Welcome back everyone!!! We are so happy to be on the Body & Blood blog tour presented by InkSlinger PR. Thank you so much to Kelly Simmon for hosting such a fabulous tour and to Amanda Havard for writing such a mesmerizing series...
Today we have a fantastic interview with the one and only Amanda Havard so make sure you scroll down and meet this amazing author. Don't forget to read my review (Kat) and enter the GIVEAWAY for some awesome prizes!!!
~Kat
How many answers you seek are just a part of you, waiting to be found?The game has changed.
Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human with Cole Hardwick while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought with the first deaths of their own kind, a tyrant who will torture them, and an opponent more terrifying than anyone could have foreseen, the Survivors are facing their end.
Told from three points of view, The Survivors: Body & Blood is a bloodcurdling, mind-bending, heart-stopping ride. As Sadie and the Winters uncover more enemies, more history, and more answers, they find themselves brought closer together and ripped further apart. And all the while, a haunting Alexander Raven lurks at the edge of Sadie s lifeline, at the darkening fringes of her mind.
As the Survivors descend into chaos, Sadie realizes a painful truth: the deepest of secrets leave the darkest of marks.
Caught between a terrifying fantasy and her own grim reality, Body & Blood is the story of Sadie s dance with her demons, future, past, and present.
Amanda Havard thinks in stories. She writes books and songs, tells stories to people over coffee or in elaborate iPad apps, in short films or subtle photographs. Stories are her life. THE SURVIVORS: BODY & BLOOD is her third novel, and is an amalgamation of all of her storytelling love combined. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a place where creativity drips from the sap of the trees, radiates from the attitude of the population, and seeps from the concrete. The inventor of the Immersedition™ interactive book app, Havard is always looking for the next best story-- and the most innovative way to tell it.
What a special treat I have for you today. I have gotten Amanda Havard in the hot seat and was able to ask her some questions so that we all could find out a little more about her...
Intrigued?? I definitely am...
So, lets get started...
TSK TSK: What type of planning goes in to your
writing? Is there lots of research?
Amanda: "Plan"
and "research" are probably the two most central terms to my writing
process. SURVIVORS is built on
drawing connections between existing mythology and lore, existing history. I
can support every historical reference with research and often a primary source
document. Research inspires and frames everything I do.
But I
also plot obsessively. Readers know me for weaving in subtle and intricate
pieces and patterns into my writing that might start as Nothing but build to
Something. That's my style. And all I can say is... Just wait for book five.
TSK TSK: What would be a
typical day for you?
Amanda: There is
no typical day for me. I have my hand in so many endeavors, it seems like no
two days are the same. I run the interactive book app company, Immersedtion, and so I am back and forth
between my apartments in New York and Nashville meeting with all kinds of
publishers and media companies. I write on planes and in coffee shops and on
car rides to meetings. In between all that, I write and produce music for the
SURVIVORS world, other authors' story worlds, and my own purposes. And
somewhere in between all that, I manage to eat (often cook) a lot of good food,
keep active, read comic books, research transmedia, and... shop. (There's
always time for style.)
So my typical day typically involves some combination of all those pieces, in
various fractions.
TSK TSK: Music is an
integral part of your life, do you feel like you have
a constant playlist running in your head?
Amanda: Yes. Big
days in my life get playlists. Moods
get playlists. Conversations, characters, life events, errands, friends, and
ideas get playlists. There is a perfect soundtrack to every moment in your life
if only you know how to find it.
TSK TSK: Do you find it
easier to write your books or your songs?
Amanda: Books.
You get one shot with songs. They're easier to mess up, in part because they
have so few words.
TSK TSK: What is something
that you do that no one knows that you do?
Amanda: Save the
world, Batman-style. Oh wait. Scratch that. Probably shouldn't be divulging my
secret identities....
TSK TSK: Where
is somewhere you would love to travel to?
Amanda: Asia.
I've never been! I've also fixated a lot on the idea of Budapest in the past,
and I've wanted to go to Turkey in general ever since I started writing about
Ephesus. I also have a good friend from Latvia, and it sounds so lovely that I
really want to visit.
TSK TSK: Who is your
favorite character in The Survivors series?
The most
fun to write? The
hardest?
Amanda: Mark. And Mark. And Mark. (Runners up: Ginny; Alexander is sickly
fun to write; And sometimes it's hard to watch Sadie be — to stay — in so much pain.)
TSK TSK: Anything you can
tell us about book 4?
Amanda: It's the
only book I've ever written that shocks me. Shocks. So imagine what it will do
to you.
The Body & Blood Soundtrack Sessions follow Amanda Havard as she talks about each song found on the soundtrack for the third book in THE SURVIVORS SERIES, Body & Blood, and performs exclusive acoustic versions of each song. Want more Survivors soundtrack music? Check out the rest of the B&B Sessions, the original songs written exclusively for the series, and the full soundtrack!
Twitter
YouTube
Goodreads
Pinterest
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Websites
www.immersedition.com
Well, let me first say that I was ecstatic to be able to meet Amanda Havard not too long ago while attending UTopYA con in Nashville in June. She is such a beautiful soul that once you meet her, your life is forever touched.
And now, on to the book...
I read all three books back to back so let me just say this...
The world that Amanda created is innovative and unique. The way she weaves true historical events and facts in to the fantastical world of The Survivors is purely the work of genius.
I was engrossed in so many aspects of this tale that sometimes I felt like my head was spinning. And believe me, that is a good thing. Body & Blood (as well as the other books) is jam packed with suspense, action, angst (yes, lots of it), mystery, a lil passion, and just down right DRAMA!!!
But it is a series that I have latched on to and am dying to find out what happens next...ESPECIALLY since we are left with the MOTHER of all cliffhangers....GRRRR!!!!
ANYWAY...as you can see I really like this series and this is good for you to know since what I say next might throw you off a little bit. As I am now finished with book 3 of this series, the main character/heroine Sadie has been the one we have followed throughout the books. It is her story that we are tagging along on and at this moment...I don't like her. She is selfish and very self-centered. I have wanted to yank her up by her hair at times and slap her silly. The decisions she makes just PISSES me off...and yep...ALL THE WAY TO BOOK 3 I feel this way...There are moments I see growth and think..YES!! but then the old Sadie pops back up and BAM...right where we started...And it kills me to watch the people in her life suffer. Everett, Mark, Ginny, Cole...these people put up with so much from her. Which is really one great thing about Body & Blood; instead of solely being told from Sadie's POV, we were able to hear from Everett and Mark. I thoroughly enjoyed switching in to their heads. It was also awesome to read how they see and accept Sadie for all her "sadieness".
But, all my Sadie hate aside, I really like this series. With such a distinctive concept, you fall in to the pages soaking up all that Amanda hands to us about this compelling group of people called The Survivors. That this world isn't only made up of them but other supernatural beings that will either be with them in their great battle or against them.
I highly recommend that you pick this series up. For a writer to be able to elicit such strong emotions from me, even one in which I don't like the MC, then that tells you just how gifted she is. To be able to keep me enthralled, enchanted, dying to know what is going to happen...YEP..I am hooked...
Love the cover of this one! And the book sounds interesting too.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for stopping by! Jen @ YA Romantics