Bookish Christmas Q and A

The lovely Jess over at Jess Hearts Books (honestly, check her blog out, it is so good!) made a great post last Friday full of bookish Christmassy questions and it looks and sounds like a lot of fun and she said people are welcome to do their own so I am taking her up on that offer as I want something to really kick start my Christmas spirit and what better way to do that than to talk about some amazing books! Lets get cracking!

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1.) Advent Calendar: what's the next big book release you're counting down to?

Something I am really looking forward to in 2015 is The Death Code by Lindsay Cummings. It is the sequel to The Murder Complex, which just so happens to be one of my favourite books published this year! Her writing is so fresh and vivid and her characters are adorable, and I cannot wait to see what is going to happen next in Meadow and Zephyr's lives!

2.) Snow Day: which best friends from a book could keep you entertained all day long?

I love the dynamics of the relationship and Celaena and Dorien in Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass books (no spoilers for Heir of Fire please! I haven't read that one yet!!!) They're both just so much fun and when they are around each other it's a mixture of flirting and friendship and also sometimes contempt. I love them.

3.) The Nativity: which book/series would you most like to see adapted into a movie, TV show, play etc?

I would love to see Darren Shan's Zom-B series be made into a tv show. I think it would work better that way. It's so graphic and so well described, that I think some of the events would make it an eighteen movie and at least if it was on telly it could go out post-watershed and it could still be a real success... I would also loved to the the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series be made into movies. It's a great series that I feel is grossly underrated. I know the rights were sold a while back, then bought back and sold again for them to be made into tv movies, but nothing has been announced or mentioned for quite a while and as a long term fan who really wants to see the books explode even more than they have already it is quite frustrating!

4.) Carol Singing: which musical book character/s would you like to turn up on your doorstep caroling this Christmas? 

Katniss Everdeen. Thankfully, we kind of do have Katniss singing thanks to JLaw's incredible performance! I love that they did The Hanging Tree in Mockingjay Part 1 and that they did it justice. It is such a beautiful song that Katniss could just sing that to me and I would still be in the Christmassy mood! I also think she would do a mean rendition of Jingle Bells!

5.) The Perfect Gift: which book from your wish list would you most like to find under your tree on Christmas morning?
I am such a bad person when it comes to knowing what I would like for Christmas. I am something of an impulse buyer so I do buy a lot of the books I want as and when they come out so there aren't normally many left that I haven't already got and any there are are ones that aren't out yet! One that I haven't yet purchased though but would love for Christmas is Harry Potter: The Creature Vault. It just looks like such a beautiful book and I have heard nothing but good things about it! 

6.) Do You Want To Build a Snowman? What do you think are the key ingredients for a life like character?
Something I need to feel about a character when reading about them is their humanity. They have to feel grounded, 3D, fleshed out, they need to feel as if they are a real person, not just someone made up for the purposes of a story. I like when things are hinted at outside of the story, things that happened before the start of the story, or something that is bubbling under the surface that could lead to something after the end of the story.

7.) Tree, Tinsel, Fairy Lights: most decorative book cover of 2014?
A book cover I absolutely adore is the cover for Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant. It's all red and white which are Christmassy (what with Father Christmas wearing red and white being the colour of snow...) although from reading the synopsis I doubt it is anything Christmassy at all!

8.) Christmas Kisses: which book crush from this year would you most like to kiss underneath the mistletoe?

Oh god, there are so many! So, so many! Tobias/Four from the Divergent series. Dorien from Throne of Glass. Ash from the Black City trilogy. I could go on and on.

9.) Snow Ball Fight: a book that you thought would be a lot of fun but left you feeling cold.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart is easily the biggest reading disappointment for me this year. There was a massive campaign around it to launch it and everyone kept saying how amazing it was and I could not wait to find out for myself. But as soon as I started reading it was pretty clear that I just wasn't going to feel the connection to it in the same way that everyone else did. That said I did like the writing and it is a great idea, I just didn't really get the hype.

10.) Christmas Traditions: a book that you read over and over again.

