I know that Book!: Interview and Giveaway: Ice Country by David Estes

Ice Country (The Country Saga #2)
by David Estes.

Book Synopsis

Dazz, a hard-edged, fun-loving Icer, likes fighting, particularly while at his favorite watering hole. However, while recovering from a particularly bad break up, his decision to engage in a brutal pubroom brawl leads to a series of events that thrust him into a dark and mysterious scandal involving King Goff, the ice country ruler.

When his seven-year-old sister is abducted in the dark of night, Dazz pledges to do whatever it takes to get her back, embarking on a quest that threatens to rip apart the very fabric that's barely holding his shattered family together.
Along the way he meets a group of unlikely allies in the form of a travelling group of fire country natives. Can Dazz, when joined with his best friend, Buff, and new tan-skinned friends, defeat the King and his guards before it's too late for his sister?

PRAISE FOR "ICE COUNTRY":
-"5 stars! David Estes creates captivating and original worlds that you love to get lost in!" Alexandria Theodosopoulos- Goodreads
-"Richly filled with new characters and story without leaving the old behind...a seamless transition into another side of a fantastic world." Kerri Hughes- Goodreads

Quick Facts

Release Date: April 4th,2013.

Genre: YA Dystopian.

Formats Available for Purchase: Paperback (only at Amazon) Kindle, epub and Smashwords.

Excerpt

It all starts with a girl. Nay, more like a witch. An evil witch, disguised as a young seventeen-year-old princess, complete with a cute button nose, full red lips, long dark eyelashes, and deep, mesmerizing baby blues. Not a real, magic-wielding witch, but a witch just the same.
Oh yah, and a really good throwing arm. “Get out!” she screams, flinging yet another ceramic vase in my general direction.
I duck and it rebounds off the wall, not shattering until it hits the shiny marble floor. Thousands of vase-crumbles crunch under my feet as I scramble for the door. I fling it open and slip through, slamming it hard behind me. Just in time, too, as I hear the thud of something heavy on the other side. Evidently she’s taken to throwing something new, maybe boots or perhaps herself.
Luckily, her father’s not home, or he’d probably be throwing things too. After all, he warned his daughter about Brown District boys.
Taking a deep breath, I cringe as a spout of obscenities shrieks through the painted-red door and whirls around my head, stinging me in a dozen places. You’d think I was the one who ran around with a four-toed eighteen-year-old womanizer named LaRoy. (That’s LaRoy with a “La”, as he likes to say.) As it turns out, I think LaRoy has softer hands than she does.
As I slink away from the witch’s upscale residence licking my wounds, I try to figure out where the chill I went wrong. Despite her constant insults, narrow-mindedness, and niggling reminders of how I am nothing more than a lazy, liquid-ice-drinking, no-good scoundrel, I think I managed to treat her pretty well. I was faithful, always there for her—not once was I employed while courting her—and known on occasion to show up at her door with gifts, like snowflake flowers or frosty delights from Gobbler’s Bakery down the road. She said the flowers made her feel inadequate, on account of them being too beautiful—as if there was such a thing—and the frosty’s, well, she said I gave them to her to make her fat.
She was my first ever girlfriend from the White District. I should’ve listened to my best friend, Buff, when he said it would end in disaster.

The Author:

David Estes was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was very young. He grew up in Pittsburgh and then went to Penn State for college. Eventually he moved to Sydney, Australia where he met his wife and soul mate, Adele, who he’s now been happily married to for more than two years.
A reader all his life, David began writing novels for the children's and YA markets in 2010, and has completed 14 novels, 12 of which have been published. In June of 2012, David became a fulltime writer and is now travelling the world with Adele while he writes books, and she writes and takes photographs.
David gleans inspiration from all sorts of crazy places, like watching random people do entertaining things, dreams (which he jots copious notes about immediately after waking up), and even from thin air sometimes!
David’s a writer with OCD, a love of dancing and singing (but only when no one is looking or listening), a mad-skilled ping-pong player, an obsessive Goodreads group member, and prefers writing at the swimming pool to writing at a table. He loves responding to e-mails, Facebook messages, Tweets, blog comments, and Goodreads comments from his readers, all of whom he considers to be his friends.

Learn more about the author at: http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com

INTERVIEW!

For people who haven’t heard of Fire Country, make a brief description.

