Laura Bickle's The Hallowed Ones~Two Day Visit

Today I welcome Laura Bickle to my blog and I hope that she finds herself right at home. Laura is the author of the recently released YA novel The Hallowed Ones. She will be visiting tomorrow also, when I post my review of The Hallowed Ones on the kickoff date of the Faterfest Read-A-Thon hosted by Kimba The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

Today we will be interviewing Laura and finding out a little about her and her book. And about what she has planned in the future.

Thanks so much for hosting me today, Michelle! I'm thrilled to get the chance to meet you and your readers. 

AWESOME! Thanks for wanting to come and visit. So let's get started. We have a lot to do. :)

Q.  When and why did you start writing?

I’ve always been scribbling, since I was old enough to hold a crayon. I loved stories – my mother was a librarian and was constantly reading to me – so I always wanted to try to tell my own.

My first book is still sitting in a shoe box in the closet…along with several other manuscripts that will never see the light of day. And that’s probably a good thing…some of them are pretty bad! But they were good learning experiences.


Q.  What was your favorite book as a young adult?

My all-time favorite is Robin McKinley’s HERO AND THE CROWN. I read it when I was a pre-teen, and fell in love with fantasy ever after. It was the first book I’d read that had a female protagonist who slew her own dragons. I was hooked.


Q. What was the hardest part about writing your book?

The hardest part for me in starting a story is the beginning. The blank page intimidates me like nothing else!

The easiest and most fun comes for me at the end. There’s more at stake at the end of the story, more action, more emotion. All the plot threads are beginning to weave together, and I feel like I’m running downhill. I forget that I’m writing and get the pleasure of watching the story unfold on its own.


Q. How did you come up with the title?

I have a hard time coming up with titles that “stick.” I originally called the book THE GATE, to symbolize the boundary between the Amish world and the world outside, safety and chaos. But THE HALLOWED ONES fits the story better – it evokes a mood and creates more curiosity, I think.


Q. Any current projects you can tell us about?

 I’m working on the sequel to THE HALLOWED ONES, which will be called THE OUTSIDE. It’ll be released in spring 2013.

       Thanks so much Laura!!

Laura Bickle’s professional background is in criminal justice and library science, and when she’s not patrolling the stacks at the public library she’s dreaming up stories about the monsters under the stairs (she also writes contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams). Laura lives in Ohio with her husband and five mostly-reformed feral cats. THE HALLOWED ONES is her first young adult novel.

For more info about Laura and her books, please visit her website. You can also stalk her like me, on Facebook and Twitter, usually exclaiming over cute cat pictures and nerdy things. 

THE HALLOWED ONES

By Laura Bickle

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Graphia

Release Date: September 25, 2012

If your home was the last safe place on earth, would you let a stranger in?

Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers are free to experience non-Amish culture before officially joining the church. But before Rumspringa arrives, Katie’s safe world starts to crumble. It begins with a fiery helicopter crash in the cornfields, followed by rumors of massive unrest and the disappearance of huge numbers of people all over the world. Something is out there...and it is making a killing.

Unsure why they haven’t yet been attacked, the Amish Elders make a decree: No one goes outside their community, and no one is allowed in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man lying just outside the boundary of their land, she can’t leave him to die. She refuses to submit to the Elder’s rule and secretly brings the stranger into her community—but what else is she bringing in with him?

A free excerpt of THE HALLOWED ONES is available here: http://laurabickle.com/the-hallowed-ones/?action=excerpt

What people are saying

"This is a book to make you fear the shadows--a horrifying and gruesome tale of faith, and things that blink red eyes in the night. I began reading in the daylight, and read on into the late hours, leaning close, biting my lip. I could not look away; I was obsessed. Katie is an unbreakable soul."

--Lauren DeStefano, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Chemical Garden Trilogy

-“What an eerily believable, unique story! I can’t stop thinking about it—or shivering.”

—Melissa Marr, New York Times best-selling author of the Wicked Lovely series

“Readers will find it hard to put down this suspenseful, scary, compulsively readable adventure…”

–Kirkus Reviews

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THE HALLOWED ONES is available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Powell’s, and Books A Million.

Please come back tomorrow for the kickoff of Kimba The Caffinated Book Reviewer's October~Things That Go Bump In The Night: Fraterfest Read-A-Thon. I will be posting the review of The Hallowed Ones and start the Giveaway. Because this is definitely a "Things That Go Bump In The Night" book!