Almost Night By Emily White Book Tour, Interview, & Giveaway

Fourteen-year-old Lilly Grey exists in two worlds at the same time. She just doesn’t know it.

As the only albino in a million mile radius, Lilly is used to being different. Pink eyes and white hair aren’t exactly the best camouflage in the harrowing jungles formally known as high school. And yeah, she’s used to being an outcast and seeing the world in a slightly different way, but she never guessed how literally “different” applied to her.

Not until a clan of shape-shifting dragons tell her she’s not just albino. She’s a unicorn and the only mortal alive who can live on both Earth and its antithesis, Morcah. Now all those times she thought she saw a floating brown blotch in the sky or eyes peering out at her from the bark of trees make sense. She’s been seeing Morcah, a land that exists in the exact same spot as Earth, just in a different phase.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for this unicorn. As the only one who can live in both phases, she’s also the only one who can bring Morcah–and all its inhabitants–to Earth. And creatures who’ve been trapped on Earth since the Dark Ages are willing to do worse things than kill to make that happen.

Interview With The Author:

If you could travel in a Time Machine would you go back to the past or into the future? Past, absolutely. Specifically the Renaissance in Paris.

If you could invite any 5 people to dinner who would you choose? Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Plato, and James Dashner. These are my favorite authors. My ego would take a total hit of course, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that.

What is one book everyone should read? Obviously Lord of the Rings. I mean, do I even need to offer a reason for this? 😉

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book. It’s dark, it’s whimsical, and it’s a modern day Darth Vader story with a female protagonist.

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects? Soooo many. I need to focus on one. I keep wanting to work on them all. I’ve got a project going with a fellow author. A super secret project full of steampunk awesomeness. I also have Destructor (#3 of The Auri Wars), #2 of Tales of Morcah, and a pet project I’ve been working on for a while that’s a Jane Austen meets Poe twist.

Is there a song you could list as the theme song for your book or any of your characters? Monster, by Skillet is Ella’s song, definitely. Demons, by Imagine Dragons is Cailen’s. I love listening to them so much!

How did you know you should become an author? Well, I grew up as Emily Dickinson, so that was always a part of my life. But I when I was a child I realized that it was the only thing I ever really wanted to do. It was the only thing that brought me joy. I’d give up playing with my toys and friends so I could click at my parents’ old typewriter. That’s when I knew it was something I’d have for the rest of my life. I NEEDED to be published. It was the only acceptable outcome.

Hidden talent? I can say the alphabet backwards. Fast. This ability has won me prizes. 🙂

What movie and/or book are you looking forward to this year? The Maze Runner!!!!!!

Give us a glimpse into a typical day in your day starting when you wake up till you lie down again. I wake up 7:00 (at the latest, often earlier), enjoy a cup of coffee for 15 minutes before my two boys wake up, talk to my mom for about an hour, get my eldest started at school work and go through the lessons (I homeschool), write a sentence or two when I have a chance (aka in between lessons when he’s doing work on his own), play with my youngest when I’m not writing a sentence, lunch, nap time for the boys and major, serious writing time for me. I get about 2 hours of good work time here. Then they wake up and we finish some school work we hadn’t gotten to in the morning, I make dinner, spend time with family, and then go to bed. A boring day. I have a very unglamorous life. 🙂

How did you celebrate the sale of your first book? Oh my goodness, I completely forgot to celebrate!! It was such a surprise. Spencer Hill Press had approached me and I guess I was just a little out of it.

What is something people would be surprised to know about you? I’m actually a very depressed, brooding person around people who know me best (aka my husband and my mom).

If you could take over the world, would you? Yes. Yes.

Which of your characters is a portrayal of you? Ella is very close to being me. A lot of her darker moments are very me, definitely. Out of all my characters, though, Lilly of ALMOST NIGHT is 100% me. A lot of her scenes are inspired by things I actually felt and did as a teenager.

What is your favorite scene in the book? Which scene or characters were the most difficult for you to write and why? My absolute favorite scene is the last one. It still gives me chills.

Emily White is a nerd.

She prefers her men fully clothed and donning bowties, her commas British, her books cheesy with big, overly-dramatic explosions, her characters awkward and endearingly real,* and watching her movies in authentic turn-of-the-century theaters. When not exposing her nerdy self to the world, she’s creating her own friends and putting them in horrible, yet sometimes humorous situations.

Check out her YA Space Opera series starting with Elemental (Spencer Hill Press, 2012), continuing with FAE (February 2014), and ending sometime in the near future with a book she has yet to write.

She’s also authored a collection of Steampunk (zombie, werebot romance) flash fiction, if you’re into those kinds of things, titled “To Love or Die in a Steamy-Reamy World.”