Hey everyone! Happy Valentine's Day! I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the blog tour for DISRUPTOR by Arwen Elys Dayton! I have an interview with Arwen to share with you today!
Haven't heard of DISRUPTOR? Check it out!
For readers of Sarah J. Maas and of Marie Lu’s Legend trilogy comes Disruptor, the sequel to Traveler, the thrilling conclusion to the Seeker series.
Quin has spent her life as her father’s pawn. She was trained to kill and manipulated to guarantee her family’s power. And now that she’s broken free of that life, she’s found herself trapped again, hostage to a plot that has been centuries in the making.
It’s taken generations for the pieces to come together, and finally all is in place. Her best friend Shinobu’s mind has been corrupted, the Young Dread has aligned with her enemy John, and the bloodthirsty Watchers are being awakened and gathered. Now there is nothing that can stop the force of time.
But Quin will no longer be a pawn. Quin is a Seeker. She stands for light in a shadowy world. She will face the vengeance of the past and its enemies and save herself and the ones she loves, or she will die trying.
Now on to the interview!
Hi Arwen! First I want to say
welcome back to Two Chicks on Books! DISRUPTOR was absolutely fantastic and I
can’t wait for everyone to read it! And am so happy that you could stop by for
a visit!
Thank you
so much for having me again, and I’m so glad you enjoyed Disruptor!
For the readers: can you give us a
little recap of the SEEKER series and the characters?
In the Seeker series, a teenage girl
called Quin has spent most of her life training for what she believes is a
noble purpose, only to discover that her family is turning her into an assassin
instead.
Quin has grown up in the remote
Scotland Highlands, where she and two boys her age—one her oldest friend (Shinobu), and one her boyfriend (John)—have spent years preparing to inherit two ancient artifacts, which
have been handed down in their families for hundreds of years.
These artifacts allow them to do
astonishing things, including
appear and disappear from anywhere in the world. Quin
expects to inherit this power for noble purposes, but her father intends to use
her as an assassin, plain and simple.
The story is set in the near future, in a world where the hooded
cloaks of Seekers and ancient Scottish ruins live comfortably next to
futuristic airships and advanced medical techniques. It’s into this world that
we watch Quin try to escape when she discovers the fate that’s waiting for her.
And it is in this world that Quin is followed, helped, betrayed and abandoned
by those she trusted the most.
Is this the end of the SEEKER
series? And if so how was it writing the finale? And what are you working on
now?
With Disruptor, the story of Quin, Shinobu,
John and Maud (the Young Dread) is brought to a satisfactory close. Unfortunately,
“satisfactory” for an author can mean frustrating, surprising, delightful, or
any of a lot more adjectives. I’m not promising that everything is rainbows and
unicorns at the finish. Yet we definitely get to see where Quin and the others
have ended up, for better or for worse, and it happens in a rather eventful
way.
There are many
other potential stories set in the world of SEEKER, but Disruptor finishes up this particular story.
Were any of the characters in the
book inspired by people from your real life?
I’m always
jotting down the personality quirks of my friends and acquaintances (and my
own, if I’m objective enough to spot them), so pieces of people I know are in
these characters. Once you start writing a character inside the world of a
story, though, he or she runs off ahead and becomes a new person, regardless of
your original intention.
Who was your favorite character to
write? What about your least favorite?
Maud, the
Young Dread, was my favorite to write from the very beginning of the series. I
love her sense of honor and the way she moves through time—very fast or very slow, depending
on the situation. Over the course of three books, we get to watch Maud change
into something more human than she was at the start. I’ve loved every step of
this.
My least
favorite character to write is a woman called Maggie, who is John’s
grandmother. She has a small, rather innocuous, part in the first book, but
even then I was gearing up for her much larger role in Disruptor. As you will see, she is a piece of work.
What is your favorite passage/scene
in DISRUPTOR?
I have a
particular fondness for the character Nott, a twelve-year-old boy who’s been
raised by the Middle Dread to be a ruthless fighter. Only Nott is still a
hapless and amusing twelve-year-old underneath the Middle Dread’s training. He’s
also very dirty. Near the beginning of Disruptor
there is a chapter in which Nott has been ordered to take a bath, which is a
life-changing event for him. This particular scene makes me smile every time I
read it.
What kind of research did you have
to do for the story?
Most of my
research was about locations, because this series takes us to quite a few
far-flung places, including, most prominently, Hong Kong and the Scottish
Highlands. There are also important pieces of the story that occur beneath Mont
St. Michel in France, in Iceland, and in a variety of other places. I’ve been
to a lot of these locations, but not all, so Internet image searches were
helpful.
Who is your ultimate book
boyfriend?
Is it
weird to say Kvothe from The Name of the
Wind?
What inspired you to write YA?
I don’t
think I’m intentionally choosing YA as a genre; it’s just that I am completely
fascinated with the teen years. There’s so much raw energy, embarrassment,
love, lust, hope and despair in a typical week of teen life, that it’s hard to
choose any other age to write about. In the Seeker series, I took great
pleasure in pairing teenage characters with the frightening stakes of the life
they are asked to lead. Quin has all the stresses of being a teenager PLUS the
challenges of the world she’s living in. Honestly, I couldn’t get enough of
that.
Lightening Round Questions
What are you reading right now? Or
what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?
Folding Beijing, which won a Hugo. Near future
sci-fi.
What Hogwarts House would the
Sorting Hat place you in?
Ravenclaw!
Twitter or Facebook?
I really
like Facebook, because there is so much personal interaction with friends and
fellow writers and readers.
Favorite Superhero?
I have to
go with Wonder Woman because I grew up watching the old TV show and was
enchanted both by her modern life and the story of the island where she grew
up. I spent a lot of time as a kid imagining what her childhood was like. (I
also thought I was unique in being frustrated that her large glasses made it
impossible for anyone to recognize her.)
Favorite TV show?
The Americans!
Sweet or Salty?
Oh, both,
absolutely. If given my way, I would snack constantly. Bad Arwen!
Any Phobias?
I’ve
outgrown most of my phobias somehow, though I am still a bit scared of ocean
riptides. But that’s only logical, isn’t it?
Song you can’t get enough of right
now?
Still
listening to The 1975’s “Paris” a lot.
2017 Movie you’re most looking
forward to?
The Dark
Tower!
Wonder
Woman (of course)
Murder on
the Orient Express
Thanks so much Arwen for answering
my questions! I can’t wait for everyone to read DISRUPTOR!
Thank you
again for having me back!
About Lesley:
About
Arwen:
ARWEN
ELYS DAYTON is
the author of SEEKER and TRAVELER. She spends
moths doing research for her stories. Her explorations have taken her around
the world to places like the Great Pyramid at Giza, Hong Kong and its many
islands, and lots of ruined castles in Scotland.
You can
follow her on Instagram and Twitter @arwenelysdayton, and check out her video
series about writing, 1 QUESTION, 2 MINUTES, at arwendayton.com and
on YouTube bit.ly/1mLcdIn.
Tour Schedule:
February 6th - Winterhaven Books
February 7th - The Cover Contessa
February 8th - Unbound Worlds
February 9th - The Eater of Books!
February 10th - Once Upon a Twilight
February 11th - Adventures in
YA Publishing
February 13th - A Dream Within A
Dream
February 14th - Two Chicks on Books
February 15th - Seeing
Double in Neverland
February 16th - Mundie Moms
February 17th - Take Me Away to a
Great Read
February 21st - Bookhounds YA
February 22nd - The Reading Nook Reviews
February 23rd - The Fandom
February 24th - Page Turners Blog
February 27th - Fiction Fare
February 28th - YA Books Central
Make sure to grab all the books in the series!
