Author Interview: Jennifer Armentrout

I'm beyond thrilled today to welcome author Jennifer Armentrout back to the blog to answer some questions about the latest novel in her Covenant series, Deity. I'm a huge fan of these books, and also more than slightly in love with Aiden, so if you haven't had a chance to pick them up yet, I hope they make their way to the top of your list soon! For me this series just keeps getting better, and Deity had me riveted from action-packed beginning to action-packed end (read my review for both Pure and Deity HERE), so be prepared to set aside a solid block of reading time if and when you pick this one up.

Let’s say Alex, Aiden and Seth are accompanying you to a book signing for Deity. What introductory question might Alex ask each boy so the audience could get to know them better?
 
I’m not sure any question Alex would pick would serve any true purpose other than to amuse her. She would probably ask Seth why he thought he was so awesome and ask Aiden why is he so fascinated with James Bond.

If you had to pick a single scene from any of the books to write from Aiden’s point of view just to get in his head, which would you choose and why?

There’s a certain scene in Deity I’d love to do in his POV. Well, two scenes. One involves Linard and, well, there is another one. 

If you were at the Covenant and had to undergo all the training that Alex and company do to learn to fight and kill Daimons, in what area do you think you’d excel (hand to hand, particular weapon specialty, strategy etc.)?

I would love to say something with knives and daggers, because that sounds super cool, but I know I would suck at that. You should see me playing darts. RUN! I think I would be good at grappling.

Neither Seth nor Alex love the bond between them that allows them to occasionally pick up on the emotional state of the other, but what might each of them say is one positive thing about their connection?

They both would agree it lets each of the know when the other is in trouble—typically. Sometimes distance lessens the bond, but it helps them know if something is going down.

You can bring in one villain from another book for Alex and Aiden to test their mettle against. Who do you think they’d enjoy facing the most, and who would best give the two of them a run for their money?

I would bring in a truck load of demons from any book that had demons running amuck in them. I think both Alex and Aiden would need a lot to test their skills. Outside the demons, I think Alex would enjoy fighting dementors from Harry Potter (did I spell that right???) and Aiden would like to square off against a dragon. He’s got a thing for fire.

What’s your single favorite element of the world you created in the Covenant series?

The society. It’s something that a lot of readers dislike, but they’re supposed to dislike the society. I based it on ancient Greek civilization during the time they worshipped gods. It was a really stratified society that wasn’t fair. It creates the perfect backdrop for the story.

Deity concludes on a rather epic cliffhanger. What book has the most intense cliffhanger you’ve ever read and how long was the wait until the next installment?

Oh gosh, I’m trying to think here. I usually hate cliffhangers… when I’m not writing them. Ha! I can’t think of one, but it always feels like a thousand years before the next one comes out.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions Jennifer! More information on Jennifer and her books can be found here:

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Buy Deity on Amazon

DEITY 

Alexandria isn't sure she's going to make it to her eighteenth birthday--to her Awakening. A long-forgotten, fanatical order is out to kill her, and if the Council ever discovers what she did in the Catskills, she's a goner... and so is Aiden.

If that's not freaky enough, whenever Alex and Seth spend time "training"--which really is just Seth's code word for some up-close and personal one-on-one time--she ends up with another mark of the Apollyon, which brings her one step closer to Awakening ahead of schedule. Awesome.

But as her birthday draws near, her entire world shatters with a startling revelation and she's caught between love and Fate. One will do anything to protect her. One has been lying to her since the beginning. Once the gods have revealed themselves, unleashing their wrath, lives will be irrevocably changed... and destroyed.

Those left standing will discover if love is truly greater than Fate...

Double Review: Pure + Deity

PURE/DEITY

Covenant Novels #2 and #3

Jennifer L. Armentrout

Paranormal Young Adult

Spencer Hill Press

Pure: Available Now

Deity: Available November 6th

Received from publisher for review

PURE (from Goodreads)
There is need. And then there is Fate
 
Being destined to become some kind of supernatural electrical outlet isn't exactly awesome--especially when Alexandria's "other half" is everywhere she goes. Seth's in her training room, outside her classes, and keeps showing up in her bedroom--so not cool. Their connection does have some benefits, like staving off her nightmares of the tragic showdown with her mother, but it has no effect on what Alex feels for the forbidden, pure-blooded Aiden. Or what he will do--and sacrifice--for her.
 
When daimons infiltrate the Covenants and attack students, the gods send furies--lesser gods determined to eradicate any threat to the Covenants and to the gods, and that includes the Apollyon and Alex. And if that and hordes of aether-sucking monsters didn't blow bad enough, a mysterious threat seems willing to do anything to neutralize Seth, even if that means forcing Alex into servitude or killing her.
 
When the gods are involved, some decisions can never, ever be undone.

MY THOUGHTS
Books two and three in the Covenant series build beautifully on the events of Half-Blood, drastically increasing not only the emotional intensity between Alex, Aiden, and Seth, but also the physical intensity between our heroine and the innumerable dangers facing her as a half-blood and an apollyon. Ms. Armentrout’s world is one that continuously ignites our anger and frustration, the treatment of the half-bloods something that sets our teeth to grinding and our fists to clenching as we are constantly reminded that they are perfect to sleep with, abuse, and defend the Pures with their lives, but it remains unacceptable for those who consider themselves an exalted race to love, respect, or die for them in turn. With Pure and continuing into Deity, Ms. Armentrout introduces a new villain, a man who strictly adheres to the most revolting of Pure tenets and causes our lips to curl into an involuntary smile as we root for Alex to show him what she’s made of.

