Book Tour: Ashes By Amy Keen

Title: Ashes
Series: Foresight #2
Author: Amy Keen
Publication Date: April 6th 2013
Publisher: Fisher King Publishing

Blurb:

They will not give up…she's about to find out why Scarlett barely escaped with her life the last time she ran in to The Venari; but she refuses to spend her days looking over her shoulder.

Determined to be normal, she heads to Europe, only to learn that her wish to blend in is simply not meant to be. With Jake delayed in Salem, Scarlett is vulnerable and forced to rely on new found friends, The Collective; a band of people with gifts like her own.

When her desire to bring an end to her torment leads her to the dark underbelly of Paris, she discovers what The Venari plan for her is not death, but in fact much worse.

Excerpt:

We took a sudden left down a path I hadn't even noticed and I grew more painfully aware of how much deeper we were going, which meant I was losing track of how to get out. The air further down was damper and the putrid scent of the death housed in the rooms all around us was lingering, haunting the maze like a horde of ghosts.

Sutcliffe stopped at a large wooden door that ran flush with the stone wall. It was thick, old timber with heavy metal adornments and a huge door knob. He placed his hand over the handle and it split in two, one half separating from the other as the top slid to the right. Beneath what had appeared to be a normal handle was a small gray pad, not unlike what Elias had at his apartment. They had been making modifications. I guessed this is what he was referring to when he used the word sophisticated. The door came to life with a loud thunk. It moved back a few inches before sliding to the left and revealing a bright white laboratory style room. The luminescence of the clinical strip lights burned my eyes and I squinted to adjust. He dragged me forward and the room expanded before me into huge space that glowed white. To my left there was a bank of steel work benches with complex looking machinery and microscopes. Straight ahead there was a large dentist style chair with restraints on the arms and legs; a huge brace hung above it which looked like some kind of futuristic helmet and a hospital gurney, just like the one I had experienced the last time I lay in wait, at the back of the room with unused IV machines lined up alongside. On the right hand side there was a bank of monitors mounted on the wall above a control panel of blinking lights and switches so vast it looked like it could have been lifted right out of air traffic control. The wall of blank screens stretched ten deep and three high. There was nothing to suggest at all where we were stood, not a single bone or trace of stone. I had been in hospitals less equipped than this. If the circumstances were different I might have been impressed at what they had been able to achieve in these underground tombs, but the reality jolted me back into the moment and the darkness I had been fighting since I first learned about any of this twisted; we both knew that this room was set to bring about some form of conclusion.

My eyes were greedily trying to take it all in, desperately searching for clues of a way out, what exactly they would do with me in this room. The door had long since closed behind us and a glance confirmed my worst fears; there wasn't just a code to get in. There was one to get out.

Author Interview:

The Avid Reader What inspired you to write Ashes?

Amy Keen I had an idea for the prologue to Embers (first in The Foresight Series) and my own visits to New England shaped my love for the place and I loved Salem, so it seemed the perfect location for my novel. Salem's unique and dark history makes it an incredible setting for a YA book and I was swept up in the idea of taking history and bringing it into the modern world.

The Avid Reader When or at what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Amy Keen I was no older than four or five when I first told my parents that I wanted to write books. So great was my love that by the time I was nine I had an electric typewriter and taught myself to touch type!!

The Avid Reader What is the earliest age you remember reading your first book?

Amy Keen I remember loving books and reading them with my parents when I was very young but the first real memories I have of high consumption, obsessive reading came when I was about seven. I started reading Goosebumps books by R.L Stine and I was hooked. I had a whole set and couldn't get enough. That just further fuelled my desire to create my own stories.

The Avid Reader What genre of books do you enjoy reading?

Amy Keen Probably isn't much of a surprise that my favourite genre is YA. I like older YA generally, and the paranormal genre always hooks me above all else but I push myself to move out of my comfort zone from time to time as I know there are millions of incredible books out there and I refuse to close my mind to them!

The Avid Reader What is your favorite book?

Amy Keen Aargh....I can never answer this question. I really can't. I know it is a cop out but I love so many books and singling one out would be very challenging for me. All my favourite books are those which most deeply challenge my emotions or feelings happy or otherwise...a recent read which powered its way into my all-time list is Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom.

The Avid Reader You know I think we all have a favorite author. Who is your favorite author and why?

Amy Keen Again, I don't have one...this changes for me as I don't commit to one particularly. But my favourites in the past couple of years are Tonya Hurley, Mitch Albom and weirdly perhaps, Shakespeare....I really love me some Shakespeare.

The Avid Reader If you could travel back in time here on earth to any place or time. Where would you go and why?

Amy Keen Great question. I think after writing these books I would be very interested (if not a tad scared) to visit Salem and really see what was going on at the time of the Witch Trials. Failing that, probably to sit down with William Shakespeare and see what his writing process was!

The Avid Reader When writing a book do you find that writing comes easy for you or is it a difficult task?

Amy Keen Once I have a solid idea it is really fast and perhaps not easy, but at its most enjoyable. It is difficult now to complete the Foresight Series as other people's thoughts and feelings on Scarlett exist; it isn't just me and her anymore. I want to create and end which satisfies the reader as much as possible...even though I know I will never please everyone!

The Avid Reader Do you have any little fuzzy friends? Like a dog or a cat? Or any pets?

Amy Keen I always did have growing up, but currently I don't. Though, I have a three year old son who is desperate for a pet of some kind so I imagine we will soon have one again!!

The Avid Reader What is your "to die for", favorite food/foods to eat?

Amy Keen I have a real sweet tooth so anything really bad for me...I LOVE pancakes with maple syrup and a good homemade cake. I love to bake but I daren't as I eat it all..

The Avid Reader Do you have any advice for anyone that would like to be an author?

Amy Keen It has been said before, but keep going. Writing is a skill...I am better now than I was when I wrote Embers and I will be better still on my next project. If you wanted to play a sport professionally you would have to invest hundreds of hours in training, writing is no different. So, write and write and write and when you are really on to something you'll know. Secondly, do it for the love of it not because you think it will be a fast track to financial success! It can be, but you need the passion for it or the reader will be able to tell.

Thanks so much for being part of the tour.

Amy x

No thank you Amy for visiting today and chatting with us.

About Amy Keen:

Amy works in PR by day and spends the rest of the time as a mum, wife, fan-girl and YA author. A total, unashamed book freak, she reads and writes as much as possible and has a penchant for anything 'wordy'. If there is any time left over after all of the above, she can be found chatting at inhuman speeds, consuming absurd amounts of coffee (writer cliché #1) and attempting to diffuse her perpetual state of shopper's guilt. Her new novel Ashes just released and her debut novel Embers (Foresight #1) came out in 2012.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway