GIVEAWAY! Blog Tour and Author Interview: Nightstruck by Jenna Black

Nightstruck by Jenna Black
Release Date: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Tor Teen

The start of a paranormal horror series from Glimmerglass author Jenna Black.

The night is the enemy, and the city of Philadelphia is its deadliest weapon.

Becket is an ordinary teenage girl, wrestling with the upheaval of her parents' divorce. Her biggest problems to date have been choosing which colleges to apply to, living up to her parents' ambitious expectations of her, and fighting her secret crush on her best friend's boyfriend. That all changes the night she tries to save an innocent life and everything goes horribly wrong.

Becket has been tricked into opening a door between worlds. As dark magic trickles into Philadelphia, strange creatures roam the streets and inanimate objects come to life, all of them bloodthirsty and terrifying. The city returns to normal when the sun rises each morning. The moment the sun sets, most citizens shut themselves in their houses and stay there no matter what they hear.

The magic is openly hostile to most mortals, but there are some it seems to covet, trying to lure them out into the night. While Becket struggles to protect her friends and family from predatory creatures of the night, she is constantly tempted to shrug off her responsibilities and join them.

Meet Jenna

Jenna Black is your typical writer. Which means she's an "experience junkie." She got her BA in physical anthropology and French from Duke University.

Once upon a time, she dreamed she would be the next Jane Goodall, camping in the bush making fabulous discoveries about primate behavior. Then, during her senior year at Duke, she did some actual research in the field and made this shocking discovery: primates spend something like 80% of their time doing such exciting things as sleeping and eating.

Concluding that this discovery was her life's work in the field of primatology, she then moved on to such varied pastimes as grooming dogs and writing technical documentation. She writes paranormal romance for Tor and urban fantasy for Bantam Dell.

Find Jenna: website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Author Interview

Please welcome Jenna to Alison Can Read!

1. I loved your Faeriewalker series. I'm so happy to see you writing a new YA series! Is there anything from your experience of writing the Faeriewalker series that influenced your new book - like anything you learned while writing?

The Faeriewalker series was my first attempt at YA, and in that one I struggled a lot with self-censorship, my inner voice constantly telling me “you can’t do that in YA.” Sometimes it was right, and sometimes it was wrong. What I learned from the experience, and what I carried through both to my Replica series and now to Nighstruck was not to worry about what I can and cannot do in YA while I’m writing the book. I’ve learned to write the book the way that feels right to me, and then count on my lovely editor to tell me when I’ve gone over the line and have to dial it back a bit. It’s surprising how rarely she puts the brakes on, and I never would have found that out if I kept insisting on hitting them myself.

2. If you were living inside your book, would you be out fighting the dark creatures or shut inside house? I know that I'd be investing in extra locks.

I’d be right with you investing in new locks. And perhaps building barricades. I barely wanted to be in the same room with myself as I was writing some of those scenes!

3. What made you pick the name Becket? I think it's a gorgeous name that I always associate with Samuel Beckett, whose plays I studied in college.

Usually, character names come to me out of the blue, and I couldn’t tell you where they came from. However, I know exactly where “Becket” came from. I couple of years ago, my husband and I hired a personal chef service—neither one of us loves to cook, and we were sick of everything we knew how to make. The chef who was assigned to us was a woman named Becket, and the moment I heard the name I knew I had to use it for one of my heroines. (I did ask Chef Becket if it was okay if I named a future character after her, and she was fine with it.)

4. What are some of your favorite books lately - YA or adult?

I’m totally in love with Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. I love Novik’s Temeraire series, and when I saw Uprooted, I knew I had to have it. I love anything based on fairytales or folklore, and this book delivers on all counts. I think it’s classified as adult, but the heroine is seventeen, so it could also be considered YA. I’ve also been binging on Stephen King lately, reading Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and 11/22/63 in quick succession. He’s such a masterful storyteller, whether he’s writing horror or thrillers or anything else.

5. Can you offer up some writing advice - other than the ubiquitous "read and write a lot?"

Dare to be bad! A lot of potential writers are stifled by the need to write something good right off the bat. To succeed at writing, you have to be willing to take chances and make mistakes. And you have to keep writing even when you’re completely convinced what you’re writing is crap. That’s hard, but I don’t know a single published author who doesn’t regularly have to fight the demons of doubt. It’s especially true when you’re writing your first novel. So many people get discouraged and never finish, but if you give yourself permission to write a bad novel and just keep going, the end result might surprise you. (Or it might not—but that’s okay. Your next effort will be stronger, and it’ll be easier to finish once you’ve taught yourself that you can finish.

Thank you so much for the interview, Jenna!!!!

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GIVEAWAY!!!

Tor Teen has been great enough to provide one of you (US only) a copy of Nightstruck. Lucky you!

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