Alex is as entertaining as ever, her smart mouth continuing to get her into trouble with classmates and authority figures alike, and while we sometimes share in the viewpoint of those around her who wish she were a little less outspoken when in the presence of those who have the power to make her life miserable, we can’t help but appreciate her determination to stand her ground, however misguided at times. As she did in Half-Blood, she often makes snap decisions that have monstrous consequences, but she’s always quick to recognize and admit her mistakes instead of clinging to the pretense that she’s always right. She shows a distinct vulnerability in both Pure and Deity – her love for Aiden like an open wound that’s poked and prodded with rough fingers and her fear that her Awakening will fundamentally alter who she is a piece of sandpaper that rubs and abrades sensitive skin again, and again, and again.

The romantic element is present on a grand scale in both books, the seemingly impossible relationship with Aiden creating a raw ache in our chests as he pushes her away from him and toward Seth, and though we might roll our eyes at the familiar plot device, Ms. Armentrout executes it in spectacular fashion, leaving us with heavy hearts and hollow souls as Alex struggles. What works so well in Alex’s case is that the love triangle is one of circumstance as opposed to conflicted feelings, her heart belonging solely and indisputably to Aiden while her connection to Seth becomes something manufactured as a result of their bond as Apollyons. Seth does play his role as potential suitor stunningly well though, every now and then the cocky arrogance set aside in favor of what appears to be sincerity, but the most intense of their interludes are always precipitated by a change in – or strengthening of – the spiritual cord running between them, reminding us of the difference between what Alex shares with him and what she shares with Aiden.

Readers should prepare themselves for a massive cliffhanger with Deity, the last page leaving us with the desperate desire to write Ms. Armentrout and see what we can do or say to help move the release date for Apollyon up several months. Things in the next book will no doubt be even darker and more intense than what we’ve experienced thus far, and time is sure to pass excruciatingly slowly as we wait to see what’s to become of Alex, Aiden, and Seth.

Rating: 4.5/5

Interview: Julianna Baggott and Pure

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming author Julianna Baggott to the blog to answer a few questions about her young adult novel Pure which just released this week. Pure features a beautifully strange, dark, and disturbing world that's truly the stuff of dreams and nightmares, staying burned in my memory long after reading:) Hope you enjoy the interview!

Let’s say that right this minute the same detonations that decimated Pressia’s world and changed it forever hit us. What, at this exact moment, would you fuse with? Can you describe your post-detonation self?

Well, as I read it, my hand was curved to the mouse – so that would embed. To my right, there’s a glass lantern, and the blue light of the printer, and a 1950s-era desk fan – the brand is called Eskimo. That aged fan could get blown into me, and I’d have a shoulder of caged fan blades.

Everyone who dies inside the dome (and some family members outside of it) have a small box of mementos kept in storage that survivors can visit. If you could choose what went in your box, what couple of items would you put in to share with your loved ones?

This is hard. I’m not an object person, per se. I’d include photographs – ones that mean something – ones that say: this is who you come from. I have one of my great grandmother who ran a house of prostitution during the Great Depression. Most photos of the era are tidy and stern, but she’s wearing a paper-dress she made herself, her kinky hair is loose down her back, and she’s glaring at the camera – she’s maybe 15. I have one of my grandfather (not my biological grandfather but the man I knew as my grandfather) – a double amputee and WWII vet. He’s in a wheelchair, holding my grandmother in his arms and she’s kicking up her legs. That. That’s what I’d keep in a box to hand down.

What aspect of Pressia—either physically or personality-wise—first popped into your head when you were conceptualizing Pure?

The doll-head fist existed in a failed story. Once Pressia was there – in the ashen cabinet – the doll appeared and words came – They will come for you if … a litany. And so it began.

If you were to play “I Remember” with the people in Pressia’s world, what memory would you most want to share with them?

You’re SO damn good at this!

Okay. I remember checking on my children asleep in their beds. The humidifier kicking out puffs of steam. Their legs kicking the covers. Their purring snores. Their heads a little damp with sweat. I remember walking downstairs after and telling my husband that they’re all fine and fast asleep, and patting the dogs curled on their pillows. Night. Calm night.

Pure has a hugely imaginative and awe-inspiring world. Is there a specific world from another piece of fiction that you’ve been completely absorbed by when reading?

I literally read parts of Cider House Rules while in early labor. (I tend to labor for days. There’s time to read, sadly.) That’s a very strange and engrossing read – I mean, if you can read while in labor, that’s a real testament to the writer. John Irving is that good.

If you could spend a day with one of your characters and they could ask you one question about how you created them or how you wrote their story, who would it be and what might they ask?

I think of El Capitan. He turned on me, you know. He was supposed to be so hardened and really he’s got this endless tenderness. He’d want to know what he’s supposed to do, how he’s supposed to exist in this world – being both of those things, hard and tender. His father left him. His mother’s gone. Both before the Detonations. He was alone in charge of his little brother. In some ways, he’s the one who needs the most mothering. I don’t know how to answer the question though. I don’t know how to be both hard and tender in our own world, yet alone theirs.

How do you think you’d fair against one of the Beasts or Dusts?

While shooting the film Norma Rae, the actress Sally Field was going to be hauled off by two cops and put into the back of a cop car. The director told her to fight with everything she had, everything. Sally Field has to be just a little over five feet if that and thin. She fought so hard, she broke the ribs of one of the actors in the role of a cop.

I’d fight. I don’t think I’d win in the end, but I’d break some ribs along the way.

If pre-detonation Pressia could leave post-detonation Pressia a note in one of the memento boxes in the dome, what would she tell her future self?

Beauty endures. Faith endures. Love endures.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions Julianna! More information on Julianna and her books can be found here:

Website
Blog
Twitter
Amazon

PURE

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.