Welcome to our newest feature on The Book Smugglers: SMUGGLED! For this new feature, we briefly video interview authors. Today’s guest is Kelly Creagh, YA paranormal fantasy/horror author of Nevermore (which Thea read and loved).

Please give a warm welcome to the lovely, talented Ms. Kelly Creagh!

And now for the rest of our Chat!

The Book Smugglers: Thank you for the taking the time to chat with us, Kelly, and welcome to our blog! Your debut novel, Nevermore is a Young Adult book blending the harsh realities of high school with a twist of the fantastic and a generous dose of the horrific. Can you tell us a bit about your book, and what inspired you to write Nevermore in all its Edgar Allan Poe glory?

Kelly: Thanks for having me! I’m a huge fan of your blog and I love reading your reviews and articles.

Nevermore is a tale about a goth boy and a cheerleader who are paired together for an English project. Varen, my goth character, chooses Edgar Allan Poe as the focus of the project. Needless to say, bright and sunny Isobel is less than thrilled about studying gothic literature let alone being paired with Trenton High’s foremost weirdo. Yet she is also somehow drawn to Varen and she can’t seem to grasp what makes him tick, or why he’s so scathing and aloof. Or why, ever since being paired with him, strange things have begun to happen.
When I first began writing Nevermore, I had only two things—an unnamed goth boy and a cheerleader. At the time, Poe was not yet a major factor in the plot. In fact, he was simply who my goth character happened to pick. So, in between writing, I conducted a bit of surface research on Poe. I soon learned about the strange circumstances surrounding the poet’s death in the fall of 1849. From there, Poe’s presence in the novel became more prominent. I continued with my research and, as I did so, all of these Poe elements began to surface, arising out of my subconscious to spread through every chapter until Poe (and the mystery behind his demise) became the very backbone of my tale.

The Book Smugglers: Is it safe to say that you are a huge Poe fan? Can you remember your first exposure to his work? And – if possible – do you have a favorite poem/story/Vincent Price movie adaptation/etc?

Kelly: Yes. I’m a total fan girl. And even though I’ve always been into Poe and his works, I don’t think I reached the true status of being an official die-hard fan until I started writing Nevermore. Since then, I have traveled to Poe’s Baltimore house and gravesite on three separate occasions. Actually, the last time I was in Eddie’s house, I had a bit of a mishap. I followed the tiny enclosed spiral staircase up to his attic room. Then, while positioning myself to perch on the top stair so that I could snap a photo, I accidentally touched the floor beyond the security point. The alarm sounded and blared through the entire house! When I came hurrying back downstairs, the looks that I received from fellow museum visitors made me want to crawl beneath the floorboards. It was like they thought I’d tried to steal Eddie’s boxer shorts or something!

In regards to my first exposure to Poe, I think that must have happened when I read The Masque of the Red Death in middle school. That one in particular can make quite an impression on a young mind.
But the moment that sticks out most vividly in my mind happened during my sophomore year of High School. Everyone in English class had to choose a poem to read aloud. I chose Annabel Lee, which sparked a huge classroom debate. I remember the class splitting into two teams, one half of the room arguing that the poem was “creepy,” the other insisting that it was “romantic.” I love this memory because I think so many of Poe’s works, particularly his poems, often incite similar disputes.

My favorite story written by Poe is William Wilson, which is a doppelganger tale. I’m also partial to The Raven because it seems to be the epitome of a classic Poe tale. It contains everything that makes Poe’s stories his own. Not only that, but it’s so rhythmical and precise. It’s truly the work of a genius.

In terms of my favorite Poe adaptations, I like Vincent Price in The Fall of the House of Usher. I also love the Simpsons spoof of The Raven and Tim Burton’s short film “Vincent,” which contains several Poe references.

The Book Smugglers: Of the real-world teen heroines out there today, it seems that the quiet/studious/artsy/cute-but-awkward type dominates YA fiction – especially in books that deal with the paranormal. Your heroine, on the other hand, is a popular, perky, pretty cheerleader – and her love interest, the sardonic, aloof goth boy. What made you write Isobel as your heroine and Varen as your hero?

Kelly: I chose a cheerleader and a goth because I liked the idea of opposites being forced to collaborate. With this recipe, the conflict is immediate and engaging and also very fun to write. But as my story evolved, I realized that I wanted to go deeper with this idea of opposites being joined against their will. With Nevermore, I strove to go beyond creating the type of tale involving themes of tolerance, reconciliation and acceptance. As a result, I think that Nevermore is not only a supernatural tale, but a story in which labels are tested and the very foundation of stereotypes are challenged.

The Book Smugglers: On the same subject, recently we’ve seen some interesting discussion about stereotyping in YA novels. In particular, there is something of a derisive attitude towards girls that dress a certain way (“slutty”) or behave in a certain way (go out to clubs/parties, etc). It’s not much of a jump to equate “stupid” or “silly” labels to popular cheerleader types, like Isobel. What do you think of this sort of stereotyping, and did any of these factors cross your mind when writing Nevermore?

Kelly: I have to admit that this kind of stereotyping drives me crazy, especially in regards to cheerleaders. I think cheerleaders are too often picked on in YA fiction and singled out as the best choice when casting the “mean girl.” Now, with that said, I do think that there are mean girls out there who happen to be cheerleaders. Just like there are mean girls who happen to be goths. Or chess club members. Or drama club members. As long as the motivation behind a character’s behavior is at least hinted at, I think that a popular girl can (and does) work as an antagonist inYA fiction. It only really irks me when I perceive that a character is mean (or stupid or slutty or silly) because she is a cheerleader—or as a result of whatever sport, activity, hobby or social sphere she is involved in. It is as though the author is insinuating that the activity itself is what insights the character’s behavior or defines her personality. But these stereotypes do exist in real life and naturally, this became a large part of my story. Though it’s not just Isobel who finds herself battling the popular, pretty, dumb cheerleader label. Varen, too, struggles with all the preconceived notions and fears associated with gothic culture. And even though Isobel and Varen each suffer from stereotyping, they are also guilty of labeling each other. This was just one dynamic which made their interactions and dialogue so interesting and enjoyable to write.

The Book Smugglers: Paranormal is hot right now in YA – especially anything of the fanged, furred or fey variety. Your take on the supernatural, however, is a little different. Can you tell us a bit about your version of the otherworldly in Nevermore?

Kelly: It’s true. You will find no vampires, faeries or werewolves in Nevermore. Instead, the supernatural elements center around the existence of a dream world, one which (in my universe) Poe visited and later wrote about and described in his poetry and fiction. Like Poe, my goth character, Varen, is a writer and it is through his writing that Varen stumbles upon this same alternate dimension that Poe discovered. That’s not to say that there aren’t supernatural characters in Nevermore because there certainly are! Beyond that, I don’t think I can reveal much more without spoilers.

