Sunday, January 13, 2013

Blog Tour & [Interview] Scarlet Woods by Brooke Passmore







A little bit about Brooke ...

I live in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and am a 22 year old young woman who probably will never fully grow up. As a kid I played with Polly Pockets, swam in my swimming pool practically every day during the summer, and went on vacations to Disney World with my family (favorite days of my life). I loved telling stories as a kid by playing with my Polly’s and dressing up like princesses with my friends. Eventually everything that went on in my busy imagination I wrote down on paper in the late hours of the night.
When I was in sixth grade I moved into a new house with woods directly behind my backyard. I’d walk about the woods and loved trampling through the creek or getting lost in the trees. These trips through the woods gave me my inspiration for my book trilogy Scarlet Woods. My main character in my book is Morgan who lives in a house where the woods are right behind her backyard. My love for trees and anything woodsy definitely shows in my book and I hope I painted a pretty picture in readers’ heads about what Scarlet Woods looks like.

My favorite candies are Skittles and M&M’s. I put ketchup on practically anything with meat (even with chicken quesadillas). I’m a great fan of Florence and the Machine, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Birdie, and recently The Civil Wars. My favorite books are The Hunger Games, Shiver, and Wither. My favorite movies are Titanic and Gone with the Wind. The Vampire Diaries is the wonderful TV show I’m obsessed with (I’m a Delena lover!!). I hate ads on youtube that I repeatedly have to skip every single time I want to listen to the newest song from Glee. I love to smile, laugh, and purposefully sing loud and off key whenever my brother is around just to pester him. I have a cat named Phoebe who we named after Phoebe from Friends, a yorkie named Coco who we named because he likes to eat Cocoa Puffs, and a shih tzu maltese we named Indy after Indiana Jones. My favorite princess is Cinderella but I think my personality is a tie between Ariel and Belle so they’re all my ultimate faves. If I could choose a century to time travel to I’d probably choose the Victorian age, the roaring 20’s, the 1950’s, or the 1940’s. I think the Victorian age and the 1940’s were probably the most romantic eras in history and the 20’s and 50’s would probably the most fun!

Brooke's Website | Twitter | Goodreads






If you could live in any book “world” which book would it be?
Harry Potter! I’d get to go to Hogwarts, learn how to do ridiculously awesome spells, and hopefully would have Harry, Ron, and Hermione as best friends. It’d all be so magical and amazing I think there wouldn’t be a better choice of book world to live in.
         
What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a kid I was always coming up with stories while playing with my Polly Pockets or whenever my friends would come over we'd pretend to be princesses and mermaids in my pool. I started writing stories at a very young age. But as I got older and was trying to see what I wanted to do for a career nothing really struck me as big as being a writer. There’s something about writing that makes me so happy I can’t explain the feeling. I feel important writing all my stories down. I wanted to be a writer all my life not only because it’s fun but because I truly feel like I was born to do it.

What was your favorite book as a child/teen?
I really liked Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Meg Cabot books and my personal favorite Both Sides of Time. That book was about time travel that involved a murder and the main character only traveled back in time a total of three times out of the whole book series. It was good and as a kid I really loved it, but I reread it not too long ago and saw a few things that I wished were different. The characters fell in desperate love in like a day. I wish it was a more believable romance, but I did love the idea of time travel somewhat separating the two main characters in love. I thought if I could write a time travel story that involved a romance where they could travel back and forth whenever they wanted would be really enticing to write about. My book is veeerrrry different than Both Sides of Time. There’s so much going on in Scarlet Woods that there is almost no comparison with the book I had read when I was eleven. I loved Both Sides of Time and it will always be my favorite book as a kid, and it helped me come up with an idea for a story that I was completely passionate writing about.

You are stranded on a deserted island, what 3 things would you want?
A Kindle, my laptop, and Netflix. I think I’d be entertained with all that.

M&M’s or Skittles?
Oh Gosh! Those are my absolute favorite candies! Although I’d have to pick Skittles all the way!

Favorite icecream?
Mint chocolate chip!

What’s your favorite season/weather?
Summer time. I can’t get enough of being outside barefoot in the grass with the sun out and the trees green. I guess it has a lot to do with my childhood memories being outside in the summer that makes it my favorite season.

Beach or pool?
Beach!

If you had a time machine where would you go back in time or ahead? And who would you like to visit?
If I could choose a century to time travel to I’d probably choose the Victorian age, the roaring 20’s, or the 1940’s. I think the Victorian age and the 1940’s were probably the most romantic eras in history and the 20’s would probably be the most fun! Oh and I’d also love to go to the late fifties so I could see the early stages of The Beatles starting to perform! And I’d also love to meet Walt Disney! I love him and that would be the ultimate to get to meet him. He’d be one of the first people I’d want to meet in heaven.

Any advice for writer’s just starting out?
Reread your work constantly! I don’t know how many times I reread my book but it was needed. I always thought I had gotten all the errors out but nope there’s always more. Heck there are errors in the finished version of Scarlet Woods that I didn’t catch, but I almost published a version of the book that would have been atrocious since I hadn’t edited it enough. But overall I’m glad how Scarlet Woods turned out.

Any pet peeves?
People making noises with their lips, tongues, or eating loudly with their mouths. Gross!

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.
It’s a gripping young adult book that truly has everything readers look for in a book including romance, fantasy, history, suspense, comedy, and of course time travel.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
I’ve had readers say that my book was one of their favorite books of 2012. That makes me so happy since those readers are die hard readers so they read a ton. I’m thrilled that my book jumped out at them so much to say that. I adore my fans of Scarlet Woods and this whole experience is rewarding in itself.

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects?
I am writing the second book to the Scarlet Woods Trilogy right now and I hope to be done with that soon. After that will be the third and final installment of the series and I'll be able to move on. I plan on writing a book that isn't a part of a series that's an intense, thrilling love story that I've had in my head since I was in tenth grade. Part of it has been written but I can't truly focus on it until my Scarlet Woods Trilogy is done. After that I have an idea for another Trilogy that's more fantasy/science fiction. I just came up with the idea this year and have started writing that sometimes too, but the Scarlet Woods books come first.








Scarlet Woods
by Brooke Passmore
Publisher:  Self Published

Blub:

Past, future, and love all exist in the door through time.

Modern and independent seventeen year old Morgan Westbrook thought she had seen all there was to her home town of Scarlet, Georgia, but one day while walking in the woods behind her house she discovers a mysterious door masked behind the trees. After admiring the door’s timeless beauty she walks through its entrance to venture into more woods, but what she doesn’t know is that the door is a gateway through time that takes her back to the year 1863 during the days of the Civil War in Scarlet.

Without knowing that she had traveled back in time, she stumbles upon Danny Carson, an attractive young man who is appalled to see that Morgan is wearing skimpy modern clothes instead of a nineteenth century dress. Although they find each other completely different than anyone they’ve ever known, they cannot help but feel drawn to one another. After spending time in another century, she discovers that she's time traveled back to the year 1863 and that the door took her there. For months she and Danny journey back and forth through the door to experience the joys of traveling to both of their centuries. When dilemmas of unwanted marriage, slavery, and war are thrown at them, they must face the perils that time travel has delivered them in both the future and the past.

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