Something Wicked Comes: Interview + Giveaway with Kirsty Eagar

Today kicks off a month-long extravaganza of downright wicked fun wherein a myriad of blogs will be celebrating all things scary and creepy with interviews, book features, and giveaways galore. Rainy Day Ramblings and Babbling About Books are hosting this event o'awesomeness, so be sure and check the full schedule here so you can follow along!

To start a spooktacular October off right, I've invited author Kirsty Eagar to the blog to talk a little bit about her newest YA release, Night Beach. This was a very dark, eerie, and truly haunting read, rich with the type of brilliant characterization I've come to love and expect from Kirsty's work (you can read my review here), and I hope you guys add it (and Raw Blue, an all-time favorite of mine) to your lists!

I’m a bit of a wuss. Well, more than a bit really. I scare incredibly easy, and there was many a moment in Night Beach that had me longing to place my fingers over my eyes and peek through them as I read. What’s the last book you read that completely and utterly unnerved you?

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. It’s about a young man who spends the Norwegian winter in an old trapper’s camp. Alone – or so he thinks. It scared me to the point where I could only read it during daylight hours. I would have stopped altogether, but the writing is so good that I had to know what happened.

We never know for sure exactly what happened to Kane and his friends that night on the beach, making it the type of story that could easily become a myth or urban legend passed from mouth to mouth until no one knows for sure if there was ever any truth to it. Did any particular story you’ve heard spark the idea for what Kane experienced?

Yes. I was researching a surf trip to the Maldives and I came across an account of what happened to a group of guys after they’d spent the night on a deserted island there. It was all about the aftermath, but it got me thinking about what could have happened on that island. The annoying thing is, I’ve never been able to find that post again. One of the mysteries of the internet ...

Do you consider yourself a superstitious person?

The only thing I’m ridiculously superstitious about is the number twenty-seven. I’d love to know if there’s a word for that.

But in terms of the more everyday superstitions, yes and no. I try to avoid walking under ladders, but I don’t think viewing the new moon through glass is bad luck –I always feel lucky when I see the moon, no matter what the circumstances.

I love a lot of the old sea-going superstitions (like the one used in Night Beach – about shipwrecks occurring if the rim of a glass rings). But I’m possibly more into symbolism than superstition. That’s why things like mirrors, black dogs, doorways, and shadows feature heavily in the story.  

If you heard a building or home near you was haunted, are you the type to go immediately to see if you experience anything supernatural or are you the type to stay far, far away?

When I was growing up, my friends and I seemed to take delicious pleasure from scaring ourselves stupid. We always checked the local “haunted” places out. As an adult, I think I’d be more hesitant. That said, the house in Night Beach is based on a place where we lived for a while. There was a locked door down in the storeroom (complete with ventilation holes, like in the book). And from time to time, the chandeliers would start swaying for no apparent reason (say, in winter, when all the doors and windows were closed, and there was no discernible breeze around at all!). We should have been freaked out, but that house didn’t feel bad. Things like that were just more of a curiosity.

Kane is a darkly fascinating character; a young man who slowly removes the rose-tinted glasses from Abbie’s face as the story progresses to reveal to her a reality slightly different from her longtime fantasy. If the Abbie at the end of Night Beach could tell the Abbie at the beginning one small thing she learned about Kane, what might she tell herself?

That is such a good question. I’ve spent ages thinking about it. I don’t think she’d warn her off; Abbie’s definitely someone who values experience, even when it results in mistakes or failure, over not learning at all. How about: He’s more afraid than you think, and you’re braver than you know. 

Abbie is a talented painter. If she had to paint the emotional journey she takes in Night Beach using only three colors, what three colors would she choose?

Ultramarine blue (for the beyond), black (for the shadows), white (for the light).

Is there any one line in Night Beach that gave you chills the minute you wrote it?

“The other place. Pinty said you’re going to the other place.”

Thanks for having me, Jenny, and thank you for such brilliant questions! Now I have to go and turn the lights on.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions Kirsty! You can find more information on Kirsty and order her books here:

Website
Blog
Fishpond Buy Link

GIVEAWAY

I have one paperback copy of Night Beach to give away on the blog today! To enter, please just leave a comment on this blog post sharing the creepiest book you've ever read, and be sure to include an email address so I can contact you if you win. This giveaway is open to US residents only and will run through midnight on Friday, October 5th after which time a winner will be chosen and emailed. Good luck everyone!