The Book Smugglers: Why did you choose to write a young adult novel? Do you have any YA authors you particularly admire? Do you have any intention of writing for adults one day?

Kelly: I wanted to write a YA novel because, when I began Nevermore, the voices that popped into my head were those of teenagers. This happens with most of the stories I write. I think that, in many ways, I am a perpetual teenager. So, for the moment, I’m happy writing fiction for young adults, though my hope is that my work will appeal to adult and teen readers alike.

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! You only have time to save ONE book, ONE movie, and ONE TV show. QUICK! What are they?

Kelly: OMG. Okay. Book = Phantom by Susan Kay. Movie = The Nightmare Before Christmas (though I know I would waste precious seconds trying to decide between that one and Edward Scissorhands. Actually, I’d probably waste too much time and get eaten over that decision.) And I don’t get to watch a lot of television, but I freaking love Sponge Bob.

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Kelly: I work at the library so when I hear about a new YA book that’s coming out I immediately put myself on the reserve list for the next available copy. I check out YA books in droves and either cart them home or keep them stuffed in my cabinet at work. That way, I get to sneak little sips whenever I get a moment. So I suppose I don’t smuggle them as much as I hoard them! I also purchase a lot of books and usually in hardback. So sometimes my bank account gives me a grumbly look though my dog, Annabel, never seems to mind.

As a child, Kelly would hold elaborate one-kid plays for patient relatives, complete with song, dance, and over-the-top melodramatics. Then, whenever Mom or Grandma called for a break, she would venture outside to slay dragons, run from make-believe ghosts and create magical feasts for fairies out of mud and pinecones.

Kelly holds an undergraduate degree in Theatre Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Today, she finds true joy in transcribing her dramatic daydreams onto the stage of the blank page. When not writing or curled up with a good book, Kelly can be found teaching, learning and performing the ancient art of Bellydance.

Thank you, Kelly for the wonderful interview! For more about Kelly Creagh, make sure to check out her (beautiful) website www.kellycreagh.com. Also make sure to check out our review of Nevermore HERE.

The Black Prism is fantasy author Brent Weeks’ new book (release date: tomorrow) and as part of their marketing campaign, publisher Orbit came up with an awesome idea:

Five blogs had the opportunity to send a few interview questions for Brent Weeks to answer…on camera! And if we may so ourselves, ours turned out to be a pretty groovy interview (Weeks answered a Smuggler-centric question and everything).

Check it out:

If that doesn’t get you excited about The Black Prism (and convince you of Brent Weeks’ general awesomeness), well, we don’t know what will.

About The Book:

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals.

But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.

About The Author:

Brent Weeks was born and raised in Montana. After getting his paper keys from Hillsdale College, Brent had brief stints walking the earth like Caine from Kung Fu, tending bar, and corrupting the youth. (Not at the same time.) He started writing on bar napkins, then on lesson plans, then full time. Eventually, someone paid him for it. Brent lives in Oregon with his wife, Kristi. He doesn’t own cats or wear a ponytail.

You can read about the author and his books on his website, www.brentweeks.com (yes, it’s the groovy one).

In addition to providing more info about Brent Weeks, the website also includes Weeks’ blog, an official forum, AND wicked cool details and extras for his books. There’s an awesome quiz readers can take that ties into the Lightbringer Books – naturally, we couldn’t help ourselves, so both of us took the What Color Is Your Magic Quiz…and we both got the same result (which is a little creepy, but makes perfect sense once you read the description):

We are orange magic drafters!

Take the quiz at Brent Weeks.com

You are an orange drafter

Orange luxin is slick, lubricative, and heavy. It is often used in conjunction with machines and traps. Oranges are often artists, brilliant in understanding other people’s emotions and motivations. Some use this to defy or exceed expectations. Others become master manipulators.

The results from your color matching test have also shown that you are one of the elite, a superchromat. The magic you do will almost never fail. Satrapies will compete to recruit you, and you will have a wide latitude in what work you choose to do once you finish your studies. You can expect your patron to lavish praise and honors on you. As a monochrome, you will master your color, and only have to defer to bichromes and polychromes and, of course, the nobility and the satraps who support us all.

Magic in the Black Prism

When a candle burns, a physical substance (wax) is transformed into light. Chromaturgy in The Black Prism is the inverse: A drafter transforms light into a physical substance (luxin). Each different color of luxin has its own strength, weight, and even smell: blue luxin is hard, red is gooey, yellow is liquid, etc. But even as drafters change the world, the luxin changes them too, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The color change of a drafter’s eyes is only the beginning…

We encourage everyone to take the quiz and let us know what your results are! And fret not – we will be reviewing The Black Prism very soon!

Thank you to Brent Weeks and Orbit for the wonderful opportunity!

Welcome to our latest guest post in the YAAM – 2010 edition. As part of our celebration of all things YA, we invited authors from different genres to write about the books and the genres they write.

Today’s guest is Karen Healey, author of one of our favourite 2010 books, Guardian of the Dead. We invited Karen to be a part of YAAM and to write about awesome female characters.

Please give it up for Karen!

A few nights ago, I re-watched Bring It On 5: Fight To The Finish (not as good as 3, much better than 2, though without the bonus of surprise!Felicia Day*).

The Bring It On franchise, despite its varying quality, is one of my favourite movie series. I love movies about many female characters with different talents and skills, filled with young women who talk to each other and inspire each other and compete with each other and eventually trust each other to move in unison to a common goal.

Movies about cheerleaders are one of the few ways I can get these things in my film-viewing. Also, cheerleading is an awesome display of incredible athleticism, and ought to be an Olympic sport.

Bring It On 5 reminded me of two things: 1) that people often dismiss cheerleaders, in fiction and in reality, for being too girly, too perky, too bouncy. They are discounted both as athletes and as individuals, worthy of respect. And 2) that the Bring It On franchise never comes up in discussions of “strong female characters”.

That is a phrase that bugs me, by the way. Why should anyone get a pat on the back for writing strong female characters? No one gets complimented on the strength of their characterization of male characters – we assume that’s a given quality of good writing, not a special bonus. And why do so many female characters described as “strong” fit into a particular model of strength; a woman or girl who is physically strong and who can literally kick ass?

I am as guilty of this as anyone, having written a book where the female protagonist has a black belt in tae kwon do, but I am increasingly concerned at what I see as a trend of prizing physical aptitude in a very narrow field. I think we’re discounting other forms of strength in female characters as insufficiently strong, or not quite kickass enough – and therefore weak. Too feminine, too girly – as if there was anything wrong with being female, or a girl.

