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March 21, 2012

Embrace Tour: Guest Post by Jessica Shirvington and Giveaway

 
So I have Jessica Shirvington with a guest post today about her book's journey across the world! You also get a glimpse on the "under construction" phase of Embrace and basically how the book basically found its way home! Jessica Shirvington is an Aussie author, where her "The Violet Eden Chapters", but now she has finally crossed over oceans and Embrace, book #1 in now called "Embrace" trilogy has officially debuted this March 6th! Make sure to tune in on MArch 26th for my review of Embrace!

Where Are You From?
In my first draft of EMBRACE (there were eight!), I didn’t set the city. I was in two minds the entire time. I suppose I was drawing on all the places I have been around the world. Although I now live in Sydney, when I started to write EMBRACE, my family and I had just moved back from six years living in London. And prior to that, I’d spent quite a lot of time travelling to many cities around the world – so much so, that when I was writing scenes in EMBRACE, I found myself thinking of different cities around the world and never being able to truly decided which one most suited Violet’s world.

In my second and third and fourth drafts, I chose different cities (I’ll never tell) from around the world and set Violet’s story there. But each time, it felt forced.
I wanted her to live in a city, as opposed to some small town where all these major apocalyptic events just miraculously found her. To be believable she had to be in a metropolitan environment, but which one?

In the end, the answer was … any of them, and none of them. It wasn’t that the cities I chose didn’t work; it was that in my mind I’d amalgamated them into what I needed for her story to work for me. So I made the decision to give that option to all of my readers and simply called her city, the City.

It isn’t the ‘done thing’ usually, but I believe for this story, it works. I want readers to be able to put this story where they know. If they live in a city, it can be there, if they live in a rural area, then it isn’t a stretch for them to imagine a city nearby. It is an element of control that I wanted to give to the reader.

That said, I like a little control myself … and I discovered that by giving this open setting for Violet’s hometown, it also opened up the possibility to use other locations around the world that would really pop off the page.

In ENTICED (the sequel, out in September!), Violet and her friends find themselves travelling to Jordan – on a quest to the place of Moses’ death – Mount Nebo. In EMBLAZE (book 3, out March 2013) they travel to the island of Santorini in Greece, which is small and stunning, and holds terrors that none of them are prepared for.
Each book I take the characters somewhere new and as I write the series, I have discovered how very important this is to me. I want my characters to go to the world, to find the problems and be part of the solution, rather than the fight always, and too conveniently, finding them.

Make sure to follow Jessica Shirvington through her


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Want to win a finished copy of this GORGEOUS book? Sourcebook Fires have been generous enough to give away ONE (1) finished copy of Embrace! The giveaway is open only to US/Canada residents. Just enter through the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

16 comments:

  1. I've read such great things about this book. I would love a chance to read it myself. Thank you for the chance to win it!
    DeAnna Schultz

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  2. I love the cover of this! Thank you for the wonderful guest post!

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  3. Great guest post! It's always interesting to hear about details like that from the author. :) I'm looking forward to reading this!

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  4. I will admit, I'd never heard of this book before. But then again, that's why I do the blog crawl! Thanks for sharing!

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  5. HI friends. great post. super excited and i hope to maybe win..??

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  6. Love the cover!! Excited to read this one ... hope I win! Thanks for the giveaway!!!!

    Danielle
    http://knowntoread.blogspot.com/

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  7. I love the trailer. It makes sense with the title. I love the concept! Thanks for the giveaway and trailer

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  8. I watched the trailer and it's awesome. :D Thanks for this giveaway!

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  9. This one looks so awesome!!! Thanks so much for the giveaway!!

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  10. Thanks for the giveaway! I'm really looking forward to reading this. :)

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  11. Thanks for the giveaway! Can't wait to read this book!

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  12. That's really interesting that it just "The City." I would have thought that the city would have a name since the setting is important to the novel. I'm looking forward to the third book because they travel to Greece. Thanks for the giveaway.

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  13. Omg! I love the book trailer :) It's amazing :)
    I have been wanting to read this book since I seen it on goodreads, I love the sound of it!

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  14. This book has been on my Wishlist!! Love the cover and the book trailer, and I can't wait to read it!!

    Thanks for the giveaway!

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  15. This book has been on my TBR list forever it seems. Thanks for a chance to win! :-)

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  16. This is a cool post :) Thanks for the giveaway!

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