FRACTURE, by Megan Miranda

The flu I had last November has decided to pay me an unwelcome visit, so I'll leave this week to the two books I'd like to feature.

Today's book is FRACTURE, by Megan Miranda:

Synopsis, from Goodreads:

"Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?


Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death."

Here's the trailer for FRACTURE:




And finally, my interview with Megan:

 I see from your website that you have a biology degree from MIT. How have you used your knowledge of science in your writing?

I find that I pull on my science background a lot while writing. I’m inspired a lot by the questions I have about the things that science attempts to explain but isn’t always able to prove. How come some people who are supposed to die, live? If someone’s personality changes after a brain injury, which person are they at the core? The idea for Fracture came from that, and from a lot of questions I had about the way the brain works.

I love the premise of FRACTURE. What do you think is the most important message the book conveys, and what do you want readers to take away after reading it?

Thank you! Honestly, I didn’t think of a “message” when I was writing, but I think Delaney’s journey brings her to a certain realization, which then made me come to a similar realization. If you strip everything else away: the past, the future, people’s expectations of us, our expectations of ourselves, are we doing what we want to be doing? If there’s anything I hope a reader will take away, it is this: seize the day.

I think writers can use that advice too! Can you tell us a bit about your journey from writing the book to finding an audience for it? What are some of the lessons you learned along the way?

It was quite the journey! I wrote the first version in 4 months, but it was… messy. And wrong. And illogical, among other things. I rewrote it, twice, over the course of the next 6 months. Lessons learned: do not fear the delete key; outside eyes on my writing is essential; know where I’m going and what type of book I’m writing. Seems obvious, but it wasn’t for me. I learned a lot about the process of writing a book—and my process, specifically—while writing the many drafts of Fracture.

What are some of the other projects you're working on?

I have another standalone YA set to come out in early 2013. It’s in the same vein as Fracture in that it walks the line a bit between science and paranormal. But it’s also pretty different. It’s a psychological thriller about the fine line between the real and the imagined.

Thanks for having me! And thanks for letting me interview you, Megan!

FRACTURE is available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, IndieBound, and Books-A-Million. Be sure to get a copy!