Interview with Tanaz Bhathena

The Beauty of the Moment

by Tanaz Bhathena
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: February 26th 2019

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

Susan is the new girl—she’s sharp and driven, and strives to meet her parents’ expectations of excellence. Malcolm is the bad boy—he started raising hell at age fifteen, after his mom died of cancer, and has had a reputation ever since.

Susan’s parents are on the verge of divorce. Malcolm’s dad is a known adulterer.

Susan hasn’t told anyone, but she wants to be an artist. Malcolm doesn’t know what he wants—until he meets her.

Love is messy and families are messier, but in spite of their burdens, Susan and Malcolm fall for each other. The ways they drift apart and come back together are testaments to family, culture, and being true to who you are.

Can you briefly describe The Beauty of the moment and their main characters?

The Beauty of the Moment is about an Indian girl named Susan Thomas, who moves from Saudi Arabia to Canada, where she faces all sorts of challenges trying to fit into a new school and to adapt to a new culture. A perfectionist by nature, Susan is struggling to meet with her parents’ expectations—they want her to be a doctor or engineer, while she wants to be an artist. 

In Canada, she meets a Parsi boy named Malcolm Vakil, who is going through his own problems. He’s dealing with his reputation which has been pretty bad—he got into trouble with drugs and alcohol after his mom died. He’s also dealing with his father who has been abusive to him in the past. Now, in his final year at high school, Malcolm is trying to clean up his act. 

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?

Malcolm’s uncle, Mancher, because he gives some amazing advice about love and life. 

How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere?

Like Susan, I was born in India and grew up in Saudi Arabia. I moved to Canada as a teenager and the book is partly inspired by my own experiences.

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?

I’m going to cheat and choose two:

Susan’s theme song: Here by Alessia Cara

Malcolm’s theme song: Something Just Like This by Coldplay and the Chainsmokers

Since it is still cold outside, what hot drink do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?

Hot chocolate, for sure!

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish The Beauty of the moment?

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon and 2 States by Chetan Bhagat 

What’s next for you?

I’m working on a YA fantasy duology set in a world inspired by medieval India. The first book, HUNTED BY THE SKY, will release in 2020.

Tanaz Bhathena was born in India and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada. Her critically acclaimed novel A Girl Like That was nominated for the 2019 OLA White Pine Award and named a Best Book of 2018 by The Globe and Mail, CBC, Quill & Quire, Seventeen, PopSugar, and The Times of India among others. Her second novel The Beauty of the Moment releases on Feb 26 2019. Her short stories have appeared in various journals including Blackbird, Witness and Room.

A wanderer at heart, Tanaz can often be found travelling to different countries, learning bits and pieces of a foreign language, and taking way too many photographs. She loves slapstick comedies and any kind of music that makes her dance. She lives in the Toronto area with her family.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Welcome to the FFBC Tours: Realm of Ruins (The Nissera Chronicles #2) by Hannah West

Realm of Ruins (The Nissera Chronicles #2)

by Hannah West
Release Date: December 4th 2018
Publisher: Holiday House
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Synopsis:

Valory’s power is different . . . it’s dangerous, unruly, and destructive. But can she channel it to crush a cunning enemy and save the realm from chaos? 

Welcome to Nissera, land of three kingdoms and home to spectacular magic.

A century after her legendary ancestors overcame a bloodthirsty tyrant, seventeen-year-old Valory Braiosa attends a training academy for elicromancers, immortal beings with magical gifts. Yet Valory’s immense power seems impossible to tame, and she faces imprisonment by the Nisseran authorities. Then a forbidden resurrection spell awakens a long-dormant evil, and Valory may be the only one who can vanquish this terrifying villain. Together with a band of allies—including an old friend; a haughty princess; and a mysterious, handsome stranger—Valory must learn to harness her power and fight back.

Weaving together her imaginative world of gritty fairytale magic with snippets from Beauty and the Beast and other classic stories, Hannah West’s dark and dangerous adventure is a gripping, immersive companion to her acclaimed debut, Kingdom of Ash and Briars. This richly packaged edition includes an illustrated family tree, detailed map, and embossed jacket with shimmering metallic effects.

Can you briefly describe the world in Realm of Ruins and their main characters?

