete a dare pushing them way out of their comfort zones. 

Imogen puts the club in danger with her first dare. It seems nothing she does works out quite right until she is approached by the one man she thinks she can never have, the one man she should never have - Poppy's husband, Daniel. 
When Juliette is transformed by a bad girl makeover, suddenly she's the girl everyone wants. Why would she be satisfied with one man when two are even better? But Juliette's evolution doesn't end there! 
Beth is happy to be a bad girl - so long as no one else finds out, so long as it doesn't interfere with the rest of her life and so long as she is in control. It's just a pity Juliette is developing a mind of her while Imogen's breasts are testing her ideas of appropriate desire. 

Are the girls ready to finally take the final leap that will have them branded as bad girls for real? To save the club, and each other, they each have to publicly acknowledge their darkest secrets.

 

                                     Author Interview

Give us the title and genre of your book and a 30-word or less tagline:

The Bad Girls' Club- chick lit.

The Bad Girls’ Club – it’s about sex, it’s about dares but most of all, it’s about friendship.

How did you come up with the idea of writing about The Bad Girls' Club?

I really liked the idea of dares so I started thinking about what would happen if a group of "nice" girls got together and dared each other to do some crazy stuff. 

Do you also have a 'bad girl' side to you? If so, how?

Little White Lies by Erin Lawless: Author Interview + Giveaway

Title: Little White Lies

Author: Erin Lawless

Published: February 16th 2013 by CreateSpace

Purchase Links: Amazon UK |
Amazon | B & N | WHSmith | 
Smashwords

Synopsis:

Miles and Nicky are getting married. 
Unfortunately, their wedding party is a tangle of ex-housemates, ex-friends and ex-lovers. 

Leigha, Sukie and Harriet used to be the best of friends.
Unfortunately, there are some things you just can’t forgive.
Johnny thought that Leigha was the love of his life.
Unfortunately, he still thinks that; even more unfortunately, she never loved him at all. 
Adam and Harriet might have been something, once. 
Unfortunately, now Adam isn’t even sure if he’s going to be able to look her in the face. 

So this wedding isn’t just a wedding, it’s a reunion. 
Can anything be salvaged from the past? And what really happened between them all, back at university? 

With a playful but firm grasp of the zeitgeist, Little White Lies moves back and forth between 2007 and 2012 and seven characters to build up a rich and compelling story, in turns funny and sad, but always honest, about friendship in all its forms and the practicality of second chances. 

This novel is a New Adult (British) contemporary novel, recommended for readers aged 17+ due to language and mature situations.                           

Author Interview

• What is the craziest prank you've pulled on someone?

I am racking my brain but I don’t think I’ve done anything truly worthy of being called a “prank”. There was lots of hiding under beds and jumping out of cupboards and from round corners to scare people during my university years. Once, my boyfriend and his housemate collected about a hundred ‘calling cards’ (you know, the ones with naked ladies on them advertising certain services…) and put them in their other housemate’s bedroom. He kept on finding hidden pockets of them for a year or more… the last few were in fact found by his mother when she came to help him pack up his room after graduation…

• List your top 3 addictions

Black, sugary English Breakfast tea; Goodreads; Wicked the Musical, which I have seen 13 times.

Katja's 25 & The Sea of Tranquility Giveaway

1. I hate all classic Thanksgiving food - especially mashed potatoes. The thought of eating mashed potatoes makes me gag. My mom makes me baked ziti on Thanksgiving so that I’ll eat.
2. When I absolutely love a book, I buy multiple copies because I have to have ALL the covers.
3. I married my prom date. It should also be noted that my prom dress had five bows and nine million sequins on it.
4. I think chocolate covered pretzels are proof that God loves me.
5. I have inappropriate feelings for Jim Caviezel. 

6. If I had had a son, I would have named him after Rainer Maria Rilke.
7. I think nice people and sarcasm are underrated.
8. I’m the worst liar ever. If they award that title at some point in time, I should win it hands down.
9. I am obsessed with Costco. I’m trying to convince them to let me move in.
10. My favorite Muppet is Beaker.

11. I love the song Tarzan Boy. Sometimes I listen to it on repeat. I feel no shame over this.
12. I can’t whistle. At all.
13. I am completely antisocial. I can go more than a week at a time without ever leaving my house and it doesn’t bother me.
14. I suck at small talk. (See #13)
15. I hate glitter.
16. I have an overzealous love for the show Victorious. I use my daughters as an excuse to watch it. 

17. When I was young, I wouldn’t swim in the deep end of the pool because I was convinced there was a shark under there that I couldn’t see.
18. If you don’t know what an ROUS is, you are either far too young or we are not friends. 

19. I can’t watch horror movies. They scare the hell out of me.
20. I’m fanatical about Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series. I would risk stalking charges for her. It would be worth it. 

