For the final day of October, Halloween, I have a special treat for you all! That would be an interview with a debut author whose cover reveal was just two days ago! Please welcome Amanda Panitch to the blog!
Peace, Love, Teen Fiction: This is your debut novel so hopefully this
questions isn’t too tiring yet, can you sum up your book in up to 10 words?
Amanda Panitch: Julia tries, but can't escape the
repercussions of her brother's murders.
PLTF: Sometimes the most frightening of all things is human nature itself, why did you decide to go contemporary when you very well could have gone paranormal?
AP: I love fantasy and
the paranormal, but in this book I wanted to explore evil and love in a
real-world setting. I'd classify Damage Done as a
psychological thriller rather than horror, but I still think it's pretty scary
that the things that happen in the book could actually happen in real life.
PLTF: What do you think causes people, like Julia’s brother, to do horrible things?
AP: That's a question
that's very much explored in the book! Sometimes it can be something that's
innate, sometimes circumstances collide and push someone into doing something
evil. Sometimes doing nothing can be the most horrible thing.
PLTF: How do you write a convincing story when you have a narrator who may not be able to believe what it is they’re seeing?
AP: When Julia starts to
see faces from her past, she thinks she's going crazy. She's not sure whether
or not these people are actually there, and it's that which spurs her to
investigate. The book is told closely from her point of view, so she's shaping
everything she sees - I hope I succeeded in making the story convincing.
PLTF: What’s next?
AP: Damage Done was part of a two-book deal, so next up is a second YA
stand-alone psychological thriller, this one set in an amusement park. It's a
much more personal book than Damage Done, since I spent two summers
as a teenager working at Six Flags Great Adventure and met my first love there
(though I was fortunate in that nobody went missing from the park that summer,
which does happen in the book!).
Lightning round
1. On a scale of 1 to 10 how scary is your book?
Lightning round
1. On a scale of 1 to 10 how scary is your book?
You'll have to tell
me!
2. If you were a character in your book would you survive?
To be honest,
probably not. I like to think I'd save the day, but I'd probably just freeze up
and cry.
3. Favorite scary movie?
I don't like scary
movies.
4. Favorite Halloween candy?
I always liked Nerds.
And Airheads. If it's true that you are what you eat, hopefully I managed to
use each one to cancel the other out.
5. What were you last year for Halloween or what do you plan on being this year?
I have this pair of
silver hanging skeleton earrings I love that I can really only wear on
Halloween, so I look forward to it every year!
This or That
1. Keep secrets or tell everything?
Keep secrets.
2. Stay where it happened or move?
Depending on the
event, I'd probably want to pull a Julia and move.
3. Experience it firsthand or deal with the aftermath?
Depends on what
happened. Poor Julia had to do both.
4. Search for the truth or leave it be?
The truth, always.
5. Tricks or treats?
Treats!
22 minutes separate Julia Vann’s before and after.
Before: Julia had a twin brother, a boyfriend, and a best friend.
After: She has a new identity, a new hometown, and a memory of those twenty-two minutes that refuses to come into focus. At least, that’s what she tells the police.
Now that she’s Lucy Black, her fresh start has attracted the attention of one of the hottest guys in school. And someone much more dangerous. She thought her brother’s crimes were behind her. But now she’s being forced to confront the dark secrets she thought were safely left behind. How far will Julia go to keep her slate clean?
One thing is clear: The damage done can never be erased. It’s only just beginning. . . .
OUT JULY 21, 2015
Find Damage Done on
Amanda Panitch grew up next to an amusement park in New Jersey and went to college next to the White House in Washington, DC. Amanda now resides in New York City where she works in book publishing by day, writes by night, and lives under constant threat of being crushed beneath giant stacks of books.
Find Amanda on
Mary DeBorde
ReplyDeletePretty neat that Amanda wanted to try something in a real-world setting, which I think would actually be a lot harder to do than fantasy/etc. Her book sounds edgy & AWESOME!! :D