RITA AWARD Winner Emily McKay

THE FARM

Berkley

Life was different in the Before: before vampires began devouring humans in a swarm across America; before the surviving young people were rounded up and quarantined. These days, we know what those quarantines are—holding pens where human blood is turned into more food for the undead monsters, known as Ticks. Surrounded by electrical fences, most kids try to survive the Farms by turning on each other…

And when trust is a thing of the past, escape is nearly impossible.

Lily and her twin sister Mel have a plan. Though Mel can barely communicate, her autism helps her notice things no one else notices—like the portion of electrical fence that gets turned off every night. Getting across won’t be easy, but as Lily gathers what they need to escape, a familiar face appears out of nowhere, offering to help…

Carter was a schoolmate of Lily’s in the Before. Managing to evade capture until now, he has valuable knowledge of the outside world. But like everyone on the Farm, Carter has his own agenda, and he knows that behind the Ticks is an even more dangerous threat to the human race...

READ SOME OF RWA YOUNG ADULT RITA WINNER,

THE FARM

THE STORY CONTINUES...

Coming in November 2013

THE LAIR

 Excerpt

By the time I reached the driver’s-side door, I was done keeping the anger in check. I wanted to rip the Hummer apart. I wanted to peel the damn thing like an orange and leave it in pieces. I might have actually done it, too, but we’d need it to drive away in.

Lily slid over as I climbed into the driver’s seat. “What’s going on? What happened?”

I immediately reached for the ignition, but realized she still held the keys. “Give me the keys. We’re getting out of here.”
She looked down like she was surprised to see them in her hand. She hesitated, and I could feel her looking from Merc—who had followed me up to the gate and was now opening it—to my hand gripping the steering wheel so tightly I was surprised it didn’t crack.


She was too damn smart not to figure out something was very wrong. “Can you first tell me what’s going on?”


I didn’t want to tell her, but figured she had the right to know how badly I’d screwed this up. “Right after I left for Texas to find you, a group went out on a food raid and got attacked by a Tick. There were four survivors. No one realized that one of them had been exposed to the virus. He disappeared into the catacombs deep inside the mountain. Thank God someone figured out what had happened before he killed anyone else. ...”

“Damn.” She muttered the word on a soft exhale.

“That’s why Base Camp is all shut down. They’re hiding in there. They’re too terrified to come out and risk infection again. Merc said he’ll let us in, but only if we spend time in quarantine.”

I looked over at Lily to see her staring straight out the front windshield. Her chin had that stubborn jut to it and I could tell her mind was racing through the events of the story she’d just heard. She twisted in her seat to look at me, but she kept the keys clutched in her hand. “Okay. So what’s the problem? Why are we leaving?”

“Lily, when I got you and Mel out of that Farm, I promised to keep you safe. But I didn’t. Our trip here was one screw-up after another. But I thought that at least once we got here, everything would work out. But now—” My throat closed over the word as I imagined Lily trapped there in that mountain with a killer. Panic hit me again and all I could do was curse.

I looked over at Lily, expecting to see horror on her face. Or fear. Panic, like mine. But she was frowning, head tipped a little to the side.

“So you think we should go?”


“Yes. Hell, yes.”


“Just drive off and leave them? I don’t understand. Why would we—”
“Because I thought it was safe here and it’s not. If Base Camp isn’t safe, if we can’t even go out looking for food without getting attacked by Ticks, then we’re all screwed. We can’t survive like this. I can’t protect you—”

“Maybe it’s not your job to protect me. No, wait. Hear me out, okay?” She waited until I nodded before she continued. “When you rescued me, you thought I was an abductura, you thought I had this amazing power to lead the human resistance and sway people’s opinions. Whatever. If I had been an abductura, then, yes, keeping me alive would have been more important than anything else. But I’m not that person. Which means you don’t have to work so hard to protect me.”

“Lily, that’s not the only reason I want to keep you safe.” The thought of her hurt, in pain...it drove me crazy.