Of course, an abundance of kickass girls is a natural response to a long history of girls being viewed as weak and dainty, unable to fight for others or defend themselves. I certainly don’t think we should undermine the importance of telling girls that violence is not a male only domain. But there are so many ways to be strong, and while being able to break bricks with your hands is definitely one of them, I am all about embracing a wide spectrum of strength.

Which brings me to my brand new girl-crush, Teal Sherer. Teal Sherer is not a cheerleader, in fiction or real life. She is an actress, producer, sometime dancer, and activist. She’s paraplegic, and uses a wheelchair.

Teal Sherer plays the hilariously rage-filled, death-loving gamer Venom in hot internet series The Guild. She played Cathy in a production of Proof, which is only my favourite modern play of all time (about another awesome lady, a brilliant young mathematician who has trouble convincing anyone that her incredible work is actually her own). She is on the SAG Performers with Disabilities committee, campaigning for equal rights opportunities for performers with disabilities. And she works with UCP Wheels for Humanity, a non-profit that recycles over 226,000 pounds of discarded wheelchairs each year, refurbishing and distributing them to children and adults with disabilities in developing countries.

Can Teal Sherer kick literal ass? No, she can not. Does Teal Sherer kick metaphorical ass? Faster than Jackie Chan on fast forward.

And I find myself wondering; if Teal Sherer were a fictional character in a film, would people think she wasn’t sufficiently strong?

Fortunately, though the movies do not often satisfy my yen for awesome ladies being figuratively rather than literally strong, YA fiction certainly does. Not that, as a genre, it doesn’t have its problems, but within it I can find plenty of young women kicking ass without actually kicking ass. Best of all, the text supports them as awesome ladies, worthy of my admiration rather than my scorn. Here are just a few of these strong female characters:

Girl, Overboard, by Justina Chen Hedley, stars Syrah, a snowboard loving artist girl, with an occasionally bad attitude and some big family issues. After an injury that wrecked her knee and a love affair that stomped all over her heart, Syrah has to come to peace with never being able to make the big time in the snowboard world. But she discovers there are other ways for her to achieve, and other ways to be a role model, and as she embraces her own potential, she begins to heal some of the rifts in her family.

In Eighth Grade Superzero, by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, main character Reggie is a dude.

But one of his two besties is Ruthie, a supersmart activist firecracker, always writing reports on injustices and calling her friends out on racist and sexist language. She’s interested in change for the better on a macro and micro level, and supports Reggie to run for school president because she believes in his ability to make a difference too.

Frankie, in The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart, is another feminist badass, but she’s less out and proud about it than Ruthie. Instead of speaking up when she discovers the existence of an all-male secret society at her co-ed private boarding school, to which her boyfriend belongs, Frankie remotely infiltrates it using her smarts and inner spygirl, making the boys dance to her tune to pay them back for their exclusionary secrecy.

Cass, the heroine of A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend, by Emily Horner, is at the beginning of her story neither out nor particularly proud. In fact, her ex-nemesis made her first school life hell on account of her suspected sexuality. But when Cass’ best friend, theatre-loving, musical-writing Julia dies, Cass undertakes three epic quests: 1) ride her bike from Chicago to Santa Monica to scatter Julia’s ashes in the ocean. 2) help her other bereaved friends put on Julia’s last gift to them, the musical she wrote (entitled Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad.) And, unexpectedly, 3) Make peace with her ex-nemesis, and, gradually, fall in love with her.

In Pink, by Lili Wilkinson, narrator Chloe has a girlfriend, accepting parents, a hippy dippy school – and a secret desire to wear pink. She heads to a new private school, where no one knows anything about her, and remakes herself into a pink-loving Pastel. But after the world’s must humiliating audition for the school musical, she’s slated for stage crew, and learns some much-needed lessons about being herself and standing up for the right for anyone to be who they are.

Zephyr, the vegetarian, social justice activist protagonist of Moonshine, by Alaya Johnson, proves that fighting oppression is just as vital in supernatural worlds. Zephyr is very much invested in rights for the unliving – vampires need jobs, after all, and a vampire whose only hope of an unliving wage is in crime is not a safe vampire. While Zephyr, who is descended from demon hunters, does have some training in kicking ass, it’s her go-to of last resort, not her first response, and her strength of character resides in her compassion and dedication to her causes, not in her ability to stake when necessary.

On the other hand, Mae of The Demon’s Covenant, by Sarah Rees Brennan, is absolutely untrained. Her one kill – with a pocket knife – was achieved under extreme duress, and in a world where a hidden war rages between the demon-binding magicians of the Circles and the glittering Goblin Market, Mae is dangerously normal. She has no magic, like her brother Jamie, nor any fighting ability like the enigmatic Ryves brothers. What Mae has is the ability to observe, plan, and lead, and she puts it to outstandingly good use to fight for the people she loves.

Melanie, the heroine of Hiromi Goto’s Half World, (with gorgeous illustrations by Jillian Tamaki) is also not your everyday heroine. She’s fat, friendless, poor and bullied.

When her neglectful, loving mother disappears into the Half World whence she came at the hands of the nightmarish Mr. Glueskin, Melanie is brave enough to follow her, and true enough to reentwine the Realms that had been divided, setting right a great wrong.

Gratuity Tucci, the heroine of Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday, is also on a quest to find her mother – this time, in our world, where alien creatures called the Boov have invaded the lands formerly belonging to the Noble Savages of Earth, and announced that all humans in America are to be moved to one state. Accompanied by a cat named Pig and a rogue Boov named J.Lo, Gratuity embarks on a roadtrip in a souped-up hovercar to find her mother, some allies, and a solution that might just save her species from colonization.

Benevolence, of Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Princess Ben is not a typical fairytale princess. She’s chubby, ungracious, and far better at healing than at small talk and dancing. But when her parents and grandfather are assassinated, she’s suddenly the heir to the throne, and has to learn princessly airs and the art of diplomacy. Only developing her secret magical abilities can compensate for her misery. At least until she’s called upon to ward off invasion and tyranny, when she has to combine new skills and old to save her nation.

Wildgirl, the co-narrator of This Is Shyness, by Leanne Hall, is a tourist from saner parts of the city exploring the darkness of the suburb of Shyness, where the sun never rises. She doesn’t have martial arts skills or superpowers – unlike her guide, the interestingly hairy Wolfboy – and despite her claims, she’s not that great on the ukelele. But she does have determination and courage in spades, and she’s going to need them against the sugar-high gangs of Kidds and their mysterious controller. It’s going to be one wild night in Shyness.

So there you go – eleven awesome young ladies kicking ass without kicking a lot of ass, in contemporary fiction, in urban fantasy, in sci-fi, in high fantasy, and magical realism. Characterisation is a strength of all of these works, and so, I think we can rightly claim them to be “strong female characters”.

