Interview: Tera Lynn Childs

Today author Tera Lynn Childs is joining me on the blog to chat about her newest release, Sweet Venom (LOVED!), and I could not be more excited to have her stop by! If you haven't had a chance to read Sweet Venom yet I hope you pick it up (you can read my review HERE), it's a hugely entertaining story and the second book cannot release soon enough. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Tera at a book signing a few weeks ago and she's just an all-around adorable person which of course makes me love her books even more. Fangirl moment over. On to the interview:

Of the three unique individual abilities the girls have, which would you most find useful in your own life?

Definitely autoporting. I want to see everywhere in the world and I don’t get to travel as much as I’d like. Being able to pop anywhere I wanted to visit in the blink of an eye would be amazing.

If two women who look just like you were to show up at your door claiming to be descendants of a figure in Greek mythology, what would be the first words out of your mouth after hearing them out?

I’m not sure I could get words out. There would be a lot of stammering and jaw-dropping. Then I would probably give my parents a call. They’d have a lot of explaining to do.

Are there any “G” names you had picked out for the girls but ultimately discarded in favor of Grace, Gretchen, and Greer?

Yes, actually! Gretchen was always going to be Gretchen, but the other two changed a couple of times. At first, Grace was going to be Gwen. I think Greer was Grace for a while (a la Grace Kelly) and also Genevieve.

You’ve just hypnotized someone like each of the girls can. Who have you hypnotized and what is the first thing you are going to ask them to do while under hypnosis?

Oh, dangerous. There are so many choices! I think I would head to a museum—maybe the Getty in Los Angeles—and ask the curator to let me wander the collections when the museum is closed to the public.

If you could pair Grace, Gretchen, and Greer with boyfriends from other young adult novels, who do you think would best suit each of them?

Well, I don’t want to step on any other authors’ toes, so I’ll match up the girls with boys from my other books. Grace would get along really well with Troy from Oh. My. Gods.. Greer would do well with enigmatic Xander from Goddess Boot Camp. And Gretchen would take Quince from Forgive My Fins head on.

What is your favorite creature in all of Greek mythology?

The Pegasus. Growing up, I had a collection of Breyer Horses and one of my favorites was the beautiful white Pegasus.

If you could rewrite the ending of one myth, what myth would it be and what exactly would you change?

I would rewrite the ending of Orpheus and Eurydice. It’s so tragic that Orpheus failed to save his love from the underworld because he couldn’t stop himself from turning around to make sure she was following. In my ending, he would keep looking forward and they would be together happily ever after.

Has there ever been a moment when writing any of your books where you surprised yourself with what found its way to the page when you started typing?

All the time! I can think of two really big examples. First, the identity of the character who was sending Phoebe anonymous notes in Goddess Boot Camp. I never once considered that character until the moment I typed the name. The other is the choice Lily makes at the end of Fins Are Forever. Throughout the entire book, I believed she was going to make the opposite choice.

What is the last book that kept up late reading?

Abandon by Meg Cabot. It’s such a fun and intriguing retelling of the Persephone myth.

Name one line from a book that has stuck with you for a long time and will continue to do so for whatever reason.

Oh, this is a really big spoiler, so anyone who hasn’t read Catching Fire please stop reading now. I’m still haunted by the last line. “Katniss, there is no District Twelve.” I sobbed for five full minutes when I read that.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions Tera! For more information on her and her wonderful books, you can find Tera here:

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SWEET VENOM (from Goodreads)

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.

Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned by myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.