But she waved aside my comment. “Maybe I can’t lead the rebellion, but I still want to fight. We’ve made it this far. I’m not going to turn around now.”

“Don’t you get it? If you’re not the abductura, then there’s no one to lead the rebellion. We don’t have a leader. We don’t have security. We don’t have shit. There is no human rebellion. Which is why you need to hand over the keys so we can just get out of here.”

“No.” Lily clung tightly to those keys. “As far as you and I know, this is the last outpost of free humans on the planet. Maybe there are still pockets of humanity in Canada or Beijing or Brazil or wherever, but as far as we know, for certain, this is it. Maybe the rebellion doesn’t have an abductura who can magically brain- wash other humans into joining, but the rebellion still has a leader and that leader is you. It always has been. And you can’t just turn your back on these people. Not for me. Not for anyone. They need you.”

When Lily talked like that—like I was some kind of friggin’ hero—I couldn’t even look at her. The weight of her expectations was too damn heavy on my shoulders. All I wanted was to keep her safe. To just bury my face in her hair and hold her close and maybe forget for a few hours how completely screwed up everything was. But instead, I had to go save the world.

HAVE YOU MET EMILY McKAY?

Emily McKay loves to read, shop, and geek out about movies. When she’s not writing, she reads on-line gossip and bakes luscious deserts. She pretends that her weekly yoga practice balances out both of those things. She lives in central Texas with her family and her crazy pets. She also co-write young adult rom-coms as Ivy Adams. She recently won the Rita award for best Young Adult novel for The Farm.

ANGI: What’s your favorite “love” word?

EMILY: Hmm, I'm not sure I understand the question. Like, what's my favorite word for "love"? I really like "adore," but I think my favorite is "yearn." It's so angsty and delicious. I guess that's why I write YA in addition to series romance. Love all that angst!

ANGI: Can you tell us about a real-life hero you’ve met?

EMILY: Okay, warning: sappy, emotional stuff ahead.

When my parents met their senior year in high school, my mother was beautiful and vibrant, the belle of every ball (or sock hop as the case may be). She'd won several beauty pageants and was so sought after for dates, she once had dates with three different boys on the same day. My father, on the other hand, was shy, quiet and intensely smart. He spoke with a stutter so pronounced, sometimes he would call her on the phone and be unable to say anything at all. In fact, they'd been married for over a decade before he admitted that to her. Yet, somehow, they fell in love. 

In the nearly fifty years they've been married, they've had many ups and downs, most of them related to my mother's health. She's suffered with arthritis for most of her adult life, as well as Multiple Sclerosis and now kidney failure. She's also bi-polar. All of her amazing charisma and charm have a shadow side, one that I'm sure hasn't always been easy to deal with. But he asked her to marry him knowing she was bi-polar. He has loved her and stayed with her all these years. He loves her completely, the great and the challenging. He takes care of her no matter what. That's a true hero.

ANGI: What do you like about the hero of your book?

EMILY: I love that Carter is completely devoted to Lily. He has dubious external motives and very questionable ways of achieving his goals, but in the end, for Carter, it's all about Lily.

ANGI: Is there a playlist you’d recommend for reading your latest release?

EMILY: One of the characters in The Farm, Mel, is kind of a musical savant. So Mel definitely has a song. It's Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini." It's such a lush and romantic song, so full of yearning. Then, the hero and heroine have a song of their own. It's The Naked and Famous's "Young Blood," which I think perfectly captures the intensity of first love. They are two very different songs, but they both capture intense yearning. Yeah, yeah. I know. Again with the yearning, right?

ANGI: I heard you're a fan of TMNT? Who's your favorite Mutant Turtle?

EMILY: Oooh, great question! I'm curious how you know that about me. Was it the TMNT reference in The Tycoon's Temporary Baby? But, yes, I *loved* TMNT when I was in college and watched it obsessively. As for my favorite "hero on a half shell", it's Rafael, of course! The smart ass, bad boy? I'm all over that.

ANGI: I could have guessed that one! Love my TMNT. *I* used to watch it with my son, while you were in college. LOL

ANGI: Where do you read and how often?