But if you’re also looking for young ladies kicking literal ass, may I recommend The Squad series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes? I also have a yen for cheerleaders who are secretly GIRL SPIES. Because people always underestimate cheerleaders.

And what the heck, let’s finish with a link to a vid of ladies of all ages and various abilities being awesome. Lady awesome = my most favourite thing.

* She plays a neo-punk ballet dancer turned cheerleader when funding is cut: “Most of my pieces involve anguish as a theme. Do you have any cheers about anguish?”

About the author: Karen Healey is a New Zealander living in Australia, where she is a young adult novelist and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. She has, no lie, a scholarship to write about superhero comics. You can visit her on her website and on her livejournal .

Thank you Karen – What a fantastic way to close YAAM!

Welcome to our latest guest post in the YAAM – 2010 edition. As part of our celebration of all things YA, we invited authors from different genres to write about the books and the genres they write.

Today’s guest is Malinda Lo, author of Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella and one of Ana’s top reads of 2009. We invited Malinda to chat about writing her books, publishing it and everything in between.

The Book Smugglers: Hi Malinda, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Malinda: I’m a liberal, lesbian, Asian American, feminist, domestically partnered dog-owner in Northern California. And I write novels! My first, Ash, is a retelling of Cinderella with a lesbian twist. My second, Huntress, is a companion novel to Ash and will be published in April 2011. Both are young adult novels. Before I wrote YA novels, I was an entertainment reporter.

The Book Smugglers: Your book Ash is a retelling of the classic Cinderella story, with a twist – instead of falling for Prince Charming, your heroine falls for another girl. When you wrote Ash, did you have any fears that major publishers would not pick up your book?

Malinda: Absolutely! When I first realized I was writing a lesbian version of the Cinderella story, I actually thought it would be dismissed as a joke. It seemed like a completely bizarre idea to me, and I had to mull it over for a while before I got used to it and decided it was, in fact, a good idea. I was afraid it would be too gay for mainstream publishers, but to my surprise, it was actually rejected once because it wasn’t gay enough. (Essentially, there is no coming-out story, so the fact that Ash falls for a woman isn’t a big deal in the world of the book.)

The Book Smugglers: There is a solid market for same-sex romance novels (that is, F/F or M/M), but you chose to write a young adult novel instead. Why?

Malinda: There are two reasons. First, when I began working on Ash I did not read romance (same-sex or heterosexual) and had no knowledge of that market. Second, I didn’t think about what genre Ash fit into until it was finished and ready to submit to agents. I wrote the novel for myself, aka the Malinda Lo Likes It genre. Of course, book publishers don’t publish books in that genre (though they should!), so I had to figure out where Ash fit among the genres that are published. Young adult seemed most appropriate, although I did initially think it was an adult fantasy novel.

The Book Smugglers: Even in this day and age in the United States, books – especially those of “controversial” natures – are still routinely banned from libraries and schools. As a young adult novel with a F/F romance, have you been on the receiving end of any nastiness from readers, parents, schools, or other sources?

Malinda: I’d say that nastiness is too strong a word for what I’ve encountered. I’ve experienced two instances of parental objection to my book, but they weren’t all that nasty. At an event I did at the Brooklyn Public Library, one teacher told me that her students’ parents objected to my novel and therefore they did not send their students. She brought other students (younger ones!) whose parents had no problem with it. And in Marin County, where I live, parents objected to a story in the Pacific Sun (a local news weekly) about Ash that featured an illustration of two Disney princesses dancing together. These moms wrote in to say they didn’t want to explain two girls dancing together to their children. Many, many people wrote back in response and pointed out that girls dance together all the time, regardless of whether or not they are gay.

Both experiences struck me as surprising because they took place in locations I thought were pretty much liberal and gay-friendly. But in both cases, the homophobia was met with just as much (if not more) support for gay people in response.

The Book Smugglers: Ash is not a Problem Novel of a Coming Out story. In Ash’s world it is perfectly natural to fall in love with someone of the same sex. Was that a conscious decision and if so, why did you take this route?

Malinda: Yes, that was a conscious decision. I just didn’t want to force Ash to deal with homophobia. The idea of it made me cringe as a writer; I had absolutely no desire to go through the experience of writing that. I mean, I’ve done it in real life, and I didn’t want to do it again in fiction!

Also, I wanted Ash to have a fairy tale, just like Cinderella is supposed to have. Part of that fairy tale is about falling in love with someone whom others also desire — Prince Charming, you know, is charming partly because lots of ladies want him. So, Kaisa had to be seen as desirable by more people than only Ash. That meant that homophobia could not be part of the story, and gender could not be a limit to who you fall in love with.

The Book Smugglers: You recently wrote a series of great articles on “Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes in YA Fiction” – what prompted you to write these?

Malinda: Those posts were prompted by a talk I gave at a local SCBWI chapter for a panel on LGBT YA fiction. After the panel, I wanted to share that information with more writers, so I decided to turn the talk into a series of blog posts.

In my previous job, I wrote about the representation of lesbians and bisexual women in the media for AfterEllen.com and other LGBT publications, so I’ve thought a lot about what goes into stereotypes and how to avoid them in producing pop culture. When I began reading more widely in YA fiction, I kept encountering stereotypes that surprised me, and I didn’t see a lot of discussion about them in the YA blogosphere. I actually felt that several of the stereotypes I encountered were accidental — that the authors might not have been aware of what they were doing.

Part of my goal in blogging about the stereotypes was to get the discussion going and to provide an opportunity for those who were unfamiliar with LGBT issues to ask questions in a friendly environment. I think it’s important to be honest and open about these things, and allow people to ask things that might seem “stupid.”

The Book Smugglers: Do you have a list of recommended GLBT reading for our readers?

Malinda: This is not YA, but my favorite novel with lesbian characters is definitely Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet. It’s a historical novel set in Victorian England about an 18-year-old girl who leaves home for the London stage and becomes a male impersonator. It is sexy and fun!

I recently read an ARC of Wildthorn by Jane Eagland, a YA historical novel that comes out this September. It is a lot like a Sarah Waters novel if it had been written as YA, and I really enjoyed it.

In terms of contemporary YA, I love Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen trilogy, which includes a supporting character who is a lesbian. Even though the main character is a straight girl, I thought it was one of the queerer books I’ve read, since the main character is also an athlete and a tomboy.

About the author: Malinda Lo is the author of Ash (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), which is a nominee for the Andre Norton Award, was a finalist for the 2010 William C. Morris Award, and was a Kirkus Best Young Adult Novel of 2009. Formerly, she was an entertainment reporter, and was awarded the 2006 Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Journalism by the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and has master’s degrees from Harvard and Stanford universities. She has lived in Colorado, Boston, New York, London, Beijing, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but now lives in a small town in Northern California with her partner and their dog.

