Author Interview (and a Giveaway!): Alyssa Roat & Wraithwood

Please join me in welcoming author Alyssa Roat to the blog today to talk about her new young adult fantasy, Wraithwood!

Alyssa Roat grew up in Tucson, Arizona, but her heart is in Great Britain. She has worked in a wide variety of roles within the publishing industry as an agent, editor, publicist, writer, and marketer. Alyssa is the co-author with Hope Bolinger of the YA superhero chat fiction romance Dear Hero and the sequel, Dear Henchman. Her name is a pun, which means you can learn more about her at www.alyssawrote.com or on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as @alyssawrote.

WRAITHWOOD
SERIES: The Wraithwood Trilogy #1
GENRE: Inspirational Young Adult Fantasy
PUBLISHER: Mountain Brook Ink
RELEASE DATE: July 15, 2021
PAGES: 327

An estranged uncle, a mysterious mansion, and Arthurian legend—together they lead to a world of magic and bloodthirsty wizards who want teenage Brinnie dead.

Brynna “Brinnie” Lane has always lived a quiet life under the watchful eye of her hovering mother—until she’s sent off for the summer to live with an uncle she didn’t know she had. While her parents get to travel across the globe, she’ll be spending three months in the middle of nowhere: upstate New York. It looks like she might spend the entire summer friendless with her nose in a book.

However, she soon finds that Wraithwood Estate, her uncle’s creepy old mansion, holds as many secrets as the man himself. When Brinnie is warned not to explore any of it, her curiosity only grows. As unnatural events take place and Brinnie hears whispers of a hidden war, she must unravel the truth about her family’s mysterious past if she wants to survive.

Something terrible happened at Wraithwood thirty years ago, and Brinnie is determined to find out what—even if it means confronting the possibility that magic is real.

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Paperback
Also available to read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Hi Alyssa! Welcome to the blog!

Alyssa: Apples! Strangely enough, I’m allergic to oranges.

Carrie: I AM TOO!! And I’ve never met anyone else who is lol

Alyssa: Dogs! But I love cats too, especially my cat Kookoo.

Carrie: fun cat name!

Alyssa: I consume too much of both. I drink coffee all day, and tea in the evening when I still want to sip on something but shouldn’t be over-caffeinated.

Carrie: haha

Alyssa: Print for home and ebook for the go. I read tons of both.

Carrie: i agree!

Q: Around here I like to say that reading is my superpower. If YOU had a superpower, what would it be?

Alyssa: I think editing is my superpower. It’s almost magical to watch a book transform over several drafts, and I love helping writers shape their work into the best version of their vision.

Carrie: i think that would be very gratifying to watch unfold!

Q: Which books are “on your nightstand”?

Alyssa: My TBR is out of hand! I have a shelf and a half of unread books—and those are just my physical TBR. But I do have my next few reads lined up on the shelf. I’m looking forward to reading Fractures by Jason C. Joyner, then Collateral Damage by Taylor Simonds, then the latest two Miss Peregrine books from Ransom Riggs, and, as soon as it releases and arrives at my door, Legend of the Rainbow Eater by Kristiana Sfirlea.

Carrie: oh girl, i feel you. The TBR struggle is real. And let’s not talk about how many unread books are on my kindle LOL

Q: Do you have any strange writing habits/quirks? Any snacks/beverages that are a must when you sit down to write?

Alyssa: When I write, I need to sit down and know I have at least one uninterrupted hour to write, or nothing will get done, and I’ll just stare at the page. It’s a strange mental thing, but I can only seem to write in big chunks of time—two to three hours is best. Preferably, I like to have coffee and music too.

Carrie: I work like that too – if i only have a few minutes i might as well not even start lol

Q: Which of your main characters in Wraithwood is most like you?

Alyssa: My protagonist, Brinnie, is a lot like I was as a teen. She’s shy, bookish, but very inquisitive. Just because she’s quiet and polite doesn’t mean she isn’t going to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Carrie: Yes!!! Here’s for the shy, bookish girls who know how to ask questions! 😀

Q: Did you have the whole plot outlined before you started writing, or did you let the characters dictate what came next?

Alyssa: I had no plot whatsoever when I first started. I knew I wanted three things—a mysterious mansion, magic, and books. All three play a role, but the characters surprised me with a much more complicated plot and world than I’d been anticipating. They demanded more than just one book; they wanted a trilogy!

Carrie: three of my fave things & the more books, the merrier 🙂

Q: What do you most want readers to take away from Wraithwood?

Alyssa: I wrote Wraithwood with that sense of wonder reading brought to me as a child. I wanted to encapsulate that mystery, that whimsy, that intangible something that you feel, like maybe not everything is quite as it seems—maybe it’s so much more. Wraithwood is YA, but my hope is older readers might feel something of what I felt when reading those old, falling apart British children’s fantasies for the first time.

Carrie: I love that! beautifully put

Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me! 🙂 Before we say goodbye for today, tell us what‘s coming up next for you.

Alyssa: It was so good to be here! As for the future, I’m keeping busy, with five more books coming out in the next few years! Hope Bolinger and I will be releasing a sweet adult romance, Picture Imperfect, in November, and the sequel to Wraithwood, Mordizan, will be releasing April 2022.

Alyssa Roat is offering a print copy of Wraithwood to one of my readers! (US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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What about you? What makes you want to read Wraithwood by Alyssa Roat?