Thornhill Blog Tour: Interview + Giveaway

 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: THORNHILL
Author: 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. 

Find Kathleen Online: Website :: Blog :: Twitter :: Facebook :: Goodreads

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Giveaway

For First Place (International): 

"Unlock the wolf within" Thornhill necklace

Signed copy of Thornhill

Signed swag

Runners Up (International):

3 runners up will get swag packs (stickers, bookmarks, signed bookplates)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for stopping by!
Check other stops on this tour! 

Fangs, Fur & Fey Giveaway Hop

 Welcome to my stop on the Fangs, Fur & Fey Giveaway Hop. The hop is hosted by I am a Reader, Not a Writer and Reading Lark. Tons of other blogs are participating. To see the full list and hop along for the chance to win some great books go HERE.

If you didn't already know, I'm a werewolf kind of girl. So I'm going to offer up a choice of werewolf book. One winner will get to pick one of the books pictured below. 

The details: 

• One (1) winner will receive one (1) book from the list above. 
• You must be 13 or older to enter. 
• This giveaway is international as long as the Book Depository ships to you.
• Fill out the Rafflecopter form below - you can only enter once.
• This contest will run until October 9, 12:01 AM.
• Winner will be announced by email - if you win you have 48 hours to respond before I pick a new winner. 
• Good luck and thanks for entering!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hemlock - Kathleen Peacock

Synopsis: Mackenzie and Amy were best friends. Until Amy was brutally murdered.
Since then, Mac’s life has been turned upside down. She is being haunted by Amy in her dreams, and an extremist group called the Trackers has come to Mac’s hometown of Hemlock to hunt down Amy’s killer: A white werewolf.
Lupine syndrome—also known as the werewolf virus—is on the rise across the country. Many of the infected try to hide their symptoms, but bloodlust is not easy to control.
Wanting desperately to put an end to her nightmares, Mac decides to investigate Amy’s murder herself. She discovers secrets lurking in the shadows of Hemlock, secrets about Amy’s boyfriend, Jason, her good pal Kyle, and especially her late best friend. Mac is thrown into a maelstrom of violence and betrayal that puts her life at risk.Kathleen Peacock’s thrilling novel is the first in the Hemlock trilogy, a spellbinding urban fantasy series filled with provocative questions about prejudice, trust, lies, and love. (From Goodreads)

If you hang around my blog at all, you've probably gotten the message that I'm a werewolf kind of girl. They're warm, fuzzy, dangerous, and they have so much life in them it takes on two forms. I really love what wolves are and what shape shifters represent. So I went into Hemlock fully expecting to love it and I got everything I expected.

Kathleen Peacock's world is one where werewolves are common knowledge, but to be a werewolf is to be afflicted with a disease (by society's standards). Because a person bitten by a werewolf is no longer considered human, or is a second class human - there were a lot of parallels to gender or racial struggles and human rights movements. Once bitten a person is locked up in a camp, the rights of werewolves are the hot topic debated in politics, there are vigilantes, calls to citizens to turn in their neighbors, and werewolves hiding out pretending to be something their not. All these things make the common person so much more dangerous than the thing they are supposed to fear. In this sense Peacock takes a werewolf story and hooks it back into history and social convention and deepens the meaning behind each word.

Also, it's just a great story. It's very cinematic. I could actually see things happening - and I stopped every once in awhile to close my eyes and watch the things I just read replay in my mind. I kept thinking that this should be a movie or a TV show. I'd definitely watch that. The writing feels effortless, so it's easy to just get wrapped up in the movement and the snapshots. Everything about this story, the characters, the places, the actions, just feel so real.

The world is great, the writing is wonderful, and I really feel like I came to know and care about the people who live in these pages. Mac is your typical YA heroine, but it's the people around her who make her into something else. The images of Amy haunting her dreams are some of the most vivid and telling parts of the novel. Kyle and Jason are two great points on a love triangle (don't run away screaming if you hate love triangles - this one isn't just girl can't choose - it's so much more complicated than that - plus if you throw Amy in there, it's really more of a love square). I loved Kyle and I am rooting for him, but Jason was a richer character and I'm just fascinated by him.

I loved Hemlock  so much. It got my pulse racing and it defintitley left me wanting more. I'm so nervous and excited to see where these characters are headed next.

Unleashed - Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguie

Synopsis: Katelyn McBride’s life changed in an instant when her mother died. Uprooted from her California home, Katelyn was shipped to the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, to her only living relative, her grandfather. And now she has to start over in Wolf Springs, a tiny village in the Ozark Mountains. Like any small town, Wolf Springs has secrets. But the secrets hidden here are more sinister than Katelyn could ever imagine. It’s a town with a history that reaches back centuries, spans continents, and conceals terrifying truths. And Katelyn McBride is about to change everything. 
Broken families, ageless grudges, forced alliances, and love that blooms in the darkest night—welcome to Wolf Springs. (From Goodreads)

If you've been around for awhile, then you know I have a thing for werewolves. So I naturally gravitated towards Unleashed. I, admittedly, didn't really read the synopsis before I dived in - so it began different than I expected and I was really excited about the where it was going. But then it quickly shifted and became much more like what I had imagined the book would be.

