Welcome to the next stop in Sara Grant's blog tour for Dark Parties. This tour is hosted by Teen Book Scene, you can follow all the stops HERE. Today we bring you an interview with Sara and a fun giveaway.
Dark Parties is her first young adult novel.
) (Paperback - 
) Dark Parties
Sixteen-year-old Neva was born and raised in an isolated nation ruled by fear, lies, and xenophobia. Hundreds of years ago, her country constructed an electrified dome to protect itself from the outside world. What once might have protected, now imprisons. Her country is decaying and its citizens are dying.
Neva and her friends dream of freedom.
A forbidden party leads to complications. Suddenly Neva’s falling for her best friend's boyfriend, uncovering secrets that threaten to destroy her friends, her family and her country -- and discovering the horrifying truth about what happens to The Missing. . .
Thanks, Yara, for inviting me on Once Upon a Twilight.
OUaT: Dark Parties is your first YA novel, before you began writing the story, did you know you would be writing a dystopian? Or did the story come and then you figured out what direction you would go in?
The idea for Dark Parties came shortly after I moved from Indianapolis, Indiana, to London, England. Debates on immigration were raging on both sides of the Atlantic – and still are. How ‘open’ should a country’s borders be? What does it mean to be American or British? I wanted to explore issues of national and personal identity so I created a country that had literally closed itself off from the rest of the world. The story, characters and world came together at once – and the story couldn’t be anything but a dystopian.
OUaT: On the US cover, there is a picture of what looks to be a red snowflake, can you tell us what that represents in the book or its meaning?
Dark Parties chronicles a country that has closed itself off under an electrified dome. For hundreds of years, no one and nothing has penetrated this barrier. The citizens of Homeland are growing to look more and more alike. The rebels in my book create identity marks to express their individuality.
The main character Neva’s identity mark is a snowflake tattoo between her belly button and hip. Her name means snow. Her grandma – who went missing when Neva was very young – called her snowflake. My book is, in part, about the power of diversity. The snowflake is a great symbol for originality!
OUaT: Neva is your main character, was she easy or difficult to write?
Neva’s was easy to write. She presented herself to me and seemed to allow me to tell her story. Through the course of writing Dark Parties, she revealed herself to me. I love that she’s flawed and makes bad decisions for what she believes are the right reasons, but from page one she was determined to make a change in her world. She’s much stronger than she gives herself credit for.
OUaT: What are you working on or future book plans?
I’m in the middle of revising my second book, which is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2013. It’s another stand-alone futuristic novel. Its working title is Half Lives.
Half Lives chronicles the journey of two unlikely heroes – Icie and Beckett. Both struggle to keep themselves alive and protect future generations from the terrible fate that awaits any who dare to climb the mountain. Even though they live hundreds of years apart, Icie and Beckett’s lives are mysteriously linked.
Half Lives is a race against time and the battle to save future generations. It’s about the nature of faith and power of miscommunication – and above all the strength of the human spirit to adapt and survive.
a Rafflecopter giveawaySixteen-year-old Neva was born and raised in an isolated nation ruled by fear, lies, and xenophobia. Hundreds of years ago, her country constructed an electrified dome to protect itself from the outside world. What once might have protected, now imprisons. Her country is decaying and its citizens are dying.
Neva and her friends dream of freedom.
A forbidden party leads to complications. Suddenly Neva’s falling for her best friend's boyfriend, uncovering secrets that threaten to destroy her friends, her family and her country -- and discovering the horrifying truth about what happens to The Missing. . .
OUaT: Dark Parties is your first YA novel, before you began writing the story, did you know you would be writing a dystopian? Or did the story come and then you figured out what direction you would go in?
The idea for Dark Parties came shortly after I moved from Indianapolis, Indiana, to London, England. Debates on immigration were raging on both sides of the Atlantic – and still are. How ‘open’ should a country’s borders be? What does it mean to be American or British? I wanted to explore issues of national and personal identity so I created a country that had literally closed itself off from the rest of the world. The story, characters and world came together at once – and the story couldn’t be anything but a dystopian.
OUaT: On the US cover, there is a picture of what looks to be a red snowflake, can you tell us what that represents in the book or its meaning?
Dark Parties chronicles a country that has closed itself off under an electrified dome. For hundreds of years, no one and nothing has penetrated this barrier. The citizens of Homeland are growing to look more and more alike. The rebels in my book create identity marks to express their individuality.
The main character Neva’s identity mark is a snowflake tattoo between her belly button and hip. Her name means snow. Her grandma – who went missing when Neva was very young – called her snowflake. My book is, in part, about the power of diversity. The snowflake is a great symbol for originality!
OUaT: Neva is your main character, was she easy or difficult to write?
Neva’s was easy to write. She presented herself to me and seemed to allow me to tell her story. Through the course of writing Dark Parties, she revealed herself to me. I love that she’s flawed and makes bad decisions for what she believes are the right reasons, but from page one she was determined to make a change in her world. She’s much stronger than she gives herself credit for.
OUaT: What are you working on or future book plans?
I’m in the middle of revising my second book, which is scheduled to come out in the spring of 2013. It’s another stand-alone futuristic novel. Its working title is Half Lives.
Half Lives chronicles the journey of two unlikely heroes – Icie and Beckett. Both struggle to keep themselves alive and protect future generations from the terrible fate that awaits any who dare to climb the mountain. Even though they live hundreds of years apart, Icie and Beckett’s lives are mysteriously linked.
Half Lives is a race against time and the battle to save future generations. It’s about the nature of faith and power of miscommunication – and above all the strength of the human spirit to adapt and survive.
Thank you Sara for those great answers. Now look at what we have to offer one winner today.
Its a book themed necklace!
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Both of these books sounds amazing. I wish these were in my library system. Great interview..
ReplyDeleteGreat interview, this sounds like an awesome dystopian!
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