This one is so easy for me! So easy! Hogfather by Terry Pratchett! No word of a lie, I read it every year and have done since I first read it back in 2006 or 2007. I can't remember which, it was whatever year the adaptation was on Sky One way back when. It was the first Terry Pratchett book I ever read and I completely and utterly fell in love. The way he writes, the words, the characters, the story itself. It's so Christmassy and yet it couldn't be further from Christmas at the same time. The pure notion of Death himself, riding around in a sleigh as the jolly fat man, in this case the Hogfather, delivering presents for Hogswatch (the Discworld equivalent of Christmas) is so funny. The book itself is so full of insight and wit and Death is so sarcastic I cannot help but laugh and love it even more every time I read it! I can't wait to read it again this Christmas.

11.) The Night Before Christmas: a book that kept you up reading late into the night.
This actually happened to me last night! I had been reading a couple of pages a night due to having to be up early for work, so last night, knowing I wasn't working today, I decided to stay up until I had finished the book. That said book is The Boy in the Dress by David Walliams. I will be giving it a full review, but I will say that I love this book so much. It's entertaining and I know it is aimed at younger kids (the back of the book says 9+) but I found it to be a fun read! It has a great moralistic message that I feel is important. Acceptance. I am very much looking forward to seeing the adaptation that the BBC have done! It is on on Boxing Day. I enjoyed Mr. Stink in 2012 and last years Gangsta Granny so no doubt this is going to be just as good!

12.) Rudolph: which book shone the brightest for you this year? 

A book that really stood out to me this year, and is one I am supposed to be getting around to writing a review for soon, is This Book Is Gay by James Dawson. It isn't exactly a YA book, it isn't fiction. But it is so funny and beautiful and honest and just so so good and I love it and James for writing it!

Author Interview: Keren David

Today it gives me great pleasure to post a little Q and A I did with the lovely Keren David, author of When I Was Joe, Almost True, Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery, and now the final tale of Ty/Joe, Another Life. I'll be honest I've been sitting on this for a little while! I had meant to post it before but set it up on my iPad using the blogger app and it appears it didn't work! Oops! Oh well, here it is at last...

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Hi Keren! Welcome to Empire of Books, and thank you so much for answering some questions today. Why don’t we start with a bit about your new book, Another Life. What can you tell us about it?

Hi Ryan, thank you for inviting me onto your blog! Another Life is the third in the trilogy I started with When I Was Joe in 2010. They are about a boy called Ty who witnesses a murder and has to take on a false identity to hide from the gangsters who want to kill him. I've put Ty through an awful lot in the first two books, and hopefully this one brings all the threads of the trilogy together and is the most exciting of the three.

Now, most of Another Life is written from the point of view of Archie, Ty’s cousin. Was this a conscious decision, and what do you think it brings to the book having a new outlook on the story?

Archie is from a richer background than Ty, so using him as narrator is a useful way of contrasting their backgrounds. I wanted to show Ty from the outside, make the reader wonder along with Archie how much they can trust of his story. And I found Archie fun to write, even though he annoys me a lot some of the time. I'd write things which would make me wince, but they were just Archie being typical Archie.

Ty’s not always sharpest knife in the drawer (no pun intended, given the book…) but he’s just so likeable isn't he? What is it about him that drew you in to do a third book?

Haha, some reviewers seem to think differently. I've seen him described quite a few times as 'very intelligent' which always makes me laugh. He's very thoughtful though and he usually gets there in the end.  He's just a typical teenage boy really, like Archie, sometimes quite bright and sometimes so dim you want to slap them.

I'm glad you think he's likeable, he has to be, really, to get away with doing some very bad and stupid things in the course of three books. I think readers feel for him and a lot of boys identify with him. They want things to work out for him. I really wrote Another Life for all the readers who wrote to me and talked to me demanding a third book about Ty. I kept on saying no, there won't be another book, and then I began thinking about how it could be done.

Something that struck me when reading this book is the amount of research you must do. Legal bits and bobs. Medical jargon. Geography. How much of that research actually makes it into the book?

