The DARK TOMORROW series by Jeremiah Franklin

The last author feature of November brings us DARK TOMORROW: RISE OF THE CROW and the sequel, CULT OF THE CROW. Have a look at this series from Month9Books:

When a deadly virus decimates most of Earth's population, 16-year-old Sawyer Bradshaw finds he is both immune and alone in a world that has descended into violent chaos. Armed with only his estranged father's shotgun, and an unrelenting desire to stay alive, Sawyer discovers that he not only has an uncanny knack for cheating death, but also for taking lives. It’s not long before he meets his match in a fierce and cunning teenage girl named Sara. By her side, Sawyer emerges as more than just a natural-born killer but as a leader among men. Nevertheless, as quick as the young survivors fall desperately in love, they find themselves caught up in a series of conspiracies and twisted struggles for power. They soon realize that love, betrayal, and death tend to walk hand in hand.

Kill or be killed is the new normal for Sawyer, Sara, and the survivors of the deadly virus that has all but annihilated the human race. With the death of Sara’s father and the disappearance of the strange boy known as Mason, the teens are left reeling, but alongside the enigmatic ex-Marine, Edward, they soon forge an alliance with a collection of young survivors led by the sage and charismatic Kai. Nevertheless, when their new companions begin to mysteriously disappear, the group is once again thrown into a desperate struggle for survival, where only the most cunning and relentless will prevail. Ultimately, among whispers of top-secret military bunkers, lost gold, and a shadowy group known as the Cult of the Crow, Sawyer and Sara must face the grim realization that death and betrayal lurks in every corner, and when it comes to the end of the world--nothing is what it seems.


According to your bio, you are a former private investigator. In what ways, if any, does this experience manifest in your creative work?

When you are on surveillance as a private investigator, you morph into something not unlike an invisible bystander, and you are given a rare opportunity to anonymously observe people’s behavior in all its complexities. Sometimes, you witness first-hand what some would call the “dark side” of human nature, and it’s not often pretty. However, at the very same time, you also have these amazing opportunities to right wrongs, to seek justice, and to solve real-life problems for people who need your help. I think this contradiction between good and evil, and right and wrong, comes out in my writing, and that my experience as a private investigator has given me some insight into what truly lurks inside the hearts of men.


In lots of people, I'll bet! In DARK TOMORROW: RISE OF THE CROW  I'm especially intrigued by the ex-Marine, Edward. How did he come to you, and in what ways did he surprise you?

Edward is a unique and interesting character in many ways, and he is without question an amalgamation of several “real-life” people that I have known. Unlike many of the characters in Dark Tomorrow, Edward is also no teenager, and as a former Marine, he has experienced life events that my younger characters have yet to encounter. At the same time, Edward also enters the story with a fair amount of emotional baggage, and I think it was surprising to see where these personal issues took Edward as the story unfolds. In the end, he makes some truly startling decisions, and I think the reader gets a chance to look into the troubled mind of the complex character that is Edward.

He definitely sounds interesting. What do you wish stories had more of? 

Realism. While I definitely enjoy fantasies and the supernatural as much as the next avid reader, I really enjoy reading fiction that takes a realistic perspective. I know that in my own books, I strove to build a post-apocalyptic world that was not only intriguing, but also plausible. This can be difficult as a writer, mostly because there are no easy outs—characters don’t get to conveniently cast a spell or use their secret powers to solve a problem. In realistic fiction, the characters are bound by the laws of reality, and as much as we all love a character with super powers or magical elements, I think readers also enjoy making connections to characters who are painfully real, and who must overcome challenges that we can all relate to.

Indeed. And I've seen some of those painfully real characters in SF/F too. What are some of your current projects? 

Right now, I am right in the middle of the final edits for the third book in the Dark Tomorrow trilogy, Fall of the Crow. It’s the final chapter in the series and it is due to come out sometime in early summer of next year. I am also working on the first book in a completely new dystopian YA series that I’m really excited about. Like my previous books, it’s set in the not-too distant future, but this novel has more elements of science fiction, and while I can’t say too much about it, I think it will appeal to a wide range of readers who enjoy a fast-paced and thrilling YA story.

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound

This post can also be viewed here. 

