Dearest by Alethea Kontis Interview & Giveaway

A themed tour with Prism Book Tours.

Dearest

(Woodcutter Sisters, #3)
by Alethea Kontis
YA Fantasy
Hardcover & ebook, 320 Pages
February 3rd 2015 by HMH Books for Young Readers

“A fabulous fairy-tale mashup that deserves hordes of avid readers. Absolutely delectable.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review of award-winning series debut Enchanted

Readers met the Woodcutter sisters (named after the days of the week) in Enchanted and Hero. In this delightful third book, Alethea Kontis weaves together some fine-feathered fairy tales to focus on Friday Woodcutter, the kind and loving seamstress. When Friday stumbles upon seven sleeping brothers in her sister Sunday’s palace, she takes one look at Tristan and knows he’s her future. But the brothers are cursed to be swans by day. Can Friday’s unique magic somehow break the spell?

Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Book Depository - Indie Bound - Powell's

The Other Woodcutter Sisters Books

 

Links for Enchanted

Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble

Book Depository - Indie Bound - Powell's

Links for Hero

Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble

Book Depository - Indie Bound - Powell's

Alethea Kontis courtesy of Lumos Studio 2012

New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a fairy godmother, and a geek. She’s known for screwing up the alphabet, scolding vampire hunters, and ranting about fairy tales on YouTube.

Her published works include: The Wonderland Alphabet (with Janet K. Lee), Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome (with Janet K. Lee), the AlphaOops series (with Bob Kolar), the Woodcutter Sisters fairy tale series, and The Dark-Hunter Companion (with Sherrilyn Kenyon). Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines.

Her YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award in 2012 and the Garden State Teen Book Award i 2015. Enchanted was nominated for the Audie Award in 2013, and was selected for World Book Night in 2014. Both Enchanted and its sequel, Hero, were nominated for the Andre Norton Award.

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea currently lives and writes in Florida, on the Space Coast. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie.

Interview:

1.                  How long does it take you to write a book?

Enchanted took me 5 years to write...and then about 3 months to edit, because the publisher made me take out 30,000 words.

Hero took me 3 months to write and one month to completely revise, because that's all the time the publisher gave me.

Dearest took me about a year, but most of the physical writing happened in those last three months. Even still, I was glad I had the time to fall in love with the book I was writing. I think, because of this, Dearest might be my favorite so far.

2.                  Where do you get your information or ideas?

I get information from everywhere--people, when I can find them, books, when I have them close at hand, and the internet, when I need something simple to move the story forward, like the anatomy and habits of a swan.

My ideas? Goodness...I've been having ideas for stories for so long (I started writing when I was eight) that I don't remember a time I've ever been without them.

3.                  What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I like to dress up and film myself ranting about fairy tales and then post them on YouTube. I like to go fishing and shrimping with my dad. I like to watch the rocket launches at Cape Canaveral. I like to binge watch old episodes of TV shows I love, like Chuck and Gilmore Girls. I like to paint--I work mostly in acrylics, with some sort of collage aspect, like Janet Lee taught me. (I painted "The Dream-Haired Girl" that appears at the top of my website.)

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

Dearest will be my eleventh book. I could no sooner choose a favorite star in the sky...but Dearest is probably my favorite of the Woodcutter books...so far...

5.                  What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

I've been working in the publishing industry almost 20 years, so not much surprises me anymore. I did discover things about myself, though--for instance, I seem to consistently leave the details of "kill the bad guy" until the very last minute...at which point I have to stop in the middle of writing and say to myself, "Oh, crap! How do I kill the bad guy?!?" I call this my Danny Ocean Moment -- I wrote an entire essay on it for the Magical Words website (a superb resource for writers) that you can read here:

6.                  What would you like my readers to know?

Whenever someone asks this question, I usually take the opportunity to talk about Charlie, my teddy bear. Charlie and I moved to Florida this summer--we are both finding it tough to acclimate to the constant heat, but the fishing is good. We celebrated my father's birthday and retirement by having all the Kontis siblings fly in from all over the US...that was fun but incredibly exhausting. Charlie's glad it's all over so we can go back to unpacking. There's still a lot to do in the new place...it doesn't even have a kitchen sink!

My family helped me with my Fairy Tale Rant series by guest starring in a bunch of my YouTube videos, but Charlie has expressed interest in appearing again. Look for him during this month's blog tour!

Check out Alethea's Road Tour HERE!

Website - Goodreads - Facebook - Twitter - YouTube - Tumblr - Instagram - Pinterest

Tour-Wide Giveaway

3 Woodcutter Sisters Prize Packs (signed copies of Enchanted, Hero, & Dearest - US Only)
Ends March 8th

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