Interview with C.J. Redwine, author of <em>Defiance</em>
Hi guys! Today I'm here with the lovely C.J. Redwine, fellow Apocalypsie (and Nashville-resident!) and author of the hotly anticipated Defiance! :D
Defiance
Within the walls of Baalboden, beneath the shadow of the city's brutal leader, Rachel Adams has a secret. While other girls sew dresses and obey their male Protectors, Rachel knows how to survive in the wilderness and deftly wield a sword. When her father, Jared, fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector, her father's apprentice, Logan—the same boy Rachel declared her love for two years ago, and the same one who handed her heart right back to her. Left with nothing but a fierce belief in her father's survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself. But treason against the Commander carries a heavy price, and what awaits her in the Wasteland could destroy her.
At nineteen, Logan McEntire is many things. Orphan. Outcast. Inventor. As apprentice to the city's top courier, Logan is focused on learning his trade so he can escape the tyranny of Baalboden. But his plan never included being responsible for his mentor's impulsive daughter. Logan is determined to protect her, but when his escape plan goes wrong and Rachel pays the price, he realizes he has more at stake than disappointing Jared.
As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can't be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making.
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1. Hi, C.J.! I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC of DEFIANCE, and I loved it! Tell us a little about your journey to publication :)
I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a published author after I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30. It was suddenly clear to me that life is too short to waste time waiting for the perfect time to chase our dreams. My first book will never see the light of day unless someone needs a rather large supply of paper for fending off Zombie Goats. My second book garnered me my amazing agent, Holly Root, but didn't sell. My third book didn't sell either. I decided it was time to change genres (I was writing adult urban fantasy) and write the YA series that kept tempting me with it's I'm-awesome-and-you-might-not-have-the-chops-to-write-me fabulousness. I finished Defiance in two and a half months (with four kids and a job...because sometimes you just have to carve your dreams out of a brick wall of obstacles) and the trilogy sold at auction a few weeks later. I was stunned. I'd sort of become used to the title The Girl Who Could Not Sell A Book To Save Her Life. :)
2. That's a truly amazing story! What would you say was the biggest challenge in writing Defiance?
Making the time to write. I had a 30 hour a week job, was homeschooling two of my boys, had a boy in middle school, and we'd just brought our daughter home from China so I had a 10 month old baby. I wrote whenever I could carve out a chunk of time and went without enough sleep for weeks to get it done.
3. WOW! That blows all my I'm-too-busy-to-write complaints right out of the water :) Rachel, the MC of Defiance, goes through some really tough moments in the book. If you were transported into your story, which scene would you most want to reenact?
Good question! I think I'd like to be in the scene where Rachel is in the Wasteland and is running from a monster. She is tree-leaping (Climbing high into the trees, running along a thick branch and then leaping to a branch in a neighboring tree and doing the whole thing all over again), and I'd really like to be able to do it without losing my footing and plunging to my imminent demise.
4. That sounds fun and incredibly dangerous ;) Speaking of the fun and the dangerous, what’s a typical writing day for you? :P
If it's a day where I work from home, I write during my daughter's nap in the afternoon and then again after she goes to bed in the evening. If it's a day where I work at my local bookstore's coffee shop, I arrive in the afternoon and work for 5-6 uninterrupted hours. Either way, I require peach tea and my playlist or I have a hard time getting anything done.
5. Sounds great! In addition to writing, what are you reading now?
I just finished reading Sarah Strohmeyer's Smart Girls Get What They Want and loved it! I'm expanding my reading into the contemporary romance area of the YA shelves, and this book just hit all the right notes for me. It's funny, smart, and believable.
6. I love contemporary! Must check that book out :) Okay, Pub Brawl!!!!! What weapon are you wielding?
A Switch! It's a weapon my character Logan invented. It looks like a walking stick but one end is weighted enough to crush a man's skull and the other has a concealed, spring-loaded knife blade ready to impale a foe! I might also be trashing talking. Just a little. *prepares a host of Your Mama lines and gets ready*
7. Hehe :) I thought the Switch was really cool! All right, last question—what sort of outfit would your main character wear to a pub? Or would s/he never be caught dead in one??
Oh, my main character would waltz into a pub if she wanted something or someone inside of it. She'd wear her cloak to conceal her weapons and her boots in case someone's face needed rearranging.
Rachel is 100% badass :) Thanks for coming for an interview at Pub Crawl, C. J.! I, for one, can't wait for Defiance to hit shelves in September. In the mean time, though, you guys have the chance to win an ARC! Hooray!
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C.J. REDWINE loves stilettos, lemon bars, and any movie starring Johnny Depp. She lives in Nashville with her husband, four kids, two cats, and one long-suffering dog. To learn more about C.J., visit her website at http://cjredwine.blogspot.com/