Thursday, August 4, 2016

It's All About the Book with Christine Potter and her new release, IN HER OWN TIME @chrispygal @evernightteen #giveaway #YA


















It’s All About the Book…

 Please tell us about your current or upcoming release. 

My current book is In Her Own Time, Bean 2.  It’s the sequel to Time Runs Away With her. 

Summer 1970: Bean Donohue’s sixteen, she’s finally got a good band together, and she’s crazy in love with her artist boyfriend Zak. She’s also about to get the coolest summer job ever, and her impossible mom’s conveniently out of town. So why does she keep ending up in 1953…or 1779? And who's that guy with the black ponytail and the Kent State t-shirt? He knows way too much about her. Should Zak be worried—or should Bean?


 What is this book’s genre?  Is this the genre you usually write in?  Are there any genre’s you haven’t written that you’d like to try?  

This book is a paranormal romance, YA.  And yes, this is my genre.  It’s time travel, which is my favorite form of paranormal writing.  I’ve thought about writing contemporary new adult fiction, but lately, I’m being called by the ghostly stuff again.  I’d like to do a series with some kids who get involved in ghost investigations.  I live in a 1740-era house that has ghosts, and I’ve had the local ghost busters by with their equipment.  It was good spooky fun.  You’re never lonely in a haunted house!

 What inspired you to write this book?

I needed to find out what happened to Bean Donohue after the end of Time Runs Away With Her!  I’m a pants-er, not a planner, which means I fly by the seat of my pants instead of charting things out when I write.  The only way I was going to know what happened to Bean and her cool boyfriend with the long, long silver-blonde hair was to write the book.  So Bean and Zak kind of acted it out for me.  When I’m really writing hard, it’s kind of like watching a movie.  Hint: what happens is a lot scarier than the first book!

How did you pick its title?  Did it come first or did you have to write the story first?
I almost always have to write the story first.  This book deals with my belief that there have to be rules for time travelers, and that we are all owned by our own times.  So: In Her Own Time.  Bean can travel backwards, and she can only observe; she doesn’t affect the things she sees.  But suppose someone broke the rules…


How did you create your characters?  Did you use any real life people in their making?

Absolutely I use real people.  Bean is partly me as a young woman, but she’s much more confident.  Her boyfriend Zak is a mash-up of a good boyfriend I had when I was younger, a not-so good boyfriend I had when I was younger, and my very supportive husband. My younger sis had a boyfriend who drew with a Rapidograph, like Zak. And I stole Zak’s name from an old college friend.  Bean’s mom plays classical piano beautifully,  like my mom did.  Bean’s colleague at the FM radio station she gets a job interning at is based on a dear friend of mine who works at ABC radio news, and also upon the news director at an FM station I was involved with in the mid nineteen seventies. But when I get writing, the characters come to life and turn into…well…characters.  Fiction’s kind of magic that way.


Who is your favorite character of this book and why?

I have two favorite characters in this book: Samantha Thorne, Bean’s hyper-privileged private-schooled gal pal, who turns out to be an absolute rock in this book—if a bit zany. Sam isn’t always the most careful, but she has a huge heart, and there’s a wisdom in her impulsiveness, believe it or not.  Also, she’s funny.  And I like my villain, who is really complex and heart-breaking.  I can’t say more—or even name-- that character without getting into spoilers!  


What is your favorite part of this book?  Can you share an excerpt from that part?  

I like it when the book is just getting going—Bean’s first trip into the past in the opening of the book. Bean calls her time traveling “It.”  She gets to see her parents bringing her infant self home from the hospital, sixteen years earlier.  And there’s a little surprise at the end…

