Hey, everyone! Stop by and check out my interview with Samantha Durante, author of Stitch. To learn more about this awesome book, keep stopping by the blog this week for a review...and check out more book details below!
goodreads . twitter . author page . amazon
goodreads . twitter . author page . amazon
Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa’s body screams at her to run… but yet she’s powerless to move.
Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees – and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell – Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.
Because what Alessa hasn’t figured out yet is that she’s not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university’s idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface…
The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.
Author Interview with
Samantha Durante
So,
let’s start with a bit about you. What
was your favorite childhood read, and what is your favorite adult read?
Childhood read was absolutely The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett. To this day,
I’m OBSESSED with having a secret garden… sigh, one day, one day. Ooh, adult read is a bit tougher. Even though it’s young adult fiction, I’d
still have to go with the Harry Potter series – after all, I was an “adult” by
the time I’d read half of it. There’s
just nothing like going back to Hogwarts.
When I want to get lost for a few days, that’s where I go. :-)
What
scene from Stitch did you most enjoy writing?
Definitely the big reveal when Alessa finds out
what’s really going on! I was DYING to
get to that scene the whole book, and when I finally did, it was just the best
day ever. I was actually vacationing in
Florida and working on the beach with my laptop, and I just remember sitting
there beaming and listening to the waves crash and inhaling that beachy scent
in the air after I’d finished. I
couldn’t wait to share it with my beta readers!
Tell
us a little bit about your process of publishing Stitch and why you decided to
self-publish.
Sure! I
wasn’t sure at first what I was going to do with Stitch, so I did a lot of
research into the different options for both traditional and
self-publishing. In the end, I decided
to go the indie route for a few reasons: 1. I’m a control freak, and I hated
the idea of letting anyone else make any decisions about my cover or synopsis
or title or editing or anything really.
:-) (I have issues, I know!) 2. I was really excited to share the book
with readers, and I couldn’t fathom waiting the months (or likely years) it
would have taken to find an agent and publisher and get the thing on
shelves. 3. It just seemed like the
economics worked better on the self-pubbed side – I could price my book WAY
lower and still make the same amount per copy compared with traditional
publishing, and since as a new author I’m pretty much expected to do all the
marketing work myself even if I’d gone the traditional route, I figured why do
all the work and share the profits? So I
decided to self-publish using the tools on Amazon and Smashwords, and so far
I’ve been very happy with that decision.
Who is
your favorite contemporary young adult author?
What about favorite young adult author of all time?
I actually don’t read a ton of contemporary YA
fiction (I’m really a sci-fi/fantasy nerd), but the one contemporary author
I’ve really enjoyed is Komal Kant, another indie writer who I met during my
blog tour. She really knows how to write
a steamy romance scene, let me tell you!
As for favorite of all time, that’s really hard to pick! J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Stephenie
Meyer… it’s a long list. Depends what
I’m in the mood for!
If you
could rewrite Stitch, is there anything you’d do differently?
Yes – I would work a little more action into
the first part of the book. The story
kind of builds up with this slow tension until you hit the twist, but I think
it would have been stronger if there was a little more excitement with the
ghost and some additional external conflict to keep the first half of story
moving along. This has been duly noted
for the second book in the series, lol.
That one is action packed right from the first chapter!
What
can you tell us about Shudder?
I’m SO SO excited to share Shudder with Stitch
fans! It basically picks up right where
the first book left off, so this one is more dystopian in nature, but I’m still
blending in some paranormal elements and a little bit of contemporary and even
a hint of horror. This book is a lot of
fun since we got all the background stuff out of the way in Stitch, and now the
story can just take off! Expect more
romance, lots of revelations about the history of Alessa’s world, lots more
Isaac, and of course some big twists that will get your heart pumping. :-)
Are
there any other projects you're working on outside of this series?
Nope!
Just my day job (business writing with my own freelancing company) and
being a first-time wife and homeowner! (We
just got married and bought our first home this fall.) And mom to my spoiled cat, of course.
The
obligatory question . . . what is your best advice for aspiring authors?
Don’t get hung up on trying to find the PERFECT
story. It took me 26 years to finally
sit down and follow my dream of writing a book, because I always felt like
every idea I thought of had been done before and I thought I needed this
amazing, innovative plot before it would be worthwhile to put the time into
writing. But that was totally dumb,
because I love to write and I should have just done what I like to do because I enjoy it. Any story will be unique just be virtue of it
being *yours* so just pick an idea you’d like to read about, and write that
story. And if you’re not sure where to
start, think of other stories you like and how to combine your favorite
elements into something fresh. Whatever
you do, just write.
Alright,
last one. Who is your fictional crush?
I’ve gotta go to back to classics on this one –
Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. He
was the original Christian Grey, plus he had one hell of a sexy accent to boot.
X . X . X
Excerpt from Stitch
After four rounds of flip cup – bringing
Alessa’s tally for the night to somewhere around three beers – the room started
to spin, in a pleasant way. The
excitement of the game had brought out a zeal in her that she hadn’t felt in
very long time, and the adoring looks that Nikhil was sending in her direction
didn’t hurt either. Alessa felt
deliriously happy for the first time in over a year. Damn the ghost. Tonight she was having fun.
There was a break in the action as the first
keg tapped out and a couple of the guys volunteered to set up the second
one. Janie took the opportunity to
suggest that the four of them go dance, which sounded like a fabulous idea to
Alessa. Alessa looked inquisitively at
Nikhil and he consented with an affable shrug.
Janie didn’t even give Josh a choice.
She grabbed his wrist and dragged him behind her, and he acquiesced with
an amused smile. Alessa and Nikhil
followed.
Finding a clearing in the living room, Alessa
noticed that the pounding music no longer felt oppressive, but freeing. She could feel the beat pulse through her
body and she let it move her as it pleased.
She danced with abandon, completely unselfconsciously, and it felt
good. She felt sexy, alive.
Nikhil and Alessa were pressed together ever
closer by the crowd, their bodies moving as one in time with the music. Alessa could feel the hair sticking to the
back of her neck as her skin started to glisten, but she didn’t care. She threw her arms up and tossed her head
with the beat, reveling in the moment.
Nikhil gently placed his hands around Alessa’s
hips, seemingly mesmerized. The crowd
swelled and they were pressed together once more, his arms wrapped around her
waist, her hands on his taut swimmer’s chest and shoulders. He leaned over, nudging his face so close to
hers that she could feel the heat rising off his skin. Alessa parted her lips and looked up at
Nikhil, preparing to surrender to her body’s impulses.
But instead of the dark brown eyes she
expected, she saw only blue.
Unfathomable, sparkling blue, glittering with facets of ocean and sky,
boring deep into her soul and clutching at her heart. Once again, a single word rose in the back of
her throat – Isaac – and she knew this night was over.
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