He Followed Me Home . . . Can I Keep Him?

Tour Stop: Unleashed (Wolf Springs Chronicles #1) by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié

noreply@blogger.com (Mel (He Followed Me Home)) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:16:00 +0000

Hardcover, 382 pages

Released: November 22, 2011

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Katelyn McBride’s life changed in an instant when her mother died. Uprooted from her California home, Katelyn was shipped to the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, to her only living relative, her grandfather. And now she has to start over in Wolf Springs, a tiny village in the Ozark Mountains. Like any small town, Wolf Springs has secrets. But the secrets hidden here are more sinister than Katelyn could ever imagine. It’s a town with a history that reaches back centuries, spans continents, and conceals terrifying truths. And Katelyn McBride is about to change everything.
Broken families, ageless grudges, forced alliances, and love that blooms in the darkest night—welcome to Wolf Springs.

I love the idea of small towns and their secrets and this one sure has some! After her mother's death, Katelyn is sent to live with her grandfather and this small town of Wolf Springs is not so normal. Kat slowly discovers their secret, being thrust into the drama herself. A little lacking in a connection to the characters but a great plot carried it along. Be prepared for a cliffhanger ending!

Please give a warm welcome to Nancy & Debbie as they reveal their secrets of writing as a team!

People often ask us about how we work together—how we keep the voice consistent, who does what, etc. We are celebrating our tenth year as a writing team, with eleven books to our credit (so far!) So we must be doing something right. We’re definitely doing something fun—we truly enjoy working together. The only things we fight about are how much to tip cab drivers and waiters, and dog training. (Debbie grew up with poodles, and Nancy is ruled by her Corgi overlords. Debbie also had a wolf hybrid named Wolfie, to whom she dedicated Unleashed.)

We think the secret to this friction-free partnership is our emphasis on moving forward. We have discovered that Debbie loves to write first drafts, while Nancy likes to revise. It took a while to figure this out, because each of us thought their preferred “chore” was the easier one, and didn’t want to make the other guy do the heavy lifting. But once we did confess, our system fell into place: after we come up with our concept and a chapter-by-chapter outline, Debbie usually writes the first draft of the first chapter. She gives this to Nancy, who edits that chapter, and adds the first draft of chapter two. She sends that to Debbie.

Now here is our big secret: when Debbie gets back her edited chapter one, she cannot do either of two things: 1) Get mad, and 2) Change it back. We don’t ever check to see what the other guy took out or changed. Whatever is in the inbox is the only manuscript we have, as far as we’re concerned.

If we don’t like something the other guy did, we can try to do something new, but we can never go backwards. This keeps us from innumerable hours of checking, rehashing, and losing momentum. We make a point of leaving our egos at the door so that our books are not part Debbie and part Nancy. They’re all “us”—as if a third person is actually doing the work. When we’re finished, we honestly don’t remember (or care) who wrote what. We’re written two series with lots of POV shifts—Wicked and Crusade—and in Wolf Springs Chronicles, we stick to one POV—Katelyn’s. But it’s all written by the same “third” author.

We are a lot alike in our tastes—we both love fantasy, dark fantasy, horror, Dr. Who, Chuck, Castle—and Disney! Debbie lives in the Orlando area and Nancy lives about 90 minutes south of Disneyland. Nancy went to Disneyland Paris in August and Disneyland on the day after Thanksgiving. Debbie goes to Disney World for lunch, even! Debbie and her husband have also been to Disneyland Paris and had a trip to Tokyo Disney planned, but then the earthquake happened. Nancy flew to Orlando to finish Unleashed with Debbie, although we usually do it all over the phone and by email, and then we partied hard at DW! We’ll see each other in March at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival and the big question on both our minds is, Can we cram a trip to Disney World in there?

What is next for us? We have one more book in our Crusade series, titled Vanquished, and two more Wolf Springs Chronicles books. The next Wolf Springs Chronicles book is Hot Blooded, and we’re putting the finishing touches on it now. We’ve both been werewolf fans for about as long as we have been Disney fans, and we are howling for joy that we get to write about them. We had a werewolf character in Crusade we both fell in love with (Holgar Vibbard) and we swore our next series would be about werewolves. And it is! Nancy has kinfolk in Arkansas, and her mom was from Pine Bluff. We especially loved exploring the tall tales and legends of the hills, and it was neat to watch Dark of the Moon again, although fair warning: It’s a very dark, disturbing play.

Speaking of disturbing, we’ve been putting together an idea for a scary adult horror series, so we’ll be working together for a long time to come. Which is exactly how we like it.

And we’d like to see you at Gallifrey One: Network 23 if you’re in the Los Angeles area in February www.gallifreyone.com. Hmm, can we cram a trip to Disneyland in there?

And if you can’t…we hope to see you at another event…and that you enjoy Unleashed.

Learn more about Nancy, Debbie, and the Wolf Springs Chronicles: Unleashed site and LIKE the Wolf Springs Chronicles facebook page

Other stops on the UNLEASHED blog tour:

11/14: Livin’ Life Through Books

11/15: Mundie Moms

11/16: Reading Teen

11/17: Urban Fantasy Investigations

11/18: Dark Faerie Tales

11/21: One Book at a Time