…And in the next moment, Bean found herself alone, just outside the house. The air was sharp. Tall trees that had just been in full summer leaf were suddenly bare, and smaller than they’d been seconds before. Bean tried to peer back in through the kitchen window, but the lights were off, and she couldn't see anything. She stood in her side yard, sometime in the past. It was happening again…
            And It was enough of a shock that she didn’t even know how she felt. She’d been glowing from the night before with Zak, happy to have had Sam pound on her door with music and laughter. Bean stuck her hands in the pockets of her thin blue cotton robe, and looked up. The sky looked like early afternoon: pale sunlight behind a thin, high layer of clouds. In front of her house, underneath the living room windows stood three overgrown barberry bushes. Bean had never seen them before. The ground was hard and cold, and she was barefoot.
            Alrighty, then. Damn it. Lately, Bean had been perfectly fine with life in 1970. What year is this supposed to be? She had no idea.
            Zak said love is always why this happens, she thought. But then she felt the happiness beginning to leak out of her. If Zak were right, why had she slipped backwards just now? She had a whole June weekend to spend with him, feeling nothing but love…and now, this.
It made no sense. All she could do was watch, deal, and try to keep warm.
            It really was pretty chilly. She tried jogging in place to warm up, which helped a bit. Her toes were soon numb, though.  After a few minutes, a black car with big, round bumpers pulled into the driveway and clattered to a halt. There was the rasp of an emergency brake being set.  And Beans father — very young, and too thin for his thick, grey winter coat — got out of the drivers side. Bean put a hand over her mouth, and watched as he ran urgently around to the passengers door. He yanked it open.
            Can you make it?” Bean’s dad called into the car.
            Of course I can make it,” said her mothers voice. A high-heeled shoe and a nylon stocking-covered leg emerged. Then came the rest of Bean’s mom, wearing a brown tweed overcoat and a floppy green beret. She walked a bit unsteadily, clutching a bundle of white blankets wrapped around a baby, which began to wail.
            Sh-sh. Sh-sh-sh,” said Julia as she wobbled up the walk. She stopped when she got to the front door.
            You wouldn’t happen to have remembered the house keys, would you, Tom?” she called. Tom patted down three pockets in his coat before something jingled. He rushed a key into the lock. Then he looked back at the car. Both its front doors now stood wide open, and he sprinted back down the walk toward them. Bean sucked in her breath hard, taking it all in. Was that her days-old self, crying, inside the house? Sixteen-year-old Bean felt a little weepy, too.  It’s 1953, then, she thought. Just after my actual birthday. Wow…
            The wind blew and she shivered.
            And then there was a hand on her arm.


What was the hardest part of this book to write? Can you share an excerpt from that part?

This book has some violence in it.  Not a whole lot by TV or movie standards, for sure, but I found it tough to write.  I’m a peaceful sort.  Without spoiling the plot, here’s a taste of that scene:

Bean, nobody’s here,” Zak called. “C’mon. Let’s go back to the car.”
            Yeah, maybe we should,” she said. “I really don’t need to get sucked back into this crap. Nobody’s here, anyway. ” Zak was disappearing into the darkness past the powder room window’s light, and she hurried to catch up to him.
            But then Bean felt a searing heat on her shoulders. Something stung her arm, needle-sharp. A bee? At night? No—a spark! She slapped at it. Just behind her, an outbuilding — some sort of woodshed—was on fire. There was no swimming pool to reflect the flames, but they illuminated the clapboard siding of a house that would become the radio station’s commune almost 200 years later. Its one downstairs window glittered orange and yellow.
            Bean ran away from the blaze, back into the yard. The air around her was bitter, punishingly cold, really, but the woodshed was fast becoming a furnace. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from its glare, and saw a tiny red mark on her arm where the spark had landed. It smarted.
            Two men with muskets ran by just in front of her, so close that their coats brushed against her jeans as they passed. She squinted into the night in the direction they ran, but lost them in the shadows. The brilliance of the fire dazzled Bean, and made it hard to see into the yard. But the space in front of the shed — the door, the side of the house, a few feet of ground between them — was lit up like a stage.
            Whoreson!” someone yelled, and Bean knew that voice…



 Did you have any special rhythm or quirks while writing this?

I wrote the opening of this novel right after I finished Time Runs Away With Her, and then I put it away for a while while I promoted that book.  Most of the body of In Her Own Time was written during National Novel Writing Month, racing to finish the first draft with some of my Evernight Teen colleauges.  It was really intense writing that hard—a whole book in a month—but I think it gave the plot a sense of urgency it might not have had otherwise.  I’m looking forward to NaNoWriMo this year!


 Is this a stand-alone book or is it part of a series?  If so, we want to hear about it and what’s next in the series.  If not a series, what comes next to be released?
This is the second book in what I’m calling The Bean Series.   There will be one more, also time travel, with mostly the same cast of characters—but like Book Two, I’ll be introducing some new ones.  All I can tell you about Book Three is that it’s two years on—1972—and Bean is in college.  She is a more experienced time traveler, and there are some very big surprises. 

