Monday, May 2, 2016

Interview with Jennifer Osborn


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Jennifer will be awarding digital copies of The Dawning of Scarlett via iBooks to 5 randomly drawn winners plus a $10 Starbucks GC to 3 other randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

What books have most influenced your life?

I have to say, SE Hinton’s books. I had a very turbulent childhood and teen years and when I discovered The Outsiders and felt Ponyboy’s angst and pain, I was mesmerized. I couldn’t get enough of her broken heroes and read everything she put out. Reading a book where someone understood my pain was transformative. I hope to be that for someone else in the future.

What are the best and worst pieces of writing advice you ever received?

Hmm. Everyone seems to have advice, even when you don’t ask for it. Even non-writers will offer writing advice. Keeping that in mind, the worst pieces of writing advice have been what I get almost every time I talk to a non-writer, “You should write a story about ‘insert title here’” or “I have a really great story idea, you should write it”. I know they mean well, but it’s almost a cliché now.

The best advice was to keep writing. No matter what, just keep writing and to write what I love.

How do you keep your writing different from all the others that write in this particular genre?

I try to keep my ideas original. I don’t like to keep to norms regarding any trope. So, if I want to write about something, I’ll try to figure out a way to present it that is new. That approach lead me to write “The Veiled”, book one of my Shilund Saga.

Where are you from and what do you love best about your hometown?

I am originally from Corbin Kentucky. What I love the most about it is the friendliness of everyone and the fact that everything is close together. I have plenty of friends and family who still live there.

When writing descriptions of your hero/ine, what feature do you start with?

Oddly enough, I start with hair. I never even thought about that until you asked this question. Somehow I see the character’s hair first.

How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

I have written 7 books thus far. Admittedly, the most favorite is always the current one I’m working on. You have to love what you write, else how could you devote so much time and energy to it? Trying to define a favorite is trying to figure out which child is your favorite. :-)

As a pale revenant—the vampire faction believing all life is sacred—sixteen-year-old Scarlett Ellis has learned to hide in the human world. She goes to night-school, works at a coffee shop, and her uncle Chasem trains her in martial arts. No matter what, she has to be prepared, because when she turns seventeen, she’ll be of Dawning age—and her biological father Apollo vows to see her dead first.

Expecting her Dawning to be impossible, she accepts the fact that she will become a rogue, forever hunted by revenant renegades and outcast by her own people. Scarlett thinks she’s prepared for this—until the curly-haired Nicholas Lightener walks into her life and asks her out on a date.

Torn between her feelings for Nick and the danger of the revenant world, Scarlett’s strange life is turned inside-out when she’s kidnapped and forced to do the one thing she swore she’d never do. Plus, she has no idea whose memories keep appearing in her dreams, or if they can even help her. Determined to free herself from a death sentence, Scarlett must fight to become who she was born to be.


Enjoy an excerpt:

Suddenly, I’m standing in a field, illuminated by sunlight, but I'm not burning. It's warm and relaxing. I look down to the translucent skin of my hands and can see the blood coursing through my veins. I turn my hand over, staring at it.

A movement catches my eye and I look up. Before me is a beautiful woman with dark hair and clear eyes. At first, her gaze is loving, adoring almost, and then it fades into a bone-chilling shriek as she turns to run away in horror. I try to reassure her that it’s okay, but the words get stuck in my throat. Her skin burns and flakes away, and before I know it, her scream fades to a muffled shriek, abruptly cut off as she becomes a pile of ash. A maniacal laugh sounds beside me, and I turn to see a dark-headed man with a deviant grin.

"Wasn't that lovely?" he asks me, laughing right as I feel my skin start to burn.

About the Author:
After working in the legal and technical fields for many years, Jennifer Osborn took the plunge into full time writing in 2015. She is the award-winning author of The Shilund Saga and The Sentinel’s Insurgency. When not writing, she listens to a different muse and creates paintings and collages of all sorts.

She lives in the Cincinnati area with her husband, three dogs and two cats.

You can find out more about her at Website: www.jenniferosborn.org
Facebook: AuthorJenniferOsborn
Twitter: @hondagirljen
Instragram: hondagirljen
Amazon Author Page & Buy Links: http://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Osborn/e/B00EMWYFX0/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

6 comments:

  1. Good morning!! Thank you so much for having me!! I'm excited to be here. I welcome any and all questions about my writing, beyond what I have answered above. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I enjoyed reading the excerpt and the interview. This book sounds like such an interesting and intriguing read! Totally can't wait to check out this book!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Ally!! I hope you enjoy ever moment of the story. :)

      Delete
  3. Where is your favorite spot to read?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love to sit and read cuddled up in bed or the couch with a cup of coffee. If I really like a book, I'll tend to lose myself and read for hours on end. So somewhere comfortable is preferable. :)

    ReplyDelete