Friday Author Spotlight: Martina Boone + Giveaway

Friday Author SPOTLIGHT! We will feature a Young Adult, New Adult or Adult Author. These post will contain interviews, author posts, book blasts, fill in the blanks, etc... This is just our way to get authors noticed and out there as much as possible. So we hope you enjoy and stay tuned Fridays to see who we have on and what they shared. To see previous posts click here.

Today OUaT is happy to feature Author Martina Boone. She is the author of Compulsion, set to be released October 28th, 2014 by Simon Pulse.

Author Martina Boone 

Martina Boone was born in Prague and spoke several languages before learning English. Her first teacher in the U.S. made fun of her for not pronouncing the "wh" sound right, so she set out to master "all the words”—she's still working on that! In the meantime she’s writing contemporary fantasy set in the kinds of magical places she'd love to visit.

If you like romance steeped in mystery, mayhem, Spanish moss, and a bit of magic, she hopes you'll look forward to meeting Barrie, Eight, Cassie, Pru, Seven and the other characters of Watson Island.

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Beautiful Creatures meets The Body Finder in this spellbinding new trilogy.

Three plantations. Two wishes. One ancient curse.

All her life, Barrie Watson had been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lived with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt’s South Carolina plantation instead--a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions.

Stuck with the ghosts of a generations-old feud and hunted by forces she cannot see, Barrie must find a way to break free of the family legacy. With the help of sun-kissed Eight Beaufort, who knows what Barrie wants before she knows herself, the last Watson heir starts to unravel her family's twisted secrets. What she finds is dangerous: a love she never expected, a river that turns to fire at midnight, a gorgeous cousin who isn’t what she seems, and very real enemies who want both Eight and Barrie dead.

 

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Interview

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m pretty-much the usual crazy author who likes to sit at the computer and talk to my characters. When I’m not doing that, I love to ride horses, ski, work with my therapy dog. I also love to travel. 

I was born in the Czech Republic, and I still have most of my family there. Prague is one of my favorite cities anywhere, but I also love to explore new places, and that’s something I’ve passed on to my kids. My family has a travel game that we play where we collect points based on going somewhere new. Continents are worth five points, countries are worth three, states and provinces are worth two points, and National Parks and Unesco World Heritage sites are worth one point each. That often leads us to do slightly crazy things in search of more points. I managed to get in eleven countries last year, and I’m heading for nine or ten this year. But with recent trips to Australia and Antarctica that I didn’t get to take with her, my daughter is catching up fast. I’m going to have to step up my game. Do you suppose the penguins in Antarctica would invite me to do a book talk? : )


Can you tell us about your upcoming book? Could you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind it? 

Compulsion is a Southern Gothic romance so it’s got all the usual elements of the Southern Gothic: 
Southern setting as a character, complete with dripping Spanish moss, swampy woods, cemeteries, and remnants of a dying/dead way of life that invokes the unique history of the South. 
A grand but decaying mansion, and a humble house with pretensions, the combination of which shows the rigid social order that still exists in many Southern towns along with the attendant moral shortcomings.
Damaged, delusional, and mentally unstable characters, some with questionable morality, struggling to find their place in society.
An innocent who wanders into the story and becomes a catalyst for change.
The requisite “grotesque” situation created by the Fire Carrier’s magical “gifts” and the Colesworth “curse,” which are starting to be revealed in this first installment of the trilogy.
Paranormal elements stemming from the historical blending of voodoo and Native American magics that are an under-explored aspect of American history, and the ghosts of long-buried deeds that haunt the characters into the present.
Imprisonment by society, convention, and family expectation, exacerbated by the paranormal circumstances.
The impact of violence on family, friends, and neighbors.
Apart from that, there are pirate tunnels, ghosts, secret treasures, hidden passages, sailboat rides, moonlit walks, open air presentations of Gone with the Wind, kisses, and dangerous people. Not necessarily in that order. : ) 


Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination? Why Southern Gothic?

One of the themes in the book is isolation. That’s a common theme in Southern Gothics, but it’s something that definitely is an element in one of my husband’s relatives, so it got me thinking about how easy it is for us to cut ourselves off from others these days. My favorite quote from the book is, “It doesn’t matter how great your shoes are, if you don’t accomplish anything in them.”

As far as why Southern Gothic? I remembered how much I love Southern Gothic setting after reading Beautiful Creatures, and the history of the Charleston area really spoke to me. I had done a short story set there, and some of the characters wouldn’t let go. Then I had a dream about a ball of fire moving through the woods at night and setting a river on fire. Figuring out the mythology of that put the framework in place, and it could only have happened in the South. 

What was the most fun part of writing Compulsion?

The mythology, the history, and the characters. I fell in love with the characters, and especially with Barrie and Eight. Barrie is a strong girl who doesn’t know she is strong. She’s in a horrible situation after being isolated her whole life, and she is just setting off on her own path and trying to assert her individuality. She makes mistakes. Lots of mistakes. But I love her for that, because it makes her like the rest of us. And Eight? He’s stuck in a family rut so old he’s lost his individually and literally become a number (Charles Beaufort VIII), and he HATES that. He’s perfect on the surface, and just as insecure as the rest of us, although he’s been conditioned not to let that show. He and Barrie argue, and they’re forced together by their gifts, but there’s a deep friendship and understanding forming between them. : ) 

Last but not least, What are 5 random facts about yourself?

I love Nutella and stale red licorice.
I’m allergic to geraniums and peach fuzz.
My first car was a Fiat named Luigi.
My name day is November 11th, and I’m named after St. Martin, the patron saint of Vintners. Which may explain why I love my wine.
I tend to pick up stray animals, and manage to find them in freakishly strange places. (I once found a stray horse on a path in the Alps, for example.)

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