Thank you, Malinda!

Today, we are delighted to bring you bestselling Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of 6 novels, including one of Ana’s all time favourites, The Shadow of the Wind. His first novel, the YA Horror The Prince of Mist has finally been translated into English and published last month and it is our pleasure and honour to present you with our chat with Carlos Ruiz Zafón and an opportunity to win a signed copy of The Prince of Mist.

Ladies and gents, please give it up for Carlos Ruiz Zafón!

The Book Smugglers: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. The Shadow of the Wind is one of our all-time favourite books and it is an incredible honour to be talking to its author.

CRZ: My pleasure entirely. I’m always in favour of a little smuggling, specially when it comes to books and ideas.

The Book Smugglers: Your book The Prince of Mist, is being published by Orion Books in English but it is in fact the first book you published, in 1993. How do you see this interest in your earlier books?

CRZ: I’m very happy to be able to finally see The Prince of Mist translated into English. The reason for this monumental delay was essentially legal. Luckily that got all solved and now English readers will be able to enjoy these earlier works of mine. Never too late.

The Book Smugglers: Both The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game are atmospheric books with a touch of mystery and Fantasy – can readers expect the same from The Prince of Mist?

CRZ: Very much. In fact they’ll find a lot more mystery and fantasy in the prince of mist than on these later works. Although The Prince of Mist is mainly aimed at young readers (but aspires to be enjoyed by readers of all ages) I believe that a lot of the main elements of my later work are already very much present in it.

The Book Smugglers: You started off writing Young Adult novels, and only recently started writing for adults –how was this transition?

CRZ: Smooth as strawberry jam from Fortnum & Mason’s. I started publishing novels for young adults by accident, I think. I never thought I would become a young-adult author. If anything I just write for people who like to read and I’m not inclined to ask them for ID to check their ages. At some point, after having published 3 YA novels and a fourth that nobody knew how to classify, I decided to venture beyond the limits of what is considered YA literature and started working The Shadow of the Wind. To me it is just storytelling and despite the differences between these books I find more elements that unify them than separate them.

The Book Smugglers: Your books are generally found in the literary section of a book store despite their obvious connection with Speculative Fiction and Crime. How would you categorise your writing? Do you see yourself as a “literary author” or more of a genre author?

CRZ: I see myself as a novelist and to be honest I’m not very interested in these labels or in being categorized in any way or manner. I believe there’re only two kinds of writing: good and bad, and you can find plenty of both in the so-called “literary” section and in the so-called “genre” sections. Quite often in the inverse proportion of what conventional thinking would suggest. At the risk of being politically incorrect, I’d say that these distinctions tend to be a bit naïve and quite often misguided by prejudice, snobbery and sometimes plain and good old fashioned cluelessness.

The Book Smugglers: Book Blogs are increasing in importance when it comes to book reviewing – especially with a number of newspapers’ review sections diminishing or ceasing to exist entirely. How do you see this trend? Do you read blogs at all?

CRZ: I think any kind of exchange of ideas and communication is good. The entire market of information is being transformed and traditional journalism is evolving into new and different forms. The marketplace for opinion and subjective perspective has exploded and, despite the noise and the fury of some of it, probably that is a good thing. In the end I believe we’ll just have the same essence in a different packaging, with the good and the bad.

The Book Smugglers: What books do you recommend for readers, keen for more books like yours?

CRZ: I recommend readers to be adventurous and to try things they’ve never heard of or considered reading before. Get out of the comfort zone and discover something new and exciting. If you’d never be caught dead in the mystery section go and read some George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly or many others. If you only read thrillers get deep into the literary fiction aisle and let yourself be seduced. If you only read non-fiction pick up a Ian McDonald novel or a Joyce Carol Oates novel. If you only read comic books, get acquainted with the great Charles Dickens or a certain Monsieur Dumas. Pick up something at random and read a page. Feel the texture of the language, the architecture of the imagery, the perfume of the style… There’s so much beauty, intelligence and excitement to be had between the pages of the books waiting for you at your local bookstore the only thing you need to bring is an open mind and a sense of adventure. Disregard all prejudices, all pre-conceived notions and all the rubbish some people try to make you think. Think for yourself. Regarding books or anything in life. Think for yourself.

The Book Smugglers: if you had to pick three authors who influenced your writing, who would they be?

CRZ: I’d need at least 300 to get started. I believe an author is influenced by everything she or he reads, analyzes and learns something from. Sometimes it is stuff you don’t like, sometimes it is stuff you love, but I think you can learn from anything.

And finally a question we always ask:
The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

CRZ: I make no apologies for my love of books, my friend, like I make no apologies for my love of music or architecture or any of the great things in life. If anybody has a problem with that, well, that’s just too bad.

About the Author: CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN was born in Barcelona and is the author of six novels, including the international phenomenon THE SHADOW OF THE WIND, the most successful novel in Spanish publishing history after DON QUIXOTE. His work has been translated into more than 35 languages and has received numerous international awards, including the Edebé Award, Spain’s most prestigious prize for young adult fiction.

Make-believe is Carlos’ business and his books have sold over 15 million copies worldwide, with THE ANGEL’S GAME being the fastest selling book of all time in Spain. Carlos now splits his time between Barcelona and Los Angeles.

A HUGE thank you to Carlos Ruiz Zafon for chatting with us.

And good news for those in the UK. The author is touring the UK right now and will be at Foyles Bookshop on Wednesday 2nd June) and login to Twitter and follow @waterstones at 5.30pm on 3rd June for Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s first ever ‘Twinterview’ – a live online interview via Twitter. Simply tweet your questions to @waterstones using the hashtag #CRZafon beforehand, or on the day itself. For more info check out the Waterstone’s website. Carlos will answer as many questions as he can and Waterstone’s post the transcript as soon as possible.

Now, for the giveaway!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

We have ONE signed copy of The Prince of Mist to giveaway. This book giveaway is open to all. The contest will run until June 4 at 11:59 PM (PST). Entry is easy – simply leave a comment here. Only ONE comment per person, please! Multiple and duplicate comments will be disqualified. Good luck!

Today we have a spotlight on debut author Julie Kagawa and her Young Adult paranormal Iron Fey series, which begins with The Iron King, a story about a seemingly normal girl with a not-so-normal destiny, caught in the tangled web of fey politics. To celebrate the upcoming release of The Iron Daughter, we have Julie over for a chat, and later in the day we will be reviewing The Iron King!

Ladies and gents, please give a warm welcome to Julie Kagawa!

The Book Smugglers: Thank you for the taking the time to chat with us, Julie, and welcome to our blog! Your debut novel, The Iron King, has been out since February. How does it feel to be a published author?

