Today we are very excited to share an interview with author Rob Renzetti!
Read on to learn more about the author, the book, and a giveaway!
Meet the Author: Rob Renzetti
Rob Renzetti is a veteran of TV animation whose work on Cartoon Network’s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends earned him an Emmy. He created the Nickelodeon show My Life as a Teenage Robot, acted as the supervising producer for Disney’s Gravity Falls, and served as executive producer on the first two seasons of Disney’s Big City Greens, among other projects. Recently, he has published four books for Disney Publishing, including the New York Times #1 Best Seller Gravity Falls: Journal 3 and Onward: Quests of Yore.
About the Book: The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment
From the creator of My Life As a Teenage Robot comes the second story in a middle-grade horror series about a horrible bag, the spine-chilling world hidden within it, and a terrifying adventure into the world of GrahBhag.
Perfect for fans of Coraline, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Small Spaces.
Zenith Maelstrom knows he’s forgetting something…
But he can’t quite remember what. He wakes up to notes in his handwriting with messages like, “Prepare for battle!” – but what battle? – and his sister Apogee seems to grow angrier with him by the day. It’s not until he finds Apogee sneaking back into the horrible bag hidden away in their basement that all the dreadful details about GrahBhag resurface. The spiderlike Shlurps. The trio of foul mouths that hunger for blood. Eldritch horrors around every corner.
Desperate to save Apogee from her ill-planned attempt to right the wrongs of their last trip into the bag, Zenith is forced to follow her into the bizarre world that has certainly not forgotten them. Between old foes set on vengeance like Raggedy Albert and terrifying new ones like the haunting Wraith, Zenith will have to put things right with his sister without falling into the clutches of those who would do him harm. For if he is caught, Eternity Tower awaits…
With a combination of dry, absurdist humor and no-holds-barred horror, Rob Renzetti has crafted a delightfully imaginative fantasy world that will hook readers as surely as it will send chills down their spines.
~Author Chat~
YABC: How was writing a sequel different from the first book?
The biggest difference was the challenge of creating something new and at the same time familiar. You want to give your readers more of what they loved about the first book and at the same time expand the world to include new characters and locations. You also don’t want to repeat the exact same story arc but have to stay within the conventions of the genre. Luckily there’s a lot of room for different sorts of stories within the fantasy and horror genres.
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?
I promise I’m not cheating when I say my favorite character is actually two characters. A sister and brother duo named Hazel and Hardy. They are guards in Eternity Tower, GrahBhag’s most feared and infamous prison. They take very different approaches to their job with Hazel being very strict and Hardy incredibly lenient. (To explain how I’m not cheating would spoil a fun reveal from the book.)
YABC: How do you know when a book is finished?
When I hit my deadline. It’s hard to feel completely done with any story. If it were up to me, I would’ve probably held off publishing the entire Horrible Bag series till I had a chance to write all three because as I’m writing the third I’m discovering things I’d wished I’d done differently in the first. All three stories are intricately connected. I had a lot of those connections figured out from the get-go but not all of them. Luckily, there have been a number of random choices I made that have actually turned out to be very useful in tying the whole series together.
YABC: What research did you do to write this book?
I’ve always loved the work of M.C. Escher and when I started thinking about what a GrahBhagian prison could be like, his depiction of impossible, perplexing places sprung to mind. I thought it would be an interesting challenge to write passages that elicit the sort of delightful puzzlement that Escher’s artwork creates in a person’s mind. To do my research, I travelled no further than the bookshelf where I keep my treasured Escher art book.
YABC: What word do you have trouble overusing?
There are so many to choose from! I’m definitely a fan of lists with titles like “20 words to eliminate from your manuscript.” But, off the top of my head, I would pick “started.” In my first drafts, I always have characters “starting” to do something when they should just be doing that thing.
YABC: What hobbies do you enjoy?
I’m an avid player of card and board games. My wife and I play games with almost every meal. And I love to hike. I live very close to Griffith Park, a huge parcel of undeveloped land in the middle of Los Angeles with dozens of different trails, one of which leads to the legendary Hollywood sign.
YABC: What kind of animal would your main character be and why?
Having lived with them for over twenty years, rabbits are my favorite animal, and I would love to feature one in a future book. But right now, I’m kicking around an idea which would have a cat as the main character.
YABC: What is your favorite holiday or tradition and why?
As I’m a lover of all things horror, Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. I celebrate the scary year-round but love it when, once a year, everyone else joins me. There are many professional and amateur haunted houses in the wider Los Angeles area, but I’m especially fond of the home haunts and spend several nights each Halloween season driving to different neighborhoods to check them out.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
The third book in The Horrible Bag series, which has the working title of The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith. It’s winding its way through the editorial process as we speak and will be out in Summer 2025. It’s been loads of fun and also a tremendous challenge wrapping up my first trilogy. I hope readers will enjoy seeing all the loose ends tied up and feel satisfied with the Maelstroms siblings’ ultimate fate. Can an ending be both horrible and happy?
Title: THE TWISTED TOWER OF ENDLESS TORMENT
Author: Rob Renzetti
Release Date: 7/23/24
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
ISBN-10: 0593519558
ISBN-13: 9780593519554
Genre: Middle Grade Horror
Age Range: 8-12
~ Giveaway Details ~
Three (3) winners will receive a copy of The Twisted Tower of Endless Torment (Rob Renzetti) ~US Only!
*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*