LET'S CALL IT A DOOMSDAY by Katie Henry

After I featured Katie Henry here, I couldn't wait to see what book she'd come up with next. LET'S CALL IT A DOOMSDAY offers an interesting lens into what it's like to deal with anxiety, and how to figure out how live, even when the world might be ending:

There are so many ways the world could end. There could be a fire. A catastrophic flood. A super eruption that spews lakes of lava. Ellis Kimball has made note of all possible scenarios, and she is prepared for each one. What she doesn’t expect is meeting Hannah Marks in her therapist’s waiting room. Hannah calls their meeting fate. After all, Ellis is scared about the end of the world; Hannah knows when it’s going to happen.

Despite Ellis’s anxiety — about what others think of her, about what she’s doing wrong, about the safety of her loved ones — the two girls become fast friends. As Ellis tries to help Hannah decipher the details of her doomsday premonition, she learns there are secrets Hannah isn’t telling her. But with time ticking down, the search for answers only raises more questions. When does it happen? Who will believe them? How do you prepare for the end of the world when it feels like your life is just getting started?


In our last interview you said you were working on your next standalone YA contemporary novel "like there was no tomorrow." What did you experience while working this second book that was different from other books you've written?

Ha! I’m so glad you remembered that line. During our last interview, I was working on LET’S CALL IT A DOOMSDAY but couldn’t yet talk about the details--hence the oblique reference to the end of the world.

It took me three years to write my debut novel, HERETICS ANONYMOUS. I was asked to write the first draft of LET’S CALL IT A DOOMSDAY in about four months. Writing under a deadline is very different than writing at your own pace, especially since now, there were expectations about my writing and my style--not just from my editor, but from readers. It was tough to block all that out, at first.

Ha! I see what you did there. And I'm glad you could block out the extra noise. I love the premise of LET'S CALL IT A DOOMSDAY. How did you know that this was a book you needed to write?

When I was about fourteen, I was obsessed with survival. I didn’t limit myself to the literal Apocalypse, like Ellis does, but that was definitely included. I had folders upon folders of printed-out Geocities website pages detailing how to survive being stranded at sea, attacked by a bear, nuclear fallout, plane crashes. I was afraid of everything and truly believed the only way to protect myself was to obsessively, anxiously research all the ways the world could kill me.

I’d had this idea--a story about a friendship between someone who fears the world ending and someone who has seen it happen--for a long time, but in the last months of 2016, I started thinking about it a lot more. For big, political reasons and small, personal reasons, I felt that same kind of certainty I had at fourteen, that the world was slowly collapsing on itself.

I’d been thinking about this story for years, in different forms and with different plots, but the only thing that’s remained constant is the theme of belief.  Why do we believe what we do, who gets to determine what’s believable and what isn’t, where’s the line between belief and delusion? What ways do gender, or mental illness, or sexuality influence what we believe, especially about ourselves?

I knew I wanted to answer those questions, and I knew this book was the way I could do it.

I love when I can find those kinds of questions confronted in books (I often encounter them as a librarian too, but it's a necessary job hazard!). What do you feel are the necessary elements of a good story?

I’m sure everyone has a different answer to this, but for me, I need great dialogue and characters with depth. I started off as a playwright, where you really only have what people say to one another to communicate so much to the audience, and that probably explains why I’m still so focused on dialogue, as a writer and a reader. I’m not the kind of reader who lingers too long on beautiful descriptions or needs a fact-paced plot, though of course every story needs descriptions and plot. But what makes a story sing for me is the people within them and the words they use to connect with each other.


Beautifully said. If you could tell your younger writer self one thing, what would it be and why?

I wrote my first YA novel when I was fourteen, and because I’m a Type A Monster who lives for research the way other people live for beach vacations, I queried a bunch of agents with it. No one offered (because it was terrible) and I was super disappointed. So if I could talk to my fourteen-year-old writer self, I’d tell her:

“Just because that first book didn’t get published doesn’t mean it was wasted effort. You learned a lot of useful things you’ve going to use later on in your career. And Katie. Oh my god. You are going to be so unspeakably glad that book didn’t get published."

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound

This post can also be viewed here. 