Julie: Completely amazing! It’s still so surreal for me, to walk into a store and see my book on the shelves. And I can still tell myself: “I got a book published,” and start giggling hysterically.

The Book Smugglers: Before selling your book, you used to be a professional dog trainer to pay the rent. Would you say that there are any transferable skills between the two?

Julie: Patience. It takes patience and hard work, both to train a dog and to write a novel. Neither will happen immediately, but if you keep at it, you’ll start to see results.

The Book Smugglers: Books about Faeries are a quite popular trend at the moment – can you tell us about your world of the Iron Fey? How do you see it standing out from the crowd, and how does it fit with traditional fey mythology? Did you do any research to create the world for your book?

Julie: When I started writing The Iron King, I wanted to do something different with faeries. I knew and loved the traditional mythology—the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, Oberon, Mab, and Puck—but I wanted to introduce a type of faery no one had seen before. So I thought: what are the Fey afraid of? The answer to that question was iron, so what if there was a type of faery that was completely immune to iron? Then I remembered we already have “monsters” living in machines: gremlins, bugs, virus, ect. And from that thought, the Iron Fey were born.

The Book Smugglers: You seem to have gathered quite the following in the few months since your book has been released – fans of the love triangle in your stories are already firmly divided into Team Puck and Team Ash. How do you see this divide and this passion for your characters? And if we may be cheeky, which team are YOU on?

Julie: I know, it’s crazy! Again, it’s completely surreal for me that people are arguing over Ash and Puck. I think as writers, we love our characters like our own kids, and if a character becomes so real and loved that readers will actually split into teams over them, we couldn’t be prouder.

(And, for the record, I’m afraid I’m Team Ash. Sorry, Puck fans. I love all my kids, but I have a thing for bad boys. *ducks and hides*)

The Book Smugglers: The second novel in the Iron Fey series, The Iron Daughter, will be in stores this August. Can you tell us what we can expect from this second book? Any tantalizing tidbits you might be able to share?

Julie: The Iron Daughter explores more of the complex relationships between Meghan, Ash, and Puck. Also, Meghan gets a few unexpected allies, discovers something about her past, and must make a difficult choice in the end. And if I say anything else, I’m afraid I’ll give away spoilers.

The Book Smugglers: On your website you have listed book that you like and amongst them are YA books by Melissa Marr and Holly Black as well as classic Fantasy by Greg Keyes and Robin Hobb. These are all Fantasy books – is Fantasy the genre that you read the most? Do you have any other favorites you’d like to share?

Julie: Fantasy was my first love, and it is the genre I read the most. But I’m trying to branch out into different areas like YA contemporary fiction. Two really good contemporary fiction novels I’ve read recently are 20 Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Sea by Heidi Kling.

The Book Smugglers: The YA genre has been experiencing a pretty crazy boom in popularity and crossover appeal over the past few years. Why did you choose to write a young adult novel? Do you have any intention of writing for adults one day?

Julie: I tried writing an adult fantasy novel before The Iron King was published. But even then, all my characters were young. I love YA because you can do anything; nothing is too strange or too weird or too out-there. And YA readers are so passionate about books. They love reading and they love the characters, to the point where those characters almost become real. That passion is inspiring, and I think I’ll be writing YA for a long, long time.

The Book Smugglers: Let’s talk covers (a subject near and dear to our hearts). You have been blessed by the Cover Gods as the covers for The Iron King and The Iron Daughter are lovely. Did you have any say in the creation of the cover? And on the other side of the equation – as a reader, do covers matter to you when buying a book?

Julie: I was incredibly lucky to get such gorgeous covers, and I love each and every one of them, but I had very little input in the making of said covers. All credit goes to the fabulous, talented people at Harlequin Teen. I do have to admit, I’m a sucker for a pretty cover. I won’t say I’ve gone so far as to buy a book on the cover alone (okay, maybe once), but it definitely goes a long way in whether or not I pick the book off the shelf.

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! You only have time to save ONE book, ONE movie, and ONE TV show. QUICK! What are they?

Julie: AH! Okay, um, Poison Study by Maria Snyder, Kung Fu Hustle (for laughs, you need to keep your sense of humor in the zombie apocalypse), and Man Vs. Wild (To learn how to live off the land by eating live frogs and snakes).

Also, a sawed off shotgun.

The Book Smugglers: According to your blog, you happen to also be an avid gamer! What is you all time favorite game? Do you have a favorite console or platform?

Julie: Uh oh. Don’t get me started on video games; we could be here all week. My favorite game of all time has to be Final Fantasy VIII, but Final Fantasy X is a close second. (Both made me sob horribly at the end, a mark of an excellent game in my eyes.) I don’t have a favorite console, because there are awesome games on all of them, but I will say I use my Wii the least.

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Julie: Fortunately, I have a wonderful husband who reads even more than I do. Although, our book buying techniques tend to be very different. He will buy one book, read it, and finish it before he even considers buying another one. I, on the other hand, tend to read several books at once. We’ll be at the bookstore and I’ll choose a book, and my husband will ask: “don’t you have a book you have to finish?” Yes I do, my love, but that is not the point. I’m GOING to read this book someday, I’ll just add it to my TBR.

He humors me, though, so I haven’t had to smuggle books home.

Yet.

Where you can find Julie:
Website: www.juliekagawa.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkagawa
Iron Fey series site: http://enterthefaeryworld.com/ironfey/

The Book Trailer:

The Iron King

About Julie Kagawa:

Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine, she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks is at an all-time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian shepherd who is too smart for his own good and the latest addition, a hyperactive papillon puppy.

Giveaway Details:

Courtesy of Big Honcho Media, we are giving away ONE copy of The Iron King to a lucky reader! This book giveaway is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail). The contest will run until June 4 at 11:59 PM (PST). Entry is easy – simply leave a comment here, letting us know what your favorite fey book or story is your favorite. Only ONE comment per person, please! Multiple and duplicate comments (and ISPs) will be disqualified – even if you are leaving another comment to let us know that you forgot to leave your email address, you WILL be disqualified. Good luck!

Today we have another author spotlight on The Book Smugglers (two in one week! Go figure!). Today’s guest is the fantastic Urban Fantasy author Laura Bickle.

Laura is the author of the brand spankin’ new Anya Kalinczyk series, whose series title character is, of all things, an arson investigator. A psychic arson investigator, of the paranormal. The first book in the series, titled Embers hit shelves this month – with impressive praise from the likes of Elizabeth Bear. (And, just so you know, we Smugglers will have a review of Embers up in the near future…) Here’s a bit more about the books of Laura Bickle:

Unemployment, despair, anger–visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit’s unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.

Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya–who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern–suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil’s Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya–with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team –can stop it.

Anya’s accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she’s risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she’s ever faced.

