Interview with Nandi Taylor for Given

Given

by Nandi Taylor
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Release Date: January 21st 2020
Genre: Fantasy


Synopsis:

A subversive fantasy-romance steeped in West-African and Caribbean traditions.

Yenni has never been this far from home. With only her wits, her strength and her sacred runelore, the fierce Yirba warrior princess is alone in the Empire of Cresh. It’s a land filled with strange magics and even stranger people—many of whom mistrust anyone who’s different. But Yenni will prove herself, and find a cure for her father’s wasting illness. She will not fail.

No one warned her about the dragons. Especially not about him.

Yes, there is something powerful and compelling about the violet-black dragon known as Weysh. In human form he’s muscular, beautiful—and completely infuriating. What kind of arrogant creature claims a stranger as his Given; as his destined mate? Yenni is no man’s—or dragon’s—plaything. But other magics must be at work here, because Weysh might just be her best hope at finding the answers she seeks.

Only now Yenni can’t tell if she’s fighting her attraction to a dragon…or fighting fate itself.

Can you briefly describe GIVEN and its characters?

Given is the story of Yenni, a princess of the Yirba tribe and her journey abroad to find a cure for her ailing father. She travels to the northern Empire of Cresh to enroll in their top magic Academy in the hope of learning something that will save him. While in Cresh she encounters culture shock, prejudice, and a brash, shape-shifting dragon named Weysh who claims they are “Given” or destined soul mates. 

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?

Aside from the main characters, Weysh and Yenni, I love Yenni’s closest friend Diedre and Weysh’s best friend Harth. Diedre is another student who is from the Island colonies of Cresh, and I love the supportive sisterly relationship that develops between her and Yenni. Harth is the snarky voice of reason for Weysh. He reigns in Weysh’s more insufferable tendencies and contributes greatly to Weysh’s character development. 

How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere?

This book is a mish-mash of many things that happened in my life, but mostly it was a way of working through some difficult things that were happening at the time I was writing it. I was living in Tokyo, which was amazing but also came with its share of microaggressions, which show up in the book through Yenni’s experiences as a foreigner abroad. I also heavily interrogate my frustration and annoyance around cultural appropriation.

And while working on the first draft I had just come out of a bad relationship, and I was processing what led me to put up with less than stellar behavior, what my problematic beliefs about love and romance were and where I’d learned them. I came to the conclusion that I’d made missteps based on the media I was taking in, and resolved to challenge some of romance’s most problematic tropes through writing of my own. It wasn’t easy, and I found myself accidentally reinforcing those tropes in early drafts. But with the help of my readers and editor I feel like I finally got it right. 

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?

Simmer by Mahalia and Burna Boy

If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?

If you’re looking for accurate visual representations, I’d say Jason Momoa (without the beard) is a good approximation for Weysh. For Yenni I’ve often said Yaya Dacosta, or maybe Aja Naomi King. 

What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?

Sparkling wine and a cliff overlooking the city lights. 

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish GIVEN?

There are so many wonderful books that center protagonists and fantasy worlds rooted in African traditions that have come out recently! There’s Tomi Adeyemi’s “Children of Blood and Bone” of course, and “Kingdom of Souls” by Rena Barron. And while not set in an African-inspired world, The Belle’s by Dhonielle Clayton is a gorgeous fantasy set in the fictional world of Orleans, which reminds me of Cresh. 

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

Staying focused and writing every day. Sometimes life gets in the way and makes that tough. 

What’s next for you?

Finishing book two!

Nandi Taylor is a Canadian writer of Caribbean descent based in Toronto. She’s a two-time Watty award winner, and her Wattpad story Given has garnered over one million reads and earned the 2018 Worldbuilders Watty award.

Nandi grew up devouring sci-fi and fantasy novels, and from a young age wrote books of her own. Her books are an expression of what she always wanted more of growing up—diverse protagonists in speculative settings. Common themes she writes about are growth, courage, and finding one’s place in the world.

