Stephanie Keys Talks about her Debut Novel

Today, I am thrilled to have sitting around my pool the gorgeous Stephanie Keyes talking about her debut novel, The Star Child. So whilst I open a second bottle of bubbly, I'm leaving you with my fabby guest. Go on Stephanie take it away.......!

The Romance Behind The Star Child

Let me just say how excited I am to be sitting around Pauline’s pool today! It was a little to cold here in the states today: 33 degrees F/0 C. I’ll take the pool!
Over the past month, I’ve finally started to share with friends and work colleagues that The Star Child is about to be released. Even though I always knew I would publish it, I didn’t want to deal with the inevitable “Have you finished with that book yet?” types of questions. However, now that we are so close I’ve started letting the cat out of the bag so to speak.

Needless to say, I’m getting quite a lot of questions about the book. Particularly from people who are surprised that it’s from the Fantasy genre and it’s for Young Adults. So as I sit on an inner tube with my margarita, I thought I’d tell you a little but about that.

The reason that I was drawn so much to Fantasy is because there is very little magic in our day-to-day lives. Granted there are those of us who try to incorporate it, myself included. However, when it comes to it, most of us are stuck in a cycle of getting up, going to work, coming home, and going to sleep – with various other tasks mixed in between. There is very little opportunity for anything other than the ordinary. Pauline, you are probably the exception. Do you have an extra room here?

The Young Adult audience was equally appealing because at that time in our own lives, there are so many possibilities. Your life hasn’t quite begun yet. There is a strange sort of romantic quality associated with this exciting time, so the combination of these two appealed to me.

In The Star Child, I was writing a protagonist in an opposite gender from my own, so it was very important that he have a very strong personality. Kellen St. James shares many of my own views. That was something that I decided to pass on early.

For example, I am a very direct, no-nonsense kind of person. However, when it comes to romance, I’m mush, if the sceptic in me allows the romance in. Kellen is that same way. He is absolutely convinced that Calienta is lying to him and really takes a decent amount of time deciding whether or not to believe her, let alone fall in love with her.

The relationship between Kellen and Calienta mirrors my own with my husband in many ways. I didn’t believe that he was for real; he was almost too normal. Opening myself up seemed risky and I put him through the ringer quite a bit before I really decided to commit to him. He was always patient and always there, consistently reinforcing his commitment. So Calienta is quite a bit like him. Although, between us it would be nice if you didn’t share that I gave his qualities away to a female character. I don’t want him to suffer an identity crisis.

Although The Star Child is a fantasy, there is also quite a bit of romance and adventure backed in. If you look carefully you will also see quite a bit of my own real-life romance embedded in the story, minus the world-saving prophecy.

Use the comments section of this article to tell us about your real-life romance! If Stephanie picks your comment, you could win an Amazon gift card! Only comments posted on December 17th are eligible.

The Star Child is available on;

Amazon Kindle US http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006GADZ1Y

UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Star-Child-ebook/dp/B006GADZ1Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322888380&sr=8-1

Barnes and Noble Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/stephanie-keyes

Paperback http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-star-child-stephanie-keyes/1037031019?ean=9780615566290&itm=2&usri=stephanie+keyes

About the author:

When Stephanie isn’t writing, she works full time as a Corporate Educator and Curriculum Designer. She holds a M.Ed. from Duquesne University and an undergraduate degree in Management information Systems from Robert Morris University. Stephanie is a clarinetist, saxophonist, and vocalist, and is always making music somewhere at sometime. She credits her loving husband of ten years and her two sons for the completion and publication of the Star Child.

Find out more about Stephanie at http://www.stephaniekeyes.com/.

Friend her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephanie-Keyes/150860604966160

Follow Her On Twitter: http://bit.ly/jjneXg

Stephanie is a featured author on Love a Happy Ending.com http://loveahappyending.com/stephanie-keyes/

And an Author member at Famous Five Plus http://famousfiveplus.blogspot.com/