Interview: Kendare Blake, author of Antigoddess

Today Kendare Blake visits The Hiding Spot to chat about her newest novel, Antigoddess! I'm a huge supporter of this book (check out my review!) and urge you all to go out and pick up your own copy because this great book releases TODAY! Read on to learn more about Kendare, including her favorite word (hey, we support all types of words here), the gorgeous, but ill-fated original title of Antigoddess, and the hiding spots that threaten to distract Kendare from writing us more fantastic books.

___________________________

Did you have trouble writing any of your characters or specific scenes within the novel? Or, were any characters or scenes particularly easy to write? 

Athena and Hermes came pretty easy. Athena’s brand of curmudgeon felt like something I was very familiar with, though I don’t think of myself as particularly curmudgeonly. She was also the character with the softest underbelly…she has the most defense mechanisms, she basically is one big defense mechanism…so in that way she sort of reminded me of Cas. Who I miss intensely.

Somebody who gave me a little bit of trouble though, was Cassandra. That damn girl. I thought she’d be this really put upon creature, always trying to find her way out of a bad situation, trying to take care of people and do the right thing. I thought she’d be extremely tragic. And then…well, she started to surprise me.

Has the title changed or stayed relatively the same as your novel journeyed towards publication? 

The title totally changed. When I wrote it initially, I thought it would be a standalone, or maybe a duology like the Anna series. The title was supposed to be Sing, Goddess. The sequel would have been Speak, Muse. You might recognize those as the opening words of the Iliad and the Odyssey, respectively. But then my agent read it and said it didn’t fit the violent action of the book. So I came up with Antigoddess instead. It was inspired by Antigone…that poor girl, born against everything.

What book or author has most influenced you as a writer or in general? 

That would be a two way tie between Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and Caitlin R. Kiernan (The Drowning Girl), two writers I have no business mentioning because they’re supreme writerly beings. But there it is. In the tie for third place would be almost every other writer I’ve ever read. You can learn something from everybody.

What jobs did you have on your way to becoming a writer/published author? Is there a certain work experience that has shaped your writing? 

I think I try to omit all day job influence. Which is not to say I haven’t enjoyed many of them. I’ve worked as a project manager for a quality control firm, I was a server in college, first job was selling jeans at the mall, and oh yes, not to be forgotten was the summer I sold garbage door to door.

When I was in grad school, I did a short stint of work experience for a literary agency in London, and that was cool.

If you had to pick a favorite word, what would it be and why? 

Hm. Hm. That’s a tough one. But I’d have to go with…deflated swear words. You know, the swear word you say when things have not gone your way and you are left bereft and sort of exhausted. Often they are preceded by the word, “Well.” As in, “well…fuck.” Whoops! You probably need to asterisk one of those letters!

My blog is dedicated to my personal hiding spot, books. Who, what, or where can be credited as your personal escape from reality? 

Books make a great hiding spot. Very clever blog name, by the way. I suppose my personal escape from reality…let’s go with escapes. RPG video games can suck several hundred hours off my life if I find a good one. I love indie films and philosophical books, the kind that stretch your brain out and make it make weird animal noises.

And oh yes, old cartoons. Like Sailor Moon or Batman Beyond. Or Gargoyles.

Now I want to go do all of that stuff. But I should probably be writing!

Find out more about Kendare and her books here!

______________________________

Review: New Money by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal

A young Southern woman of modest means suddenly finds herself thrust into New York's high society when she discovers that she is the illegitimate daughter of a recently-deceased billionaire.

Savannah Morgan had high hopes. She dreamed of becoming a writer and escaping her South Carolina town, where snooty debutantes have always looked down on her. But at twenty-four, she's become a frustrated ex-cheerleader who lives with her mother and wonders if rejecting a marriage proposal was a terrible mistake. Then Savannah's world is shaken when she learns the father she never knew is Edward Stone, a billionaire media mogul who has left Savannah his fortune on the condition that she move to Manhattan and work at his global news corporation. Putting aside her mother's disapproval, Savannah dives head first into a life of wealth and luxury that is threatened by Edward's other children--the infuriatingly arrogant Ned and his sharp-tongued sister, Caroline, whose joint mission is to get rid of Savannah. She deals with their treachery along with her complicated love life, and she eventually has to decide between Jack, a smooth and charming real estate executive, and Alex, a handsome aspiring writer/actor. Savannah must navigate a thrilling but dangerous city while trying to figure out what kind of man her father truly was.