EMILY: I am so sad to have to say this, but I don't read nearly as often as I wish I did. I have a real problem reading when I'm writing first drafts. I can only have so many books in my head at a time and mine has to come first. So basically, I have to squeeze books in between books. I just read two books over vacation and it was absolute bliss. When I am reading something I love, I read it intensely. Non-stop. In bed; at the table; at the stoplight; while cooking. I'm completely indiscriminate (and probably slightly unsafe), when it comes to that reading time.

ANGI: What sound or noise do you love?

EMILY: You know when a baby or a kid is sleeping deeply and they make that sort of snuffling sigh sound? That. That's the best noise in the world.

ANGI: Fairy Tale or Action Adventure?

EMILY: Both? I *love* action adventure (books, movies, anything!), but I need at least a hint of romance in there, otherwise, what's the point?

ANGI: What’s your favorite movie of all time?

EMILY: Pride and Prejudice. I love the chemistry between Darcy and Lizzie, and Jane Austen basically set up the structure of all romances (ie. meet cute, internal and external conflict, love through emotional growth). But … I can't pick one. I love all versions of the story: The BBC Colin Firth version, the Keira Knightly version, the BBC mini series Lost in Austen, the on-line serial The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Bridget Jones' Diary. I love them all! (A bit obsessively, truth be told.)

ANGI: So… 'He who shall not be named' was your answer in 2011 about your favorite villain? Has that changed?

EMILY: It's hard to top the dark lord, isn't it? And I think he is still in the running, but I was talking recently with my friend Tracy Wolff about Dolores Umbridge and how terrifying she is. It's her absolute conviction that she's not just in the right, but that she is working for the greater good. She's positively chilling. And those frolicking cats on the plates? <shudder>

"He who shall not be named" is evil in a black and white kind of way. In some ways, Dolores Umbridge is more terrifying because you can imagine an average person sliding down that path.

ANGI: What is your biggest vice?

EMILY: Wine. Or chocolate. Or procrastination.

No … wait. Indecision. Definitely indecision. Well, probably.

Come on, after the favorite movie answer, you had to see this coming, right?

ANGI: Is there a “Blooper” in your story (it may have been changed before printing)?

EMILY: When I was working on The International Kissing Club with Tracy Wolfe and Shellee Roberts (which we published under the name Ivy Adams), I described my character Izzy's younger brother as a "piano protege." I used the term like three times in the book. And we all the way to page proofs (which is the last time the author looks at a book before it goes to print), before I realized what I meant to say was that he was a "piano prodigy." 

ANGI’S GOTTA ASK: What's the favorite thing you've discovered about writing Teen Fiction?

EMILY'S GOTTA ANSWER: I love how involved the fans are! Don't get me wrong, category romance fans are great, but they're quietly great. They buy books in droves, but they rarely send fan mail or write reviews. But YA fans send fan mail and art work and do video reviews. It's so much fun to get to interact with readers that way. The fans are so much fun!   

FIND EMILY:

Contact          Website       The Farm     Facebook    Twitter @Emily_Mc_Kay 

Goodreads    Blog    Previous GLIAS interviews

UP NEXT for EMILY:

THE LAIR

Nov 2013

Berkley Trade

Check out all the PREVIOUS RELEASES by EMILY on her website.

EMILY is giving away a signed copy of The Farm and a super-cool Farm backpack. (International giveaway.)

Note: COMMENTERS are encouraged to leave a contact email address to speed the prize notification process. Offer void where prohibited. Prizes will be mailed to International addresses. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. Winners of drawings are responsible for checking this site in a timely manner. If prizes are not claimed in a timely manner, the author may not have a prize available. Get Lost In A Story cannot be responsible for an author's failure to mail the listed prize. GLIAS does not automatically pass email addresses to guest authors unless the commenter publicly posts their email address.

