18 minute read
Anna Applegate
from Uncaged Book Reviews
by Cyrene
Plots and characters always come to me at the most inconvenient moments when I have absolutely nothing on which to write them down. (so say we all!) But seriously, I always start with a solid outline and then also have an outline for every chapter. But then as I’m drafting, I allow myself space for better ideas to take the place of what I originally had planned. Sometimes what I originally had was just the starting off point and as I get the idea more fully fleshed out and can see it more clearly, I’m able to better articulate it.
What are you working on now that you can tell us about?
Advertisement
I am finishing up my draft for Light My Pyre. It has some really great scenes with dragons in it that I just got finished drafting. I’m excited to share them with everyone in just a few months! All my books have a suspense plotline of some sort but this is my first one that I would call half paranormal romance, half mystery. I’m excited for people to read it.
Do you base any of your characters on real-life people?
Not really. Sometimes a character will resemble someone physically in my head a bit, but they don’t really have the same personality.
What behind-the-scenes tidbit in your life would probably surprise your readers the most?
Like Lea in Dyrwolf, I have really severe migraines. When I was drafting Dyrwolf, I had to draft a lot of it using a screen reader because the migraines were so severe at that point, it was painful to focus on text.
Which comes first, the plot or the characters in the planning stages? What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?
Reading! I’m a huge reader, which I get from my mom.
Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?
I read ebooks and audiobooks. Right now I’m reading quite a few holiday books!
What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?
Thank you so much for supporting my books and for supporting authors! I’d love to chat with you on Twitter or Instagram.
Stay Connected
Enjoy an excerpt from Dyrwolf
Dyrwolf Kat Kinney YA Dark Fantasy
Lea Wylder has spent so long hunting werewolves that now one is stalking her in her sleep. In the unforgiving forests of the north, shape-shifting wolves have enslaved the sole human city for hundreds of miles, driving survivors up into the mountains. When Lea tracks a shifter and finds him caught in a trap, she’s convinced he’s the white wolf from her dreams. Not that it matters. He’s one of them. And they’re at
But as Lea pulls back the bowstring, Henrik shifts to human and begs her not to shoot. By name. But how could he possibly know her? In twenty years, the wolves have never crossed the river over to their side.
Injured and unable to walk, Henrik needs Lea’s help to get back home. If he could be turned against the pack, it could change the course of the war. But first there’s the small problem of returning him to the wolves—without getting caught.
Excerpt
A hand clamps around my ankle. I shriek and tangle my fingers in the soft, sticky evergreen bristles, a clam suddenly aware it’s about to be stolen from the safety of the wet, sucking sand.
Henrik rips me from the underbrush like he’s plucking a bird from its nest. Instead he’s found a wild, crazed thing covered in sap and scratches. I claw and kick, but he extracts me easily as a mother cat retrieving its kitten.
“Is it your head?”
Another whine seems to be answer enough. I curl in on myself, panting. His heat disappears. I stagger to my hands and knees, clawing to get back to the safe embrace of the evergreen. Fall. Get up again. An arm loops around my waist, pulling me back.
“Where are you trying to go?”
Now I’m crying for real. And covered in evergreen needles. Like some sort of sticky, fragrant hedgehog. “Lea.” The hair is smoothed back from my face with fingers that smell of boy and herbs. “I’m going to make your head better. I know it hurts. Just stay here a minute. Don’t go crawling off.”
I bury my face in hands that smell of evergreen, of home and of a mother who never wanted me, and cry harder. Henrik is swearing under his breath. I’m sure of it, even though he’s switched back to Dyr, which to me is just a bunch of vowels and unfamiliar sounds. He plucks at my arm, unsticking a particularly large branch, and I shrink back. He must have found his knife by now.
“Lea.”