 ___________________________________

Lorraine Zago Rosenthal's sophomore offering, New Money, is a departure from her first book, Other Words for Love, but both novels have the same sense of heart and feature a main character fighting to stay true to herself.

New Money begins in the small South Carolina town where the main character, Savannah, was raised by her single mother. Savannah, now 24, often wonders if she made the right choices in her life. After all, her current situation - a dead-end job, an unused college degree, single, and disillusioned - isn't what she'd dreamed of for herself. All that changes with a simple phone call: Savannah is the illegitimate daughter of Edward Stone, the recently deceased millionaire, and she's been included in his will. Stone has left her his entire fortune, but, in exchange for her inheritance, she must move to New York and take a job within his company. Many things await Savannah in NYC, including two bitter half-siblings, a luxurious lifestyle, not one but two suitors, and drama and gossip, two things she'd hoped she'd left behind in SC. Savannah isn't sure her rags to riches story will have a happy ending, but it's abundantly clear her new situation will challenge everything she believes in.

While the premise of New Money is pretty straight forward, I still enjoyed following Savannah's story. Though she has a good heart, she isn't a perfect person, which makes her both frustrating and easy to relate to. Still, she redeems herself with her honesty. She admits when she's wrong and doesn't deny her faults.

My favorite character, however, was not Savannah but her new-found sister-in-law, Kitty. She's a strong, independent, successful woman, who comes from money but never seems to take it for granted or believe that it makes her any better than others. I would definitely read a book where Kitty was the main character - I feel like there is so much more to learn about her!

New Money has the feel of television series fueled by drama, secrets, and good-looking men. It's light, clean fun that I fully recommend.

Thomas Dunne Books, September 2013, Hardcover, ISBN: 9781250025357, 336 pgs.

Giveaway: Two Lies and a Spy by Kat Carlton

I have a copy of Kat Carlton's Two Lies and a Spy for two winners at The Hiding Spot, courtesy of Simon & Schuster! Read on to find out more about the novel, the author, and to enter to win!

About the book:

Kari plunges into the world of espionage on a mission to save her parents while trying to impress the guy she’s been in love with forever.

When sixteen-year-old Kari’s dad sends her an unexpected text, she and her brother immediately go into hiding. Because when your parents are superspies and your dad declares a Code Black, it can only mean something bad. Very bad.

Kari soon discovers that her parents have been disavowed and declared traitors, and she’s determined to clear their names. Breaking into the Agency seems like a reasonable plan, especially with the help of a team that includes her longtime crush, Luke, as well as her two best friends—an expert hacker with attitude and a master martial artist—and Luke’s popular, vindictive twin sister. Oh, and a new guy, who’s as cute as he is complicated...

About the author:

Kat Carlton is the alias for a private citizen working in the interests of truth, justice and the American Way. She’d reveal her true identity, but then she’d have to kill too many people…so Kat is content, like most covert operatives, to take names and kick ass from behind the scenes. 

Win it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Interview: Lorraine Zago Rosenthal, author of New Money

Today Lorraine Zago Rosenthal is at The Hiding Spot to answer a few questions about her writing and her newest book, New Money: A Novel. I loved Rosenthal's first novel, Other Words for Love (review here), and this new novel, which has a complete different setting and main character than her first book. New Money is New Adult and features a rags to riches story, but still has the same heart I loved about Other Words for Love. 

___________________

The Interview

Did you have trouble writing any of your characters or specific scenes within the novel? Or, were any characters or scenes particularly easy to write?

