Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Interview with Maggie, heroine of Emerald Bound by Teresa Richards @byutm33 @evernightteen




Character Interview Questions

Answering as Maggie, the heroine of Emerald Bound.

Did you ever think that your life would end up being in a book?
No way. I have the most boring life ever. I’m just a normal girl with (mostly) normal friends. 

What are your favorite scenes in your book: the action, the dialog or the romance?
Uh, the romance. Duh. Everything else was too stressful.  

What do you like to do when you are not being actively read somewhere?
Okay, confession time. I’m a Netflix binge-watcher. When I find a show I like, I can’t stop watching it. Lately it’s been Alias and there are, like, five seasons on there, so it’s taking a long time. Sydney Bristow is just awesome. I’d love to be her except that I stink at ninja kicks and I can’t walk in heels. Or run in them, which she does all the time—while shooting bad guys.
Other than watching Alias, I like to do normal stuff—go to the movies, hang out with my friends, those kinds of things. Piper’s taken me skateboarding a few times and I actually really like it. She’s dating this guy who hangs out at the skate park so we’ve been going there a lot lately. Kate comes to watch but she hasn’t tried it. Her ballet teacher’s forbidden it, of course, and Kate would be heartbroken if she couldn’t dance because of a skateboarding injury.
Oh, I also like to draw, but I don’t really show my drawings to anyone—I’m not that good. Doodling just calms me down.

If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?
Well it would have been nice to avoid that whole “breaking into the Smithsonian and getting thrown in jail thing.” But I guess that’s how I met Garon so at least there was a silver lining to that. It also wasn’t fun having everyone think I was going insane when I told them what happened to Kate. So if I were in charge of the book I would have written in someone besides a crazy, four-hundred-year-old girl who believed me. 

What is your least favorite characteristic your writer has attributed to you?
She makes me worry about money a lot. I know that I do worry about money a lot, but I hate the fact that I have to and I don’t like everyone knowing about my family’s financial problems.
Do have any secret aspirations that your author doesn’t know about?
She doesn’t know that I like to draw. I don’t really have any drawing goals yet, but I like that I’ve kept this part of me a secret. And maybe someday I will have artistic aspirations—who knows? Certainly not my author!

What do you do for a living?
I work at the Gap. Which basically only pays enough to keep my car running, but whatever. At least I have a car. So I can get to work. 

What is your most prized possession?
A scrapbook my mother made of me as a baby. It still has her fingerprints all over it. Figuratively, of course. She was careful to wipe all actual fingerprints off the pages when she was making it. 

What do you think is your strongest attribute?
Um, maybe that I’m easy to get along with? At least, I think I am. People tell me that I’m nice. 

What are you proudest of?
You mean besides what I did at the end of Emerald Bound? Cause I’m mad proud of that. But something else I’m proud of is that I got an 1890 on my SATs. It’s all thanks to Kate for her awesome coaching, but still. I did it!

What embarrasses you?
Thongs. Why would anyone choose to wear them? Underwear can be cute without it going up your butt, am I right?

What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy Sunday?
I really like watching basketball with my brother, Tanner, and my dad. Tanner is actually one of my best friends now. Is that weird?

What is your vivid memory of your mother and father?
My mother used to sing to me. Every night before bed. She had the most beautiful voice … it’s one of the only things I remember about her.  

What word makes you the happiest?
Obsequious. I just like the way it sounds. And I like to imagine Lindy in her castle, surrounded by obsequious attendants seeing to her every whim. 

What is your least favorite word?
Pithy. I can never remember what that one means. 

Do you believe in ghosts/evil spirits/mysticism? Would you spend the night in a remote haunted house?
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t like to tempt fate either. I wouldn’t spend the night in a remote haunted house unless Sidney Bristow came too.

If you knew a zombie apocalypse was coming in one week, what would you do?
Convince Garon to travel back in time and have the Mayans build Zombie Apocalypse Day into their calendar. Then we’d all be better prepared.
I’d also stockpile chocolate, just in case.