Fire Country (for which Ice Country is the sequel), is a YA dystopian novel, and the first book in a sister series to The Dwellers Saga. Here’s what it’s about:

In a changed world where the sky bleeds red, winter is hotter than hell and full of sandstorms, and summer's even hotter with raging fires that roam the desert-like country, the Heaters manage to survive, barely.

Due to toxic air, life expectancies are so low the only way the tribe can survive is by forcing women to procreate when they turn sixteen and every three years thereafter. It is their duty as Bearers.

Fifteen-year-old Siena is a Youngling, soon to be a Bearer, when she starts hearing rumors of another tribe of all women, called the Wild Ones. They are known to kidnap Youngling girls before the Call, the ceremony in which Bearers are given a husband with whom to bear children with.

As the desert sands run out on her life's hourglass, Siena must uncover the truth about the Wild Ones while untangling the web of lies and deceit her father has masterfully spun.

When did you decide to become a writer?

I started seriously writing in September 2010. Before then, like so many others out there, I’ve LOVED reading my entire life, more than any other activity. In the back of my mind, I always wanted to write my own books, but I always managed to come up with an excuse—either I’m too busy, too lazy, or I just don’t have good enough ideas—to not do it. Perhaps it was a fear of failure, I’m not really sure. But for whatever reason, I drifted along, reading, but not really writing.

Then I met my wife, Adele, a sweet and beautiful Australian, who encouraged me to put my dreams first. So, while I had a few weeks off before a new desk job in September 2010, I started writing a book using the first idea that came into my head, one about angels and demons that evolved from humans. Six weeks later, Angel Evolution was born!

I’d officially caught the writing bug, and so I kept writing, averaging 2,000 words a day, and slowly moving up to 3,000 words. I finished my first children’s book, Nikki Powergloves, 4 weeks later. Then I wrote Demon Evolution in another 6 weeks and followed it up with a middle grade book called I am Touch, which I have yet to publish. Finally, 10 months after starting Angel Evolution, I completed Archangel Evolution. So I had 5 books written in 10 months, but hadn’t published any of them!

So I just went for it! The rest has been a whirlwind adventure in which I’ve written 14 books in less than two and a half years, 12 of which are now published. On the back of The Moon Dwellers, I became a fulltime author in June of 2012, making what started out as a dream become a reality!

Do you have specific habits when you write?

I think every writer does. For me it’s setting a word count meeting or exceeding it each and every day while I’m working on a project. Usually I don’t even take a single day off while writing a novel, not until the first draft is finished anyway. That’s usually 3,000 words a day for 25-30 days straight.

When I’m in the middle of writing a novel, I tend to forget about real life. Eating, sleeping—those sorts of things. Most of the time Adele will gently remind me to eat breakfast by bringing a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee.

I’m a very organic writer, so I don’t do a whole lot of planning or outlining. Generally I start with a general idea, come up with something attention-grabbing to begin the story, and then go! As I write, the ideas start to flow and I jot down bullets of events, new characters and plot twists I want to happen later in the book. Before I end each writing session, I list out what I want to write about in my next writing session so I don’t have to reread or think a lot when I start again. I prefer to write this way, as it feels less like a job and more like art, but everyone is very different.

Are you an early bird or night owl?

Neither really. Although I lean toward staying up late rather than getting up early, I don’t usually write at night, as that’s my time to do other things, like respond to reader messages, manage my social networking sites, and have a good time in my Goodreads fan group. I also coordinate all my publishing and promotional activities at night, as well as do interviews like this one, or write guest posts for my blogger friends.

I typically get up around 8am and take a half hour to check e-mails. Then I start writing and don’t stop until lunchtime, at a pace of 1,200 to 1,500 words per hour. It’s always hard to stop once I’m in the flow!

Where do you get your inspiration?

Strangely enough, I get most of my ideas and inspiration while writing. And I don’t mean just ideas for whatever book I happen to be writing. For me, the very act of writing puts me in the right mindset to be inspired and let my creativity flow. My best ideas for future books have come when I was working on completely different series. Although I try not to slow myself down too much by constantly writing down ideas for other books while I’m working on a project, I do tap my best ideas into my iPhone for later review.

Which of your characters is your favorite and why?