NIGHT BEACH

Imagine there is someone you like so much that just thinking about them leaves you desperate and reckless. You crave them in a way that's not rational, not right, and you're becoming somebody you don't recognise, and certainly don't respect, but you don't even care.

And this person you like is unattainable. Except for one thing...

He lives downstairs.

Abbie has three obsessions. Art. The ocean. And Kane.

But since Kane's been back, he's changed. There's a darkness shadowing him that only Abbie can see. And it wants her in its world.

Review: Night Beach

NIGHT BEACH

Kirsty Eagar
Paranormal Young Adult
324 pages
Penguin Books Australia
Available Now (limited release)
Received from author for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

Imagine there is someone you like so much that just thinking about them leaves you desperate and reckless. You crave them in a way that's not rational, not right, and you're becoming somebody you don't recognise, and certainly don't respect, but you don't even care.

And this person you like is unattainable. Except for one thing...

He lives downstairs.

Abbie has three obsessions. Art. The ocean. And Kane.

But since Kane's been back, he's changed. There's a darkness shadowing him that only Abbie can see. And it wants her in its world.

MY THOUGHTS

Night Beach is a story of infinite complexity – easily inviting readers into a life riddled with emotional holes in the shape of a mother and a longtime crush, and enveloping us in a world we can practically touch while captivating us with a heroine whose every emotion reverberates through us. One of the joys of reading Ms. Eagar’s work is meeting her characters, young women and men who are so gloriously real the paper pages fall away and we find ourselves watching the lives of friends unfold before us, their problems often heartbreaking in a way that doesn’t necessarily inspire tears, but rather creates a soul-deep ache we feel more completely than we do salty drops on our cheeks. Night Beach is not quite as emotional as Raw Blue, but it has the same quiet intensity to it, tendrils of supernatural activity winding their way through an otherwise contemporary tale to create a lingering sense of unease, our minds forever questioning whether or not we believe what Abbie is seeing.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Ms. Eagar’s characters is the way they’re put together – small tidbits of who they are fed to us slowly, but so often vital slivers of information are merely hinted at, allowing us the opportunity to infer certain things about them so that we feel as though we’ve earned a piece of them for ourselves to hold close and treasure. The defining attributes of Abbie as a person are never simply told to us, instead we learn about her as we see her react to specific situations and people, her thoughts and actions beginning to paint a picture while still letting us fill in some of Abbie’s blanks with colors of our own. Abbie, like the rest of us, is a myriad of strengths and flaws melded together, her obsession with Kane something she recognizes as ultimately unhealthy, but yet something she craves nonetheless. Normally, as an outside observer, it would be easy for us to want to throttle Abbie for not seeing the situation clearly, but because we feel so connected to her, the tangled emotional mess Kane creates in her echoes through us, and we struggle as she does to separate what’s real, what’s wishful thinking, and what’s outside the realm of possibility.

Kane is highly enigmatic, someone who we desperately want to be the young man Abbie sees when she looks at him, but throughout the story she and we as readers are forced to open our eyes and really look at him, watching as the shape he holds in our minds alters and shifts for reasons both normal and paranormal. It’s the combination of normal and paranormal with regard to Kane that makes this story so eerily fascinating, forcing us to wonder which parts of him are the true Kane and which parts a result of something sinister and otherworldly, and Ms. Eagar dazzles us with her ability to beautifully blur everything about him to the point we’re not sure we’ll ever be able to solve the mystery of who he is. He’s fantasy and nightmare in one, seducing and haunting us at the same time with his tortured state until we’re convinced he’s nothing more than smoke and mirrors, disappearing through our fingers the minute we reach out to grab him.

Overall, Night Beach is another strong addition to Ms. Eagar’s already impressive resume, a slow story that bends reality’s parameters and tests our ability to believe in the rational explanation.

Rating: 4/5

Kirsty Eagar Week: Cover Design + Giveaway

First of all, I want to take a moment to thank Linds from Bibliophile Brouhaha and Nic from Irresistible Reads as well as Kirsty Eagar for putting together this event. Raw Blue remains one of my very favorite books, and I cannot wait to read more from Kirsty!

You know when you see the 'one'. It peers at you from its place on the shelf as you creep around the corner. You see its design, take in its font as it mesmorizes you with the promise of what's inside.

Oh, book covers, where would our book lust be without you?