THE WICKED TREE by Kristin Thorsness

In writing a middle grade book, I'm also widening my reading palate to include more middle grade titles. One of the fall titles from Month9Books, THE WICKED TREE, offers just the right amount of "spooky" for middle grade readers:

Eleven-year-old Tavorian Kreet hates it when money troubles force his mom to move them in with his great-grandmother – though the historic house and grounds are pretty awesome. Tav is told to stay out of the estate’s woods, but he can’t resist the chance to explore.

After Tav’s first trip into the woods, he begins to have strange dreams about a supernatural tree. The dreams start out pleasant, but soon grow dark and menacing. On a dare, Tav ventures further into the woods with his new friend Harper, and they meet a mysterious, mute boy named Edward who lives in a decrepit cabin there. Though he’s unable to communicate where he came from or why he lives alone, in clear distress he scrawls two words: Bad Tree.

Tav knows what it’s like to be afraid. If he’d been brave enough to act four years ago, he could have saved his dad from the fire that took their home. But he wasn’t, and he’s been trying to redeem himself since. Now Tav is determined to help Edward. He enlists Harper, and together they search the estate for clues to Edward’s identity and how to help him.

While searching, Tav and Harper find antique photo albums, ancient diaries, and a secret laboratory. They piece together the Kreet family history, and discover a curse that’s been waiting generations for an heir. Tav’s dreams grow more ominous, and he realizes time is running short. To save himself and his friends, Tav must go to the heart of the woods, find the Bad Tree, and confront an evil magic before it consumes him completely.

In what ways, if any, did your experience as an elementary school teacher inform your writing?

I loved the five years I spent teaching 5th and 6th grade. Tweens are my favorite; they’re sophisticated enough to examine and question their world, yet still in a phase where anything—including magic! —feels possible.

While in the classroom, I met one-on-one with my students multiple times a week for reading conferences. We’d talk about the book they were reading, whether they liked it, why/why not, what they would change about the story if they could, etc. I chose books for read aloud based on these conversations and bought books for my classroom library that I thought would entice my more reluctant readers. I’d give recommendations to my students, and they’d recommend books to me too. I loved connecting with my students over books—it was always my favorite part of the school day.
At that time, I wasn’t actively thinking about writing books myself, but when I left teaching to focus on raising my kids and writing, I found those reading conference conversations popping up in my mind often. The insight they gave me into the reading lives of middle graders was invaluable as I started tossing plot ideas around. There was never any question in my mind about which age demographic I would write for, and I think that’s due to the enjoyable years I spent teaching, and the wonderful students I had.


What a great path you've been on! And I love the characters in THE WICKED TREE, especially Edward. How did the characters in this book come to you, and how do their journeys intertwine?

Thanks so much! Edward has an extra special place in my heart too. I don’t want to talk about him too much for fear of giving things away, but I love that he made an impression on you!

The two main characters, Tav and Harper, came to me in succession. Everything started with Tav. I had the idea for a story about a boy who would be plagued by a familial curse and I looked up lists of names that meant sadness or misfortune and the name Tavorian jumped out at me the moment I saw it. As Tav began to take shape into his introverted, worrying self, I realized that while I wanted him to have a bravery arc in the story, he wasn’t going to take those first few steps on his own. He needed someone plucky to help push him along. That’s when Harper started taking shape in my mind. She’s sure of herself, knows what she wants, and goes after it. Plopping the two of them into a spooky mystery together worked well. Tav recognizes dangers and overthinks all the possibilities, and Harper has the bravery and quick thinking under pressure to get them safely through.

Also, a fun fact, Mosley the cat is exactly modeled after my sister’s cat. The only difference is my sister’s Mosley is only five.


I love that Harper came about as a way to solve Tav's character flaws! What, in your opinion, is the most difficult part of the writing process? 

For me, drafting is the hardest part, hands down. I know many authors who say drafting is their favorite part, that they love the excitement of seeing the story come to life, but that’s not the case with me. I really struggle with self-doubt during the drafting phase. I worry that the words and scenes I’m stringing together won’t amount to an actual story in the end. To try and combat this, I always outline before I begin writing. That way, when the anxiety sets in, I can look at the outline and remind myself that there IS a full story and it IS going somewhere. This helps, but I still can’t make myself really and truly believe my story works it until I’ve typed the words ‘the end’. Once those words are down, I feel my spirits lift and I’m ready to settle into my very favorite part of the writing process: polishing a (complete!) story until it’s something I’m proud of.