It’s plaintive. Wounded. And I don’t care. If this is how I am to die, I hate him for dragging it out. For playing with his food. And then suddenly he’s scooping me up. I’m nearly six feet tall, by no means a small girl. We’re practically the same height. But somehow, he’s gotten me tucked in the crook of his arm, head nestled against his shoulder, the backs of his knuckles ghosting oh so softly over my cheekbones as if he’s afraid if he presses any harder, he might break me. Me. Who has threatened how many times in the past two days to kill him.
It floods me then. Everything. Warm skin and herbs and boy smell and Henrik. Who is cradling me like anything but a piece of meat he’s planning on devouring. My heart swoops with a flutter of something perilously close to hope, my terrible, traitorous chin beginning to wobble.
“Please don’t kill me.”
What story will the Village tell, when I am dead and someone has carved my name up on one of the columns? When the bones of all who once knew and loved me have crumbled to dust, and the letters of my name on an aging post, a tale passed around the fire pit on the long, dark winter days, are the only proof I ever existed? Lea Wylder. Will someone be left to remember that I am the one who chopped down the Wishing Tree? Will anyone ever know I would have given my life to save Salem’s? Or will all that remains be this shameful, sickening moment when I disappeared from the world without a trace, cowering and begging for my life? “You silly, silly goose.” The pad of his thumb col-
lects my tears and traces them away. “My wolf can’t stop staring and you think it’s because he wants to eat you.”
Then why, I want to ask. But fire devours my skull from the inside, ravaging words, hope, memory. Flames lick white hot through flesh and bone, searing them to ash. Dull beetles bore their way to the center of my brain in small razor bites until nothing remains but pain. I try to wipe my nose and succeed only in sticking sap and bristles to my face. “I can’t see,” I say for what has to be at least the third time. Henrik stills.
“Not at all?” His progress picking needles off my arms abruptly halts. “Has this happened before?” “When they’re bad.” Henrik smooths my sleeves, which have become much less prickly. I settle my head into the crook of his neck. Something plunks in my lap and the air is suffused with the scent of spice and herbs. Leaves rip. Fragrant branches snap and tear. I grumble at the shaking. Henrik’s collarbone isn’t a very soft place for my forehead. The wolf would’ve been better. But it probably wouldn’t appreciate all the sap in its fur.
“Open.”
I obey. The sharp scent of peppermint swirls in the air, mixed with something bitter. Warm boy fingers poke leaves into my mouth. I obediently chew. But then comes something that feels like a twig. Bark or roots follow. I growl, but my lips part and more leaves find their way in.
“Unhh.” Gagging, I spit it all out.
“Lea.”
“Uh kuh fih tha muh ih muh maow.”
“What?” He’s shaking me again. I shove him off and scrape the rest of his greens from my teeth. “I can’t fit that much in my mouth.” “I’m not so sure about that. From what I’ve seen, you have a pretty big mouth.” I punch him in the chest and he chuckles. “Tell you what, we’ll try this again the way we do it with the little wolves.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I poke his arm, but he ignores me. He’s chewing on something. I huff, picking needles from my sleeve. “Henrik—”
Boy fingers push a wet glob of chewed up herbs and spit past my lips. I claw like one of Salem’s cats, starting to spew it out, but he clamps a hand over my mouth. “Chew. You’ll feel better.”
I growl, both hands clamped on his wrist, trying to break his hold. But it’s no use. He’s too strong. He ignores my quiet snarls as I turn the mashed leaves and spit around in my mouth.
“If we were back at the shop, I would grind this into a nice tea for you so there wouldn’t be so many barky bits to chew. I’m sorry we’re a bit low on options at the moment.”
I growl again from behind his hand.
Henrik chuckles. “Oh, Lea. So much to learn about wolves. Growling only makes us like you more.”
I chew sullenly, doing my best to glare.
His breath warms the shell of my ear. “Did you swallow it?”
I nod. “All of it?” Nod.
“Are you going to bite me if I move my hand?”
Nod.
He chuckles. “That’s my girl.”