The second book in the series, Sparks will be released in September. Check out the purdy cover:

To celebrate the release of Embers, we are having the lovely Ms. Bickle over for an interactive Q&A and a chance to win her books! We have TEN AUTOGRAPHED COPIES of Embers up for grabs. Entry is easy and simple, as usual – just leave a comment here asking Laura a question (about her series, her alter-ego, her writing process, her flirtation with pyromania, etc!). The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada ONLY, and will run until Saturday, April 25th at 11:59PM (PST). ONLY ONE ENTRY PER PERSON, please! Multiple comments will be disqualified. Good luck, and let the questions begin.

Please and give it up for Laura Bickle!

Hi, folks! Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to answer your questions about EMBERS and the sequel (SPARKS, out September 2010), or what my alter ego Alayna Williams is scribbling away on. We can chat about myths in storytelling, why fire salamanders love chewing on electrical cords, my favorite deck of Tarot cards, bad writing habits, things that go bump in the night, comic books, secret identities, why I’m held prisoner in my house by a posse of barely-reformed feral cats…it’s all fair game.

Looking forward to chatting with you!

Laura Bickle has worked in the unholy trinity of politics, criminology, and technology for several years. She and her chief muse live in the Midwest, owned by four mostly-reformed feral cats.

Her work has been published in Midnight Times, Down in the Cellar, MicroHorror, Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Ballista, Byzarium, New Myths, a Blog-O-Novella office soap opera for True Office Confessions, and Aoife’s Kiss. Her most recent project is the Embers series of urban fantasy novels for Juno-Pocket Books.

She also writes urban fantasy as Alayna Williams. Check out her other novels at www.alaynawilliams.com.

She can be e-mailed at: laura@salamanderstales.com. She’s blogging on writing at: www.salamanderstales.blogspot.com.

Hello all! Today we bring you another author spotlight on The Book Smugglers, with the debut urban fantasy novelist Sonya Bateman!

Sonya is the author of Master of None – a book about a singularly unlucky thief, a Djinn, and a mission to save the world.

ONE UNLUCKY THIEF. ONE UNLIKELY GENIE. ONE VERY ODD COUPLE.

Gavyn Donatti is the world’s unluckiest thief. Just ask all the partners he’s lost over the years. And when he misplaces an irreplaceable item he was hired to steal for his ruthless employer, Trevor—well, his latest bungle just might be his last. But then his luck finally turns: right when Trevor’s thugs have him cornered, a djinn, otherwise known as a genie, appears to save him.

Unfortunately, this genie—who goes by the very non-magical name of “Ian”—is more Hellboy than dream girl. An overgrown and extremely surly man who seems to hate Donatti on the spot, he may call Donatti master, but he isn’t interested in granting three wishes. He informs Donatti that he is bound to help the thief fulfill his life’s purpose, and then he will be free. The problem is that neither Donatti nor Ian has any idea what exactly that purpose is.

At first Donatti’s too concerned with his own survival to look a gift genie in the mouth, but when his ex-girlfriend Jazz and her young son get drawn into the crossfire, the stakes skyrocket. And when Ian reveals that he has an agenda of his own—with both Donatti and the murderous Trevor at the center of it—Donatti will have to become the man he never knew he could be, or the entire world could pay the price. . . .

Check out our review of Master of None HERE. In honor of her debut release, we Smugglers are having the lovely Sonya Bateman over for an interactive Q&A and a chance to win her books! We have TEN copies of Master of None up for grabs. Entry is easy and simple, per usual – just leave a comment here asking Sonya a question (about her series, her writing process, Tim Burton obsessions, etc). The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada only, and will run until Saturday, April 24th at 11:59PM (PST). Good luck!

Please and give a warm welcome to Sonya Bateman!

Hello there! Thea and Ana, thanks so much for having me over. I’m excited to be talking with y’all! (No, I’m not Southern, but I do have a lot of cousins down that way…) Even though I’m a new kid on the mainstream urban fantasy block, I’ve been at this writing thing for a long time – and I’m open to questions about anything, writing-related or otherwise. Maybe you want to know why I wrote MASTER OF NONE in first person from a male character’s POV, or how I came to write about djinn, or the scintillating story of my bleeding to death the day I got “The Call” from my agent. Or maybe you’re interested in my drawn-out attempt to learn Japanese, or my rubber skull collection (some of them glow in the dark!), or how I spend my free time (drinking coffee, mostly). So, bring on the questions – as Johnny Depp said in CORPSE BRIDE: “I have a… dwarf… and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Sonya Bateman lives in upstate New York, where there are two seasons: winter, and construction. Her home is shared with a husband, a son, three very strange cats, and a gerbil with half a tail. She enjoys reading and swimming, and wishes there were some feasible way to combine the two.

You can contact her at sonya@sonyabateman.com

You can read more about Sonya online at her website.

Our last day of our Steampunk Appreciation Weeks is dedicated to Steampunk Romance. Earlier today we posted an article by Heather Massey, from The Galaxy Express. Now we open the floor to Meljean Brook, romance writer extraordinaire, whose Guardian series is one of Ana’s top favorites. The author is about to start a brand new Steampunk Romance series, The Iron Seas, which combines nanotech and pirates with a gritty, gaslit Victorian atmosphere. Ana reviewed the novella which opens the series, Here There Be Monsters a few days ago and LOVED it.

She is here today to talk about Steampunk Romance and her approach to writing it and why she thinks we will love it:

*****

Steampunk Romance: Because ‘Eureka!’ should be followed by ‘F#@k, Yeah!’

One of my favorite Hell, yeah! moments in any SF movie takes place in Aliens, when Ripley straps herself into the loader to face the alien queen. You probably know that scene, and her classic line … and you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about an SF movie when I should be talking about steampunk.

Since I’ve announced that I’m writing a steampunk romance series, one question that I’ve received more than any other is: What is steampunk romance? And there are rules and definitions surrounding it that can be debated by readers and writers until a mad scientist invents a gargantuan automaton that crushes us all beneath its steel feet – but as far as I’m concerned, steampunk romance is about writing a story exactly like that scene in Aliens. It’s about getting to that fist pumping, Hell YEAH! moment when everything comes together and the characters you’re rooting for kick some ass.

Not always literally kicking ass, of course. Maybe it’s outthinking the bad guy or building a gargantuan automaton that’s bigger and smarter than the other guy’s. Maybe it’s two lovers overcoming society’s barriers or trauma in their past. Whatever rules surround steampunk and define it, a great steampunk romance has the same heart as every other great romance: fantastic characters and an engaging story.

It’s not the gadgets.

