Hi again, and happy holidays!
Yes, I know – this is the time of year we tend to go a
little crazy. School events, work
events, family events, friends events… All the Events. In amongst this, I’ve been working with my
amazing editors to prepare Every Move for publication. And we’ve done it!! I mailed back the final passes today. There will be final-final passes, and other
fiddly bits, but Sophie is putting all the changes and little corrections through
now (Sophie – respect), in time to send it off to the printer. Which means we’ll have a Real Live Book in
our hands very early in the new year!
But today I wanted to say hi to crime writer friends, with
the Meet My Character blog hop. This
tour was kicked off by the lovely Sandi Wallace, who launched Tell Me Why just recently. I was invited to participate by Angela Savage, whose most recent book in the addictive Jane Keeney series is The Dying
Beach. Angela is a good friend, a
righteous woman, and a great writer – she launched Every Word for me in June, and
I was delighted to accept her invite for the blog hop, answering a few questions
about Rachel Watts and Every Move.
For the next stop on the blog hop, I’ve invited Nansi Kunze
and Candice Fox to join us – they’ll be posting up their answers on their own
blogs here and here by Thursday 18 December.
Nansi Kunze is a mate – I’ve interviewed her once already here
on the blog. Nansi grew up surrounded by
books in Australia and the UK. After studying languages and ancient history at
university, she spent several years teaching overseas-trained doctors how to
pronounce rude words and teenagers how to mummify each other, while cultivating
a taste for manga and video games in her spare time. Kill the Music is her third novel,
following on the success of her previous two, Mishaps and Dangerously Placed. Nansi lives on a
small farm overlooking the Victorian Alps with her husband and son, and is
currently hard at work on her next YA book (assuming that ‘hard at work' is
synonymous with ‘researching glamorous locations on the internet').
Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family
from Sydney's western suburbs composed of half-, adopted and pseudo siblings.
The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice was
constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends
with tales from Australia's wealth of true crime writers. Bankstown born
and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer
in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to
academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate
degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney,
while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism. Hades is her first novel – it won the
Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014. Eden, its sequel, was published in December
this year.
Now on with the blog questions!
1/ What is your
character’s name?
Rachel Maree Watts
2/ Is your character
fictional or historical?
Definitely fictional – although she and I share a deep appreciation
for flannie shirts and hot, intelligent men.
3/ When and where is
your story set?
Every Move is
contemporary – ie. set in the present day – and the characters travel from
deepest darkest North Coburg to the Mallee area near Ouyen. It’s the final book in the Every series; the first book, Every Breath, kicked off Rachel’s
adventures in Melbourne, and the second book, Every Word, saw her travel overseas for the first time, to London,
where she and her BF, Mycroft, investigated a murder and got into a whole lot
of trouble.
4/ What should we
know about Rachel?
Rachel grew up on an isolated sheep farm in the Mallee, and being
raised a country girl has made her pretty physically tough and enduring. She has a lot of practical skills – running a
pump, driving a ute, shooting a rifle, climbing onto the roof to clean the
gutters of dead possums…that sort of thing.
Her personal style runs to jeans, boots and t-shirts/flannies, and she
generally ties her brown hair in a knot to keep it out of the way when she’s
working.
She’s a fighter. She’s
also incredibly stubborn (what? Another character trait I share? Certainly not - I’m not like that at all…) and her other defining
personality quirk is that she’s fiercely loyal, and has a strong sense of
family.
Rachel turned seventeen near the start of the first book, Every Breath. Another important fact about her: she’s in
love, with a certain dark-curly-haired, Sherlock-wannabe called James Mycroft. Being involved with Mycroft has drawn Rachel into
some hair-raising situations - murder, mystery and mayhem, not to mention the
disapproval of her parents - but Rachel’s pragmatism and cool head in a crisis
have generally seen her through.
5/ What are Rachel’s
personal goals?
To keep her family together, and safe from Mycroft’s personal
nemesis ‘Mr Wild’. To recover from the
trauma she endured in London – although she’s not sure how to do that. To work out what’s going on with herself and Mycroft. To discover who she really is and where she
fits in. To pass her Year Twelve exams!
6/ What’s the name of
the book, and can we read more about it?
Every Move is the
title, and you certainly can! It’s
coming very soon.
7/ When is it
published?
1 March 2015 through Allen and Unwin.
If you haven’t checked them out already, you can catch up
with the previous books Every Breath
and Every Word here. Hope you enjoyed this stop on
the blog hop, and please do go and check out the other wonderful authors at
their stops!
Giveaway
Now – in the spirit of holiday cheer, I’ve decided to give
some stuff away. And here’s the stuff!
Prize 1 is the North American edition of Every Breath
Prize 2 is a two-book
set of Every Breath and Every Word
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Prize 3 is a hot-off-the-press ARC of
Every Word from Tundra (this prize only available to North American/Philippines
readers).
If you’d like to win one of these prizes, please comment
here on the blog, or on Facebook, @elliemarney on Twitter, or @elliemarney on
Instagram. Tell me what is your personal
goal for 2015 (do you want to pass your Year Twelve exams, like Rachel?) and
which prize pack you’d like to win. My
son will pick a name out of a hat I’ll choose a winner next week, and let
people know before Christmas. All prizes
will be mailed out in January 2015.
That’s all from me for a while, folks. We’re heading off on our annual family camping
trip the day after Christmas, so I won’t be back online until January. Many thanks for reading, and for keeping me
company this year – it’s been a blast!
Lots of love and hopes that you all have a lovely Christmas and holiday
season (may you receive many books!), and all the best for the New Year
See you in 2015!
Xx Ellie
