Fiery Hot Reads: Review & Give@way of Between by Kerry Schafer & Author Interview

Today I am hosting a stop for the feature for Fiery Hot Reads for Icy Cold Nights, hosted by Rainy Day Ramblings, Cambria Hebert, Love of Books, Mostly Reviews and The Caffeinated Reviewer (find info HERE).  This is perfect timing because Kerry Schafer's debut novel, Between, releases tomorrow!  So I have done a review for you guys and invited her to the blog to answer a few questions.  And then of course there's a giveaway as well!

Between by Kerry Schafer

paperback, 304 pages

Published: Jan. 29th, 2013 by Ace

Source: Publisher

Vivian Maylor can’t sleep. Maybe it’s because she just broke up with her boyfriend and moved to a new town, or it could be the stress of her new job at the hospital. But perhaps it’s because her dreams have started to bleed through into her waking hours.

All of her life Vivian has rejected her mother’s insane ramblings about Dreamworlds for concrete science and fact, until an emergency room patient ranting about dragons spontaneously combusts before her eyes—forcing Viv to consider the idea that her visions of mythical beasts might be real.

And when a chance encounter leads her to a man she knows only from her dreams, Vivian finds herself falling into a world that seems strange and familiar all at once—a world where the line between dream and reality is hard to determine, and hard to control…

Debut author Kerry Schafter has created a fantastic new world and creative story.  This book is urban fantasy but has some strong high fantasy elements.  Go in knowing this and you should be good, but some who don't like high fantasy didn't care for that aspect.  I love high fantasy, so I loved that aspect the best.  The book takes place in the here and now, but Vivian has always had these dreams of this place that has dragons and is sort from a fairytale world.  This place is actually a real place, even if it is a dreamworld.  And it works very well.

Vivian is a doctor and she thinks logically, scientifically.  So it's hard for to accept that this stuff she's dreaming of could be real.  But it gets to a point where she can no longer deny it.  Once she does it's a crazy ride from one reality to another with lots of weird stuff going on.  

The book could be confusing, some have found it to be so, but I didn't.  For some reason I was able to follow everything quite well and understand what was happening.  Yes, at times it was hard to wrap my head around but that was just because it was so crazy.  So somehow the author made what is a crazy world with lots of weird twists and turns into something that works and didn't leave me in the dust saying 'whaaat?'.   It just worked.

There are some amazing characters in the book.  I liked Vivian a lot, but she initially wasn't the one that stood out for me, but as the story continued I really started to like her more and more.  The villain was also pretty great.  It's hard to talk about her because you need to go in not really knowing what role she plays.  It's pretty obvious pretty quickly and I figured it all out long before Vivian did, but it's still something you want to watch unravel and not know before hand.  I can tell you this villain is definitely one that you'll want to stab in the eye.  And maybe will start wishing a dragon would eat her already...  There's another villain as well, and this one is not so cut and dry.  He's one of those characters that you really hate, they really do these awful things, but yet they have a sliver (a small one) of decency in them and so you can't quite wish for a dragon to eat them, but yet you wish horrible things up on them.  

Another favorite character is actually not a person but a penguin.  Yep, seems a bit left field, but you'll see, this is one cool penguin and you'll find yourself wishing you had your own penguin as a side kick... 

And the romance... well, it's not a romance that has a chance to develop in this book.  There's a lot of eye catching and attraction but they don't even get a chance for more.  However it's clear that there WILL be more and I have a feeling I'm going to LOVE it!  I already love Zee and see that he's a complicated character (in a good way!) and we get to see a couple different sides to him.  The artsy bookish guy at first, the angry guy, determined to do right, and the warrior guy, just following orders, but knowing what's right and wrong and not being able to follow his heart.  At first anyway.  I'm excited to see where his character goes next.

This book was pretty constant action, I never found myself bored.  It was easy to keep reading and cruise through the book and then wish it wasn't over already.  It's definitely a series I am dying to read more of, but it doesn't have a cliffhanger (thank goodness!).  This book is for mature readers, there's sexual content as well as some very gory scenes (though short and far between).  

I definitely recommend you give this book a shot!

Disclosure: I received this book for review purposes.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.

 

Author Q&A

Your publishing journey is a bit different than most people's, can you tell us a bit about how your book was discovered?

Sure. In case everybody here doesn't know about Book Country, it's a fabulous online space for genre fiction writers and readers to share and read fiction, give feedback, and discover new books.

Writers are able to post what they've written, and readers and professionals can read and critique. Somewhere around November of 2010, I posted a couple of chapters of Between on Book Country. One of the editors working on the site brought it to the attention of editor Susan Allison at Berkley. She loved what she read and asked for a full, and then made an offer of representation. I went from unrepresented and unpublished to having a dream agent and an awesome book deal within the course of a week!

That is amazing!  Now if only we were all so lucky! 

Dreams are an important aspect to the story, do you dream and are they as fantastic as the ones in your book?

I do dream, and some of them are wondrous strange. But no – nothing approaching Vivian's dreams! For which I am eternally grateful.

I have some pretty active dreams myself, good and bad.  Luckily nothing like Vivian's though... 

Between is the first in what I assume is going to be a series, can you tell us how many books you plan to have in it? And when can we expect the next book to come out?

I have planned a trilogy. Book Two – tentatively titled Wakeworld – is with my editor awaiting her revision orders. I have not yet been told when to expect publication – I may be as surprised as the rest of you.

I hope it's not TOO long!  

What can you share with us from the second book? Can you tell us anything about what happens in it (without being spoilery)? 

Now that is tricky, since so many people haven't read the first book yet. So anything I tell you about the second book is going to give something away about Between. Also, any and all things are subject to editorial cuts. How about a little teaser excerpt of the current draft?
 

"Less than two arm lengths away a dark ungainly form lay twisted and motionless, wings splayed wide in the sand. Where his right eye had been was now a shattered cavern. Black blood steamed in the sand.

Zee stood over his kill with the gun still in his hand, his scarred face alight with his victory.

Vivian watched him, wordless, still fighting to draw breath. Silent tears ran down her cheeks. He knelt facing her, reached out a hand to touch her face, but stopped and let it fall back. "It needed killing. You must see that." A fresh burn on his cheek, etched there by a splash of dragon blood, emphasized his words.

"But he didn't know better, Zee. He was young…" Young and beautiful and alive beyond imagining.

"Even so," he said, and then, "It was just a dragon, Viv. Don't waste your tears."

She laughed, short and bitter as his words went home. "Blood of my blood," she said.

Realization dawned in his eyes, too late. "No, you are not one of them, not really -"

"But I am. And you were made to hunt them. What are we to do about that?"

Aw, I love it!

What is something near and dear to your heart that you would like to share with us?

I work as a mental health counselor and put in five years of time in crisis mental health. One thing I'm passionate about is the abysmal condition of mental health care in the US. Most people have no idea about the extreme shortage of psychiatric hospital beds, or the fact that people in crisis can be held for days in emergency rooms waiting for the treatment bed and the psychiatric care they need. It's something I don't talk about a lot, because once I get started I'm likely to rant for hours. Zipping lips now.

Oh, I love when someone is really passionate about something!  I'm not familiar with this issue, but it sounds like something that really needs to be worked on.  Especially with so many people with mental health issues doing things like shootings in schools and malls, we need to be sure to have the proper treatment for them and easily accessible.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thank you so much for inviting me over to your site, and for reviewing BETWEEN.

Thanks to the folks at Ace, I have one paperback copy of Between for one of you.

US only

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Ends 2/12/13

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