Debut Author Interviews

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist's age?

• Joni Sensel on...Favorite Book
• Carrie Jones on...Favorite Book
• Stephanie Hale on...Favorite Book
• Paula Chase on...Favorite Book
• S.A. Harazin on...Favorite Book
• Thatcher Heldring on...Favorite Book
• Laura Bowers on...Favorite Book
• Melissa Marr on...Favorite Book
• Tiffany Trent on...Favorite Book

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth!

And if I get a #2: The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

This is one of those questions where I’d like to lie because the answer makes me look so, um, silly, but my favorite book when I was Belle’s age was probably:

Illusions by Richard Bach

Because I really, really wanted to believe that I could be the messiah and walk through walls and practice peace and all that stuff. Please do not make fun of me! Remember, I could have lied.

The book I read the most was the Amnesty International Human Rights Report, which comes out every year. I was all over that baby, quoting it in pretty every single paper I had to write in high school, and in college, and, um, I even quote Amnesty in my first book, Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend. And I use the report, a lot, in a WIP that’s sitting on my agent’s desk right now.

I obviously have a hard time outgrowing things.

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

When I was my protagonists age, I was reading anything I could get my hands on by Danielle Steele and Jackie Collins!

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

Yikes, my memory is really not that good! I hope I’m getting the dates straight…but when I was my protag’s age I believe that was my V.C. Andrews stage. I read Flowers in The Attic in the early 80s and was probably about fourteen or so. By the time I was my MC’s age I was reading adult fiction quite a bit. So if I were reading any YA it was probably of the Sweet Valley High variety because by then I’d already consumed a lot of Judy Blume.

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

My protagonist is almost eighteen-years old. When I was his age, I did not read much. I went to school, got out at three, and went to work. I’d get off at eleven. I usually worked on weekends and studied. (At one time around that age I had three part-time jobs.)

But I have made up for my non-reading back then. I probably read a book a day now, and have dozens of favorite books.

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

Oh man. My favorite book when I was thirteen? Probably The Hobbit. I never got too into fantasy, but this one swept me away. It was as close as I came to a book I could read in one sitting. If I skipped over the dwarf songs. Another book that might have been among my favorites if it had been published is Hatchet. Either way I’m all about books with the unprepared in the woods cheating death with their wits. Hold the dwarf songs though.

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

The Horse Masters by Don Stanford. I was a total horse nut, and read this book so many times the cover wore off and I had to make another!

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

Senior year in high school … I read a fair bit of poetry that year (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Rilke) and some philo (Nietszche) and whatever fantasy, romance, or mystery I could get a hold of. The only novel I really remember reading and enjoying that year was ON THE ROAD (Kerouac). I don’t think it was The Favourite, but it has passages in it that still make me sigh.

What was your favorite book when you were your protagonist’s age?

It may have been THE MISTS OF AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Then and again, it might also have been TEST OF THE TWINS by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I doubt I had only one favorite. :)