Her debut novel Given will be published by Wattpad Books in January 2020.

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🐉 B O O K G I V E A W A Y 🐉 . . COVER NOT FINAL! . . Happy Tuesday, beautiful bookish people! I am currently hunting for a cute set of loungewear so I can be comfy while reading. What's your usual bookish set up? Also, any good advice on my search? . . Today I am bringing you a fantasy novel. We have partnered with @wattpad to give you the opportunity to know a bit more about @nanditauthor's new novel, #Given. Described as "A subversive fantasy-romance steeped in West-African and Caribbean traditions" this novel was quite different from my usual reading, but I found it super exciting! Also, there's dragons. What else do you want? . . And to give you a chance to see how good the story was, I am giving away 1 copy of the book here. . . Entries for the giveaway: ▪︎Follow @theffbc & @whatmakespatri ▪︎Follow the author @nanditauthor ▪︎Follow the publishing house @wattpad ▪︎Comment - Answer my question above ⬆️ #qotd . . . Extra entries: ▪︎Tag a friend (each friend will be an extra entry). ▪︎Share on your stories about the giveaway (remember to tag me @whatmakespatri and @theffbc) ▪︎Follow @michellesulk & @artsyreadergirl ▪︎Go to the FFBC tours (@theffbc) website, check the GIVEN blog tour schedule and enter another giveaway any of our bloggers are hosting. Let me know which giveaway you entered in the comment section! . . #yareads #yabooks #epicreads #winbooks #bibliophile #bookish #booknerd #mybookfeature #bookstagramming #bookaesthetic #bookworm #bookcommunity #booksbooksbooks #instaread #bookshimmy #bookgiveaway #bookgram #yabookstagram #ireadya #booksatgrammer

A post shared by Patricia Lopez (@whatmakespatri) on Jan 21, 2020 at 12:54am PST

Interview with Jessica Cunsolo for She's With Me

She's With Me (She's With Me #1)

by Ava Violet
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Release Date: January 7th, 2020

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

When Amelia Collins moves to a new town to escape her dark past, she just wants to keep her head down and finish her senior year.

Her plans change drastically when she runs- literally- into the school's hottest badass and number one person on the 'don't mess with' list, Aiden Parker.

Amelia needs to find a way to survive senior year while she tries not to fall for the annoyingly handsome Aiden, or his mischievous, cocky player of a best friend, Mason.

With new friends, fun pranks, bitchy queen bees, old rivalries, and a haunting past, Amelia's senior year is destined to be filled with some drama.

Can you briefly describe SHE’S WITH ME and its characters?

She’s With Me is a young adult novel full of romance, suspense, drama, and excitement. It follows Amelia, the fierce female lead, and her experience as the new girl in school. She just wants to keep a low profile, but that plan is ruined on the first day when she crashes into the school’s most notorious senior, Aiden Parker. She’s drawn into a new group of friends as well as all the drama that comes with being on Aiden’s radar, all the while trying to keep her secrets from being revealed, or risk losing it all.

Who would you say is your favourite character from the story and why?

I love all of my characters, even the villains, but I think my favourite character is Noah. He’s the goofy, lovable character who often serves as the comedic relief. Since there’s so many tense moments throughout the story, he plays such an important role. Plus he makes me laugh and is so fun to write!

How did the story occur to you? Did you find inspiration anywhere?

When I started writing I really didn’t have a clear direction. I only had a vague idea of what the major conflict would be and a general sense of how I wanted to portray my main character, Amelia. The only thing I knew for sure, was that I wanted to write a dynamic story that could pull readers out of their everyday lives into a wild and drama filled high school fantasy. As I wrote and my characters began to come to life and their personalities became more layered with dimension, I realized that I was writing a character who inspired me. I was creating Amelia to be more like the girl I wish I was in high school; a girl who was confident and strong and refuses to let people walk all over her, even when the stakes are extremely high. 