The book opened with Katelyn performing in Cirque du Solei and that first chapter was just amazing. I was so sucked into that whole scene and really excited to have some sort of access to this kind of elusive world. But, then it kind of digressed from there and turned into Katelyn moving from LA to an isolated town in the Ozarks. Not that I didn't love that, but I had a momentary flash of disappointment when I realized that the Cirque du Solei wasn't going to be a big part of the novel.

The setting, though, was great. In my mind it was that perfect spooky, foggy, no one can get in or out, horror movie kind of place. That backdrop for the story was perfect. Add in creature attacks, a grandfather who is crazy strict about not letting Katelyn be outside after dark, and a handful of secondary characters who are all obviously hiding major secrets and the whole book was just one of those - I need to figure this out - kind of books. You know it's going to be werewolves, but you don't know who, when, where, or why and those questions create great anticipation. The unfolding of the story itself was what I loved about this book.

I've heard a bit of negativity buzzing around this book and if you're sick of werewolves I can see where that would come from. However, if you're a were-lover like me, I think you'll really like this book. I've finished the book and there's still this cloud of mystery surrounding it. I just get the sense that there are a lot more secrets to come from some of the characters and I'm dying to know what they are.

Lunar Love Giveaway Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Lunar Love Giveaway Hop. The hop is hosted by I am a Reader, Not a Writer and Bookworm Lisa. Tons of other blogs are participating. To see the full list and hop along for the chance to win some great books go HERE.

I'm excited about this hop because werewolves/shapeshifter-wolves are my favorite. So one winner will receive their choice of one of the books pictured below.  

The details: 

• One (1) winner will get his/her choice of one (1) of the books listed above.
• You must be 13 or older to enter. 
• This giveaway is international as long as the Book Depository ships to you.
• Fill out the Rafflecopter form below - you can only enter once.
• This contest will run until March 14, 12:01 AM.
• Winner will be announced by email - if you win you have 48 hours to respond before I pick a new winner. 
• Good luck and thanks for entering!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Dark Divine - Bree Despain

Synopsis: Grace Divine, daughter of the local pastor, always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared--the night she found her brother Jude collapsed on the porch, covered in blood--but she has no idea what a truly monstrous secret that night held.
The memories her family has tried to bury resurface when Daniel returns, three years later, and enrolls in Grace and Jude's high school. Despite promising Jude she'll stay away, Grace cannot deny her attraction to Daniel's shocking artistic abilities, his way of getting her to look at the world from new angles, and the strange, hungry, glint in his eyes.
The closer Grace gets to Daniel, the more she jeopardizes her life, as her actions stir resentment in Jude and drive him to embrace the ancient evil Daniel unleashed that horrific night. Grace must discover the truth behind the boys' dark secret...and the cure that can save the ones she loves. But she may have to lay down the ultimate sacrifice to do it--her soul.

Werewolves+Minnesota=Automatically Awesome. But even beyond my very simple formula, I am in love with this book. I've read a lot of reviews asserting that the story wasn't original, and I suppose it can be seen that way. First, wolves in Minnesota...Linger...the bad boy who's actually really vulnerable? seen it (a lot)...a family that has lots of secrets and doesn't want to talk about their problems, okay. But then there's the fact that Grace is a pastor's daughter and not in the repressed, need to rebel kind of way. She's a genuinely faithful and good person. There are little things that are different than the cookie cutter werewolf romance story. Not to mention that while I was actually reading the story, I was so wrapped up in it that I wasn't concerned with the criticisms I'd read.
Three things that I loved about this book that you don't often find happening in novels like this:
1 - When Grace realizes just how dangerous Daniel is she actually stays away. She makes a conscious effort to stop seeing him and to move on with her life. Even if she's slightly misguided in this action, she is right to make such a move. She felt threatened and didn't file that feeling under the - that makes you dangerously sexy column. She filed that under the - boyfriends that could be bad for my heath column. Yay. This gives her so much power, because she wasn't seeing him because he decided to stay away, but she made the decision.
2 - Grace has parents. Ones that actually monitor her, make sure she's home on time, and, well, actually act like parents. I understand the tactic of creating absent parents so that the characters have more freedom to have adventure, to explore the boundaries of their own worlds, and to become their own independent being. But this is something that gets old. Even though Grace's family isn't perfect, they genuinely care about one another  and they hold Grace accountable for her actions.
3 - Religion is actually acknowledged in the paranormal world. I love it. I love the melding of a very real, contemporary, religious institution and the paranormal. Why can't the co-exist? To me, this is a new lens to see into the world of werewolves and I absolutely love that.
So yeah, some parts of this book can be compared to others, but there are some parts that make it new. In any case I loved it. Freaking loved it. Exclaiming out loud and mumbling under my breath to freak my roommate out loved it.
The second book in the series, The Lost Saint, comes out in paperback in November, and the third book, The Savage Grace, will be out March 13, 2012. Can't freaking wait.