The Survivors: Point of Origin Blog Tour

The Survivors: Point of Origin Blog Tour

So last year at BEA, Amanda Havard just happened to sit at my table during the children’s author breakfast. And she was so super nice! So I jumped on the opportunity to interview her for the release of her second book, The Survivors: Point of Origin, and give away both books in the series – and some swag!

To view the rest of the blogs on The Survivors: Point of Origin blog tour, as well as enter their giveaways, click here!

Amazon | Goodreads | Author Website | Author TwitterThe winter is upon us. The Survivors are in chaos. The war is coming.

One year ago, Sadie Matthau was living among humans, existing as one of them. But now she wakes each morning in a house in the Survivors’ City, listening to the invocations and insults of her family members as they cope with their new future. A war. Rogue abandoners turned monsters. Sadie and the icy Winters living in their midst, bringing the outside world in.

The Survivors: Point of Origin is Sadie’s quest to save her family. But can she find what she is looking for when she can barely stomach the Winters’ wintry demeanor and finds herself distracted by Cole Hardwick’s warm heart? Will she be able to uncover her family’s history even as the elders’ grip tightens around her throat? In an action packed ride full of magic and misery, terror and triumph, Sadie Matthau seeks the Survivors’ beginning just in time to face her end. – Goodreads

An interview with Amanda Havard, from The Survivors: Point of Origin

It seems most authors have some sort of working title/code name/etc for their books. Did you have one for The Survivors series?
The short answer is no. I actually referred to it as The Survivors from the beginning. I know most people come up with cooler, amusing, or generally more awesome codenames, probably in part because they’re awesome and in part because you don’t want to attach to a title in case it gets changed. That said, I was attached. I attach to titles very easily because I’m a very decisive person, and it’s hard to think something is wrong once I think it’s right (though it’s much harder to think something is right once I’ve thought it wrong. That might be impossible.). I couldn’t help it. I’m lucky it got to stay that way.

If you could be the author of any already published book, which would it be any why?

I don’t think I ever read a story and think, “Man, I wish I wrote that” because at the end of the day, that awesome work of art is a magnificent manifestation of the author’s mind, and it’s a gift given to me, not one I want to steal. I also love the stories I come up with because I love living in the story worlds — I do really, really live there once I come up with something. In this way, though the stories are meant to be shared, they feel personal enough that I don’t wish I’d written anyone’s, even if they had massive success compared to mine, even if I think their books are the best I’d ever read.

All that said, I’ve put an enormous amount of effort into building pieces of the Survivors world that are totally engrossing. If you want to know more, there’s more to know. If you want to dig deep, there is so much more stuff to find. From characters you can talk to on Twitter, who seem to be living out real lives without you and me, all the way to historical documents that support the fiction I’ve created and might freak you out a bit, and right down to the one-liners in the first book that, if you thought hard enough about them or went back and re-read them, you’d realize they told you the end, I’ve built something very consumable. So what I would want, of an author’s, if I could have anyone’s would be the obsessive but thoughtful fandom of a series like (obviously) Harry Potter or more like Cassie Clare’s following. Her fans connect, dig, love, adore, obsess, dissect, and want to know more. I would love that because I have more to share.

Describe The Survivors series in three words.

Supernatural. Enigmatic. Addictive.

How much input do you have on the covers? Which of the two books is your favourite?

I was lucky to have a fair amount of input. From the very beginning, when someone asked what I envisioned when I envisioned on the covers, I said, “No people on them” which I’m pretty surprised actually happened. But somehow, this story is about place, and so why not find a way to push the settings on the cover too? Plus, I feel really attached to the idea of imagining a character as you want to, not as the cover tells you to. (People who have heard me talk about our Immersedition interactive app of the book know that that’s such a big deal to me that I used runway photos to show characters style instead of ever illustrating a character outright. I’m all into informing your vision of a character; not giving it to you.)

But as for the covers, I love them both (though I think there may be a new version of the first one surfacing soon? Or so I hear?), but I think the second one is my current favorite. (I will probably say this about each one as it comes out.) I loved that we got the detailed skull that’s very relevant to the story on the cover, and I geeked out once I saw the inclusion of that inside the interior as well. I also got to have input on the main Survivors logo that has that detailed “T” in The and specifically detailed “S” in Survivors. These are very, very, very relevant to the story as a whole (they will be — promise!), so I’m very glad they have a place in branding the series.

What are you working on next? Anything you can share?

I’m working on a number of things. Book 3 in Survivors is coming back for revisions soon, and I’m ecstatic to work on that. It’s my favorite in the series by far. I’m developing a new paranormal YA series in the hopes to make it interactive like we have with Survivors, so there are a lot of moving parts to try to sort out up front. I’ve got a one-off adult book that’s kind of a pet project, and I’m involved in the building of Chafie’s first educational Immersedition, an awesomely immersive version of Romeo & Juliet, since I’ve built an app with the team before and both my degrees are in education. Of course, I’m also always doing all the other Survivorsy transmedia stuff we do like writing character tweets or writing original music for the books’ soundtracks.

Giveaway of The Survivors

Rules

US/Can only
13 years or old
Winner has 48 hours to respond to my e-mail

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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