INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR HOLLY BLACK AND GIVEAWAY: The Coldest Girl In Coldtown

Hey guys Casey here! Today I have an awesome interview with author Holly Black. She has a novel called The Coldest Girl In Coldtown. I have read the book and its AMAZING you can read my review HERE. Vampires Galore! The book is NOW out in the UK AND US, so go get your hands on this bad boy. Welcome Holly Black to DARK READERS

 

 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is about some pretty hot scary vampires... Why Vampires? 

 

Right. I get that question a lot, because yeah, there have been some pretty popular vampire books and there are several popular vampire TV shows. Several times, while I was writing The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, I wondered if I was a little bit nuts to throw my proverbial hat into the ring. But in all the time I've been a reader, vampires have either been so huge that you'd be crazy to publish a book about them or so over that you'd have to be crazy to publish a book about them. I finally decided that there was no good time or bad time to write a vampire book, so I might as well just write what I wanted to write. I've loved vampires since I was a kid and Coldtown is a love letter to those vampires -- and hopefully, with this book, I added a bit to what it already a vast and impressive conversation.

 

Are there any vampire genre books that inspired you when you wrote this one?  

 

I thought a lot about the vampire books I'd read and loved growing up -- Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Tanith Lee's Sabella, Suzy Mckee Charnas's The Vampire Tapestry, Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls, and Nancy Collins's Sunglasses After Dark. There were a few non-vampire books that inspired me too -- some aspects of the world are inspired by Steve Berman's short fiction set in the Fallen area and the Bordertown anthology series.Basically, this book is a grab bag of all the things I love

 

I love Coldtown how did you come up with the idea?

 

I wanted to tell a story that was at least in part about infection. And in a plague narrative, we get the possibility of quarantined areas -- walled cities where the rules are different and vampires cal walk around freely: Coldtowns. And once I had that, I started to think about the way the people outside would interact with the people inside -- watching their livestreams, following their blogs, and treating them as though they were characters in a blood-soaked play.

 

Gavriel isn't your typical lead vampire character... He's quite scary and makes you feel on edge a lot talk to us a bit about him:

 

I'm so pleased you think so! Gavriel's half mad from hunger, and pain and trauma. He's also kind of a dangerous psychopath. But he has an inner core of kindness that bubbles up at odd times and he honestly wants to be a better person, if only he can remember how. A psychopath with a heart of gold, if you will.

 

 I loved your concept of social media in this story. It felt like a very cool modern vampire tale. Talk to us a bit about that: 

 

I thought a lot about the way that we interact with social media. Last year, a tornado came through the Pioneer Valley. People kept going outside to take photos and videos with their phones, putting themselves in danger to get good pictures. If we saw a real vampire really sucking someone's blood, we'd take a picture and upload it to our Twitter, to Tumblr and Instagram. We'd friend vampires on Facebook and watch videos of people being bitten. We love danger -- especially when its at a remove. We love to read about serial killers. The most watched videos on YouTube are videos of people being hurt. Reality television documents hunting down bail jumpers and other dangerous occupations. If there were vampires, we would totally have shows about them.

 

Would you like to be friends with the main character Tana? What is something you can picture the two of you doing together? 

 

I feel a bit like I'm close with her already, but yes, I think Tana would be a great friend. She's loyal, supportive, an excellent listener, and getting better at stabbing a vampire square in the chest. What I'd like to do is take her out for coffee and explain to her that she's seriously underestimating herself and that she's capable of so many things she doesn't think are possible for her. 

 

Do you have any more amazing vampire tales in the future? Or any other projects we should be looking out for? 

I am currently working on a new faerie book for teens, another stand-alone, called The Darkest Part of the Forest, which is coming out in early 2015 I'm also collaborating with Cassandra Clare on a middle grade series. The first book, The Iron Trial, will be out next fall.

 

THANKS HOLLY!!!.

Now its your chance to win a copy of her amazing book. UK AND IRELAND ONLY. All you need to do it enter the raffle below:

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway