Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich | Interview

Welcome to our stop on the And the Trees Crept In tour for Dawn Kurtagich . This tour is hosted by Rockstar Book Tour.

And the Trees Crept In
Author: Dawn Kurtagich
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Released: September 6th 2016
Review Source: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

A stunning, terrifying novel about a house the color of blood and the two sisters who are trapped there, by The Dead House author Dawn Kurtagich

When Silla and Nori arrive at their aunt's home, it's immediately clear that the "blood manor" is cursed. The creaking of the house and the stillness of the woods surrounding them would be enough of a sign, but there are secrets too--the questions that Silla can't ignore: Who is the beautiful boy that's appeared from the woods? Who is the man that her little sister sees, but no one else? And why does it seem that, ever since they arrived, the trees have been creeping closer?

Interview

We are big fans of The Dead House, but why do you like writing creepy, spooky and psychologically sinister YA fiction?

Thank you! That’s wonderful to hear. There are limitless, unfathomable answers to why I love writing YA horror, but I’ve realized that there really are three main reasons, and only one of them pertains to YA in particular.

I love scaring people, and I love reading scary books (i.e I enjoy being scared too). I think it’s just one of those fundamental things that humans crave, like excitement, love, release in sadness, etc. So I do it because I love it (I suppose I’m a bit of a masochist and a sadist!).

Horror allows us to explore the lesser-understood areas of life. The little spaces between logic and reality, where there are no answers is where horror exists, and we explore that because we’re curious by nature. If you tell someone not to peek inside a secret room . . . most of us will!

And YA in particular? Because I love a good bildungsroman story; I exist in that area and horror is the perfect place to test limits while someone is developing. It’s a way to stretch characters to their limits and see who they are on the other side. Young people are intriguing because they can withstand so much, yet they take horrors on board with such innocence.

How is And The Trees Crept In different from your other stories? How does this novel stand out from others?

The Dead House was a found-footage thriller horror, very contemporary with a lot of “jump cuts” for lack of a better literary word. And The Trees Crept In is a gothic novel, still within the horror genre, but perhaps a little more poetic, a little more affecting, and more atmospheric. It’s the book you read in bed at night, rather than the book you read on the way to school/work in the morning.

Without giving too much away can you describe your favorite scene in the book?

Instead of telling you my favorite scene, I’ll tell you the one that creeps me out the most. Partway through the novel, when food is running low and Silla is running out of hope, she finds her little sister, Nori, in one of the rooms on the upper floor (which is derelict), crouched low and eating something. When she gets closer, she realizes that Nori is eating the dried-out husks of wasp bodies. Still chills me. (And this room, which is covered with husks, exists in REAL LIFE!!!)

What’s the most interesting/exciting thing you’ve done in the name of research?

My Google searches are pretty interesting, and with most other YA authors, I think I’m definitely on some kind of “list”. A dream of mine is to travel to some very remote islands for research—perhaps next year! This year, I am lucky enough to have access to the mountainous area where my third novel is set!

Can you tell us about your challenges you faced writing this novel?

The biggest challenge came from learning to write when people were expecting the book. Writing with the world looking, as it were. It was something to get used to, and now I very much enjoy it. A second difficulty was the emotional side of the book—there are some terribly sad moments, and I needed to live through them.

What are you afraid of?

Everything. ;) Or nothing…. Hm.

Can you name some of your favorite horror movies as well as novels?

I’d be delighted to!

The Books of Blood—Clive Barker

House of Leaves—Mark Z. Danielewski

The Pricker Boy—Reade Scott Whinnem

Asylum—Madaleine Roux

Bird Box—Josh Malerman

The Winter People—Jennifer MacMahon

Sepulchre—Kate Mosse

And many, many more! In terms of films:

A Tale of Two Sisters

Ju-On

Strange Circus (j-horror)

Hansel and Gretel (K-horror)

Shutter (K-horror)

The Conjuring

Insidious

In the Mouth of Madness

Prince of Darkness

It Follows

Martyrs

Livide

Event Horizon

Silent Hill

Absentia

Anti-Christ

Excision

The Skin I Live In

Session 9

The Abandoned

Dawn Kurtagich is a writer of creepy, spooky and psychologically sinister YA fiction, where girls may descend into madness, boys may see monsters in men, and grown-ups may have something to hide. Her debut YA novel, The Dead House, is forthcoming from Hachette in 2015.

By the time she was eighteen, she had been to fifteen schools across two continents. The daughter of a British globe-trotter and single mother, she grew up all over the place, but her formative years were spent in Africa—on a mission, in the bush, in the city and in the desert.

She has been lucky enough to see an elephant stampede at close range, a giraffe tongue at very close range, and she once witnessed the stealing of her (and her friends’) underwear by very large, angry baboons. (This will most definitely end up in a book . . . ) While she has quite a few tales to tell about the jumping African baboon spider, she tends to save these for Halloween!