It depends what it is. I was a journalist for years and years, a reporter and news editor, so I know a lot about crime and politics and criminal justice anyway  In this book there are some chapters set in a Youth Offender Institution, and I'd been into prisons before (as a reporter!) but not YOIs so I did some specific research about that, but mostly I wrote first then check the facts later. I have a friend who is a criminal barrister who helps with all the legal stuff, my brother-in-law is a doctor and an old school friend is in the police. My favourite bit of research for this book was talking to a friend whose husband is a corporate lawyer to get the details right for Archie's dad. I hope her husband won't be offended by how Archie's dad turned out (although I have to admit I really like Archie's dad, but I don't think my readers will, they're not very tolerant of dysfunctional parents).

How do you feel Ty/Joe has changed from the first book, When I Was Joe, through to Almost True and now finally in Another Life? Has he changed the way you thought he would or have there been some surprises along the way?

I've put the poor boy through so much! He did surprise me along the way, and not always in a good way, but I think his best qualities -  his loyalty, courage, resilience and ability to love - grow and develop in trying circumstances. He's grown up a lot, but he's been struggling with mental illness which threatens to overwhelm him in this final book.

 Is this it for Ty then? It does seem pretty final.

That's it for now. I can imagine Archie and maybe some other minor characters popping up at some point perhaps in a completely different story.

Now, I for one am excited about your next book, Salvage. It’s due out in 2014. What can you tell us about it?

I'm working on Salvage now, it's my first book for my new publishers Atom. It's about a girl called Cass who has a very stable, comfortable, middle class life, the adopted daughter of a government minister. Then her parents split up and she's contacted by Aidan, her birth brother who she hasn't seen since she was four years old. I think adoption is a fascinating subject, because there are so many facets to the experience, so many different points of view.  

 As well as Salvage I'm also working on another book, which is a bit of a departure for me as it's historical -  a historical crime/romance experiment! I still have to find a publisher for that one though, I will keep you posted.

Thank you so much for your time, Keren. It’s a massive honour and I cannot thank you enough! Thank you thank you thank you!

Thank you! I owe a lot to all the bloggers out there, because they really spread the word about When I Was Joe, even though a lot of them weren't at all sure about reading a BritGrit book. So thank you Ryan and all the other lovely bloggers too.

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Would just like to say a massive thanks to Keren for this! She's awesome and you should all go out right now and check out her books! You will not be disappointed!

Q&A With Don Calame - Part of the Swim The Fly Blog Tour

Hi Don! First of all welcome to Empire of Books and thanks so much stopping by! Swim the Fly encapsulates Summer for me, and when I read it I was instantly transported back to my own School Summer holidays (not that long ago… but still), how did you feel writing it and did it have you reminiscing at all?

I had an absolute blast writing it. The story brought me right back to being fifteen years old and being on swim team. It had me reminiscing about those long summer days where me and my friends would hang out and get into all sorts of mischief. 

What were you like at Matt, Coop and Sean’ age? Do we get any glimpse of your younger self in the book?

I think I was very much like these boys. Mostly, I was probably like Matt. All those emotions and feelings of awkwardness. Knowing that I liked girls and wanted a girlfriend but having absolutely no clue how to go about talking and interacting with girls on a romantic level.

Is there any particular scene that you had the most fun writing, or perhaps one you want people to know about more than any other?

So many of the scenes were fun to write about. I think the scene in the girls locker room was particularly fun for me to write, though I don’t want to give away too much for those who haven’t read it. I think I really enjoyed just getting my characters into all sorts of trouble and then trying to figure out how to get them out of it. 

What is the most daring thing you have ever tried to do during one Summer? And did you succeed?

That’s a tough one. I don’t know that there was ever anything particularly daring that I did. My friends and I would do fairly risky bicycle and skateboard stunts, like creating ramps and trying to jump over lined-up garbage cans (which I do not recommend, by the way). We’d also leap off our roofs with open umbrellas in hopes that they’d act as parachutes (they didn’t). I wouldn’t say these were so much daring as not terribly well thought out.