Here I Am!

I'm getting ready to head to Michigan for GLIBA - hooray! I love meeting booksellers :)

This week I was delighted to spend time on the blog of Brenna Yovanoff (yay, her awesome debut The Replacement is a New York Times bestseller!).

As I'll be traveling and not posting you can stop by and see my guest blog and interview if you should miss me. I miss you too!

Winners Galore

Wow - we've had an awesome spate of contests on the blog recently and today is the day to announce all the winners.
Let's start with the most recent and work back in time. (Hooray for blog time travel!)

Yesterday I was delighted to host a contest for Lisa Desrochers' debut PERSONAL DEMONS. It's in stores today - go get it :) Don't forget to stop by Lisa's blog today for more chances to win.

The winner of the PERSONAL DEMONS prize back is:

Claire Dawn

I also was able to spend some time talking with Brenna Yovanoff about her debut THE REPLACEMENT (in stores September 21). I love having awesome authors visit the blog. What fun!

Winners of THE REPLACEMENT are:

Casey (A Bookish Type)
&
April

And finally - for announcing the appearance of Shay Doran in our world, the winner of NIGHTSHADE is:

Jessica from A Great Read!

Congrats to all the winners :) If your name was selected please email your mailing address to andreacremerwrites (at) gmail (dot) com

Thanks so much to everyone for entering. It's a great fall for books. And if you haven't stopped by to meet Shay yet, please check out his Facebook page and blog. Believe me, he's really going to need your help in the next few weeks. Don't leave him alone in that big mansion!

Q&A with Brenna Yovanoff

In addition to her fantastic guest post on irrational fear (mine is of crocodiles), Brenna was kind enough to let me ask her a bunch of questions:

1. Mackie is such a unique and wonderful protagonist. What inspired you to write about a changeling who has been raised in the human world and wants to be part of it?

First, I have to say, I'm always so jealous of those people who get lightning-bolt story ideas, because I have to hang onto ideas for years before I do anything with them—it's like they need to cure or something. Basically, I had an English class where we read a lot of Colonial poetry and one of the poems was about a changeling. I was not the most focused student (very prone to daydreaming), and I started thinking about how that would play out in a contemporary setting. I carried the premise around with me for a long time before I actually sat down and tried to write about it. Discovering Mackie was another proposition altogether. I had to go through several complete drafts with him before I really started to know him. His default setting is to be extremely guarded and I kind of had to break that open.

2. Gentry haunted me – how did you create your novel’s striking setting?

The words: “The Lottery.” I read Shirley Jackson for the first time in high school, and she totally creeped me out. That story has stayed with me for years and I knew I wanted to do something with the idea of town loyalty and turning a blind eye. I wanted to use that same sense of absolute disregard for the sacrifices people are making in order to ensure that the town has prosperity. I think that was always the thing that upset me the most about “The Lottery”—you protect the town by sacrificing the town.

3. I LOVE Shirley Jackson!!! But moving on...in many ways your book is about family and loyalty. Was it important to you to explore the role of family in a paranormal setting?

Idon't think I initially set out to tell a story about family. I just knew that I wanted to write a changeling story, and I was pretty surprised when I realized that Mackie's family actually did love him. It hadn't occurred to me that that kind of acceptance was a possibility for him, and once it became clear that they were in it for the long haul, I had to figure out what that meant, because it changed a lot of what the story was about.

4. The myriad creatures of The Replacement are amazing. What kind of research did you do to create the slag heap and its inhabitants?

In order to populate the slag heap, I drew heavily on Celtic mythology, but I'll be the first to admit, my version of a lot of it is pretty unrecognizable. I wanted to show some kind of adaptation. Over time, things really don't stay the same—cultures evolve or falter based on their environment and the other civilizations they come in contact with. I wanted to look at the kind of effect that would have on people who are defined not by their own customs or geography, but by the way they interact with the human population around them.

5. Do you think of your novel as fitting within the ‘horror’ genre?

You know, when I wrote The Replacement, I really didn't think I was writing horror. I assumed that what I had on my hands was a contemporary fantasy that just happened to be pretty dark. When the editorial team at Razorbill first mentioned that it might fall under the category of horror, I was surprised. Then I started making a list of all the various creatures and the things that happen and I thought, “Well, of course it is!”

6. Will we see more of Mackie in the future?

Never say never (she says with a mysterious smile). The book I'm currently working on is another standalone, this time about demons, but that doesn't mean I'll never come back to the story of Mackie and Tate and Roswell. The world of Gentry has a lot of history and plenty of terrain to explore (aboveground as well as under), so while there's nothing planned for the immediate future, don't rule it out!

I'll keep my fingers crossed, Brenna! Thanks so much for answering all my questions :)

Don't forget, The Replacement hits stores September 21!!



To celebrate the upcoming release Penguin is giving away two signed copies of The Replacement! (U.S. only, apologies to international fans!) Just leave your name in the comments below and you could win!!!

