The Girl Who Saved Ghosts (The Unbelievables, #2)
by K.C. Tansley
Publication date: October 17th, 2017
Genres: Mystery, Time-Travel,
Young Adult
She tried to ignore them. Now she might risk everything to save them.
After a summer spent in a haunted castle—a summer in which she traveled through time to solve a murder mystery—Kat is looking forward to a totally normal senior year at McTernan Academy. Then the ghost of a little girl appears and begs Kat for help, and more unquiet apparitions follow. All of them are terrified by the Dark One, and it soon becomes clear that that this evil force wants Kat dead.
Searching for help, Kat leaves school for the ancestral home she’s only just discovered. Her friend Evan, whose family is joined to her own by an arcane history, accompanies her. With the assistance of her eccentric great aunts and a loyal family ghost, Kat soon learns that she and Evan can only fix the present by traveling into the past.
As Kat and Evan make their way through nineteenth-century Vienna, the Dark One stalks them, and Kat must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to save a ghost.
~AUTHOR INTERVIEW with K.C. Tansley~
1) What gave you the inspiration for the storyline?
Since this is a series, Book 1 really laid the groundwork for Book 2.
In Book 1, Kat reunited the Radcliffes with their family heirloom, so the next
step was to reunite the Kingsleys with their heirloom. The heirlooms are
amulets that make each family powerful, so I needed the heirlooms to be lost at
different times, causing each family to slowly become weakened. I decided on
the early 1800s for the Kingsley dagger to disappear. The time period came into
focus as I researched Vienna more.
Why Vienna? Well, I went to Austria in 2009 for a week and fell in
love with the art, culture, history, and cuisine. In Book 1, Kat and Evan
time-travel to 1886 Connecticut. This time, I wanted them to go somewhere more
historic that they could really geek out over. Vienna during the
Austro-Hungarian Empire was it. Of course, I had to do research on what Vienna
in 1831 would be like. I had a lot of fun discovering that!
2) Are there any hidden themes in the book that
you hope readers will discover?
The book explores the concept of family—those
you are born with and those you choose. For Kat, she never knew her father’s
side of the family. It left a hole in her heart and an uncertainty about who
she is. She’s got amazing friends and they help fill that void. But she still
yearns for the part of her family that rejected her. I think it’s a very basic
need—to know where you come from and to feel a part of it.
3) Are any of the characters based on real
people you know?
I definitely drew from my experiences in college. Georgetown
University has a diverse student body, and I wanted to have characters that
reflected the world I lived in. So my inspiration for the characters started
with my own background and my friends’ backgrounds. Kat’s the descendant of
Russian immigrants on her mom’s side, just like I am. My best friend in college
is from Texas with Mexican and Native American roots and she is a jumping off
point for Morgan. Evan was inspired by a friend who is of Vietnamese and Irish
descent. Seth is Irish and Argentine and was inspired by a few friends.
On the surface, Kat and I look similar—blonde
hair, green eyes, wear glasses, tall, and curvy. It felt easier to write
someone who was more like me for my first attempt at fiction. She’s very smart
and school focused, which I was at her age too.
4) Who has influenced you most as a writer?
I was reading Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series during
editorial revisions and was influenced by the amount of visuals and the
smoothness of her storytelling. I saw each book unfold in my mind as I read it
and I strove to deliver that same experience to my readers. Richelle Mead’s
pacing from the Vampire Academy series also impacted my writing.
Reading the Amanda Quick historic romances during the 1990s influenced
my desire to write family sagas with historic estates and family heirlooms.
As a kid, I loved Edgar Allen Poe stories, which probably contributes
to the creepy, supernatural stuff in my stories. And Emily Bronte’s Wuthering
Heights gave me a taste for the haunting love story that plays out between the
Langleys and the Kingsleys over the centuries.
5) If you could have any three literary
characters over to your place for game night, who would you invite, what would
you play, what would you serve, and why?
I’d invite some fun sidekicks from books because
it’s game night and we aren’t going into battle, so MJ from K.R. Conway’s
Undertow series, Eve from Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampire series, and Magnus
from Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series. We’d play Clue because that
is my favorite game. It’s game night, so
I’d have snacks for picking at while we played like chips and guac and salsa.
Cheetos. Maybe cheese and pepperoni too. If it’s a marathon of games, we’d
order some authentic Chinese food too. Magnus would be able to conjure it
straight from Shanghai.
Author Bio:K.C. Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, and two quirky golden retrievers on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables—spells, ghosts, time travel—and writes about them.
Never one to say no to a road trip, she’s climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days. The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is her award-winning and bestselling first novel in The Unbelievables series.
As Kourtney Heintz, she also writes award winning cross-genre fiction for adults.
Thanks for being on the tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for these great interview questions and for being part of my blog tour!
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