There are aspects of the She’s With Me plot that have been pulled from my personal life and the lives of my friends, but it’s definitely more elevated than the real life events. I really wanted to envision a crazy world where these dramatic events and scenarios existed through the eyes of someone as determined, confident and tenacious as Amelia. 

If you could choose one song to describe your book, which one would it be?

This is a hard question, but I think one of my all-time favourite songs can work to describe “She’s With Me”, which is “Sippin’ on Fire” by Florida Georgia Line. Obviously it doesn’t fit perfectly, but if you bend the meaning a bit I think it’s great.

“Why should we go round and round the truth, Like we been doin'? Every time we lie girl we're losing…” 

This describes how Amelia is trying to hide not only her own secrets from everyone, but she’s also trying to convince herself not to fall for Aiden because of those secrets, which ends up hurting her in the long run.

“You act like you don't know what you're missing, Every time you end up back with him, 'Cause it's safe, and you're scared. Of everything you're feeling when, we’re burning the midnight down again,” 

This line relates to how Amelia can sometimes deny how she feels and retreats to what she knows is safe, which is keeping to herself, but of course there’s always this push and pull because she can’t seem to stay away from Aiden. 

If your book was going to be made into a movie, who would play your characters?

It’s hard to pick an actor for Aiden, since I’ve always just pictured him as an imaginary being in my head. But when I started writing “She’s With Me”, I always imagined Holland Roden as Amelia, and more recently Maddison Brown, who I feel would play a great Amelia.

What drink and place do you think will go with your book to have a perfect book date?

I think any cozy, quiet place where you can binge this book undisturbed is an ideal spot, maybe with either a warm tea or a light, yummy milkshake. 

Can you recommend your readers any other books in case they are left hungry for more once they finish SHE’S WITH ME?

One of my all-time favourite books is Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick. I think readers craving more She’s With Me would love this book since they both have high levels of romance, suspense, and excitement.

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

The hardest part of writing a book for me is just finishing it. I’m a terrible planner. I find the process of outlining and planning difficult because most of the time my ideas come to me in the moment and I don’t always have a clear idea of how it will all be wrapped up in the end. So for me, sitting down and figuring out where the characters and the plot will end up is the hardest part, but once I have that down and push past writers block, it all works out. 

What’s next for you?

I’m going to continue working on stories I love and creating memorable characters and storylines… and hopefully some exciting announcements in the new year!

Jessica is an indecisive university student from a small town near Toronto, Canada. She published her first young adult novel She’s With Me, on Wattpad under the name “AvaViolet” when she was 17 years old. In just over 2 years, her story has amassed over 61 million reads and has reached the number one spot in teen fiction more times than she can count. Her story She’s With Me won the 2016 Wattys “Talk of the Town” award, as well as The 2016 Fiction Awards “Best Teen Fiction.” She also won The 2016 Writer Awards for Novelist of the Year and Wattpad Writer of the Year.

Jessica enjoys hiking, the outdoors, and trying to sneak her way out of inevitable awkward situations. She can often be found daydreaming about scenarios which have a 5% chance of actually happening to her. But she doesn’t mind, since she can transform them into awesome stories which she can vicariously live through.

FFBC: Welcome to the club, Lailah (The Styclar Saga #1) by Nikki Kelly

Lailah (The Styclar Saga #1)
by Nikki Kelly
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Release Date: October 7th 2014

Read some chapters on Macmillan

Synopsis:

The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely ally – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

I was born and raised only minutes away from the chocolately scent of Cadbury World in Birmingham, England. So it will probably come as no surprise that when I'm not dreaming in Vampires & Angels, I dream in chocolate! For the past ten years I have lived in West London with my hubby and two dogs, Alfie - the Pug & Goose - the Chihuahua.

LAILAH is my debut novel, and first launched in serial form to wattpad, a readers & writers community. Within just 6months, LAILAH had over a million reads and thousands of comments and votes.

