I first heard about this book from one of our local YA authors Tricia Levenseller, and after hearing her talk about it I was so excited to see this blog tour come up! I’ve been on a YA Thriller kick the past couple of months so this one definitely made a jump to the top of my TBR pile!
A big Thank You to Fantastic Flying Book Club for picking me to participate in the The Truth Beneath the Lies Blog Tour! I’ve really enjoyed working with them and can’t wait to see what other tours they’ll be hosting in the coming months! If you haven’t checked out their blog yet, you are missing out!
About The Truth Beneath the Lies
Title: The Truth Beneath the Lies
Author: Amanda Searcy
Pub. Date: December 12, 2017
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 336
Find it: Amazon, B&N, IndieBound, Kobo, Book Depository, Goodreads
Fight or Flight.
All Kayla Asher wants to do is run. Run from the government housing complex she calls home. Run from her unstable mother. Run from a desperate job at No Limit Foods. Run to a better, cleaner, safer life. Every day is one day closer to leaving.
All Betsy Hopewell wants to do is survive. Survive the burner phone hidden under her bed. Survive her new rules. Survive a new school with new classmates. Survive being watched. Every minute grants her another moment of life.
But when fate brings Kayla and Betsy together, only one girl will live.
Interview
1. There seems to be multiple themes, how did you keep them all straight during the writing process?
The Truth Beneath the Lies is written as parallel stories, so that made it extra tricky. I had to make myself a chart for each chapter so that I knew which characters were (and were not) in each scene, the time period, and generally what was happening. This was important both to create the twists in the book and because the stories are running simultaneously. Getting the timing to match up was really challenging. And if I changed something significant timewise in one story, I had to change it in the other.
2. What kind of research did you do for this book?
Because The Truth Beneath the Lies is a contemporary thriller it wasn’t very research heavy. I spent time googling little details, and I talked to a police officer about some of the police procedural scenes (and then still took a lot of liberties). Since most of the places and all of the people in the book are fictional, it was more mapping things out in my head than doing actual research.
3. What is your favorite part of the writing process and why?
I have two favorite parts: the beginning brainstorm and the revisions with my editor.
I start every new project with a blank sketchbook and a blue pen and I just start scribbling anything that comes into my head. That’s where I develop my characters and work out the plot. It’s my favorite part because I don’t put any restrictions on myself. No idea is too wacky. There’s something very freeing about that, and I think it makes it easier to actually write the book. By the time I’m ready to sit down at the computer, my ideas are fully formed and I’ve already been through the messy part (rather than trying to work out the messy stuff in the actual manuscript).
I also like the “directed revising” of working with an editor. There’s only so much I can do on my own, and it’s great to have someone you really trust say, “okay, this is what I think would make this better.” I love the problem-solving that goes with this part of the process. It gets all your creative juices flowing.
4. What drew you to writing a YA Thriller?
I kind of stumbled into writing a thriller on accident. I wrote several other YA manuscripts before The Truth Beneath the Lies—none of which were thrillers.
I liked reading thrillers, but it had never occurred to me to try to write one. Then I had this story in my head about these two girls and everything clicked. (And it turns out that writing thrillers is really fun!)
5. If you’re able to tell us, what are you working on now?
I have another standalone YA thriller coming out late 2018-ish and several more in my head!
About the Author
I grew up under the huge blue sky of Albuquerque, NM.
I studied government and languages at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, about 45 miles from the US-Mexico border. Then I got my master’s degree in human rights at the University of Essex in England and spent some time working at a conflict resolution research center in Northern Ireland.
After all that rain, I came back to the New Mexico desert, where I now buy books for a public library system.
My writing journey began when I said (for the thousandth time), “I wish I could write a book,” and a friend said, “just do it already!”
I wrote a novel, queried, got rejected. Lather, rinse, repeat, four more times.
Then I entered and was selected for one of the best writing contests on the planet: Pitch Wars. After eight weeks of working with a brilliant mentor who whipped my manuscript into shape, I signed with my agent. Shortly after that, she sold my debut novel.
I’m represented by Rachel Brooks. http://www.rachelmbrooks.com
Find Amanda Online:
Website | Twitter | Instagram| Goodreads |
Giveaway
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