by K.L. Kranes
Genre: YA Fantasy Romance
Release Date: October 2nd 2016
Sanguaro Books
Summary from Goodreads:
Dagny lives a dangerous life. Pursued by an unknown enemy, Dagny and her family are always on the run and must use magic to stay hidden and safe. When Dagny meets Marc, everything changes. For the first time, she can imagine a future that doesn't involve constantly changing her life. Despite the risk, Dagny vows to stop running. But as their enemies start closing in, Dagny wonders if she can ever really live a normal life and if she can actually trust Marc.
K.L. Kranes lives in the Washington, DC metro area with her husband, daughter and their adorable dog. She graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Communications. K.L. moved to New York City after college and worked in public relations before returning to her true passions of writing and editing. She currently works as a freelance writer and editor. In her spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her family and trying out new potential hobbies. Her latest endeavors include driving her dog crazy as she learns the guitar and making a fool of herself as a novice swing dancer.
Guest Post
What was the inspiration for not only the book, but the
characters, the plot twists, and how the story ended?
Inspiration, for me, is like a building. You have a
foundation, then you lay the frame. Next comes the bricks and, the detail trim
and finally the roof. The foundation for my inspiration came from a close
friend who once said to me, “When you teach hate from the bottle, it’s hard to
make change.” I found this comment very disturbing, mostly because, like most
things that disturb us, it’s true. Our families, parents and even society teach
us hate or at least be wary of anything different from us. And many people just
accept that without question. I decided I wanted to write a story about two
people taught to hate each other. Then, I wanted to make those characters
question that hatred and fight back against it. My hope was that the story
will entertain, but also inspire others to rethink negative ideas.
“Let me make sure I have this right. You want to kill
people just because some dream and an old book say so?” – Marc, The Travelers
Once I had the foundation, I built the frame. For me the
frame of the story isn’t necessarily an outline, it’s really the characters. I
needed a character who felt alienated from the cultural norm. From there, I
drew from my love of fantasy novels, particularly those of the vampire genre.
In most of those books, the wiser, much older, male character falls for a
young girl, a relationship that would really not be appropriate by normal,
non-supernatural standards. I wanted to turn this concept upside down. But, I
didn’t want to write another vampire story, plenty amazing ones have been
written already. Instead, I came up with the idea of Travelers who can move
their souls from body to body and stay young for centuries. Because of what
they can do, they’re feared and hated. Then, I made the main Traveler character
a teenage girl, or a woman in a girl’s body to be more accurate, who falls for
a teenage boy who has been taught to hate her.
Once I’d determined the theme and the general frame of the
characters, the bricks of inspiration were laid quickly. They say to write what
you know. While there is no one character that embodies any one person, I
pulled traits and backgrounds from them, sometimes combining them into one
person or using them in different characters.
Finally, I just needed a roof. For a story like this about
tackling hate, there has to be a character with an agenda. Exposing that person
and that agenda became the inspiration for the plot twists and the ending.
Uncovering the hidden antagonist, like pulling back a curtain, had to be done
carefully and slowly. Therefore, the final confrontation, the metaphorical
battle against hate itself, was the natural progression of the storyline.
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