Today we are very excited to share an interview with Author Kelly Andrew (Your Blood, My Bones)!
Meet the Author: Kelly Andrew
Kelly Andrew lost her hearing when she was four years old. She’s been telling stories ever since. Kelly lives in New England with her husband, two daughters, and a persnickety Boston Terrier.
About the Book: Your Blood, My Bones
A seductively twisted romance about loyalty, fate, the lengths we go to hide the darkest parts of ourselves . . . and the people who love those parts most of all.
Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she’s just inherited — to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement — Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead.
Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family’s property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can’t really live, either. Not while he’s bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There’s only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line.
He needs to kill Wyatt.
With Wyatt’s parents gone, the spells protecting the property have begun to unravel, and dark, ancient forces gather in the nearby forest. The only way for Wyatt to repair the wards is to work with Peter — the one person who knows how to harness her volatile magic. But how can she trust a boy who’s sworn an oath to destroy her? When the past turns up to haunt them in the most unexpected way, they are forced to rely on one another to survive, or else tear each other apart.
Amazon * B&N * IndieBound
~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
Since I was young, The Breakfast Club has been one of my all-time favorite movies. I love how five vastly different people are shut into a small space and forced to contend with one another for better or for worse. I’m also a very big fan of horror as a genre. To that end, I wanted to write something that had the forced proximity of The Breakfast Club, but that took place within the claustrophobic confines of a horror story. The end result is Your Blood, My Bones, where three former friends are trapped in a farmhouse at the edge of the forest and forced to face down both their literal and metaphorical demons.
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?
This is such a tough question because there are things about each member of the trio that I love, and they’re so woven together that I don’t think you can have any one of them without the other. If I had to choose, I would say that Wyatt is my favorite because she is learning to find her way back to herself after a trauma, and there was something so personally healing about writing her character arc. At the start of the story, Wyatt is unable to practice magic. She’s got a mental block keeping her from being able to access her abilities. Finding ways for her to dismantle that block was such a puzzle, and I’m really proud of how her story turned out.
YABC: What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?
There is a scene just toward the end of act II where Wyatt finally manages to get her powers to manifest. It happens during an emotional standoff with Pedyr, just after some of their ugliest secrets have been revealed. I wrote the first draft with that singular scene in mind. While I knew exactly how I wanted it to look, feel, and sound, I didn’t quite know how I was going to get there. I wrote and rewrote a lot of the story, but that one scene with Wyatt and Pedyr facing off in a meadow has always stayed the same.
YABC: What came first, the concept, landscape, characters, or something else?
I’m a very character-driven writer, so usually the answer to this question is “the characters” but in this instance the concept came first. I knew I wanted to write a story about growing up and growing apart. I had this idea of using real-world Peter Pan archetypes—the boy that never grows up, the girl leaving her childhood behind, and the villain with a vendetta (who is followed close behind by something with teeth). There is a very particular melancholy that comes along with losing first loves and leaving home, and I felt as though that melancholy lent itself very well to a bucolic horror setting. So, in the end, I started writing because I was chasing a feeling, and Wyatt, Pedyr, and James were born out of that feeling.
YABC: What can readers expect to find in your books?
Readers can expect to find strong female protagonists, elements of horror, paranormal magic, themes of grief and healing, eldritch creatures, New England Gothic vibes, plenty of bones, witty banter, romantic tension, pining, yearning, dry humor, and found family.
YABC: What is your favorite snack when writing?
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a menace about coffee, and specifically Dunkin Donuts. It’s the New Englander in me—I can’t dig in and write without an ice-cold cup of extremely mediocre cold brew within reach.
YABC: What fandom would you write for if you had time?
I always tell people I learned how to write by writing Buffy and Gilmore Girls fan fiction when I was younger. Back then it was just me, my ancient Dell, and a dream (and the unfortunate selection of friends I forced my very early writing onto). These days, I do an annual rewatch of Buffy, and I still think the lore is unmatched. I’d love to write within that universe.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
Currently, I am finishing up edits on another young adult horror. I am very much looking forward to saying more about the project in the not-too-distant future. What I can say is that it is just as harrowing and full of eldritch monsters as The Whispering Dark and Your Blood, My Bones (and is quite possibly even more romantic than the first two).
Title: YOUR BLOOD, MY BONES
Author: Kelly Andrew
Release Date: April 2, 2024
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: Fantasy; Romance
Age Range: Ages 13+
