Blog Tour: Out of Control by Sarah Alderson

Out of Control
by Sarah Alderson
Published by: Simon Pulse
Publication date: May 12th 2015
Genres: Thriller, Young Adult

Synopsis:

A girl looking to escape her past in New York City ends up on the run from a dangerous conspiracy in this sizzling, high-stakes novel.

When seventeen-year-old Liva came to New York City, all she wanted was to escape the painful memories of her past and finally find a fresh start. Her hopes for a new future were dashed the moment she became the sole witness to a brutal murder. When she’s taken into police custody—supposedly for her own protection—she realizes something isn’t right, but it’s too late. Soon, bullets start flying, and Liva realizes that she is not just a witness, but the target—and she needs to escape before it’s too late.

With the help of a sexy car thief that she met at the station, Liva manages to get away from the massacre unharmed, but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun and outwit the two killers who will stop at nothing to find them. Liva and Jay are living on the edge, but when you’re on the edge, there’s a long way to fall.

Listen to Sarah Alderson's playlist

I make playlists for every book that I write and I listen to them on repeat as I am writing. I can only write if I’m listening to music and I find certain songs evoke certain emotions which help me get in the mood for a scene. Every compilation I make for a book is deeply personal and years after writing the book I can hear one of the songs on the radio and it will take me right back into that book, into the feeling I had when writing.

These are ten of the tracks from my Out of Control playlist:

1. Meet me at the Corner - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

It starts with the lyric ‘Please don’t ask me who you think I am.’ It’s about how both Liva and Jay make judgements about each other when they first meet. It’s also a reference to how Jay goes back for Liva when she’s waiting on a street corner and, in doing so, saves her life.

2. Empire State of Mind - Jay Z

It’s a classic homage to New York and name checks lots of different places in NY, so I had to include it.

3. Calliope - Caroline Smith

For me this song is about Liva and her realisation that she’s been needing someone like Jay in her life for a really long time; someone who takes her outside of her comfort zone, who matches her in terms of fearlessness but who also forces her to confront her real self, the self she’s been suppressing.

4. Five Seconds - Twin Shadow

I love this song. For me it’s playing in the background the moment when Liva and Jay finally recognise their feelings for each other.

5. About Today - The National

I wrote the scene where Jay and Liva part ways listening to this song by one of my favourite bands The National. It’s particularly poignant because it follows the first time they admit their feelings to each other. 

6. Miles to Go - Stateless

This comes about two thirds of the way through the book and it sums up where they’re both at, exhausted of running but still with no end in sight.

7. Treading Water - Alex Clare

There’s a scene that takes place on the Brooklyn Bridge just before dawn and this is the song that I can imagine playing in the background in the movie version in my head.

8. Nobody’s Perfect -Jessie J

It’s an apology song. ‘I hate that I let you down and I feel so bad about it. I guess karma comes back around..’ This expresses exactly how Jay feels towards the end of the book. He wishes he could turn back time. It’s full of regret and sorrow.

9. Come As You Are - Nirvana

A classic record from when I was a teenager. I included it because it’s grunge and the message is that being yourself, showing up as the person you are and not pretending to be someone else is all that’s needed.

10. This isn’t Control MS MR

The book’s title isn’t just a reference to how out of control things get for Liva and Jay but a reference to Liva’s need to control every situation. She is full of fear at the start of the story, fear that if she puts a foot wrong or breaks a rule things will go wrong and someone will get hurt. But she learns by the end of the book to stop trying to control life, to accept that what will be will be. It seemed an apt song for the playlist.

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Having spent most of her life in London, Sarah quit her job in the non profit sector in 2009 and took off on a round the world trip with her husband and princess-obsessed daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home. After several months in India, Singapore, Australia and the US, they settled in Bali where Sarah now spends her days writing by the pool and trying to machete open coconuts without severing a limb.

She finished her first novel, Hunting Lila (winner of the Kingston Book Award), just before they left the UK, wrote the sequel on the beach in India and had signed a two book deal with Simon & Schuster by the time they had reached Bali.

A third book, Fated, about a teenage demon slayer, was published in January 2012.

The Sound, a thriller romance set in Nantucket, was published in August 2013 and this was followed by the critically acclaimed Out of Control in May 2014.

She also writes New Adult romance for Pan Macmillan (UK) / Simon & Schuster (US) under the pen name Mila Gray.

You can find Sarah on facebook and at www.sarahalderson.com or follow her blog at www.canwelivhere.com

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