YA Horror/Thriller Spooktacular Day 1 - The Well's End + A Giveaway

Today I have the pleasure if interviewing author Seth Fishman about his debut novel The Well's End, which has been praised by Matthew Quick, Margaret Stohl, and Jennifer Smith, along with getting a starred review from booklist!  I'd say that's pretty darn impressive for a first book and from his interview Seth seems like a pretty cool guy.  Check it out!

1Peace, Love, Teen Fiction:   Basics first, would you be so kind as to describe The Well’s End in up to 10 words? (Or you can describe the series in up to 15).

Seth Fishman: Mia runs, swims, breaks quarantine to find worse secrets underground.

PLTF:  As far as viruses go yours seems to be pretty original, where did you come up with the idea?

SF:  I suppose I thought viruses are relatively cliché, and if I wanted to do one, I wanted to approach it with something totally different. I needed the virus to counterbalance what happens later, something that ages you to death versus the opposite, and it seemed to work. I wish I could have played with it even more.

PLTF:  Most books (and TV shows and movies) feature a world where a plague/virus has already wiped out a large percentage of the population, why did you decide to write a book where the virus was in its infancy?

SF:  Honestly, the virus to me acts as a ticking time bomb, something to push Mia and friends further and faster, but this book was never grounded around the virus. I wanted to see how kids interact when locked together, when on the run, when discovering that there’s more to this world than we think, and the virus allowed me to do that.

PLTF:  Your main characters get quarantined in a high school.  If you were quarantined somewhere where would you hope it would be and why?

SF:  Oh gosh, I suppose it’s awful to say some five star converted castle hotel in Italy, maybe? I mean, that so selfish but I love castles I love Italy and if I’m stuck under house arrest and am about to die, I’d rather be in a comfortable beautiful medieval place (with my wife and son, of course, unless they survived by NOT being there, and then I’d rather them as far away as possible).

PLTF:  What’s next?

SF:  I JUST turned in book 2 in this series, THE DARK WATER, which follows Mia as she learns the true nature of the virus and everything else that comes clear at the end of book 1.  The thing is, I wanted The Well’s End to start grounded in something you knew but then morph into something else – book 2 is my something else. I hope that by the time you get there, you’d go with me anywhere.

Lightning round

1.     On a scale of 1 to 10 how scary is your book? 6

2.     If you were a character in your book how would you survive? By finding somewhere to hide early and quickly and staying there for as long as I can.

3.     Favorite scary movie? 28 Days Later

4.     Favorite Halloween candy? Full Snickers Bars (from chumps who give them out) or candy corn

5.     What were you last year for Halloween or what do you plan on being this year? I was a tornado. It was complicated. It involved me making ‘wind noises’ into a microphone and replaying that to people.

This or that

1.     Stay inside the quarantine or risk escaping (which, in real life, would be a TERRIBLE idea)? STAY.

2.     Shoot first or ask questions? Shoot first, but in the leg.

3.     Die by virus or bullet? Die by bullet, after contracting the virus

4.     Viruses or the dark? The Dark, please. 

5.     Tricks or treats? Tricks, of course. They are treats of their own!

 Nowhere to escape but below.

Panic grips sixteen-year-old Mia Kish’s boarding school, Westbrook Academy, when a mysterious quarantine is suddenly enforced by a small army of soldiers who shoot first and ask questions later. The quarantine makes no sense—but then students and faculty inexplicably begin to break down. Their illness is an aggressive virus that ages its victims years in only a matter of hours. The end result? Death.

No one can explain what’s going or has any idea what to do. Except Mia.

Because she knows something that no one else does. And she knows the only place to escape to get answers...But what she finds may be even more horrific than anything that came before.

The Well's End is getting a new look for it's release in paperback (coming January 8th of next year) and the sequel, The Dark Water, will follow with a matching cover March 5th!

Find The Well's End on

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Seth Fishman is a native of Midland, Texas (think Friday Night Lights), and a graduate of Princeton University and the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. He spends his days as a literary agent at The Gernert Company and his nights (and mornings) writing. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey. This is his first novel (that's not in a drawer).

Find Seth on

Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | His Website

Seth has kindly donated a hardback copy of The Well's End that he will give away to one reader.  The giveaway is US only and will run for two weeks.  Just fill out the rafflecopter below and make sure to give Seth a big "thank you" all around!

a Rafflecopter giveaway