DON’T FORGET to FOLLOW us on Twitter #GetLostStories or LIKE us on Facebook to keep up with all our guest authors and their prizes. Join Liz tomorrow when RONI LOREN returns with her latest release. And come back Monday when I host RITA award winner, BARBARA FREETHY. ~Angi

EMILY WANTS TO KNOW: Which version of Pride and Prejudice is your favorite? (Or, if you're not an Austen fan, then … um, what's wrong with you? Just kidding! But, seriously, not even Bridget Jones?)

DRUMROLL PLEASE . . .

The Get Lost in a Story crew sends our CONGRATULATIONS to the winners and all the finalists.







BEST FIRST BOOK

THE HAUNTING OF MADDY CLARE
Simone St. James
rafflecopter entry -- north America
see all the finalists

CONTEMPORARY SINGLE TITLE

THE WAY BACK HOME

Barbara Freethy
rafflecopter entry -- north America

rafflecopter entry -- international

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HISTORICAL ROMANCE

A ROGUE BY ANY OTHER NAME
Sarah MacLean
rafflecopter entry -- north America
rafflecopter entry -- international
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INSPIRATIONAL ROMANCE

AGAINST THE TIDE

Elizabeth Camden
rafflecopter entry -- north America
rafflecopter entry -- international
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LONG CONTEMPORARY SERIES ROMANCE

A GIFT FOR ALL SEASONS
Karen Templeton
rafflecopter entry -- north America
rafflecopter entry -- international

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NOVEL with STRONG ROMANTIC ELEMENTS

THE HAUNTING OF MADDY CLARE

Simone St. James
rafflecopter entry -- north America

rafflecopter entry -- international

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PARANORMAL ROMANCE

SHADOW'S CLAIM
Kresley Cole
rafflecopter entry -- north America
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ROMANCE NOVELLA

SEDUCED BY A PIRATE

Eloisa James

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ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

SCORCHED
Laura Griffin
rafflecopter entry -- north America
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SHORT CONTEMPORARY SERIES ROMANCE

A NIGHT OF NO RETURN

Sarah Morgan

rafflecopter entry -- north America

rafflecopter entry -- international

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YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE

THE FARM
Emily McKay
rafflecopter entry -north America
see all the finalists

Congratulations to all the 2013 RITA® WINNERS!

~ ~ ~

JOIN US tomorrow as GLIAS author interviews return with  Donnell hosting Anne Marie Becker. Don’t forget to FOLLOW us on Twitter #GetLostStories or LIKE us on Facebook.
~ ~ ~
THERE'S STILL TIME to 
enter all of the RITA giveaways.
Leave a comment or register through Rafflecopter 
on each RITA feature you're interested in. 
Some of the authors will still be dropping by to comment this week.
Please remember that INTERNATIONAL raffles are open to all.

We'll be posting the winners Sunday, July 28th.

Celebrating Young Adult

The Get Lost in a Story crew sends our CONGRATULATIONS to the

BOUND 

Erica O'Rourke

Choose your fate.

"I beat you. Twice. No magic, and I still beat you. And that was when I didn't know what I was doing." I smiled, cold as the winter sky outside. "Imagine what I'm capable of now."

Kensington Publishing Corp, KTeen
Alicia Condon, editor

Mo Fitzgerald has made her choice: A life in Chicago. A future with Colin. To leave behind the enigmatic Luc and the world of the Arcs. But every decision she's made, from avenging her best friend's death to protecting the people she loves, has come at a terrible price.

As her father returns from prison and the Seraphim regroup, war breaks out in both her worlds. And Mo isn't the only one with secrets to hide and choices to make. The more she struggles to keep her magic and mortal lives separate, the deadlier the consequences. In the end, Mo must risk everything—her life, her heart, her future—or lose it all.

Previously on GLIAS

Website


THE FARM 

Emily McKay

Life was different in the Before: before the Ticks began devouring humans in a deadly swarm across America; before the surviving young people were rounded up and quarantined “for their own protection.” These days, we know what those quarantines are—holding pens where human blood is turned into more food for the Ticks. Surrounded by electrical fences, most kids try to survive the Farms by turning on each other…

And when trust is a thing of the past, escape is nearly impossible.