Indeed. What are some of your current projects? 

I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say because the ink’s not quite dry, if you know what I mean, but readers who enjoy The Wicked Tree and wonder what happens to Tav next won’t be disappointed. 😉

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~  IndieBound

This post can also be viewed here.

The Witchlands Series, by Susan Dennard

I've been a fan of Susan Dennard for a while. I first started following her newsletter, and then I saw her at YallWest earlier this year. There, I bought the first book in the Witchlands series, TRUTHWITCH...only to lose it before Susan could sign it! The most recent in the series, BLOODWITCH, debuted earlier this year:

Young witches Safiya and Iseult have a habit of finding trouble. After clashing with a powerful Guildmaster and his ruthless Bloodwitch bodyguard, the friends are forced to flee their home.

Safi must avoid capture at all costs as she's a rare Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lies. Many would kill for her magic, so Safi must keep it hidden - lest she be used in the struggle between empires. And Iseult's true powers are hidden even from herself.

In a chance encounter at Court, Safi meets Prince Merik and makes him a reluctant ally. However, his help may not slow down the Bloodwitch now hot on the girls' heels. All Safi and Iseult want is their freedom, but danger lies ahead. With war coming, treaties breaking and a magical contagion sweeping the land, the friends will have to fight emperors and mercenaries alike. For some will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.

After an explosion destroys his ship, the world believes Prince Merik, Windwitch, is dead. Scarred yet alive, Merik is determined to prove his sister’s treachery. Upon reaching the royal capital, crowded with refugees, he haunts the streets, fighting for the weak—which leads to whispers of a disfigured demigod, the Fury, who brings justice to the oppressed.

When the Bloodwitch Aeduan discovers a bounty on Iseult, he makes sure to be the first to find her—yet in a surprise twist, Iseult offers him a deal. She will return money stolen from him, if he locates Safi. Now they must work together to cross the Witchlands, while constantly wondering, who will betray whom first?

After a surprise attack and shipwreck, Safi and the Empress of Marstok barely escape with their lives. Alone in a land of pirates, every moment balances on a knife’s edge—especially when the pirates’ next move could unleash war upon the Witchlands.

High in a snowy mountain range, a monastery that holds more than just faith clings to the side of a cliff. Below, thwarted by a lake, a bloodthirsty horde of raiders await the coming of winter and the frozen path to destroy the sanctuary and its secrets.

The Bloodwitch Aeduan has teamed up with the Threadwitch Iseult and the magical girl Owl to stop the destruction. But to do so, he must confront his own father, and his past.

I both love and appreciate the authenticity you bring to your author life, especially through your newsletter. In what ways do you feel this honesty has helped both you and your readers? 

I am someone who doesn't really know what she's feeling or thinking until she's put it into written form. So for me, the newsletter has been both extremely educational (oh! That's how I write a book!) as well as cathartic (dammit, that did suck, and that's okay).

And I know my honesty has helped readers and aspiring authors (published authors too!) since I hear it all the time. And I totally understand why, since it's the reason I started doing my blog and newsletter in the first place. You just want to know you're not the only person failing, and it is truly so, so, SO comforting to realize, "Oh, hey, I'm not alone!"

When I was aspiring and then my first few years of being published, I would cling to any kind of honest advice about failure and the difficulties of publication. But it was hard to find back then! These days--fortunately--there's been a real push for transparency, which is good for everyone.

Indeed it is. In BLOODWITCH, we get a glimpse into Bloodwitch Aeduan's past. In what ways, if any, did his journey surprise you? 

I mean...none? I've known where I was going with him for such a long time. In fact, that whole book was such a big pay off. I've been planting seeds and marching toward some of those moments, so getting to write them was amazing. And having readers read them was even better!!

I'll bet! What are some of your current projects? 

Right now, my focus is on the next Witchlands book--and of course, The Luminaries (on Twitter) which has now been going for almost 4 months. That's been a really fun break to dabble in each day. ;)

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~  IndieBound

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~  IndieBound

Buy: BookPassage ~ Amazon.com ~ Barnes & Noble ~  IndieBound

This post can also be viewed here.