YA Author Interview: Rachel Harris!

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Author Name:  Rachel Harris

 Title: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century

Release Date: September 2012

Blurb:

On the precipice of her sixteenth birthday, the last thing lone wolf Cat Crawford wants is an extravagant gala thrown by her bubbly stepmother and well-meaning father. So even though Cat knows the family’s trip to Florence, Italy, is a peace offering, she embraces the magical city and all it offers. But when her curiosity leads her to an unusual gypsy tent, she exits . . . right into Renaissance Firenze.

Thrust into the sixteenth century armed with only a backpack full of contraband future items, Cat joins up with her ancestors, the sweet Alessandra and protective Cipriano, and soon falls for the gorgeous aspiring artist Lorenzo. But when the much-older Niccolo starts sniffing around, Cat realizes that an unwanted birthday party is nothing compared to an unwanted suitor full of creeptastic amore.

Can she find her way back to modern times before her Italian adventure turns into an Italian forever?

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 Book Talk/Character Talk

Pre-order it: Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Book Depository

Add it: Goodreads

Describe your book in one word:

Magical . . . gosh that sounds cheesy, huh? But it so works! Hmm. To tone down the cheese factor, maybe: Mask . . . but magical hits on so many levels. =)

Cast your heroine: Lily Collins  

 

Cast your hero: 100% Alex Pettyfer

Describe your heroine in three words:

artistic, spunky, hiding

Describe your hero in three words:

flirtatious, painter, searching

Favorite line by heroine:  

Totally going to cheat here (he he). I can’t pick between two, one that shows more of her personality, and one that shows more of her heart . . .

Personality:
After being put in the most feared contraption in period clothing—a corselet—and surveying her shrunken waist and mounds of heaping cleavage she says:
"At least I can look like a Kardashian while hyperventilating all over the dance floor."

Heart:
And as his fingers begin to draw lazy patterns on the back of my hand, coaxing me to sleep, I grip his hand tighter in mine, scared to death it’ll be empty in the morning. 

Favorite line by your hero:

“Whatever do you plan to do with me in such a hidden place, Cat?”
(side note: Cat is in italics because everyone in Renaissance Italy believes her name is Patience, but she has asked him to call her by her real name)

How would your heroine describe your hero when she first meets him?:

Gorgeous . . . but also a smooth talking, sixteenth-century player

How would your hero describe your heroine when he first meets her?:

A beautiful challenge

Choose an on-screen kiss that best illustrates the intensity between these two characters:  

When I turned to Youtube for this question, I immediately had to find scenes with Alex Pettyfer and found the perfect examples from his and Dianna’s kissing scenes in I AM NUMBER FOUR. The montage works awesome—The way he watches Dianna’s character, the way he almost reverently touches her cheek before giving into full on, grab the back of the head passion is just so perfect . . . and in the first two, where they are hesitant and then Dianna almost attacks him? Yeah that’s my girl Cat in their first kiss .=)

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Author Talk

Why do you write in the genre you write?:

I write young adult because I think I will always be seventeen somehow. I know I certainly act it half the time. The teenage years are filled with so much angst and hope, drama and excitement. First crushes, first kisses, first loves. Best friends and betrayals. The newness of everything. A main reason I love to read it is that it lets me experience the thrill of innocence—and the loss of it—and the joy of a hot guy catching your eye, giving you that secret smile, and making you feel for just a moment that you are the most beautiful creature on earth.

As for the subgenres within YA, I write the spectrum—but I prefer sticking close to Contemporary. I enjoy exploring stories of girls just like me (or like I was) going through things I can/could relate to. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading paranormal, too! But besides a ghost story subplot in one of my manuscripts, I mainly stick to mainstream Contemporary. That being said, ALL of my manuscripts HAVE to have Romance. I am addicted to swoony, warm fuzzy, happy endings.

What other genres would you consider and why?:

MY SUPER SWEET SIXTEENTH CENTURY and the follow up book, A TALE OF TWO CENTURIES are both Magical Realism/Historical. I have a completed Dual POV Contemporary Romance, and a Contemporary with a Paranormal twist in the works, too. Once those are done, I’d like to try writing an adult romance—but I’ll never stop writing YA.

Can you give us a hint of something else you’re working on?:

My sequel to SUPER SWEET has a new protagonist, the best friend/cousin Cat meets in Renaissance Italy. I’m working on that now and here’s my tag line:  

A sixteenth-century teen craving her own time-travel adventure falls in love in the future and fights fate to stay in the twenty-first century

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