HELLOOOOOOOO, ALL! I'm so excited to bring you guys the book blitz for the wonderful Martina Boone's Compulsion! I do admit that I haven't read it, but I really really want to! I've been hearing nothing but wonderful things from my friends!
So without further ado, let's get to the book stuff! :D
ABOUT
Title: Compulsion
Author: Martina Boone
Series: Heirs of Watson Island #1
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Synopsis:
Three plantations. Two gifts. One ancient curse.
All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lives with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt’s South Carolina plantation instead–a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions.
Stuck with the ghosts of a generations-old feud and hunted by forces she cannot see, Barrie must find a way to break free of the family legacy. With the help of sun-kissed Eight Beaufort, who somehow seems to know what Barrie wants before she knows herself, the last Watson heir starts to unravel her family’s twisted secrets. What she finds is dangerous: a love she never expected, a river that turns to fire at midnight, a gorgeous cousin who isn’t what she seems, and very real enemies who want both Eight and Barrie dead.
PRAISE
“Darkly romantic and steeped in Southern Gothic charm, you’ll be compelled to get lost in the Heirs of Watson Island series.” — #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Jennifer L. Armentrout
"A fresh twist on the Southern Gothic — haunting, atmospheric, and absorbing.” — Claudia Gray, New York Times bestselling author of A Thousand Pieces of You and the Evernight and Spellcaster series
"A stunningly magical debut with a delicious slow burn to be savored. I want to live in this story world!" — Wendy Higgins, USA Today and NYT bestselling author of the Sweet Evil trilogy from HarperTeen
"Beautifully written, with vivid characters, a generations-old feud, and romance that leaps off the page, this Southern ghost story left me lingering over every word, and yet wanting to race to the compelling finish." — Megan Shepherd, Author of The Madman’s Daughter
BUY IT HERE:
Compulsion is available anywhere books are sold. Signed copies are available from One More Page Books. You can also order with the special “I have a Compulsion for reading” bookplate from Eight Cousins.. . . and here's a little interview with Martina Boone herself!
Q: Tell us a little about yourself.
A: Five things: 1) I'm from Prague, 2) I'm a reader, 3) I'm crazy about horses, 4) I'm essentially tone deaf, and 5) I'm actually pretty shy so I babble as a defense mechanism. I plan to outgrow that someday. But then I've been planning to do that for more years than I want to mention, so I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for COMPULSION?
A: I wrote a short story for an anthology that ended up having some of the same characters in it, and I knew I wasn't done with the place or the characters yet. But it wasn't until I dreamed about a ball of fire drifting through the woods and setting a river aflame that I had the anchoring visual for the book. The rest all came from asking why and doing a lot of research and brainstorming, which did include two separate research trips to the Charleston area.
Q. What is the weirdest piece of research you had to do when writing COMPULSION?
A. I researched a LOT of off the wall things for this book: pirates, shipwrecks, ghosts, witches, voodoo, hoodoo, Cherokee witchcraft, slavery, drug running, lost treasures of the Civil War, Confederate privateering, the Red Sea Gold, indigo production, drag queens/drag shows, secret rooms, furniture with hidden drawers, ball lightning . . . The thing that fascinated me the most on a research level was the various forms of magic that were present in the South with the confluence of belief systems brought there by slaves from different regions and religions intersecting with Native American belief systems. I spent a lot of time Googling specific spells and curses and trying to work out how the interpretation of them might have changed over three hundred years.
Q: What do you want readers to take away from COMPULSION?
A. That you can pick your family, the people you love. And that you need to do more than just survive your life. You have to go out and live your life.
Q. Did anything change in the story as you were writing COMPULSION?
A. Besides me, you mean? Um. There was a character who was meant to be a very minor character who kind of took over the book. But also there were things that changed in every draft: motivation, or past history, or character, or plot. I got to know my characters better each time, and the more I knew them, the more something changed.
Q: What are your hobbies?
A: Definitely travel. I love going places, and last year I visited eleven countries, well, twelve if you count the United States. I also love to ski, ride horses, do tricks for people in hospitals and rehab clinics with my Sheltie, who is a certified therapy dog; and of course, of course, I read. A lot.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for COMPULSION?
