Interview and Giveaway with Julie Kagawa!

I have been a bit MIA lately, but I'm hoping to change that next year. But I have a fantastic interview to help keep me in your good graces. I am beyond excited to have an interview with Julie Kagawa on my blog!! I am quite beside myself. :) Read on for a chance to win one of four copies of The Lost Prince (sorry Aus entrants only)

Thank you for stopping by Worlds of Wonderment Julie!

Thanks so much for having me.

For those people who have been living under rocks and haven’t heard of The Lost Prince, could you give us a quick overview?

The Lost Prince takes place several years after the events of The Iron Fey series, and stars Ethan Chase, Meghan's younger brother.  Now seventeen, Ethan has grown up resenting the fey who took his sister from him, and has vowed never to get involved with their world.  But when a classmate disappears and a strange new type of fey begins harassing him and his friends, Ethan cannot sit by and do nothing.  And so he begins his own adventure in the Nevernever.

I love the idea behind The Iron Fey, how did it come about?

Faeries, the old, ancient fey, not the glittery winged sprites, have always fascinated me. But I wanted to write a book that was different than other faery books. So I began thinking: what are the fey afraid of? The answer, in most ancient mythos, is iron. Faeries can't stand the touch of iron and steel. So, what if there was a new type of fey that had evolved with progress over the years? What if they weren't only immune to iron, their existence was slowly poisoning and corrupting the lands of the traditional fey? And I realized we already have "monsters" in machines: gremlins, bugs, viruses, ect. And from that thought, the Iron fey were born.

Can you tell us a little about Ethan and Kenzie’s relationship?

Ethan was not an easy person to get to know at the start of the book.  He grew up watching the fey hurt the people who got close to him, and has decided that the only way to prevent that from happening again is not to get close to anyone.  So he pushes people away by being rude, unfriendly, and dangerous.  And it works...until he meets Kenzie, the girl who won't take no for an answer, who is determined to see through his facade and find the real Ethan.  Kenzie is nosy, stubborn, and cheerfully relentless, but she has to be to have any hope of getting through Ethan's really high walls.  Still, it will take a lot of chipping away to get Ethan to lower his defences and finally let someone in.

Does the faery world you have created differ from others?

There are some similarities regarding the Summer and Winter courts, and of course the famous faery rulers--Oberon, Mab, Titania--appear in almost every fey-centric story, but I did try to make the faery realm, the Nevernever, unique in the fact that it is beautiful but also very dangerous.  But the biggest difference, the thing that sets it apart from all other faery books, are the Iron fey themselves. 

Are there any books/authors that have influenced your style of writing?

Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara series made a huge impact on me when I was younger.  I remember finishing one of his books in tears and thinking I wanted to write stories that could make people cry.  So when I tell my readers: "Your tears feed my Muse," you can thank Mr. Brooks for that.  ;-)

What has been your favourite experience since becoming an author?

Meeting and connecting with fans is still the greatest thing ever.  It's still kind of surreal, to know that there are people out there who have read and loved your books.  Whenever I talk to readers, I'm thrilled and ecstatic and humbled all at the same time, and I never get tired of it. 

What is your all-time favourite book?

I don't have an absolute favourite but a few come very close.  Poison Study, Jayne Eyre, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, 13 Reasons Why, and of course Harry Potter.

If you could choose, which court would you prefer?

Well, I'd love to say Winter because I hate the heat and love the cold, but I can't live without my tech, so I'll have to go with Iron.

Julie Kagawa, the New York Times Bestselling author of The Iron Fey and Blood of Eden series, was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn't getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dogtrainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyper-active Papillon puppy.

TO WIN ONE OF FOUR COPIES OF THE LOST PRINCE, LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR EMAIL, TELLING ME WHO YOUR FAVOURITE CHARACTER IS FROM ANY OF JULIE'S BOOKS! GIVEAWAY ENDS 31ST DECEMBER 2012. (sorry Australian entrants only)