Another interview, this time with the amazingly talented Josephine Angelini, author of Starcrossed and its sequel, Dreamless.
Fiction Freak: What first made you think of the four houses/Furies?
Josephine Angelini: The Furies I got from Aeschylus and his cycle of plays called the Oresteia. I was always fascinated with the no-win situation Orestes faced, and I wanted to put that in a modern-day setting. The Houses I got from history. The House of Atreus, Thebes, and Athens all existed, and Aeneas, a Trojan general who was a son of Aphrodite, founded Rome. I altered some of the finer details to suit my story but I tried to maintain the spirit of the lore. I didn’t create any of these elements out of thin air, I just combined them in a way that I had never seen before and wrote the most entertaining story I could.
FF: What is the funniest moment in your life?
JA: I have no idea. Honestly, I hate to punk you like this, but despite the fact that I can remember plenty of nights where I laughed for hours, I’m not exactly sure which moment in my life is the funniest. Or that it would be considered funny if I tried to recount it to you. Probably, you’d think I was crazy.
FF: As an author, what are the best and worst things?
JA: The best thing is being able to work in my pajamas at any hour of the day. The worst thing is always feeling like I should be writing. Holidays, weekends, my birthday—I always feel like I should sit down and write something even though I know that taking a break is a good thing. I think I’m scared that if I stop for even a few days, I’m going to forget how to write.
FF: If YOU happened to find yourself in Helen's shoes, how would you react?
JA: I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so I’ll just say that if I were in Helen’s shoes, there would be a lot of crying involved, lots of sad music, and spaghetti. Spaghetti makes even a terrible situation a bit more bearable.
FF: You've gotten many five-star reviews. How did it first feel knowing
that so many of us readers and bloggers adored Starcrossed?
JA: I absolutely love the response I’ve been getting. When I got to work on Starcrossed, my main goal was to write something that I wouldn’t be able to put down. It feels like such an accomplishment to know that I did that for so many readers. I’m enormously fortunate.
FF: What made you choose to write about Greek Mythology? Do you sometimes
wish you hadn't?
JA: I grew up reading Greeks mythology for fun and I spent a bunch of years in college studying ancient Greek drama. For me, it just seemed like the most natural thing to write my first book based on something that I not only love, but that I also know a bit about. They always say, “Write what you know.” And no, I’ve never regretted choosing the Iliad as my jumping off point. Greek mythology is so rich and varied that it feels new even now, thousands of years later. I couldn’t have picked a richer mine to plunder if I tried.
FF: What do you do when you're not writing/researching?
JA: Oh man, I am so boring! Apart from the occasional dinner with friends and my daily trip to the gym I don’t really do much besides write. I used to be an exciting person, a bit wild even, but I didn’t have much time to write back then. I think most writers find that living a quiet life is the only way to really focus.
FF: If you were to compare your writing from 7 years later to now, what do
you think your reaction will be?
JA: I hope I’m proud of it. I also hope that I have 7 more finished books under my belt, each successive one better than the one before it. I know Starcrossed isn’t perfect, but that’s okay. My goal has always been to improve with every draft and with every new book I write. I’m still learning, but I know that just getting published to begin with is such a rare blessing that I should be proud of my first book no matter how much I grow as a writer. I intend to do just that.
FF: The ending of Starcroseed left us Starstruck! Care to share any hints
of what's to come in Dreamless?
JA: Dreamless is darker and it has a lot more action than Starcrossed. Helen is trapped in the Underworld each night, trying to free the Scions from the Furies, and it just keeps getting harder for our girl. But it’s not all suffering. I also introduce a new boy named Orion. I can’t wait for readers to meet him!
FF: Any words to the readers out there?
JA: To the pure readers: I hope you enjoy my story and read it over and over again! To the reader/future writers: Keep at it, and finish that manuscript. Finishing a story is the first step to getting published. Good luck! J
Starcrossed blurb:
Set on the island of Nantucket, STARCROSSED tells the tale of Helen Hamilton, a young woman whose destiny is forever altered when she meets Lucas Delos and tries to kill him in front of her entire high school. Which is terribly inconvenient, not only because Lucas is the most beautiful boy on the island, but also because Helen is so achingly shy she suffers physical pain whenever she is given too much attention.
Making matters worse, Helen is beginning to suspect she’s going crazy. Whenever she’s near Lucas or any member of his family she sees the ghostly apparitions of three women weeping bloody tears, and suffers the burden of an intense and irrational hate. She soon learns that she and Lucas are destined to play the leading roles in a Greek tragedy that the Three Fates insist on repeating over and over again throughout history. Like her namesake, Helen of Troy, she’s destined to start a war by falling in love. But even though Lucas and Helen can see their own star-crossed destiny, they’re still powerfully attracted to each other. Will they give up their personal happiness for the greater good, or risk it all to be together?
Short Author Bio:
I was supposed to be a boy.
At least, my mother was convinced I was going to be a boy when she was pregnant with me. She claimed that I "carried" like a boy, but since I'm the youngest of eight, and I have six sisters and only one beloved brother, it is reasonable to assume that my mother was simply suffering from a massive case of wishful thinking. Whatever the reasons, my parents were so convinced I was going to be a boy they had even decided on a boy name for me—Joseph.
But I'm a girl.
My mother, always a frugal woman, figured, why throw out a perfectly good name just because the gender's wrong? She put a handy "ine" on the end of Joseph, and I'm rather glad she did. I like my name, or at least I realize it could have been much worse. They could have been planning on calling me Ralph or something. Not much you can do with Ralph.
I grew up surrounded by women.
And not just normal, average women, either. My sisters are, without exaggeration, a pack of Amazons. They are all tall. They have masses of thick hair, gigantic smiles, ringing laughs, and unfortunately for me, they all have fiery tempers. You see—I'm not only the youngest, but the smallest as well. I also happen to be a natural wiseass. Not a healthy combination.
Lucky for me, I'm fast.
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