Don’t get me wrong, the gadgets are a hell of a lot of fun. But they’re like Ripley’s loader: the machine itself is nifty, but the payoff comes because Ripley is in that machine – a machine that represents the damage the aliens did to her career, how they turned her into an emotional wreck, until she had to take a job using a freight loader. I love other characters in that movie – Hicks, Bishop, Valdez – but if anyone else had gotten into that loader, I wouldn’t have loved the movie or that moment as much as I do.

And the more I read the question What is steampunk romance?, the more I’m realizing that a lot of readers are asking another question behind it:

Am I going to love it?

Well, I hope so. But for those who are unfamiliar with steampunk and/or haven’t read many books in the genre, I understand why this question keeps coming up: there’s a lot of talk about the tech, the science, the worldbuilding. Questions of how the elements of the story might make it steampunk, or how the elements mean that it’s not steampunk – and is there enough of that element? It’s very easy to come away with the impression that the tech and the alternate history are all there is to steampunk.

And although you might run across an element of the story that makes you think, “Hey, that’s pretty neat!” … well, quite honestly, ‘neat’ doesn’t keep you up until 3am. ‘Neat’ might earn a passing mention while you’re at dinner with your friends, but it doesn’t make you shove that book into their hands.

Just like everyone else, I don’t want to read a story that’s just ‘neat.’ I don’t want to write a story that’s ‘neat.’ I don’t just want to think Eureka! I want shout F#@k YEAH! I want the story to grab my guts and twist – and get a good hold of my heart, too. Just like any good romance does.

But am I going to love it?

Okay, okay. It’s not fair to brush aside the tech like that, as if it doesn’t really matter. It does, a lot – and I’m one of those writers who can’t just tack on a brass plate and call it steampunk; I have to make the worldbuilding integral to the characters and story. But that doesn’t mean the worldbuilding overshadows the characters or the story – quite the opposite, actually – because behind those gadgets and giant robots are the characters who created them.

As fun as the gadgets are, steampunk doesn’t let us forget that the brains behind them were amazing. Tech can be used to dehumanize and to turn people into cogs, but it can also be a celebration of guts and ingenuity and innovation. Steampunk worlds are populated with bold characters who forge ahead, exploring physical and mental landscapes despite danger and fear, and they’re worth cheering for. The gadgets might inspire wonder, but deeper than that is the realization that someone created this, and that’s far, far more marvelous than the giant robot. It’s like someone smashes together Romanticism and the Enlightenment into one rough and riveted body, and not every piece will fit, but holy mama!—look what they managed to build.

Not that it’s all about happiness and rainbows and gold stars. There are some bad guys, too, who are just as astonishingly ingenious and innovative … and that’s why our heroes and heroines have to be, too. We want them to give us that Hell, yeah! moment, but they won’t do that if the gadgets are more interesting than they are.

And if the gadgets and the worldbuilding make the characters more interesting? It’s a win/win.

So am I going to love it?

Like every subgenre, it depends. I like paranormal romances and historicals, but I don’t like every one. I don’t normally like contemporary comedies, but I could name exceptions.

…but that is the boring, careful answer, isn’t it? So let’s just say,

Hell, yeah! You’ll love it.

*****

Hell, yeah! I am sure we will!

Want a taste of Steampunk Romance? Meljean Brook has a brand new copy of Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliassotti ( one of Thea’s favorite Steampunk books, reviewed here) to giveaway.

In order to enter, leave a comment on this post – you can even ask the author any question about her series worldbuilding, she will be around to answer them. Contest is open to ALL and will run till Saturday April 24th 11:59pm (PST). Good luck!

Today we bring you another very special author spotlight on The Book Smugglers – this time with the delightful paranormal romance/urban fantasy author Lori Devoti!

Lori is the author of the Amazons series starring two different honest to goodness Amazons…in a modern day setting. The series so far has two titles to its name: Amazon Ink and Amazon Queen.

Meet Mel: Business owner. Dedicated mom. Natural-born Amazon.

It’s been ten years since Melanippe Saka left the Amazon tribe in order to create a normal life for her daughter, Harmony. True, running a tattoo parlor in Madison, Wisconsin, while living with your Amazon warrior mother and priestess grandmother is not everyone’s idea of normal, but Mel thinks she’s succeeded at blending in as human.

Turns out she’s wrong. Someone knows all about her, someone who’s targeting young Amazon girls, and no way is Mel going to let Harmony become tangled in this deadly web. With her mother love in overdrive, Ms. Melanippe Saka is quite a force…even when she’s facing a barrage of distractions — including a persistent detective whose interest in Mel goes beyond professional, a sexy tattoo artist with secrets of his own, and a seriously angry Amazon queen who views Mel as a prime suspect. To find answers, Mel will have to do the one thing she swore she’d never do: embrace her powers and admit that you can take the girl out of the tribe…but you can’t take the tribe out of the girl.

Being an Amazon ruler just became a royal pain.

Amazon queen Zery Kostovska has never questioned tribe traditions. After all, these rules have kept the tribe strong for millennia and enabled them to live undetected, even in modern-day America. Zery is tough, fair, commanding—the perfect Amazon leader.At least, she was. A new high priestess with a penchant for secrecy and technology is threatening Zery’s rule. Plus, with the discovery of the Amazon sons, males with the same skills as their female counterparts, even Zery can’t deny that the tribe must change. But how? Some want to cooperate with the sons. Others believe brutal new leadership is needed—and are willing to kill to make it happen.

Once, Zery’s word was law. Now, she has no idea who to trust, especially with one powerful Amazon son making her question all her instincts. For Zery, tribe comes first, but the battle drawing near is unlike any she’s faced before . . . and losing might cost her both the tribe and her life.

To celebrate her new release, Amazon Queen, we are having the wonderful Lori Devoti over for an interactive Q&A and a chance to win her books! We have TEN copies of Amazon Queen up for grabs. Entry is easy and simple, per usual – just leave a comment here asking Lori a question (about her series, her writing process, secret Wonder Woman obsessions, etc). The contest is open to all, and will run until Saturday, April 17th at 11:59PM (PST). Good luck, and let the questions begin.

Please and give it up for Lori Devoti!

Hi, everyone! I’m excited to be here and ready to answer any questions you may have. My Amazon series (Amazon Ink, 2009 and Amazon Queen, coming April 27th) is near and dear to my heart, but don’t think you have to keep your questions to them. I can talk writing, reality TV, books, kids and dogs until your ears bleed. I’m also in the middle of a kitchen remodel, the third we’ve done ourselves, and can whine with the best of them about the necessity of exercising after 40. Hit me!

Lori Devoti grew up in southern Missouri and attended the University of Missouri-Columbia where she earned a Bachelor of Journalism. The author of two contemporary romances and half-a-dozen paranormal romances, Lori made her fantasy debut last year with AMAZON INK.

You can read more about Lori online at her website and her blog.