1. What is one if your favorite lines from Sirens?
I have to give you two lines, two sentences, just because they go together (kind of like my two voices, Josephine and Louise): “We were mirrors, reflections, like in a Coney Island funhouse. One of us would levitate, and one of us would disappear, if you get my drift, and the twist was which of us would do what.”
2. What is the hardest part of writing a historical novel?
The hardest part of writing any novel for me is the first draft. That’s because I’m a “seat of the pants” writer. I don’t outline or plan – I just get it out on paper the best way I can. Now, historical novels require a lot of research, and that actually helps, because I feel the time period and the voice so clearly as I research.
But if I had to say what is the hardest thing about writing historicals? It would have to be making sure that I get it right. I hope I never have to apologize for making an historical mistake – getting a fact wrong.
3. Do you ever have certain “playlists” you listen to while writing?
Actually, not while writing. I need pretty much complete silence while I write. That’s not to say I need to close my doors and windows or anything; but I can’t listen even to music while I’m at the computer. Otherwise I just end up sitting back and singing along. Or standing up and dancing.
However, I often have songs in my head and listen to stuff between stints of writing. Sometimes it’s music of the period and sometimes it’s contemporary stuff that just fits the mood. And I love making up playlists to go with the story as I’m puzzling out pieces while I’m walking.
4. Do you have any strange writing habits?
I alluded to the walking thing – I take a walk every day. If I’m trying to sort out a part of a novel that’s giving me fits I take it with me on the walk. And I find that at about the same place on the walk, each and every day, the answer comes to me, or at least I have a new clue. It’s quite rewarding.
Plus, I get my exercise.
Forgiven by Janet Fox
Published: Speak (June 2nd, 2011)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Series: Faithful, #2
Kula Baker never expected to find herself on the streets of San Francisco, alone but for a letter of introduction. Though she has come to the city to save her father from a cruel fate, Kula soon finds herself swept up in a world of art and elegance — a world she hardly dared dream of back in Montana, where she was no more than the daughter of an outlaw. And then there is the handsome David Wong, whose smiling eyes and soft-spoken manner have an uncanny way of breaking through Kula's carefully crafted reserve. Yet when disaster strikes and the wreckage threatens all she holds dear, Kula realizes that only by unlocking her heart can she begin to carve a new future for herself.
Siren s by Janet Fox Published: Speak (November 8th) Reading Level: Young Adult Series: Faithful, #3 When Jo Winter’s parents send her off to live with her rich cousin on the glittering island of Manhattan, it’s to find a husband and forget about her brother Teddy’s death. But all that glitters is not gold,. Caught up in the swirl of her cousin’s bobbed-hair set—and the men that court them—Jo soon realizes that the talk of marriage never stops, and behind the seemingly boundless gains are illicit business endeavors, gangsters, and their molls. Jo would much rather spend time the handsome but quiet Charles, a waiter at the Algonquin Hotel, than drape herself
over a bootlegger. But when she befriends a moll to one of the most powerful men in town, Jo begins to uncover secrets—secrets that threaten an empire and could secure Jo’s freedom from her family. Can her newfound power buy her love? Or will it to ruin Jo, and everyone around her?
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