Today I am very happy to welcome Brigid Kemmerer, author of Storm, the first book in her Elemental Series.
Becca Chandler is suddenly getting all the guys—all the ones she doesn’t
want. Ever since her ex-boyfriend spread those lies about her.
Then she saves Chris Merrick from a beating in the school parking lot. Chris
is different. Way different: he can control water—just like his brothers can
control fire, wind, and earth. They’re powerful. Dangerous. Marked for death.
And now that she knows the truth, so is Becca.
Secrets are hard to keep when your life’s at stake. When Hunter, the
mysterious new kid around school, turns up with a talent for being in the wrong
place at the right time, Becca thinks she can trust him. But then Hunter goes
head-to-head with Chris, and Becca wonders who’s hiding the most dangerous truth
of all.
The storm is coming…
And find out how it all began in the ebook exclusive prequel, Elemental.
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Earth, Fire, Air, Water – they are more than you dream.
As an air Elemental, 17-year-old Emily Morgan doesn’t
have much power. That’s okay—she knows what happens to kids who do.
Like
Michael Merrick. He’s an earth Elemental, one with enough power to level cities.
Which makes him sexy, dangerous, and completely off limits. At least according
to Emily’s family.
But her summer job puts her in close contact with
Michael, and neither of them can help the attraction they feel. When forces of
nature like theirs collide, one misstep could get someone killed. Because
Emily’s family doesn’t just want her to stay away from him.
They want him
dead.
About Brigid:
Brigid Kemmerer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, though her parents quickly moved
her all over the United States, from the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to
the lakeside in Cleveland, Ohio, and several stops in between, eventually
settling near Annapolis, Maryland. Brigid started writing in high school, and
her first real “novel” was about four vampire brothers causing a ruckus in the
suburbs. Those four brothers are the same boys living in the pages of The
Elemental Series, so Brigid likes to say she’s had four teenage boys taking up
space in her head for the last seventeen years. (Though sometimes that just
makes her sound nuts.)
Brigid writes anywhere she can find a place to sit
down (and she’s embarrassed to say a great many pages of The Elemental Series
were written while sitting on the floor in the basement of a hotel while she was
attending a writers’ conference). Most writers enjoy peace and quiet while
writing, but Brigid prefers pandemonium. A good thing, considering she has three
boys in the house, ranging in age from an infant to a teenager.
While
writing STORM, it’s ironic to note that Brigid’s personal life was plagued by
water problems: her basement flooded three times, her roof leaked, her kitchen
faucet broke, causing the cabinet underneath to be destroyed by water, the wall
in her son’s room had to be torn down because water had crept into the wall, and
her bedroom wall recently developed a minor leak. Considering SPARK, book 2 in
the series, is about the brother who controls fire, Brigid is currently making
sure all the smoke detectors in her house have batteries.
So without further adieu....
BiblioJunkies: When did you begin your writing career?
Brigid: I first started writing seriously in high
school. My friends and I would write longhand on notebook paper, and then trade
pages back-and-forth to read and comment in the margins. I still have three or
four loose-leaf notebooks full of those old stories. It doesn’t seem like we
were writing all the time, but we must have been, because I distinctly remember
pulling out my story binder in Calculus during senior year, just to get some
extra paper, and the teacher said, “No. No more writing stories in my class.
This is math.” (And I loved math!)
BiblioJunkies: What sparked your first idea for The
Elemental series?
Brigid: The first novel I wrote in high school was
about four vampire brothers named Michael, Nicholas, Gabriel, and Christopher.
It was a silly story, but I still have most of it on paper. When I really began
to take writing seriously in my twenties, I wrote a few books but was unable to
find a literary agent or a publisher. I couldn’t get those four brothers out of
my head – but I didn’t want to do vampires again. I started tossing around
ideas that would work with the number four:
four horsemen of the apocalypse; four leaf clovers; four, four, four. The four
elements of earth, air, fire, and water seemed to work best—and I had a lot of
ideas how I could make it fun. What teenager wouldn’t want to be able to control the elements?
BiblioJunkies: What was the most difficult issue you
encountered in writing the book?
Brigid: Writing from the point of view of a teenage boy
(but I think I pulled it off).
BiblioJunkies: If you could summarize your thoughts on Storm in a couple of sentences, how
would you describe it?
Brigid: Storm follows Chris, who at 16 is the youngest Merrick brother. When he meets Becca, she's saving him from getting beaten up in the school parking lot. Chris' life is full of action and adventure and paranormal excitement - but at its root, it's a story about family, brotherhood, and standing up for yourself.
BiblioJunkies: What’s your advice for an aspiring author
who would like to become a published writer?
Brigid: Read as much as you can. Then write as much as
you can. Then read some more—especially unpublished manuscripts. That will
really help you hone your eye for learning to self-edit.
A huge Thank You to Brigid Kemmerer for taking the time to come play on our blog! Stay tuned - later this week we will have our review of Storm AND we will be giving away a copy of Storm for our stop in the Splash Into Summer Giveaway Hop beginning Friday, May 25, 2012.
~Shel
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