Welcome to my stop on the Thornhill Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours! I'm super excited to have Kathleen Peacock here answering some questions!
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Interview
In the Best Worlds: Since you write for teenagers, what were you like as a teen?
Kathleen Peacock: A complete mess? I was the geek-girl with frizzy hair, glasses, and 30lbs of excess weight who mastered the art of invisibility. I used to skip school to go to the public library, fake cramps to get out of gym class, and spend my breaks reading in the back of empty classrooms.
Thank God for college and the chance to start over!
ItBW: How has your life changed since becoming a published author?
KP: Honestly? It hasn't changed too much, BUT I've gotten to meet/interact with the most amazing readers, bloggers, booksellers, and authors.
ItBW: What has been your favorite moment so far in your writing career?
KP: I have three. One was having celebratory pizza with my cousin and his wife the day I got the offer from HarperCollins. Another was getting a positive review from Booklist. And the third was bursting into tears (happy tears!) when a blogger in Halifax spotted my book on the shelves a few days before the release date and sent me a picture.
ItBW: I love the world you created surrounding Mac, even if it's a bit scary at times. What was your biggest challenge in world building?
KP: For me the biggest challenge was trying to figure out how much detail to include. I didn't want to bog readers down with a twelve-year history of lupine syndrome, but I still wanted the world to make sense and feel realistic. Finding the balance between just enough information and info-dumping was really tricky.
ItBW: Werewolf rules and lore are always slightly different depending on who you talk to. What inspired your werewolves, and what kind of rules did you stick to in creating the existence of them in Mac's world?
KP: I think Anne Rice's vampires actually had quite a large influence on my werewolves. I devoured the first few books in the Vampire Chronicles as a teen, and one of the things I loved most about them was how Rice kept some aspects of traditional vampire lore - aversion to sunlight, the need for blood - while discarding others. She used vampires as a way to explore the human condition and that stuck with me. I also owe huge props to An American Werewolf in London. The transformation scene in the movie was so long and painful that it forever changed the way I thought of werewolves. It was a definite influence when it came to writing the transformation scenes in Hemlock.
In terms of the rules I stuck to for the Hemlock universe, there were four:
i) Transformations always had to be brutal and painful;ii) Changes were not restricted to the full moon (this was a practical consideration due to how, where, and how often I needed werewolves to appear in the book for the plot to work);iii) Werewolves had to have super strength and super healing - again, this was due to plot considerations;iv) Lupine syndrome could only be transferred by bite or scratch (partly due to plot considerations since there is a lot of blood in book two and partly due to wanting to be at least a little traditional).
ItBW: Who has been your favorite character to write in the Hemlock series and why?
KP: I love writing Jason because he's so snarky and broken. I could write Jason banter all day and be perfectly happy.
ItBW: Can you tell us a little of what we can expect from Thornhill?
KP: Thornhill has more action and is, I feel, darker than Hemlock. There will be more blood. There will be a mystery. There will be kissing. And there will be ghosts from the past.
ItBW: Finish these sentences...
- If I became a werewolf, I would... freak out and cry.
- The weirdest thing I do when I'm writing is... wander through old cemeteries while trying to figure out plot points.
- We could be best friends if... you like anime, reading, and worry about whether or not you'll survive the zombie apocalypse.
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About Thornhill
Title: THORNHILLAuthor: Kathleen Peacock
Pub. Date: September 10, 2013
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Pages: 352
Mac can’t lose another friend. Even if he doesn’t want to be found.
The ripple effect caused by Mac’s best friend Amy’s murder has driven Mac’s new love, Kyle, to leave Hemlock and disappear from her life forever. But Mac knows that Kyle plans to enroll in a rehabilitation camp, where he can live with other werewolves. She refuses to accept his decision, especially since the camps are rumored to be tortuous. So she sets out in search of Kyle with a barely sober Jason—and Amy’s all-seeing ghost—in tow.
Clues lead Mac to find Kyle in a werewolf den in Colorado—but their reunion is cut short by a Tracker raid. Now Mac and Kyle are trapped inside the electric fences of Thornhill, a camp for young werewolves. As she devises an escape plan, Mac uncovers dangerous secrets buried within the walls of Thornhill—and realizes that the risk to the people she loves is greater than ever before.
Find Thornhill: Amazon :: Barnes & Noble :: Goodreads
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About the Author
Kathellen Peacock spent her teen years crushing on authors and writing short stories about vampires. She put her writing dreams on hold while attending college, but tripped over them when office life started leaving her with an allergy to cubicles. Her debut, HEMLOCK, was released on May 8th, 2012 from katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of Harper Collins, and will be published in the UK under the title DEADLY HEMLOCK from Simon and Schuster Children's Books.
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Giveaway
For First Place (International):
Signed copy of ThornhillSigned swag
Runners Up (International):
3 runners up will get swag packs (stickers, bookmarks, signed bookplates)
Thanks for stopping by!
Check other stops on this tour!
Check other stops on this tour!
