Meet Us At The Crossroads Tour Day 2: Amanda Ashby

1. What inspired you to write your characters?

For a long time I read romance books and I NEVER felt like I could relate to any of the heroines. They were always so grown up and serious and were nothing like me. Then I discovered chick lit books and realized that it was completely fine to write about ‘real’ characters who did ridiculously embarrassing things, who often felt invisible and on the fringe of things and who could quite happily have a crush on a guy for ages without saying anything. Then I realized that the voices in my head weren’t for women in their twenties, it was about teenagers! One day it might change but I’ve still go so many embarrassing high school memories left to explore that I don’t think it will be for awhile!!!


2. What was the first book you read that made you fall in love with reading (past or present writer)?

My dad gave me The Hobbit to read when I was ten and I’ve loved fantasy books ever since but the thing that really kicked my reading habit into overdrive was when someone gave me two Trixie Belden books for my eleventh birthday. At the time everyone was reading Nancy Drew, but I was always a Trixie girl. Forget team Unicorn or Zombie, it’s all about Team Trixie!!!!


3. What paranormal author are you currently addicted to?

Oooooh – nice question! When I’m not writing, I work as a librarian at the teen desk of my local library and there is nothing I like more than talking books!!!!!! Right now I’m all about Richelle Mead’s The Vampire Academy. Roll on December!!!!!! I also really love Carrie Ryan’s books (and honestly when I first read The Forest of Hands and Teeth, all I could think of was ‘huh, so that’s how you write a zombie book!!!!!). I also love Suzanne Collins and Kristin Cashore, though I guess technically they’re not paranormal writers, they are still completely awesome!!!


4. What band or artist currently tops your play list?

Florence and the Machine. I love her. She is truly the most amazing artist!!!!


5. Do you have any projects you are currently working on that you are able to share? And can you give us a little teaser?

I’m currently working on the final book in my mid-grade series about a girl who gets turned into a djinn the day before she’s due to start sixth grade, however, the next book I’ve got out is a YA book called Fairy Bad Day, which is out next June (and I’ve just seen a sneak peek of the cover—so awesome!!!!)

Fairy Bad Day is about a fairy slayer who is the laughing stock of her slaying academy and her day gets worse when she suddenly starts to see invisible killer fairies. Unfortunately, thanks to small dose of the girl who cried wolf, no one believes her and she is forced to ask the one guy she hates more than life itself for help!





HOW THE TOUR WORKS:

Each day of The Crossroads Tour, a new research question will be revealed on The Crossroad Blog Tour main page, and each day the answer to that question will be found within one of the 16 different blog posts by Crossroads Tour authors. Your job is to get the question, read the blog posts, and collect all 16 answers by the end of the tour, on Halloween.