M.J. Watson Mirror Mirror
Mark Watson began writing in his forties; and now thirty years later, he publishes three novels, MIRROR IMAGE, TODD, A MAN ORPHANED and GOOD BYE SON, all dealing with family difficulties and the bond that holds them together even when they feel discarded. He is a husband, father and grandfather and enjoys retirement and writing.
Witness how the characters found the strength to forgive themselves and the people they love and to ask also for forgiveness in this heart-wrenching story of family love and forgiveness. In Mirror Image, Doris is confronted with her past and realizes that it’s time to go back home after forty some years away. She goes back to the family home she knew then; with much humility, she desperately wants to straighten out her past with her family. Also knowing that she must do this to help stop what she knows will result in a forever hole in her granddaughter’s heart.
BOOK EXERPT pages 7-8
“Pompoms never were important, really Gram?”
“Well I was interested in cheerleading when I was in high school, and we had pompoms. You know Claire having a baby is the most beautiful experience a woman goes through in her life under the right conditions. Loving a man, he loving her, being married helps.
However, a man and woman can conceive a child without love or marriage. Even this does not take away the feeling of mothering, that very natural love, that mother’s love will always be there. I can’t explain it Claire. Have any of your friends become pregnant?” “None of my close friends, at least not that I know about.”
We are both quiet, looking down at our food. “Claire,” I am quit for a moment “the decisions you make today will be with you the rest of your life, like the decision of what college to attend. You want to enter a college that offers a good program in the field you want to study. You don’t pick a school because a friend is going there. You might change schools after a year or two and you could likely change majors before you settle on one, but you choose a school that will best suit your different interests, weighing all of this with cost, location and so on.” fer what I am looking for. I would like to go to Pepperdine but it would cost my parents a lot more money.”
“Yes, so that too must be considered and put into the decision making. Having a baby at sev-enteen, not married and very much wanting to go to school presents one with many things to think about, consider and decisions to make. Today society offers and many times encourages a young mother to end her pregnancy, end the problem and abort the baby. Abortion does end the pregnancy, the baby is gone but the problem is not solved. Believe me I know this does not solve the problem. See Claire you’re pregnant and sometime in the future you will no longer be preg-nant. However the pregnancy ends, through miscarriage, abortion or completion to birth, the fact remains you were once pregnant. We want to believe that having an abortion means everything goes back three or four months, to no pregnancy. It doesn’t, you can never go back. After choos-ing and having an abortion the mother will discover that dealing and living with the embarrass-ment and shame of being an unwed mother is nothing in comparison to what she will live with knowing she aborted her child. This is true even if she chooses never to tell anyone. Claire the decisions you make today, this week or whenever will affect you the rest of your life.”
Anna Applegate
Anna Applegate is a USA Today Bestselling Author. She writes paranormal romance and lives tucked away in rural Maryland with her beautiful daughters, building a mini-Disney Princess army in their own little happily ever after.
Anna is an avid reader, especially if it involves vampires. She loves to escape into her fictional world – whether through her unchecked book addiction, or by creating her own paranormal romances filled with fantasy and surprise twists and turns.
Uncaged welcomes Anna Applegate
Welcome to Uncaged! This year, you’ve released a newer series, Curse of the Fae. Can you tell readers more about this series?
This series is the longest I’ve attempted, 8 books long. I fell in love with fae, as many of us paranormal and fantasy readers have lately. This series appealed to me so much because I feel like it lets me stick with my new adult writing, but add more spice in and tension as the story continues on.
The series features Coraline Fray, and 18-year old foster kid who falls into the magical, dangerous world of Faerie. Almost instantly, she’s assigned to the Unseelie Castle, as a feeder to the Prince, Noah Driscoll. The Unseelie and Seelie have been at war for as long as anyone can remember and it makes for an unsettled and dangerous place for a mere mortal.
The series has it all, which is what I love – sexual tension, betrayal, friendship, love, good vs. evil, dragons … I don’t think I can list it all even!