 Lily and her twin sister Mel have a plan. Though Mel can barely communicate, her autism helps her notice things no one else notices—like the portion of electrical fence that gets turned off every night. Getting across won’t be easy, but as Lily gathers what they need to escape, a familiar face appears out of nowhere, offering to help…

Penguin Group / Berkley Publishing
Michelle Vega, editor

Carter was a schoolmate of Lily’s in the Before. Managing to evade capture until now, he has valuable knowledge of the outside world. But like everyone on the Farm, Carter has his own agenda, and he knows that behind the Ticks is an even more dangerous threat to the human race…

MULTIPLE CHANCES through Rafflecopter to win an autographed copy of Emily McKay's THE FARM and a "Farm" backpack.  Start by leaving a comment.

Join us again at GLIAS on August 4th for another new release from Emily.

Previously on GLIAS

Website



GRAVE MERCY 

Robin LaFevers

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Kate O'Sullivan, editor

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart.

Website

PUSHING THE LIMITS 

Katie McGarry

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.

Harlequin, Harlequin Teen

Margo Lipschultz, editor

But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

Previously on GLIAS

Website

Congratulations to all the nominees for the RITA® in the

Young Adult Romance category!

~ ~ ~

JOIN US tomorrow as RITA® week continues 
with the SHORT CONTEMPORARY SERIES ROMANCE category. 

Don’t forget to FOLLOW us on Twitter #GetLostStories or LIKE us on Facebook.

MULTIPLE CHANCES through Rafflecopter to win
*an autographed copy of Emily McKay's THE FARM 
& a FARM backpack. 
(north America only)
Start by leaving a comment.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE YOUNG ADULT MOVIE?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Emily McKay

Emily McKay is a Rita nominee and a Romantic Times Life Time Achievement nominee. She’s written for Harlequin Temptation, Mills & Boon and Silhouette Desire. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages and there are over half a million copies of her books in print. She's such a total geek that she’ll talk about books with just about anytime anyone stands still long enough to listen. Her books have been described as “complex and surprising” by Romantic Times and “lighter than air” by All About Romance. Her current books is a July Harlequin Desire release, The Tycoon’s Temporary Baby. She also co-writes young adult as Ivy Adams. The International Kissing Club will be out in January 2012.

The Tycoon's Temporary Baby

To keep custody of her baby niece, Wendy Leland needs a rich, successful husband—fast. But when Wendy's very rich, very successful, very sexy boss offers himself as temporary husband, she's reluctant. In such close quarters, reining in her crush will be tough—and necessary. Because tightly controlled tycoon Jonathon Bagdon can only be proposing for one reason: to stop his star assistant from leaving. But when he plays the role of newlywed with passion, it becomes crystal clear that going from boardroom to bedroom will change both their bottom lines.

Excerpt

Jonathon Bagdon just wanted his assistant to come home, damn it.
Wendy Leland had left seven days ago to attend a family funeral. In the time she’d been gone, his whole company had started falling apart. A major deal she’d been finessing had fallen through. He’d missed an important deadline because the first temp had erased his online calendar. The second temp had accidentally sent R&D’s latest prototype to Beijing instead of Bangalore. The head of HR had threatened to quit twice. And no fewer than five women had run out of his office in tears.

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the fourth temp had deep-fried the coffee maker. So he hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in three days. All in all, this was not his best moment.

Was it really too much to ask that at this particular time— when both of his business partners were out of town and when he was putting the finishing touches on the proposal for a crucial contract—that his assistant just come home?

Jonathon stared into his mug of instant coffee. contemplating whether he could ask Jeanell—the head of HR—to go out and buy a coffee maker, or if that would send her over the edge. Not that Jeanell was at the office yet. Most of the staff wandered in sometime around nine. It was barely seven.

