Welcome to our weekly special feature post, Author Of The Week!!
Each week we will be interviewing a different YA author and highlighting their upcoming release!
We will also be hosting a giveaway of the book we are highlighting!!
Introducing The Lady Janies , YABC's Author of the Week!!
The Lady Janies are the authors of the New York Times bestselling novel My Lady Jane, made up of Brodi Ashton, author of the Everneath series and Diplomatic Immunity, Cynthia Hand, author of the Unearthly series, The Last Time We Say Goodbye, and The Afterlife of Holly Chase, and Jodi Meadows, author of the Incarnate, Orphan Queen, and Fallen Isles series. They met in 2012 when their publishers sent them on a book tour together. Between the three of them they’ve written sixteen published novels (with more to come!), a bunch of novellas, a handful of short stories, and a couple of really bad poems. They had so much fun with My Lady Jane that they signed on to write two more books together. They’re friends. They’re writers. They’re fixing history by rewriting one sad story at a time. Learn more at www.ladyjanies.com [ladyjanies.com].
www.ladyjanies.com [ladyjanies.com]
Meet My Plain Jane!
Move over, Charlotte Brontë. The authors of the New York Times bestselling My Lady Jane are back with an irreverent spin on Jane Eyre—a tale of mischief, romance, and supernatural mayhem perfect for fans of The Princess Bride or A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.
You may think you know the story. Penniless orphan Jane Eyre begins a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester—and, Reader, she marries him. Or does she?
Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and one orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Bronte, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights.
Amazon * B & N * Indiebound
~ Interview ~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
Our mission through this series of books is to rewrite the stories of girls who were screwed over by history. Our first book was fixing the history of Lady Jane Grey, and we wanted to pick another Jane for our second book. We considered a lot of different Janes (A LOT, phew!), but after discussing every real Jane we’d ever heard of, we thought, well, why does she have to have been real? What about fictional Janes? Plus, JANE EYRE is a very autobiographical story from Charlotte Bronte, who had a tragic life herself. We felt like this story gave us room to rewrite the ending for both Jane Eyre (who we contend was actually a real life person who Charlotte Bronte knew) and Charlotte herself.
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?
We all do really love the character of Helen Burns. In the original JANE EYRE, Helen was Jane’s only real friend, and she is such an inspiration and comfort to Jane. But she dies so early in the novel! In our book, Helen still dies, but her ghost continues to stick around, Jane’s BFF even after death. Our version of Helen is funny and honest, and she gets to tell Jane all of the things we’d tell our friends if we were worried about them. She was really key for making this book a comedy.
YABC: Which came first, the title or the novel?
The novel. Our initial title for this one was MY BELOVED JANE, but as we came to know this particular Jane, we agreed that she saw herself (and other people saw her) as a “plain Jane,” and so much of the book is about her confronting this idea of herself. Plus we just like the sound of MY PLAIN JANE.
YABC: What do you like most about the cover of the book?
The colors! The colors pop so much with this one, the yellow against the blue, it’s just so rich huhand lovely. We’d totally grab this off the shelf even if we didn’t write it. And it’s a perfect companion cover to MY LADY JANE.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
We are working this summer to finish our third Jane book, MY CALAMITY JANE, which will be out in Summer 2020. Ahhhh!
Jodi has a fantasy next, coming September 11. AS SHE ASCENDS is the sequel to BEFORE SHE IGNITES. The trilogy follows a girl who learns a little too much about illegal dragon trafficking, and how the treaty named after her might be more dangerous than anyone knew.
Brodi writes a column for the Salt Lake Tribune and is working on her next novel.
Cynthia has a new YA contemporary novel coming out in Fall 2019 called THE HOW AND THE WHY, which moves between the POV of a 16-year-old girl who is living at a home for pregnant teens, writing letters to her unborn baby who she plans to give up for adoption, and the point of view of that baby, now eighteen years old, as she begins to search for her birthmother.
YABC: Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?
Jane, probably. She was definitely the hardest to get a handle on. If you’ve read the original JANE EYRE (as opposed to seeing the films), she’s such a closed-off character for most of the book. It’s not really until we see her on the moors after the breakup that we get to see much in the way of emotion from her. So that was tricky to recreate, to make relevant for modern times . . . and also funny, which is always what we’re attempting to do.
YABC: Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or Revising?
Drafting. We do almost all of our drafting together, around the same table, which is super fun and inspiring. The revision part tends to get split up between us and done separately, which is a lot less fun.
That said, our last round of revisions on this one was a ton of fun -- because we did it together, around a table, eating fudge. It was intense and there may or may not have been some complaining about being tired, but ultimately that time was the key to making this book sparkle. So, it was worth it.
YABC: What would you say is your superpower?
Our group superpower is definitely our friendship! Our friendship is absolutely the foundation of every book we write, because we write for one another first. When we draft, we read our new chapters out loud every night, everyone trying to make the others laugh the most. Being able to do this together feels like magic.
My Plain Jane
By: The Lady Janies
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: June 26th, 2018
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*
One winner will receive a SIGNED copy of My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies) ~ (US Only)
*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*
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