The Replacement

I’m delighted to be sharing my thoughts on Brenna Yovanoff’s The Replacement, the second release of Penguin’s 2010 Breathless Reads (in stores September 21!).

This book is extraordinary – a word I don’t use lightly. What’s fascinating about Yovanoff’s novel is its originality and compelling juxtaposition of chilling moments with incredibly poignant scenes. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a horror novel with a sweet side, but The Replacement manages to be both frightening and moving.

Mackie Doyle is a unique and sympathetic protagonist – a changeling who is struggling to suppress his fey origins so that he can survive in the human world. Just like Mackie, the town of Gentry is hiding its own secrets. The setting is wonderfully mysterious and spine-shiveringly wrought. I was fascinated by Mackie’s dark hometown at the same time I was repelled by its horrors.

The Replacement’s gruesome creatures have their own stories and journeys, each of which adds more layers of complexity to the world Yovanoff has built. Within these pages you won’t find clear cut boundaries between good and evil, but instead a world shaded in greys – some silvery, others thick as fog – this ambiguity rings true, making the choices, struggles, and triumphs of the novel’s characters all the more real.

Should you pick up The Replacement, and I hope you will, you’ll be entranced by a strange, sublime world and a story that stays with you long after you turn the final page.

May Contest: Name the Band

I've posted a lot about how important music is to me. It's always fun to find other writerly types for whom music figures centrally in their lives and books.

I recently had the joy of reading Brenna Yovanoff's THE REPLACEMENT, an amazing book that will be on shelves September 21. One of my favorite parts of this book was the way Brenna described music. She makes it jump off the page and into your bloodstream.

Music plays a part in NIGHTSHADE's story too. One of the young wolves, Nevillle (Nev) - a member of the Bane pack - is a poet and musician who plays occasional gigs at a local dive bar, Burnout. Nev plays guitar and sings, an elder Bane wolf, Caleb, plays bass and the owner of the bar, Tom, plays drums. Another young Bane, Sabine, sometimes joins Nev on vocals.

The band doesn't have a name. Nev would never want to name it, he's not a naming his band kind of guy. In fact, I'm going to have to be sure he doesn't find out about this contest because he would be mortified by it.

Keeping that in mind, I thought it would be fun put a spin on this month's contest. Given the following teaser from NIGHTSHADE and what you've already surmised about the book itself, what would you name Nev's band:

"Evening." Nev's voice drew our attention. "I'm Nev. Caleb's on bass, you all know Tom, and the lovely Sabine is gracing us with her presence tonight."
The only applause came from our tables. Apparently the other bar patrons weren't here for the music.
Neville nodded at Tom. The bar owner and Caleb exchanged a quick glance and in the next moment bass and drums had set off at a slow, grinding rhythm. A smile ghosted across Neville's lips; his fingers moved over the guitar strings, and he began to sing.
Sabine took up the harmony. Her voice was sweet and dark like the first shadows of twilight. The music poured into my veins, a mixture of grit and silk. Subtle and intoxicating.
The Banes leaned forward in unison, drawn into the pulse of Neville's song. My own limbs felt like they were humming with the bass line.

I purposefully didn't give the song lyrics - and it's not a cover, Nev rarely plays covers; he writes his own music.

I wanted to allow for readers to create the sound of Nev's band for themselves.

And now you can suggest names for the band! (Sorry, Nev.)

I'm on the road for much of this week, so contest entries will be taken until Sunday, May 16. Only one entry per person.

The winner will receive an ARC of Brenna Yovanoff's THE REPLACEMENT.



Looking forward to your entries!!

Heathen much?

A happy and blessed Beltane!

Beltane, sometimes called May Eve, is one of the eight Sabbats. If you want to celebrate right, you should get yourself to Scotland for the Fire Festival.
If you're interested in gaining eternal beauty, be sure to climb the highest hill in your neighborhood and wash your face in the morning dew.

Pagan lore plays a big part in Nightshade's world, but since my book isn't available until October (Samhain anyone??) I thought today would be a good day to recommend some of my favorite books that are steeped in history and the old ways.

Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series is gorgeously written and thoroughly researched, reflecting Melissa's graduate work in gender studies and a sharp eye for folklore. It's a good time to start reading her work too - as the fifth book in the series, Radiant Shadows, was just released.

Maggie Stiefvater gained fame for her wolfie Shiver series, but her first books focused on the realm of faerie. Lament and Ballad are wonderful and heartbreaking. Pick them up!

And just 'cause I'm always a bit evil, I'll recommend another 2010 debut that releases a month before my own baby. Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement is delicious and dark, frequently terrifying and not for the faint of heart, offering an original and haunting depiction of faerie seeping into our world. Brenna and I are Penguin buddies and I'm thrilled that both our books are featured as part of the Penguin Five promotion (I will post more on what that means soon).(Yes, I have an ARC, and yes I just might be giving it away in a contest...If you think the cover looks cool here, wait till you see it in person. Soooooo shiny and beautiful!)

Have a wonderful May Eve and if the books above don't make it clear - you should not mess with the Fey.