Yes, he could have just gone out to buy himself a cup o’ joe—or better yet, a new coffee maker—but with one deadline after another piling up, he just didn’t have time for this crap. If Wendy had been here, a new coffee maker would have magically appeared. The same way the deal with Olson Inc. would have gone through without a hitch. When Wendy was here, things just worked. How was it that in the short five years she’d been the executive assistant here she’d become as crucial to the running of the company as he himself was?

Hell. if this past week was any indication, she was actually more important than he was. A sobering thought for a man who’d helped to build an empire out of nothing.

He knew only one thing, when Wendy did get back, he was going to do his damnedest to make sure she never left again.

Wendy Leland crept into the executive office of FMJ headquarters a little after seven. The motion sensor brought the lights up as she entered and she reached down to extend the canopy on the infant car seat she carried. Peyton, the tiny baby inside, frowned but remained asleep. She made a soft gurgling sound as Wendy lowered the car seat to a darkened corner behind her desk.

She rocked the seat gently until Peyton stilled, then Wendy dropped into her own swivel chair. Swallowing past the knot of dread in her throat. Wendy studied the office.

For five years, this had been the seat from which she’d surveyed her domain. She’d served as executive assistant for the three men who ran FMJ: Ford Langley. Matt Ballard and Jonathon Bagdon.

Her five years of Ivy League education made her perhaps a tad over-educated for the job. Or maybe not, since she hadn’t procured an actual degree in any of her seven majors. Her family still thought she was wasting her talents. But the work was challenging and varied. She’d loved every minute of it. Nothing could have convinced her to leave FMJ.

Nothing, except the little bundle of joy asleep in the car seat.

When she’d left Palo Alto for Texas to attend her cousin Bitsy’s funeral, she’d had no idea what awaited her. From the moment her mother called her to tell her that Bitsy had died in a motorcycle crash, the week had been one shock after another. She hadn’t even known that Bitsy had a child. No one in the family had. Yet, now here Wendy was, guardian to an orphaned four-month-old baby. And gearing up for a custody battle of epic proportions. Peyton Morgan might as well have been dipped in gold the way the family was fighting over her. If Wendy wanted any chance of winning, she’d have to do the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do: move back to Texas. And that meant resigning from FMJ.

Only Bitsy could create this many problems from the grave.

CAT: How often to you get lost in a story?

EMILY: My own or someone else’s? I almost never “get lost” in my own books as I’m writing them. I’m not the kind of writer who sits down at the computer and time flies. I never look up four hours after sitting down and realize I’ve written twenty pages. I’m the kind who plunges in, types like mad, and looks up to realize I have written three sentences.

However, I love getting lost in other people’s books. It doesn’t happen very often these days (it’s just harder when you’re a writer). For that reason, when I find a book I really love, I try to clear out my schedule for a day or so and just sink into the story. It’s only once or twice a year I find a book so good that I don’t want to do anything but read it. When that happens, I indulge myself completely.

CAT: What’s your favorite kind of story to get lost in?

EMILY: Would it be too bratty to say “A good one.”?

I can get lost in all kinds of books. Of course, I love romance (both historical and contemporary). I recently read Grace Burrows’ The Heir and totally got lost in that. This year I also reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Even though I’d read it when it came out, it sucked me in all over again and I didn’t want to do anything else but read for days. Other books I’ve gotten in lost in recently are When You Reach Me, a middle grade by Rebecca Stead; Holes, the modern middle grade classic by Louis Sachar, and My Invisible Boyfriend; a YA by Susie Day.

CAT: What’s the first book you remember reading?

EMILY: I remember my mom reading The Hobbit to me when I was in about second grade. Not long after that, I picked up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That’s the first novel I remember reading myself. It was about that same time I knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.

CAT: What’s your favorite cartoon character?

EMILY: I’m a big fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the early nineties. Raphael was my favorite.

CAT: Is there a playlist you’d recommend for reading your latest release?

EMILY: I rarely have a whole playlist. Usually at some point in a book, I pick a single song that is the song for the book. For my latest release, The Tycoon’s Temporary Baby, the song was “Within Your Reach” by the Replacements, which is from the soundtrack from Say Anything. The song just seemed to capture the emotional yearning that both the characters felt, but never said aloud. I just checked on iTunes, and I played that song 86 times while writing the book. (Who knew iTunes even kept track of that kind of thing?)