In general, writing a novel is challenging. It requires a lot of dedication, effort, and focus on the characters and their individual stories. What often comes easiest is writing dialogue after the characters’ personalities and relationships with each other have been established. When you really understand a character, it isn’t hard to figure out what he or she is going to say next.

Has the title changed or stayed relatively the same as your novel journeyed towards publication?

The title has stayed the same.

 What book or author has most influenced you as a writer or in general? 

I admire and have been influenced by so many authors. One of my all-time favorite authors is Emily Bronte. I love Wuthering Heights because of its emotional intensity and Bronte’s ability to make me understand and sympathize with characters who aren’t necessarily likeable. 

If you had to pick a favorite word, what would it be and why?

 “Yes” is a good word. It’s usually much better than “no.”

 My blog is dedicated to my personal hiding spot, books. Who, what, or where can be credited as your personal escape from reality? 

I’m a movie buff, and I have always found watching a movie in a theater to be a great escape from reality.

Find out more about Lorraine and her books here! 

_______________________________

Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love. 

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

___________________________________

I've heard, repeatedly, that Rainbow Rowell's writing has a magical quality, so I knew I needed to read one of her novels. So, when the opportunity arose to read Fangirl, I had high expectations, but that ended up totally fine because I loved this book to pieces.

If you looked next to the definition of introvert in the dictionary, you might see a picture of Fangirl's main character, Cath. In real life, Cath is quiet, solitary, and anxious when it comes to interacting with others. Which makes her first semester at university especially difficult: she's far from her dad, who she worries about constantly, her twin sister wants to branch out and begin her own, independent life, her new roommate might hate her, and her roommate's boyfriend is entirely too chatty for loner Cath. To add to the overwhelming mess of college, Cath has some very unique commitments: she's a Simon Snow fangirl. In fact, she's so committed to the Simon Snow books that she writes them... well, versions of them. Cath is well known - and widely read - in the Simon Snow world and, with the release of the final book approaching, she's under more pressure than ever to finish her version of Simon's story as well. Cath has to figure out how to balance her relationships and responsibilities, how to leave the safe warmth of her comfort zone, and, ultimately, embrace happiness.

For me, the most amazing aspect of Fangirl was how completely I was able to relate to the characters and actually picture the events as they happened. I think this was partially from having gone to university and having felt just as lost as Cath at the beginning Everything that happened in the book, whether it ever actually happened to me personally, felt achingly familiar. There is an honesty about Rowell's writing that allows for this sense of connection. Fangirl is a perfect example of a book that let's readers know they're not alone, that someone else out there in the world has experienced the same feelings and made it through the same situations.

I loved Cath's writing professor. In my experience, it isn't often that students run across professors that take such an interest in their students, who really care whether they succeed and embrace their potential, but it's those professors who make the college experience really worth it. I appreciated the professor's part in Cath's story; she was a valuable source of direction and encouragement in the sea of overwhelming newness that is the first year of college.

It was also refreshing to see Cath have such a close relationship with her family. Her father, in particular, was an interesting character. Often, in YA, the reader only sees bits of the parent(s), but I felt like I really got to know Cath's father. Cath's mother is an entirely different story, having left the family when Cath was quite young, we are only able to see flashes of her, memories and quick images as she tries to salvage a relationship with the twins after years of absence. What struck me, however, about Rowell's portrayal of Cath's parents, is that they are neither good nor bad. They are just people with flaws and quirks and twin daughters. Again, the honesty of Rowell's writing asserts itself.

Cath's college experience is like that of many young adults, so the premise of Fangirl is by no means new and shiny, but Cath - and the way she thinks and sees the world - makes the premise feel new again. Cath messes up, she makes unexpected new friends, faces challenges, and falls for a boy. She must admit to her mistakes, open up to her new friends, find the strength tackle new situations, and the bravery to love a boy.

Read Fangirl, whether you already love Rowell's writing or have only heard good things about it. And be prepared to fall in love with the raw honesty you'll find within these pages.

St. Martin's Griffin, September 2013, Hardcover, ISBN:9781250030955, 405 pgs.