A: I wrote a short story for an anthology that ended up having some of the same characters in it, and I knew I wasn't done with the place or the characters yet. But it wasn't until I dreamed about a ball of fire drifting through the woods and setting a river aflame that I had the anchoring visual for the book. The rest all came from asking why and doing a lot of research and brainstorming, which did include two separate research trips to the Charleston area.
Q. What is the weirdest piece of research you had to do when writing COMPULSION?
A. I researched a LOT of off the wall things for this book: pirates, shipwrecks, ghosts, witches, voodoo, hoodoo, Cherokee witchcraft, slavery, drug running, lost treasures of the Civil War, Confederate privateering, the Red Sea Gold, indigo production, drag queens/drag shows, secret rooms, furniture with hidden drawers, ball lightning . . . The thing that fascinated me the most on a research level was the various forms of magic that were present in the South with the confluence of belief systems brought there by slaves from different regions and religions intersecting with Native American belief systems. I spent a lot of time Googling specific spells and curses and trying to work out how the interpretation of them might have changed over three hundred years.
Q: What do you want readers to take away from COMPULSION?
A. That you can pick your family, the people you love. And that you need to do more than just survive your life. You have to go out and live your life.
Q. Did anything change in the story as you were writing COMPULSION?
A. Besides me, you mean? Um. There was a character who was meant to be a very minor character who kind of took over the book. But also there were things that changed in every draft: motivation, or past history, or character, or plot. I got to know my characters better each time, and the more I knew them, the more something changed.
Q: What are your hobbies?
A: Definitely travel. I love going places, and last year I visited eleven countries, well, twelve if you count the United States. I also love to ski, ride horses, do tricks for people in hospitals and rehab clinics with my Sheltie, who is a certified therapy dog; and of course, of course, I read. A lot.
A: Pay exquisite attention as you read, as you write, and as you live. Do all three every day. Also? Don't spend years doing the same thing. That 10,000 hour rule only works if the 10,000 hours are spent pushing your limits and trying discover what works versus what doesn’t.
Think bigger. My first manuscript was my take on books I had read before. What I needed to write was a story that was wholly mine, and that came from always asking how could I do something differently, unexpectedly, and on a grander scale.
Also, make your protagonist active. My first attempts at writing were based on things happening to the main character and her reacting to those things. In Compulsion, things happened, but I tried to make her decisions to those events active decisions. Right or wrong, she’s pushing the action instead of letting the action push her.
LIGHTNING ROUND!!!!
A: Chocolate.
Q: Cold or hot?
A: Cold. I can always put on more clothes or wrap up in a blanket. (Same, says Ri.)
A: Cold. I can always put on more clothes or wrap up in a blanket. (Same, says Ri.)
Q: Computer or notepad?
A: Computer. Have you seen my handwriting?
A: Computer. Have you seen my handwriting?
A: Gryffindor!
Q. Dark magic or white magic?
A: Gray.
A: Gray.
Q. Bad boys or bad girls?
A: Bad girls and excellent boys.
Thank you so much to Martina for putting so much effort and time into providing material for this book blitz! And now. . . .and now. . . GIVEAWAY TIME!!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
A: Bad girls and excellent boys.
Thank you so much to Martina for putting so much effort and time into providing material for this book blitz! And now. . . .and now. . . GIVEAWAY TIME!!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martina Boone was born in Prague and spoke several languages before learning English. She fell in love with words and never stopped delighting in them.
She’s the founder of AdventuresInYAPublishing.com, a Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers site, and YASeriesInsiders.com, a Tumblr site devoted to news, giveaways, and insider secrets of much-loved and up-and-coming YA series.
From her home in Virginia, where she lives with her husband, children, and Auggie the wonder dog, she enjoys writing contemporary fantasy set in the kinds of magical places she’d love to visit. When she isn’t writing, she’s addicted to travel, horses, skiing, chocolate flavored tea, and anything with Nutella on it.
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