Since then, The Styclar Saga has gone on to pick up a traditional deal with Feiwel & Friends, and LAILAH, the first book in the series is due for release on October 7th 2014.

These days I spend my time balancing my amazing job of writing fantasy fiction, with my other, very important role of Chocolate Connoisseur. I like to multitask and do the two together. It makes me happy.

Right now, still jumping up and down over Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Trilogy

The Office (American version)

Braveheart

‘Iris’ by Goo Goo Dolls

Chicken dinner (or as we call it over here Sunday Roast!) 

This changes regularly… Right now, having just read Divergent, I am a little in love with Tobias… *le sigh and le swoon*

“It’s better to burn out than fade away.”—Highlander

I fangirl regularly… recent fangirling episodes have included, but are not limited to:

The Darkling from the Grisha Trilogy (yes, I know, I’m a little worried about what that says about me too!) 

Divergent book & movie

Tobias from Divergent

David Tennant

Matt Smith

Oh, and I recently had a fangirl moment over Henry Cavill (several actually!)

J R R Tolkien

(I think for the purposes of swooning I will use an Orlando as an Elf in The Lord Of The Rings for this gif!)

Fancy a cuppa and a natter?

Hello Nikki (Our English Sister)!! We are super excited to host you in our FFBC. 

Whoop!! Let’s get this party started! *Boils kettle in readiness for tea celebrations*

Lailah is a YA PNR… 

I could most definitely waffle on for some time about the book having an array of supernaturals – ones you might recognize, like Vampires and Angels – and then stress to you that they are a bit different from what we’re used to… I could ramble on and on about the book including themes of light and dark and that it challenges preconceptions and assumptions, and that there is a *cough dirty word alert cough* love triangle but one that is crucial to Lailah’s journey of uncovering her true nature…

But I might simply give you the opening quote to the book, which I think is apt for the story overall: 

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” —Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

In my stories, I prefer to write about places I know or have at least visited myself. As the last third of the story plays out in the South of France, I flew there several times to conduct research and visit the locations I wanted to use in the book. Toward the end of the story, Lailah travels up the Pyrenees Mountains. My Aunty and Uncle, who I was staying with while I conducted research in the area, decided I should do the same, and so booked in a day’s hike for us to climb the snowy mountain. As a person who does little-to-no exercise, sits for at least 10 hours a day and lives on caffeine and candy, this was a pretty daunting idea. But, I’d like to think that there’s nothing I would put my MC through that I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself… (Within reason of course, this is a Fantasy!) Thankfully, on the day we had planned the excursion, the weather was far too terrible to make the trip, so instead we drove halfway up and had a cup of tea in a ski resort! I’m pretty sure someone was looking out for me that day, as I would probably never have returned! 

Lailah the person: Sincere, practical, stubborn, lost, conflicted!

Chapter Twenty-Two… There is a scene between Lailah and Jonah where it gets quite intense, which I thoroughly enjoyed writing!

*Now, Patri is waving #TeamJonah's flag and smiling because she nows about that scene*

Gabriella Wilder as Lailah

Alex Pettyfer as Gabriel

Shiloh Fernandez as Jonah

Liam Neeson as Ruadhan

Sophie Turner as Brooke

Alicia Vikander as Hanora

A shout-out here to Andrew at Endlessly Reading (And a Styclar Street Team Founder) who offered up his fan cast to help me decide!

‘No Light, No Light’ by Florence & The Machine

Follow the FFBC Lailah Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Blog Tour Giveaway:

Win (1) hardback of Lailah by Nikki Kelly (US Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Twitter Giveaway:

We are going to host a twitter giveaway this week to celebrate Lailah's tour. Each day will be a chance to win one Lailah swag (picture below). All you have to do is follow our FFBC twitter and Nikki Kelly's twitter to be eligible and wait for the swag tweet to retweet it.