Christine, thank you so much for spending the day with us, we were thrilled to interview you and find more about you as a YA writer !!!  Hope you come back to visit us soon ! 

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In Her Own Time
The Bean Books, #2

by Christine Potter

Romance/Time Travel/Suspense
63K, Evernight Teen Publishing

Summer 1970: Bean Donohue’s sixteen, she’s finally got a good band together, and she’s crazy in love with her artist boyfriend Zak. 

She’s also about to get the coolest summer job ever, and her impossible mom’s conveniently out of town.  

So why does she keep ending up in 1953…or 1779?  And who's that guy with the black ponytail and the Kent State t-shirt?  


He knows way too much about her.  Should Zak be worried—or should Bean?


Buy Links:    Evernight Teen    Amazon    ARe


14+ due to sexuality and adult situations
 Excerpt:
Bean found herself alone, just outside the house. The air was sharp. Tall trees that had just been in full summer leaf were suddenly bare, and smaller than they’d been seconds before. Bean tried to peer back in through the kitchen window, but the lights were off, and she couldn't see anything. She stood in her side yard, sometime in the past. It was happening again…
And It was enough of a shock that she didn’t even know how she felt. She’d been glowing from the night before with Zak, happy to have had Sam pound on her door with music and laughter. Bean stuck her hands in the pockets of her thin blue cotton robe, and looked up. The sky looked like early afternoon: pale sunlight behind a thin, high layer of clouds. In front of her house, underneath the living room windows stood three overgrown barberry bushes. Bean had never seen them before. The ground was hard and cold, and she was barefoot.
Alrighty, thenDamn it. Lately, Bean had been perfectly fine with life in 1970. What year is this supposed to be? She had no idea.
Zak said love is always why this happens, she thought. But then she felt the happiness beginning to leak out of her. If Zak were right, why had she slipped backwards just now? She had a whole June weekend to spend with him, feeling nothing but love…and now, this.
It made no sense. All she could do was watch, deal, and try to keep warm.
It really was pretty chilly. She tried jogging in place to warm up, which helped a bit. Her toes were soon numb, though.  After a few minutes, a black car with big, round bumpers pulled into the driveway and clattered to a halt. There was the rasp of an emergency brake being set.  And Beans father—very young, and too thin for his thick, grey winter coat—got out of the drivers side. Bean put a hand over her mouth, and watched as he ran urgently around to the passengers door. He yanked it open.
“Can you make it?” Bean’s dad called into the car.
“Of course I can make it,” said her mothers voice. A high-heeled shoe and a nylon stocking-covered leg emerged. Then came the rest of Bean’s mom, wearing a brown tweed overcoat and a floppy green beret. She walked a bit unsteadily, clutching a bundle of white blankets wrapped around a baby, which began to wail.
“Sh-sh. Sh-sh-sh,” said Julia as she wobbled up the walk. She stopped when she got to the front door.
“You wouldn’t happen to have remembered the house keys, would you, Tom?” she called. Tom patted down three pockets in his coat before something jingled. He rushed a key into the lock. Then he looked back at the car. Both its front doors now stood wide open, and he sprinted back down the walk toward them. Bean sucked in her breath hard, taking it all in. Was that her days-old self,crying, inside the house? Sixteen-year-old Bean felt a little weepy, too.  It’s 1953, then, she thought. Just after my actual birthday. Wow…
The wind blew and she shivered.
 And then there was a hand on her arm. 



Book 1 in The Bean Books series
is now available:
Time Runs Away With Her



About the Author:
Christine Potter lives in a small town not far from the setting of Time Runs Away With Her, near the mighty Hudson River, in a very old (1740) house with two ghosts.  According to a local ghost investigator, they are harmless, “just very old spirits who don’t want to leave.”  She doesn’t want them to.

Christine’s house contains two pipe organs (her husband is a choir director/organist), two spoiled tom cats, and too many books.  She’s also a poet, and the author of two collections of verse, Zero Degrees at First Light, and Sheltering in Place. Christine taught English and Creative Writing for years in the Clarkstown Schools.  She DJ’s free form rock and roll weekly on Area24radio.com, and plays guitar, dulcimer, and tower chimes.

Twitter: @chrispygal

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Giveaway:  $10 ET GC and ebook copy
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