CAT: Who’s your favorite villain?

EMILY: Lord Voldemort is a really great answer to this question (I’m going to see the latest movie this afternoon, so I have Harry Potter brain). He’s so truly evil. But I don’t think he’s my favorite. We never really understand him. Intellectually, yes, maybe, but not emotionally.

I villain that I really love is Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. (For the record, I didn’t like the second movie and haven’t seen any of the others. So for me, it’s all about the first.) He’s evil and diabolical, but I nearly cried at the end of the movie when that apple rolled out of his hand. Even though he was the villain, I cared enough about him that I wanted him to get a bite of the apple.

CAT: Is writing or story-telling easier for you?

EMILY: I’m definitely a story-teller rather than a writer. My family has a very strong tradition of oral story-telling. I grew up listening to the stories told around the table. Mostly stories about family and the crazy things different people had done. A lot of stories about my grandfather, from when he was on the police force. Stories from when my uncle served in WWII. This oral tradition is just part of my genetic makeup. It’s part of my soul. Now, learning how to translate those oral stories into publishable fiction, that was the tricky part....

CAT: If you could interview one person (and it doesn’t have to be a writer) who would it be?

EMILY: Probably J.K. Rowling. I’d love to just ... well, bask in her greatness first of all. And then pick her brain. I’d love to know when she came up with the different elements of story. I’d love to know if she always had a plan for how the Malfoys would turn out. When did she know the major elements of the Snape/Lily/James storyline. Things like that.

If J.K. Rowling wasn’t available, I’d probably pick Jim Butcher or Elizabeth Peters, my two other favorite writers. They both also have long running mystery series and I’d love to pick their brains. As for someone who isn’t a writer ... I can’t imagine. If I’m going to go all crazy fan girl, it’s going to be with a writer.

CAT: What do you do to unwind and relax?

EMILY: I bake. Cooking works too, but for a bone-deep chill, baking rules. I actually get antsy if I don’t bake often enough. I think I’m addicted to it.

It’s funny, ‘cause my sister says the same thing. I can go maybe three or four weeks without baking, but that’s it. I try not to think too deeply about my baking addiction. I’m afraid it’s a window to my deeply troubled psychosis. Or maybe just a love of cookies.

CAT: Do you read reviews of your books? If so, do you pay any attention to them, or let them influence your writing?

EMILY: I try not to read all of them or the really horrible ones. That can be just crushing.

And it seems like people are far more likely to give bad reviews than good ones. When I get a good review, I try to really cherish it. I find myself writing more reviews myself these days. If I read something and love it, I make sure I write a great review.

CAT: What dreams have been realized as a result of your writing?

EMILY: I think the greatest gifts that writing has given me aren’t things I knew I wanted. Yes, being a published author is a dream come true. It’s an incredible blessing to be able to tell stories for a living, but the real gift is the writers and fans I know as a result of being in this business. Writing has given me the best friends I’ve ever had. I feel just incredibly lucky to be in this business and to know all these great people.

CAT: Tea or Coffee? And how do you take it?

EMILY: Hot coffee in the morning, iced tea the rest of the time. As far as I’m concerned, good coffee is ambrosia from the gods. I was on vacation recently somewhere where the coffee wasn’t any good. I think I slept twelve hours a day while I was there. Apparently I can barely function without my morning cuppa joe.

CAT’S GOTTA ASK

If you were a t-shirt, what color would you be and why?

EMILY’S GOTTA ANSWER

I would probably be my Peace, Love, & Tacos T-shirt that I’ve had since college (maybe since high school). It’s worn and comfy. I’m not particularly glamorous, but I’m comfortable with myself. <g>

EMILY’S QUESTION FOR HER FANS:

If you’re a fan of category romance, what is your favorite category hook? (ie. Secret baby, woman in jeopardy, etc?)