Realm of Ruins takes place in the realm of Nissera, which contains three kingdoms: Calgoran, Volarre, and Yorth. The realm is home to ancient elicrin magic, whose source is a deadly pool in the western woods. If you touch it, it will either offer you an elicrin stone, which means power and immortal life, or it will drown and kill you. Elicromancers are those who have survived the Water. They have unique stones and gifts, for the most part. There are shapeshifters and omnilinguals, healers and portal-makers...there’s no end to the possibilities. 

In ancient times, thousands of elicromancers lived in Nissera. But after a civil war killed many and the rest chose to give up their elicrin stones to avoid the temptation to rule over mortals, their numbers dwindled. In Kingdom of Ash and Briars, Bristal is one of only three elicromancers. But a century later, when Valory's story begins, the elicromancer population is on the rise and their bloodlines are closely intertwined with royal bloodlines. Elicromancers are making a comeback. They have their own academy. They have power and privilege.

Valory is a member of the royal family of Calgoran. She’s grown up attending the academy, but unlike her many royal relatives, she does not display a magic gift. But when tragedy strikes and Valory gains a destructive power, it sets her off on a journey that leads her to a new ensemble of unlikely allies. These include Mercer Fye, a mysterious boy she finds wounded on the side of the road; Kadri Lillis, a kind and witty childhood friend; and Glisette Lorenthi, an acerbic princess. 

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?

Sometimes - not always - your characters write themselves, and that's exactly how Valory and her band of allies was formed in Realm of Ruins. This is most true of Glisette Lorenthi, the imperious, spoiled, sly, yet surprisingly stalwart character who wrested control from me every time she appeared on the page. She insults, she bickers, and yet she self-evaluates and changes. 

If you were part of the Nissera Chronicles, what character would you be and why, and what powers (if any) would you have?

It’s funny - I intentionally set out to make Valory feel different from her ancestor, Bristal (the main character of Kingdom of Ash and Briars), but I think what I really did was mirror different aspects of my own personality and growth. Bristal is quiet, self-possessed, and doesn’t want to be seen or known. I relate to that. But Valory has an edge to her, an anger at the world and corrupt systems of power, which I related to deeply as I was writing Realm of Ruins. Ultimately, I think I’m probably more like Bristal, and I would honestly love to have her shapeshifting power. 

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?

“Castle” by Halsey. It’s about an angry woman taking the power she deserves from a corrupt ruler. One of my favorite lines is “If you wanna break these walls down, you’re gonna get bruised.”

If the book was a movie/TV show, who would you imagine representing your characters?

It’s easier for me to find character inspo on Pinterest, and if you want to see the closest ideas I have for the characters, check out my Realm of Ruins Pinterest board. But as far as casting real actors and actresses, I’m gonna give it a try!

Valory Braiosa: Lily Sullivan

Mercer Fye: Okay I’ve already failed. Can someone find me a real person who looks like this?

(art credit Jirka Vinse at jirkavinse.com)

Kadri Lillis: Aiysha Hart

Glisette Lorenthi: Skyler Samuels or Kathryn Newton 

 

Hannah West is the author of Kingdom of Ash and Briars and its companion, Realm of Ruins. She's always loved writing about magic and fairytales, but her time studying abroad in Orléans, France inspired her to finally write and publish a fantasy novel. She's a freelance writer and vegetarian living in Texas with her husband and their rambunctious blue heeler.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Birthday & Summer Giveaway!

Hello Book Addicts!

The past June 25th was my Birthday and due to a tight schedule I couldn't do anything blog-related to celebrate it with you guys. But I am doing it now. YAY!

And since summer is here; making us sweat, wanting to all the ice creams available in the supermarket (not cool, summer. I spent a lot of time at the gym for nothing...), distracting us from the final exams and making us want to go to beach and spent there all day... may as well do it in good company! And by company I mean characters, fictional characters. Of course I am talking about books!

I had the opportunity, as you guys might have read in previous posts, to go to BEA so my gifts to you this year are BEA 2016 goodies! YAY!!! You can win some ARCs I thought you guys would love to read:

The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia

Frostblood (Frostblood Saga #1) by Elly Blake

Going Wild by Lisa McMann

Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland

Rules & Conditions in the rafflecopter | INTERNATIONAL giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FFBC: Welcome to the club, The Edge of Forever by Melissa E. Hurst

The Edge of Forever
by Melissa E. Hurst
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Release Date: June 2nd 2015

Synopsis:

In 2013: Sixteen-year-old Alora is having blackouts. Each time she wakes up in a different place with no idea of how she got there. The one thing she is certain of? Someone is following her.

