Interview & Giveaway with Sarah Rees Brennan

Posted by Jen on Monday, May 25th, 2009 @ 12:14 pm

At Comic Con earlier this year, I was lucky enough to snag an ARC of the upcoming The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan, in stores June 2, 2009.

Nick and his brother, Alan, have spent their lives on the run from magic. Their father was murdered, and their mother was driven mad by magicians and the demons who give them power. The magicians are hunting the Ryves family for a charm that Nick’s mother stole — a charm that keeps her alive — and they want it badly enough to kill again.

Danger draws even closer when a brother and sister come to the Ryves family for help. The boy wears a demon’s mark, a sign of death that almost nothing can erase…and when Alan also gets marked by a demon, Nick is desperate to save him. The only way to do that is to kill one of the magicians they have been hiding from for so long.

Ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Nick starts to suspect that his brother is telling him lie after lie about their past. As the magicians’ Circle closes in on their family, Nick uncovers the secret that could destroy them all.

I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book. So much, I’m giving away an extra ARC in a last-minute giveaway before the book is released next week!

There are a lot of things I loved about this novel. The voice, the world-building, and the relationships, but my favorite aspect was the ending. I was blown away. It was heart-wrenching and unexpected, and made me completely fall in love with the characters. Another thing I loved was that the main characters are two brothers. As much as I love my strong heroines in YA, it was really great to read something a little different. And it’s definitely a page-turner. Lots of twists and turns, adventure and mystery.

I can’t wait for the next installment in the series. This was definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year.

First, congrats on your upcoming release of THE DEMON’S LEXICON! I absolutely loved reading this, and the ending blew me away. Did you have the ending in mind when you began the novel or was this something that developed as you wrote and plotted the book?

Thank you! And yes, I had the ending planned from the start, and when I was telling my friends about the book I was writing, I’d tell them the end first. Once they understood that I had ruined the book for them, they were all very cross with me. Sheesh, people, I was creating!

One of my favorite things about fantasy novels is the world-building. Do you have any particular method or tool you use for world-building?

I try to visit all the places I write about: I have one scene that’s a pub crawl in Salisbury, and I spent a day wandering around Salisbury taking notes and getting mistaken for a health inspector, trying to twine the exact reality of the world around with magic. Other than that, I’m a bit of a mythology magpie: I borrowed bits from Sumerian myths, Elizabethan beliefs, German accounts of witchcraft and mixed them all up with my own imagination. And I had great fun building the world: I love myths, literature and the idea of a world lying so close to ours that magic can reach out and touch you.

Me too! It’s one of my favorite things about writing fantasy.

This is the first book in the series. Do you have a set number of books in mind and would you write any more books in this world once Nick and Alan’s story is told?

Nick and Alan’s (and Mae and Jamie’s) story is planned as a trilogy, and I will definitely stick to that - we’ve all seen the awful death throes that a series can get into when it runs beyond its natural end. I do really like the world of the Demon’s Lexicon and do know rather a lot about the stories and the minor characters in it, and if an idea about one of them came to me as a book, I would definitely write it! (But maybe I’ll see how the first series does first…)

I have a feeling it’s going to do well.

I love that you have two male main characters which stands out on the YA shelves with so many female MCs. Did you find it difficult to write from a guy’s perspective?

I found it much more difficult to write from the point of view of someone who didn’t like to read. I had noticed that there were a lot of female MCs in YA, and while I love strong and important girl characters, and hope I have some, it seemed only fair to let the boys have their say. Plus the tall, dark and mysterious stranger who knows all about the supernatural world and is criminally good-looking shows up a lot in YA, and I thought it would be fun to take him apart from the inside out - and that means starting inside his head. Of course, he finds everyone else as mysterious as they find him.

So far, what has your favorite part of the publication process been?

Every stage has had its good points. I loved when I got my first editorial letter and had a moment of crystal clarity about how much better the book could be with my awesome editor’s help, and when my ARCs arrived looking like real books. Seeing all my different covers has been very exciting too - I have a fabulous Japanese manga cover!

I love hearing and reading about THE CALL stories. Can you share your CALL story?

I don’t think I really had a THE CALL. It seems like there was a lot of calls! I was sitting around waiting and quite cheerfully prepared to wait for months post submission - I knew that it was summertime, and it might be slow to sell. I felt very lucky to have an agent and a book on submission at all, and I had bought masses of ice-cream to drown my anxiety in frozen dairy goods.

Then my agent Kristin Nelson called and said there were several offers, and the auction and all the calls happened. I was sort of in shock. I don’t even know how many calls there were: at one point I think I hallucinated that the toaster was calling me making an offer. I remember a summer week of varied weather and varied moods, in which I was sometimes panicky and wild-eyed during summer storms and sometimes deliriously happy out in the sunshine.

I love that story!

And what is your favorite YA novel that you’ve read lately?

Oh, I can’t choose. I just had great fun with Sarah Cross’s Dull Boy, and I also just read Kelley Armstrong’s The Awakening, and absolutely loved it.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and good luck on your upcoming release!

Thank you so much for having me by!

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To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment below. The giveaway will be open to entries until Thursday, May 28 at 11:59 pm, and I’ll announce the winner Friday morning.

Comments

By BreiaB on May 25th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

I think my favorite ya novel so far would be a tie. Rachel Vincent’s My Soul To Take and Gena Showalter’s Intertwined. They’re not out yet, I belong to a review site and definitely encourage you to go out and get them when they come out in August and September respectively.

By Ruthanne Reid on May 25th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

Thank you so much for posting this interview! I just can’t wait until the book is released.

By Latasha McLaughlin on May 25th, 2009 at 7:08 pm

Very nice interview and the book sounds fantastic! I can’t wait to read it. I wish I could visit the places I write about but mine are all make believe!

By Chanelle on May 25th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

Insightful interview and the book sounds so interesting. I’ve been meaning to read this since I saw it blogged about on Kristin’s blog.

By Kara on May 25th, 2009 at 10:49 pm

I am saving the interview for after I’ve read the book. I have been waiting MONTHS for this book and am incredibly excited about it. I found this blog through a spontaneous twitter search of The Demon’s Lexicon, which may give you an idea of my excitement level.

By Jennie aka Jy'lenn on May 26th, 2009 at 1:43 pm

Ooooohhh… demons! Anything with demons is somethin’ I wanna read! Right… need to make note: if I don’t win the contest, go get book from somewhere. (annoy future sister-in-law about getting it for library…hehehehehe I’ll probably do it regardless, lol)

By Courtney on May 26th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

What a great interview. Sarah’s thoughts are so insightful and make me want to read her book even more so I can see her ideas in action. Thanks for posting, Jen!