January 10, 2012

Interview with author Samantha Young!


Hello GCReaders!

Today I want to share with you my interview with author, Samantha Young. I am a huge fan of her books, and I am really happy I got the chance to interview her. If you haven't read any of her books yet, I recommend you do. They are so good!




1. Tell us a little about yourself and your books.


OK. Where to start? Uh… I’m 25 years young, I was born and raised in Stirlingshire, Scotland and after graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in Ancient and Medieval history I decided to try to get the young adult trilogy I had been writing published. After little success with a small publishing house I withdrew from them and in February 2011 I decided to bite the bullet and self-publish. Since then I’ve published eight novels and one novella. My first trilogy, The Tale of Lunarmorte, is the story of a supernatural war that dates back to ancient Greece and it’s told through the eyes of a werewolf pack. I followed the trilogy with the first in a two part series called The Fade - part one is titled Slumber. Slumber is loosely based on The Sleeping Beauty fairytale and is recommended for ages 16 and up. Slumber was followed by my trilogy Warriors of Ankh where the heroine is kind of the bad guy. Eden Winslow is a soul eater, a descendent of an ancient Egyptian race that devours the souls of humankind. The hero, Noah Valois, is an immortal Warrior of Ankh, a member of the race that hunts soul eaters. Together he and Eden discover not everything is quite as black and white as good and evil. My latest novel, Smokeless Fire, is the first in a brand new series called Fire Spirits and it follows the story of Ari Johnson, an eighteen year old girl who discovers that Jinn live among us.

2. You currently have a couple of series out now, which one would you say is or was your favorite to write?


Ooh that’s difficult. I enjoyed writing them all but for different reasons. The Tale of Lunarmorte was my first series and it has a lot of historical research in book 3 so I suppose I enjoyed putting what I’d learned at university to good use. For Warriors of Ankh it was just exciting to write a character as complex as Eden. I loved finding the balance within her so that readers would still find her likeable despite her ‘bad guy’ status. The best part about writing Slumber was writing the relationship between Rogan and Wolfe. They’re such strong-willed, funny, brave characters and they bounced off one another really well. And finally, I love that there are no limits on my imagination while writing the Fire Spirits series. The mythology of the Jinn is so rich and full of light and dark. It’s wonderful to pull from it and create something new in YA.

3. My favorite, as you know, is your Warriors of Ankh series. Were you worried at all about the reaction you would get from readers? You touch some subjects which isn't commonly seen in YA.


It is quite a dark series and I knew that some readers wouldn’t be comfortable with some of the subjects broached so I put a recommendation on this series for ages 16 and up. When I sat down to write it I knew that to make Eden’s world realistic it would have to be a little raw and violent and there would have to be the suggestion of monstrous acts, otherwise the soul eaters would come across as kind of cheesy. I didn’t want to compromise the twisted creatures I’d created in my head but I also didn’t want to make it an adult series because the whole point of the trilogy was to follow the journey of a teenager on the wrong side of a supernatural battle as she comes of age. For the most part I’ve had a good response to the series so I’m not too worried. There will always be people who don’t like my books and object to certain subjects in YA but every author has to accept that.

4. Why did you choose to self-publish?


I was very apprehensive about self-publishing at first, thinking I could never reach the kind of readership I wanted to through self-publishing. But then I began to follow Joe Konrath and Amanda Hocking and I studied what was the best possible way to make a successful go at it. Thankfully everything I have learned has paid off and thanks to wonderful book bloggers, like yourself (<3) and my awesome, uber supportive readers, I love being self-published!

 5. What are you working on now?

At present I’m working on Scorched Skies (Fire Spirits #2) and This Weeping Frost a Novella (Drip Drop Teardrop #2). I have no publishing date for This Weeping Frost but I hope to have Scorched Skies out by March 16th and this will be followed by Sneak Thievery (The Fade: Part Two) in May 2012. I’m going to be wonderfully busy this year and hopefully my readers have a lot to look forward to.

 6. If any of your books were to be picked up for a movie (unless one has already been optioned), which would you like to see on the big screen, and why?

None have been optioned and that would be an unbelievable dream if one of them ever was! I’m going to go with some of my readers’ opinions and say it would be awesome to see The Tale of Lunarmorte books on the big screen. I think they’d translate really well to cinema because of how action-packed they are. They’re also told from multiple perspectives so this would make it easier for the screenplay. I also think the Warriors of Ankh books could be fleshed out into a T.V. show. Eden’s life is non-stop action all the time and I think it would work well on T.V. considering what young adult audiences are into just now, i.e. The Vampire Diaries etc.

Thank you again!
Thanks for having me, Damaris!

Thank you Samantha! This interview was a lot of fun to read! I cannot wait to devour the rest of your books. I am slowly making my way down the list :-). Oh, and I would love to see Warriors of Ankh as a TV series! 

Links:
   


Also, for a limited time (not sure how much longer) you can download FREE, Blood Will Tell and Slumper by Samantha Young from Amazon Kindle store. Check them out...

Blood Will Tell (ages 16 and over)






2 comments:

  1. Can't wait to read Blood Will Tell!

    (And now I must add the Fire Spirits series to my TBR, as I've been anticipating Jinn in YA for a while, and even attempted writing about them myself. :) )

    ReplyDelete
  2. Scotland! That's awesome. Ive heard nothing but great things about Samantha's books. Downloaded Blood Will Tell and Smokeless Fire from Amazon. Can't wait to start read them.

    Great interview Damaris!

    ReplyDelete

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