Thanks Maggie, for being patient while we interrogated you :)  We were so glad to have you here and thanks again for visiting with us today !!!!

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Emerald Bound
Teresa Richards
Fantasy, Romance, Suspense

Editor's Pick
A princess, a pea, and a tower of mattresses. This is the sliver that survives of a story more nightmare than fairytale...

 Maggie Rhodes, high school junior and semi-reformed stalker, learns the tale’s true roots after a spying attempt goes awry and her best friend Kate ends up as the victim of an ancient curse. At the center of the curse lies an enchanted emerald that has been residing quietly in a museum for the past fifty years. Admirers of the gem have no idea that it feeds on life. Or that it’s found its next victim in Kate. 

 Enter Lindy, a school acquaintance who knows more than she’s letting on, and Garon, a handsome stranger claiming he knows how to help, and Maggie is left wondering who to trust and how to save her best friend before it’s too late.
 If only Maggie knew her connection to the fairy tale was rooted far deeper than an endangered best friend. 


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Excerpt: 
A part of me died long ago.
It was the part of me that feels, and it was Calista’s fault.
What happened tonight was nothing new—innocent victims welcomed into our home, not knowing they would never leave. I learned long ago I could not help them, so I stopped trying.
But this time something was different. This time I was awake, burning with a gut-wrenching guilt, as the next victims slept downstairs. This time I knew the victims. And they didn’t deserve what was coming.
It had always been hard for me to make friends. I’d been called loner, loser, outcast, and freak. Even still, I remembered Maggie offering to show me around when I first transferred to their school. Through her, I met Kate and Piper. The three of them were always nice to me, while other kids kept their distance and spread rumors behind my back. I told myself I didn’t care—I wasn’t like them.
But being a loner was lonely.
So tonight when I saw Maggie and her friends here, something inside me snapped. Or, perhaps it was the dead piece of me coming back to life. Now I cared desperately about what was happening in the room below mine.
But there was still nothing I could do.
Calista usually lured in victims from out of town to avoid arousing suspicion. Pregnant ones were a particular favorite—easy prey, she called them. But Maggie and her friends came here all on their own. The opportunity was too good for Calista to pass up.
Everyone thought Calista was my mother, but she wasn’t.
Back in my day, almost four centuries ago, Calista had an alternate method of luring in victims. She and her husband, Theodore, advertised for hired help with their inn. The number of parents willing to sell their daughters into a life of servitude in exchange for a forgiven debt or a clean slate was staggering.
My father was one of them.
By the time my mother found out what he’d done, it was too late. There was no escape. I was bound.
My story was well known in this land, whispered as a bedtime tale to ease children into sleep. But, just like any other story passed down through time by rumors and idle gossip, the fragment that survived was woefully incomplete. It began something like this:
There is rumored to have been (once upon a time, of course) a princess, a pea, and a tower of mattresses.
That much was true, though in actuality it was only one mattress, not twenty. The pea was also real, though most would call it a precious stone—an emerald, to be precise.
The gem that sealed my fate was now in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. Calista was furious when she found it missing. She thought I’d stolen it until she remembered my limits. The identity of the true thief remains unknown.
Even though the emerald is no longer in our possession, we are still bound to it, as it is bound to us. Admirers of the opulent necklace where it rests don’t understand it. Like me, the gem is a prisoner, struggling against its fate.
Even now, centuries later, I don’t understand all the details of what happened to me that night. But it began with a troubled slumber on a bed of enchanted emeralds.



About the Author:
Teresa Richards writes YA, but loves anything that can be given a unique twist. Her zombie stories 'Are You My Mombie?' and 'The Zombie Code' can be found in Z Tales: Stories from the Zombieverse by The Fairfield Scribes.
When Teresa’s not writing, she can be found either chasing after one of her five kids, or hiding someplace in the house with a treat her children overlooked. Emerald Bound is her debut novel.
You can connect with her on twitter @BYUtm33 or atauthorteresarichards.com.




Giveaway:  1 signed copy of Emerald Bound

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