In honor of Kirsty Eagar Appreciation Week, I thought I'd take a look at what makes the covers of Kirsty's Eagar's books tick, along with comments from the some of the people behind them!

RAW BLUE (2009)

Thoughts from the designer, Tony Palmer:

I always felt a strong sense of presence of the main character in Raw Blue . . . but I also wanted to get some kind of tension on the cover. Something that might indicate the main character’s back story. The publisher’s brief was pretty strong on this point as well.

For Raw Blue I wanted to tap into the surf culture – but I didn’t want to go too deep and brand the book as being a product of that culture (because Raw Blue is much more than that). I dug around the local newsagency looking at surf magazines. I had some ideas and eventually several fonts I liked.

Probably the hardest thing about design is selling it. Firstly I have to believe in what I’m doing, then I have to get the Art Director to like it. After that, I have to show the editor and the publisher and after that (Gawd) a small, select number of covers goes to a ‘cover meeting’ held by the various publishing, marketing and sales directors, and after that (Gawd, Gawd, Gawd) we then show the author (who usually shows it to their spouse, dog and butcher) . . .

The cover of Raw Blue was a little tricky, but not too bad. All of my ideas about tension were thrown out, and I had to go back for a second round of research. I think the tension idea was becoming too cerebral, and maybe just a little too smart for its own good. But on the second round of searching for images I came across the image of the girl. It felt perfect. Just couldn’t get past it. Adding in the background and colourising the images was the final stage.

**special thanks to Kirsty Eagar for allowing us to repost from her blog entry Book design – the process…**

SALTWATER VAMPIRES (2010)

*cover by designer Marina Messiha*

Thoughts from Penguin Australia Senior Editor Amy Thomas, who first developed ideas on what the cover should look like:

I have to admit that I got completely carried away with my brief for this cover. The main thing that I wanted to emphasise was that we needed something suggestive of the story without being a cliché. The strengths of this book are its originality and Australianness – it weaves in the savage mutiny of the Batavia that took place off the coast of WA with a plot that involves vampires and very authentic, funny, likeable teen characters from an Australian coastal town, who are all gearing up for the town’s music festival.

I’m actually a little bit embarrassed when I look at my specific ideas now! Basically these were meant just as a springboard for Marina to come up with her own interpretation. In the end, the final cover is quite different and far more arresting than I could ever have imagined it would be; this is one of the wonderful and satisfying things about the whole cover process. It really is a lot of fun!

What can I say? As soon as I saw it, I had chills down my spine. I just love, love, love how Jamie’s eyes really draw you in – they mesmerise you – and this reflects some important scenes in the book, too (Jamie in front of the mirror; Jamie running through the bush), so that really pleased me. It was one of those moments where you just say, ‘Wow!’ In that instant I knew we had our cover.



And thoughts from author Kirsty Eagar:

What's so cool about the cover process is that it gives you someone else's interpretation of the story and the characters, and while their perception is different to yours, it's equally true. It means you get to see the whole thing from a different angle. In a way, knowing the back story made me anxious after the event! And that's because the final cover is the perfect cover, and I'm SO glad that Marina kept going until it was developed. I am never, ever going to forget the reaction I had when I first saw it. I felt winded. Just gobsmacked. Not only did it capture the story, but it also inspired me – it seemed to encapsulate everything about where I wanted to go with my writing. All that in just one arresting image!"

**special thanks to Between the Lines, Penguin Australia's site for teen readers, for graciously allowing us to repost from their two features How a Book Becomes a Cover, Parts I and II (p.s. part II has examples of great early concepts for Saltwater Vampires).**

NIGHT BEACH (February 2012)

*cover by designer Marina Messiha*

I personally adore this cover. From a design standpoint I think it's beautifully executed, the muted blacks and grays giving it soft quality that makes you want to reach out and touch it just to see if any texture meets your fingertips. While the image of the girl merged with the waves down is simple, there's still a great deal of movement created with her tangled hair and the splash of the water which automatically draws the eye to it.

The entire cover to me has an eerie but romantic feel, making me want to step into this world while simultaneously warning me to stay out of it. I can't wait to get my hands on this one, this cover needs to be proudly displayed on my shelf!

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Linds, Nic and Kirsty I have a signed copy of Saltwater Vampires to give away on the blog today! To enter, just leave a comment on this post with a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and will run through midnight EST on Wednesday, September 7th after which time a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog. Good luck everyone!