Super excited today because I get to host Kimberly Derting for a stop on her blog tour for Dead Silence!! I love the Body Finder series, so I'm super thrilled to be able to promote it! Stayed tuned for my review later today!
Violet thought she’d made peace with her unique ability to sense the echoes of the dead and the imprints that cling to their killers…that is until she acquired an imprint of her own. Forced to carry a reminder of the horrible events of her kidnapping, Violet is more determined than ever to lead a normal life. However, the people who run the special investigative team Violet works for have no intention of letting her go.
When someone close to Violet becomes a suspect in a horrific murder, she finds herself pulled into a deadly hunt for a madman with an army of devoted followers. Violet has survived dangerous situations before, but she quickly discovers that protecting those closest to her is far more difficult than protecting herself.
About Kimberly Derting
You can visit her website at www.kimberlyderting.com.
Welcome Kimberly to The O.W.L.!!!
What Point of View -1st or 3rd: For the Body Finder series, 3rd.
Boy or Girl main character (or both!): Girl, with a cute boy thrown in of course.
Genre: Supernatural-mystery-romance!
Middle Grade or Young Adult: Young Adult
More boy or girl book (stereotypically): Girl books
The Serious Questions
This
is the 4th book in the series so the characters are familiar to
you, but for Dead Silence what part/character/event are
you most excited/proud about?
I love that I’ve been
allowed to explore the darker side of the killers’ perspectives as the series
has gone on. Dead Silence is the
darkest (and bloodiest) so far.
Dead Silence
is part paranormal part mystery. I
love the mystery part because so few YA books are mystery books. How difficult is it to pull a mystery
together – to get all the parts to fit?
Because I’m not giving
the reader all the clues to solve a crime, they’re really kind of a mash-up
between mystery and thriller. But getting all the plot threads tied up and the
holes filled is definitely the biggest challenge to the books, which usually
takes some serious tweaking during revisions.
Tell
about your writing process. How long did it take you to write Dead Silence from
idea to finish? Please tell about revision if you can!
I had the idea for
Dead Silence for quite a while before I actually sat down to write it—I knew I
wanted it to be based on a Manson-like cult. But the actual first draft only
took me about two months to write (deadlines will do that to you!). My editor and
I went back and forth about three times, which is fairly typical for us. The
first round is pretty intense. I get what I call “the compliment sandwich
letter”. It starts off with something really positive, like, “This is a great
first draft…” and then delves into all the bad stuff (eight pages of everything
that needs to be fixed), and finishes up with more positive stuff, something
along the lines of, “we know you can do it!” That round takes me about a month
to turn around. The next round is lighter and takes me about a week, and the
third round is generally light line edits (word changes, etc.), and takes me
about a day or two.
When
you were in middle school kind of student were you? Did you write
then?
I’ve pretty much known that I wanted to write since the 7th
grade, when I took journalism as my elective credit. Of course back then I had
big dreams of becoming a world famous jet-setting journalist covering wars and
famines. When I was older, and realized what being a real journalist entailed (living in tents without showers, malaria,
facing gunfire), I realized that writing books from the safety of my home would
be a little less…dangerous, and a lot more clean!
And
because it's the owl my standard question always is: WHOOO do you admire
when it comes to writing? OR WHOOO do you like to read or really enjoyed
in HS or middle school?
I’d love to say someone very literary, like Harper Lee
since To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book ever. But honestly, I have to
admit it’s much more likely that it was Stephen King. I grew up reading his
books and wishing I could tell the kinds of stories he did (the ones that
scared people the way he scared me).
Yes, that sounds twisted. And
yes, I blame Stephen King.
The Fun Questions! (based on what middle
school students do!)
Do you chew gum? Yes or No If yes favorite kind?
Absolutely. My
favorite is Nerds bubble gum!
Do you text?
Of course. I had to learn as soon as my kids became
teens. If texting had been around when I was in school, I’m afraid my phone
would have been confiscated way too often! :)
Was school lunch just as yucky then as it is now?!
I think it
was even grosser and greasier then. I don’t think we even had salads.
Thank you Kimberly for joining us! And I will blame Stephen King, but only if I get to blame John Saul for all the stuff that scared me!!!
Ok the Giveaway
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Thanks to CBB Tours for hosting! Check out the page for this tour HERE.
And check out the other tour stops!
April 1
I'm a Book Shark ~ Review
The Starry Eyed Revue ~ Review & Teaser Quote
April 5
Hope, Love and Happy Endings ~ Review & Teaser Quote
Reading Lark ~ Review & Book BFF
April 6
Curling Up With a Good Book ~ Review
Paperback Princess ~ Review & Interview
April 7
A GREAT Read ~ Review & Guest Post
April 8
Books Live Forever ~ Review & Teaser Quote
A Dream Within a Dream ~ Review
April 9
A Diary of a Book Addict ~ Review
Alice Marvels ~ Review & Playlist
April 10
Fic Fare ~ Review & Teaser Quote
Itching for Books ~ Guest Post
Novel Nerd ~ Review
April 12
Books-n-Kisses ~ Review
I Am A Reader, Not a Writer ~ Interview
April 13
Bittersweet Enchantment ~ Review & This or That Interview
Michelle & Leslie's Book Picks ~ Review and Teaser Quotes
Books With Bite ~ Review & Teaser Quotes
The O.W.L. ~ Review & Interview
Awesome interview. Loved hearing about Kimberly's writing process. Eight pages of revision suggestions sounds intense. Glad to hear there's some good praise in it too.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to be a journalist too but I found out pretty quickly that it was harder than I expected (just from journalism class) so I let go of that dream...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for hosting a stop on the tour!
Great interview. Thanks for posting it and for running the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love owls!! :) Secondly, great interview. And thirdly, I just this week downloaded the audio of the first book in this series and I'm listening to it now. Eeeekk!!! :D
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited to start reading this series! :D
ReplyDeleteThanks!
<3,
- Ava
Love this series, especially The Last Echo! I'm excited to find out how Violet handles her own echo!
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Leanne
I love this series and can't wait to see how it ends! Thanks for the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.. enjoyed reading it :)
ReplyDelete- Diana @amalia_chartres
Cool review and interview!! Loved the questions! Can't wait for this book. <3
ReplyDeleteLove the interview! Over the course of this tour I have enjoyed learning more about this author, who is a favorite of mine. And I really must try this Nerds bubble gum she keeps talking about. Sounds delicious. I cannot wait for Dead Silence to get on my shelf! I plan to have a Body Finder marathon that weekend, and eating lots of chocolate and chomping on some Nerds gum if I can find it! Thanks for participating in the tour!
ReplyDelete