You also have a few other series out, can you tell you tell us more about them? What inspired you to write in the paranormal/fantasy genre?
Yes, my other series that I finished most recently is the Magic Bound Saga. This one was my absolute favorite to write because it holds a special place in my heart since my grandfather and I thought of the concept together. This is a time travel paranormal romance with time travelers, vampires, shifters, fae, magic, and soulmates.
I’ve always loved reading vampires and so many of my books have had vampires involved in some way. Because all of my favorite books are paranormal or fantasy based, it was easy for me to fall into writing that genre because escaping into another world comes so naturally given the kind of reader I’ve always been.
What is the most difficult scene for you to write? What is the easiest?
| FEATUrE AUTHOr |
know why I always struggle through them! I write all sorts of scenes from simply tension, to fade to black, to more elaborate…all of them make me struggle. I think because I wonder if any of my family will read it haha.
The easiest for me are scenes between good friends - bantering and creating those sort of, bonding moments. I also actually REALLY enjoy fight scenes and that final action sort of moment … those always come to me quickly and I speed through them excitedly.
Where do you get your ideas for new plots and characters?
They come from anywhere! Sometimes as I’m reading or watching something I think of a different ending, or different plot twist and immediately start taking notes! I also have two wonderful author friends and we bounce ideas around off each other all the time.
For characters, I get inspired by things that make me happy or excited. For example, my vampire male lead in The Magic Bound Saga was based off of Killian Jones in the Once Upon a Time show … I just fell in love with him and wanted to badly to create a character that made me feel like he did.
What are you working on now that you can tell us about?
The fourth book in the Curse of the Fae series is on my dockett right now. I also have a pen name for sports romance that I write under, Ava Woods. I’ve been releasing some steamy football romance novels to freshen up my writing since I’ve been in paranormal so long.
Do you base any of your characters on real-life people?
While I’ve never based my characters fully off of real-life people, there are definitely characteristics that I’ll include in characters of people I know. Mostly, it’s characters I love, so a friend that reminds me of a character, I’ll use some real life jokes occasionally.
What behind-the-scenes tidbit in your life would probably surprise your readers the most?
I’ve never taken a Creative Writing or English class beyond the general education classes I had to take in college. My desire to write came on very hard just from being a reader who kept thinking, “why didn’t this happen in this book” or “how cool would it be if this plot twist happened” Eventually, I just dove in and tried it myself and fell in love. It’s hard to keep up sometimes because I have a full time job outside of writing, and I’m a full time single mama to three young daughters … which might be surprising as well :)
Plot is always first for me. I used to fly by the seat of my pants and just write, but now I’ve turned into someone who NEEDS a solid plot before I can move on the series. From there, and many times AS I’m plotting, I create the characters, their backstory, the history of my world. I take very meticulous notes now and have an entire series journal now that includes everything I need to know for the series!
What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?
Reading :) Lots of reading. I do enjoy binge watching shows as well but mostly the reading comes in first. I
| ANNA APPLEGATE |
love turning it into taking myself on a little date … a glass of wine, some crackers and cheese, or maybe ice cream … my book and me!
Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?
I enjoy ebooks for series because I can immediately dive into the next book! If there’s a series I love, I’ll immediately buy all of the physical books though because I enjoy looking at them on my bookshelves. I’ve tried to get into audiobooks and have had some trouble doing so. I did JUST finish the first part of “A Court of Mist and Fury” the Dramatized Audiobook version which was such an amazing way of consuming that book (that series is one of my favorites). I just started Throne of Glass, I haven’t read it yet and am diving in!
What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?
Really I’d just like to say thank you! To be able to use writing to escape AND to connect with people who enjoy the same fantastical worlds and being swept away by love and adventure is such an incredible feeling. To know that there are readers who give my books time when there are so many books to read out there, makes me feel really special and honored. I have enjoyed every minute of my author career, and hope for many more years of writing these stories and connecting with the fabulous people I’ve been able to connect with thus far.