In 2146: Seventeen-year-old Bridger is one of a small number of people born with the ability to travel to the past. While on a routine school time trip, he sees the last person he expected—his dead father. The strangest part is that, according to the Department of Temporal Affairs, his father was never assigned to be in that time. Bridger’s even more stunned when he learns that his by-the-book father was there to break the most important rule of time travel—to prevent someone’s murder.

And that someone is named Alora.

Determined to discover why his father wanted to help a “ghost,” Bridger illegally shifts to 2013 and, along with Alora, races to solve the mystery surrounding her past and her connection to his father before the DTA finds him. If he can stop Alora’s death without altering the timeline, maybe he can save his father too.

It’s impossible to pick a favorite book, but A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle is one I love and it is the one that made me want to become a writer.

The Walking Dead

Guardians of the Galaxy

This changes all the time, but currently I’m loving Taylor Swift’s latest song, Bad Blood.

Chocolate

Atlantis, Caprica (well before the Cylons destroyed it), and Hogwarts

Captain America!

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default. – JK Rowling 

The Avengers. I love them, especially Black Widow.

Stephen King. I devoured his books while I was in high school.

Readers are awesome! They’re intelligent, kind, and more empathetic to others. And since I was a reader long before I was a writer, I’m thrilled to say that you are my people.

Hello Melissa! We are super excited to have you in our FFBC tours.

The Edge of Forever is the second book I’ve written. I’ve been a lifelong fan of science-fiction and fantasy, and after I shelved my first book, I knew I wanted to write something else that would be considered speculative fiction. The Edge of Forever combines my love of futuristic science-fiction with weird things that take place in a contemporary setting.

Alora was a lot of fun to write because she has such a sarcastic voice. Her view of everyone and the town she grew up in is heavily influenced by the fact that she didn’t really have friends growing up and she doesn’t feel like she fits in. She definitely has opinions, but she keeps them to herself and goes along with what everybody else wants because she hates confrontation, which is a trait she learned from her Aunt Grace, who raised her. But this changes over the course of the book.

The Edge of Forever was the second book I wrote. After shelving my first book in early 2011, it took me a little while before I figure out what I wanted to write next. I was driving one day, and heard the song IF I DIE YOUNG by The Band Perry on the radio. I was also thinking about an old time travel movie called SOMEWHERE IN TIME. In that weird way that writers’ brains work, I twisted those ideas together and came up with this: What if a boy went back in time to save the life of a girl who was supposed to die? Later, I realized that my story shared a few elements with an old STAR TREK episode (CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER). I decided to name my story THE EDGE OF FOREVER as a nod to the series.

This is from a scene when Bridger realizes that he is going to be stuck in the past for a while. “After Grace deposits me in my room, I collapse on the bed. The fact that I’m an idiot keeps racing through my mind. It’s like I’m trying to see how many stupid things I can do today. Travel illegally to the past? Check. Shoot my professor and a high-ranking DTA official? Check. Agree to socialize with some ghosts? Check.”

I loved writing the scene in which Bridger has to quickly shift to 2013 in the yard behind the bed and breakfast, and two older guests (who happen to be ghost hunters) see him appear and think he is a ghost.

Probably If I Die Young because it’s the song that inspired the book.

From the beginning, I pictured AnnaSophia Robb as Alora, and Josh Hutcherson as Bridger.

Maybe have a few donuts or chocolate chip cookies since Alora loves them. 

I’m working on the sequel to The Edge of Forever, and I’m also brainstorming my next project.

Thank you so much for everything, Melissa!

Follow the The Edge of Forever by Melissa E. Hurst Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Melissa lives in the southern US with her husband and three kids. She writes YA science fiction and fantasy, which means she considers watching Star Trek and Firefly as research. She dreams of traveling around the world and maybe finding Atlantis one day. You can usually find her with a book in one hand and a Dr. Pepper in the other. Or consuming lots of chocolate.

THE EDGE OF FOREVER is her debut novel.

Win a stack of books which includes a paperback of Arclight by Josin L. McQuein, a paperback of Avalon by Midnee Arnett, a paperback of Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee, an ARC of Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch and an ARC of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard + a signed copy of THE EDGE OF FOREVER and swag (US Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway