If you’ve been around my blog a time or two you might have noticed that I love mythology! Re-tellings, continuations, stories loosely based on myths… I love them all! One of my very favorites is Aimee Carter’s The Goddess Test series. You can see how much I’ve loved the first two books by checking out my review of The Goddess Test and Goddess Interrupted. You can also check out the book trailer for Goddess Interrupted:
So, if I’ve already reviewed the books what is this post about?!? A giveaway of course! The awesome folks at Harlequin Teen are hosting a giveaway for one copy of Goddess Interrupted. It’s the perfect summer read! This giveaway is open to the US and Canada. Must be 13 or older to enter. Use the rafflecopter widget below:
Harlequin Teen also provide me with a Q&A with Aimee Carter. There were a lot of awesome questions and answers but I picked out a few of my very favorites to share with you! Thanks to Harlequin Teen and Aimee Carter!
How familiar were you with Greek myths and folklore before writing the Goddess Test series? Was a lot of research required?
+ I first fell in love with Greek mythology when I was a kid learning how to read, and my infatuation only grew from there. I’ve studied various kinds of mythology for years, sometimes for class and always for fun, but even then I put a great deal of research into the Goddess Test series. Mostly as a refresher to make sure I was getting my facts right, but I also researched the various myths looking for ways to tie the plots and characters together in unexpected ways.
You give the gods and goddesses in the series “ordinary names” – Zeus is named Walter, Aphrodite goes by Ava, Hermes is named James. Why did you do that and do the more contemporary names have any significance?
+ This was something I went back and forth on multiple times. Initially the characters Kate encounters weren’t council members at all – I changed that very, very quickly though. By the second draft, I had a place for each of the Olympians, and I did some heavy rewriting to replace my first draft characters with the gods. I wanted to find a way to keep their names the same, but since they’re supposed to live among us in secret in the modern world, it didn’t really make sense. How many men named Zeus do you know, or women called Aphrodite? On top of that, keeping the council’s identities secret was incredibly important to the plot. So eventually I decided they would have changed their names when Western civilization stopped worshipping them as gods, allowing them to live freely among us.
I did choose each name for what it means, some more than others – Walter, for instance, means “army leader”, while James means “supplanter”. The exception is Calliope, which in the story was chosen by her counterpart for its Greek roots. The reason the gods changed their names – and why Artemis didn’t wind up with the name Diana – is explained throughout the series, but you get to actually see this happen in The Goddess Legacy (July 31).
When is the next book in the series due out? Any hints on what will happen in book 3?
+ Goddess Interrupted, the sequel to The Goddess Test, came out in late March. The next book in the series, The Goddess Legacy, will be out July 31. It’s a collection of five novellas told in the perspectives of Calliope, Ava, Persephone, James, and Henry, and together they form one story.
The third book in the series, The Goddess Inheritance, is currently scheduled to be released in March 2013. Unfortunately I can’t say too much about it, but the challenges that Kate will face are pretty clear by the end of the sequel!
After the huge success of The Goddess Test, Goddess Interrupted is on many, many TBR lists for this summer. What’s on your TBR list?
+ I’m so excited for a slew of books coming out – The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, Grave Mercy, The Selection, The Serpent’s Shadow, Philippa Gregory’s YA novel, and a ton of others. I never have as much time to read as I want, but I’m definitely making time for all of those and more!
Yearbook Superlatives! If you went to high school with the Greek gods and goddesses, who would you vote for?
I'd be happy to review ARCs, finished copies, and ebooks, hold contests, and/or host interviews! Please read my review policy and feel free to contact me at the email listed at the end of that page.
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