21. I don’t find leather pants attractive.
22. I’m making it my life’s mission to find a way to bring back Morton’s cinnamon donuts. The world is a better place with them in it.

23. My Antonia is my favorite classic novel. It’s such a beautiful, poignant, atmospheric book. I want to hit people over the head with it to get them to read it but I’m not quite sure how successful that technique would be.
24. I’m a plant murderer. I kill them all. Even the impossible to kill ones. I’ve given up. I can’t handle the sense of failure.
25. When I lived in New York, I used to lay in bed on Saturday mornings and watch the mice chase each other across the floor. I don’t miss the mice. I do miss the pizza and The Strand.

Interview With An Author Who Enraptured Us All: S.C. Stephens

                            

I think by now, you all know how much I love the Thoughtless series by S.C. Stephens. And if you follow me on Twitter, you'll notice that every now and then I tweet quotes from Thoughtless, Effortless and Reckless as well. 

Just a few weeks ago, I also bought Collision Course on Amazon because I've been hearing great things about it and a lot of my friends who also love the THOUGHTLESS series told me that I should also read this one. And I'll update you guys about it when I start reading it. I'm sure it'll be another strikingly beautiful book by S.C.!

And today, we are really very honored to share with you guys our interview with the brilliant author behind the series that captivated all of us.. Please welcome, Miss S.C. Stephens! 

• Can you say that you and Kiera have some similarities? And if you were Kiera, would you also choose Kellan in the end just like what happened in Thoughtless? Why or why not?

Yes, I would say Kiera and I have some similarities. In some ways we’re very different, but we have a lot of the same quirks and insecurities. Hmmm, I’m not sure if I would choose Kellan or not. It’s easy to say yes when it’s a fictional situation, but in real life…I’d be even more leery of Kellan than she was.

• What is your favorite line in the series? Just one line from one person. (Can be from any of the characters.)

Oh gosh, there are way too many favorites to pick just one! I can’t decide. Hmmm, here are some of my favorites from each character:

Kellan: “I thought I had everything I needed, but only because I didn’t let myself want anything. And then I saw you, and you burned a hole straight through me. I have never wanted anything more in my life. And I have never been more terrified in all my life. In all my life.”

Kiera: “Because I love you more than any one person should be allowed to love someone.”

Griffin: “You can see her now. She’s absolutely beautiful…perfect, just like her mom.”

Anna: “All I have is nice hair and a great rack. What the hell do I have to offer a kid?”

Evan: “I don’t think he ever really understood why we did that, why we moved here with him. I don’t think he grasped that we believed in him and loved him, like family. I still don’t think he grasps that.”

Matt: “Dude, he's Australian...not a pirate.”

Denny: “Do you see now, how that doesn't work for me? I don't want to be there, simply because the idea of me being gone is too...scary. I want to be someone's everything. I want fire and passion, and love that's returned, equally. I want to be someone's heart... Even if it means breaking my own.”

• Were there scenes in the books you found hard to write because of the intensity of the emotions? And have you ever cried while writing several scenes? If yes, can you please tell us which one of them?

Yes, there were several scenes that made me tear up: the end of Thoughtless, Anna’s situation in Effortless, several scenes in Reckless that I won’t mention for spoilers sake. The hard scenes are the easiest for me to write though. They’re my absolute favorite.

• If you could be a character in one of your series or novels, who would you be and why?

That’s a tossup between Anna and Kellan. I just love how confident they are.

• What would you like to say to all your fans out there from around the world who continue to support you?

From the bottom of my heart, thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you!

ABOUT S.C. STEPHENS

S.C. Stephens is an independent author who enjoys spending every free moment she has creating stories that are packed with emotion and heavy on romance.

Her first attempt at a full-length novel was Thoughtless. She wrote the angst-filled love triangle in early 2009 and published it that summer on FictionPress. Amazed and surprised by the response, more stories were quick to follow. 

Conversion, the first novel in a three story vampire series, was released in the fall. Collision Course, a tragic, yet hopeful tale of love and loss was released in early 2010. The second Conversion novel came out next, along with It’s All Relative, a different take on a one night stand story. 

In addition to writing, Stephens enjoys reading other people’s fabulous novels, loading up her iPod with writer’s block reducing music, heading out to the movie theaters, and spending quality time with her children. 

You can contact Stephens at ThoughtlessRomantic@gmail.com

Official Website |  Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook 

Amazon | Simon and Schuster

Thank you for granting us this interview, Miss S.C.! I hope that we can do more interviews in the future with you. You will surely make our followers happy and of course, all your fans from around the world! More power to you, and we love you! ♥

Okay girls, gotta go, I have another appointment! And guess who he is. Tee hee. K.K. ♥