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 !!!!
* * * * *
Emerald
Bound
Teresa Richards
Fantasy, Romance,
Suspense
Evernight Teen Publishing ~ 83,000
words
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.
Follow along with the tour HERE
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
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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