Mom With A Kindle: INTERVIEW + Giveaway: LARK RISING (Guardians of Tarnec #1) by Sandra Waugh

LARK RISING (Guardians of Tarnec #1)
by Sandra Waugh
Pub. Date: September 23, 2014
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Pages: 384
Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Full of romance and nature magic, this debut fantasy is perfect for fans of Shannon Hale, Juliet Marillier, and Kristin Cashore.

“A beautifully realized world, a unique voice, and a compelling, action-packed story. This is a striking debut novel with a lovely folkloric flavor.” —Juliet Marillier, author of Wildwood Dancing

Lark has foreseen two things—she will fall for a young man with sage green eyes, and he will kill her.

Sixteen-year-old Lark Carew is happiest close to home, tending her garden and gathering herbs for medicines. But when her Sight warns her that monsters called Troths will soon invade her village, Lark is summoned on a journey to seek help from the legendary Riders of Tarnec. Little does she suspect that one of the Riders, Gharain, is the very man who has haunted her visions. Or that the people of Tarnec have called her there for another reason: Lark is the Guardian of Life, the first of four Guardians who must awaken their powers to recover four stolen amulets. Together, the amulets—Life, Death, Dark, and Light—keep the world in Balance. To take back the Life amulet, Lark will have to discover her true inner strength and give in to a love that she swears will be her downfall.

Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads

Top Five Songs on Your Playlist

These are from my current pre-actually-writing inspirations:

Rae Morris—Grow

Moby (feat. Cold Specks; Thom Alt-J remix)—A Case for Shame

Rachael Yamagata—Elephants

Tom Odell—Another Love

VAST—One More Day

These are from my current while-I’m-actually-writing playlist:

Ramin Djawadi—Mhyssa (Game of Thrones)

Louis Febre—In the Rain (Smallville)

Johan Sommer—Time (Inception)

James Newton Howard—Rue’s Farewell (The Hunger Games)

Alexandre Desplat—Lily’s Theme (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2)

How much time do you spend reading each week?

I read during lunch—between 5 and 7 hours/week. Not enough!

What is the last thing you Googled?

Let me see… Ah, I was on Amazon looking at the book “My Life in Middlemarch” by Rebecca Mead.

Favorite places to travel

Everywhere

What is your favorite way to spend a rainy day

Playing in the rain, then curled up reading or writing while sipping tea

Favorite TV shows?

Currently: Game of Thrones, Sleepy Hollow, Elementary, Sherlock, and, yes, Arrow

If you had a time machine, where would you go, whom would you like to visit?

I’d first stop in England, somewhere between 1558-1560, the first years of Elizabeth I’s reign, where I’d be privy to a tryst between Elizabeth and Robert Dudley. Then I’d zoom forward to 1816 to the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva to be with Lord Byron, Percy Bysse and Mary Shelley, Jane Clairmont (Claire), and Dr. Polidori the evening they read the ghost stories that inspired Frankenstein.

What’s next on your TBR pile?

What isn’t? I have three piles that reach my knees! But the one that happens to be on top because I bought it most recently is Leigh Bardugo’s RUIN AND RISING

Where is your favorite spot to read?

On the couch in our kitchen, which sits beneath a huge window.

If you were on Death Row what would your last meal be?

I’d ask for chilled white wine, preferably Pinot Grigio or a Montrachet, goat cheese, ripe tomatoes and rustic baguettes. I’d close my eyes and imagine I was under a grape arbor on the stone patio of an ancient villa in Tuscany or Provence. But then, right before the deed, I would probably utterly panic and stuff myself with Haribo Gummi Bears.

Favorite vacation spot?

I think right now I’d like it to be the Isle of Capri.

Can we get a hint on what you are working on? What are your future plans?

Guardians of Tarnec Book 2, SILVER EVE, is in copy edits at the moment so I’ll have to do a bit more brush up there, I’ve started roughing out Book 3, and am also working on an MG with another author friend. That doesn’t count the stories I’m working out in my head!

Sandra grew up in an old house full of crowded bookshelves, in walking distance of an old library that allowed her to drag home a sack of six books at a time. It goes without saying, then, that she fell in love with the old house in Litchfield County, CT, because of its many bookshelves, and she lives there now with her husband, two sons, and a dog who snores. Loudly.

LARK RISING is her first novel and the first in the GUARDIANS OF TARNEC series. SILVER EVE follows in 2015.

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