In Fire Country, my favorite character is the main character, Siena, mostly because she spoke the loudest to me. It was incredible how she just started talking to me one day and then she wouldn’t shut up. She’s someone who speaks to you loud and clear, like no one else you’ve ever met before, and she basically just wrote herself, which is a rare and awesome thing. Her language is colorful and interesting and very, very, real, because like I said, she tells me each and every thing she wants to say! Yes, even now that the book is finished, she still talks to me ALL the time.

Name a book you wish you had written.

Wow. Tough call. Although I’d love to say I’d written The Lord of the Rings, it’s really not in my wheelhouse. Divergent by Veronica Roth perhaps. Or, ooh, I know, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. That’s one of my favorite books and I love his writing style.

What do you do, besides writing?

Reading (of course!), watching and playing tennis, swimming, playing any sport really, watching TV and movies, hanging out with Adele, making friends with animals everywhere we go. Adele and I are currently almost a year into a two year trip around the world while I write, so much of what we do revolves around where we are in the world, whether it be Mexico, Europe, Asia, or somewhere else entirely. Our home is wherever we happen to be at the time!

What are you reading right now?

Hunger, the second book in the Gone YA dystopian series by Michael Grant. This series is a pretty creative and entertaining read, although it has many cringe-worthy moments! I try to read as many books in the genres I write in as possible, so I’m always current on what’s popular and because it’s fun!

Name your favorite books.

I have many, but to name just a few: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, The Book Thief by Markus Zuzac (apologies if I misspelled any of the author names, some of them are hard!)

Best reward as a writer?

Having readers tell me how much they enjoyed one of my books. At the end of the day, that’s what all the hours writing and thinking and living and breathing my characters and plots and twists is all about. Entertaining readers, making them feel things. Making them be so engrossed in my books that all their cares just fade away.

How do you react to a bad review?

Sob, scream at the walls, rock back and forth. All three things at the same time. It’s messy, you don’t want to see it.

Kidding aside, I’ve had to grow some pretty thick skin, pretty fast. I never want someone to dislike my books, my writing style, my characters. But the truth is, everyone has different opinions, which is what makes life interesting. I mean, have you ever hated a book that all of your friends said was amazing? I know I have. My goal as a writer cannot be to please everyone. It’s simply to improve my writing with each and every book and do my very best to entertain my incredible readers. So when I do occasionally get a negative review, I read it and try to glean any constructive feedback from it that may help me in the future. Anything I disagree with or that is mean spirited, I just ignore. It’s all about having the right attitude and always striving to improve.

Do you like singing or dancing? Does music inspire you?

Yes and Yes! And Yes! I’m not particularly good at singing or dancing, but I love them just the same. Adele and I watch all the singing competitions as well as So You Think You Can Dance. Then we sing and dance after their over, just for fun.

Music definitely inspires me! I don’t usually get writer’s block, but if I do, I can usually snap out of it pretty quick just by listening to a song that has a lot of emotion in it.

What are your favorite TV shows?

Adele and I are TV addicts! We love (in no particular order): Grey’s Anatomy, Revenge, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Nashville, The Mentalist, X-Factor, American Idol, The Voice, So You Think You Can Dance, The Amazing Race, The Walking Dead…I’m sure I’m missing others, but those are the main ones!

Do you have a nice relationship with your fans?

Oh my gosh, YES!! I couldn’t have it any other way. Honestly, I’ve met so many of my readers on Goodreads through my fan group (1,200+ members strong and growing!), and have been fortunate enough to strike up really good friendships that will last a lifetime! I have so much in common with my readers, and because I’m such an active author on Goodreads, I get to know them extremely well. We buddy read books together, talk about TV and movies and what we did over the weekend, and just have fun together. I don’t like the word “fans”, because I consider every reader to be a friend. “Readers” works better for me, although I really just think of them as people who enrich my life on a daily basis!

I guess that’s the last question! I just want to thank Rhomy for taking the time to have me on her blog and for the awesome questions!! Also, I pledged when I started writing to always respond to readers, and love getting comments and questions, so please contact me using one of my favorite social networking sites included in this post. As always, happy reading!!

Tour Giveaway

Tour Wide giveaway: 5 e-copies of "Fire Country" (The Country Saga #1) and 2 e-copies of "Ice Country" (The Country Saga #2).
Rules: