Are you a full-time writer?
Was DIE FOR ME this your first published novel?
What were your literary influences for DIE FOR ME?
What inspired you to write DIE FOR ME?
How did you come up with the idea for your monsters?
Where did you come up with the term “revenant”?
Why Paris?
Since the book is set in Paris, why do DIE FOR ME’s characters speak English the whole time?
What type of research did you conduct for DIE FOR ME?
How long did DIE FOR ME take to write?
Who is your agent?
Will DIE FOR ME be a movie?
I’ve been a full-time writer as of January 2010, when I quit my job teaching English at Tours University in order to write the DIE FOR ME trilogy.
Is this your first published novel?
Yes.
What were your literary influences for DIE FOR ME?
I learned to read at four and have been a book fanatic ever since. Around adolescence I fell in love with science fiction and fantasy and used it to escape from a particularly restrictive childhood. I created my own universe, using as a springboard Ursula LeGuin’s EARTHSEA novels, Ray Bradbury’s MARTIAN CHRONICLES, and the books of Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey and the like. In high school, I immersed myself in books by the Inklings – in particular Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and Charles Williams. A course on modern mythology that I took in university introduced me to Madeleine l’Engle, Walker Percy and Mark Helprin.
Although I had not read fantasy or science fiction for almost two decades before writing DIE FOR ME, these books formed the foundation of my literary world-view. In particular, two of my old favorites, Charles Williams’s ALL HALLOW’S EVE and Mark Helprin’s A WINTER’S TALE, gave me examples of a world that is tinged – but not saturated – by a magic that lies just under the surface of the human world. Instead of pure science fiction or fantasy, I wanted to spin a tale situated just a tad east of magical realism – one that was convincing enough to win over those readers whose feet remained planted firmly on this planet and in this dimension.
My goal with DIE FOR ME is to make the incredible credible. Its universe is one that I wanted the reader to easily imagine herself inhabiting, and its events ones that could be happening right down her street. And I attribute this desire for plausible paranormal to my early literary intake – followed by two decades’ steady consumption of almost purely “non-magical” literature.
What inspired you to write DIE FOR ME?
I had just finished writing a memoir and decided that my new project would be a paranormal romance. I had devoured the Twilight series and thought it would be fun challenge to create my own supernatural mythology centered around a love story.
One of my goals was to create a heroine who didn’t have to be dependent on the man she loved. Self-sacrifice is admirable up to a point, but I wanted someone who was independent and smart – not just intellectually but emotionally.
And so I created Kate. Kate has the character I wish I possessed at her age. I wanted my Kate to be kick-ass but not tough-skinned. But I knew she had to have suffered loss in order to gain her maturity. I had only a vague idea of what I wanted when the first sentence (“Ten days after I got my driver’s license, my parents died in a car wreck.”) popped into my mind. It was my starting point and anchor as the story developed.
How did you come up with the idea for your monsters?
After pondering Kate’s character, I began making a list of supernatural beings that I could write about. Vampires were out. I felt like every possible angle on them had already been covered. Ditto werewolves. What was left? Ghosts, mummies, fairies, and all of the mythological creatures like satyrs and the like. I wasn’t happy until I had crossed everything off the list except “gods” and “zombies”. I wondered if I could combine the two.
I was drawn by the undead angle because, as a historian, I loved the thought of giving my characters backgrounds based in recorded history. But how could a zombie be attractive? How could a teenage girl fall for one without being worried that he would gnaw her face off during their first kiss? And what about that ultimate turn-off-y odor of decomposing flesh? I laughed my way through scenario after scenario before deciding I would have to come up with my own monster. And that is how my revenants were born.
I started writing the book with only a general idea of what my monsters were. As the story progressed, I honed the concept until the mythology began to come together and make sense. When I got stuck on a question like “why do they do this certain thing over and over again?” I would put on my tennis shoes and walk a few miles until it came to me. And it always came. It felt like I was uncovering something that already existed. I just had to be open to “receiving” it.
There are still certain points I haven’t figured out. And, on the other hand, there are huge swaths of revenant history and mythology that I haven’t used in Book 1 and might never find the opportunity to use. But it’s under there, as their foundation, and hopefully makes their existence more meaningful and three-dimensional.
Where did you come up with the term “revenant”?
I used the word “zombies” in my first draft. But the more my monsters’ mythology revealed itself, the more convinced I was that I needed a different term. About halfway through the book, the French word “revenant” (which literally means “one who comes back”) popped into my mind. In French it means a type of a ghost…a spirit that comes back from the dead for a certain purpose. It seemed to be a rarely-used term here in France, so I decided it would be perfect and used the term from then on.
Since finishing the book, I have found references to revenants in both English-language and French fiction. However, there seems to be no consensus between authors as to exactly what a revenant is. Since I had already concocted a complex mythology for my characters, I decided to appropriate the term and cast the revenants as historical creatures that were as old and venerable as vampires, zombies and werewolves.
Why Paris?
I set the story in Paris because it is a city that feels completely magical to me. I moved there when I was twenty-three and stayed for five years. I had an everyday job that I commuted to every day, taxes to pay, food to make, nights to sleep – a normal existence. But every single morning of those five years I stepped out my front door and experienced a frisson of wonder. Paris never lost its sense of mystery and magic for me. I want the reader to feel that bewitchment. Kate does. Even though she’s lost and in mourning, the city’s spell pierces through her emotional armor.
When I wrote DIE FOR ME, I was living three hours south of Paris, so most descriptions were written from memory. But at one point I jumped on the train and spent a few days walking through the story’s locations. I chose the building I thought Kate’s grandparents would live in and found the perfect place for Jean-Baptiste’s maison particulier (which now houses the Maillol Museum). I walked along the streets that Kate walked, and back and forth along the quays to situate myself in the story.
I know most of the locations in the book like the back of my hand, having had my own experiences there. I kissed someone on the Pont des Arts. I rode through the streets of Paris behind a handsome boy on the back of a scooter. The restaurant Kate and Vincent go to on their first date was my regular haunt, where I happened to take a couple of first dates myself. I lived in the building where Jules has his studio, and sat on the steps of the adjoining church imagining the jousts that used to take place there. The building next to the Sorbonne where Vincent and Ambrose died in 1968 was my old apartment building. I have spent days in La Palette, the Picasso Museum, the Village St. Paul, and sat in the sun on the cobblestone quay of the Ile St. Louis. And I can personally attest to the fact that Les Deux Magots has some of the best hot chocolate in town.
Since the book is set in Paris, why do DIE FOR ME’s characters speak English the whole time?
They don’t. In the first drafts, I actually specified, “…he said in English”, “Speaking in French, I replied…” And then it all got too messy. So I only specify which language the characters are using when it’s out-of-the-ordinary. Otherwise, this is how it goes: Georgia and Kate speak English with each other and with the other kids at their international school. The sisters speak French with their grandparents. Kate speaks English with Vincent, because he likes to practice his English with her, and it makes her feel at home. And besides speaking English with Ambrose, Kate speaks French with the rest of the revenants.
What type of research did you conduct for DIE FOR ME?
I researched the histories of a few of the revenants. But most of the information in the book was based on either my previous historical studies or stories I had heard. My ex-husband’s grandfather was in the maquis, and I was honored when he told me the whole story one Christmas – to the shock of the rest of the family who had never heard it before. (The U.S. being my birthplace, he considered me an Ally.) I read the book “Is Paris Burning?” years ago, and never forgot its haunting stories of occupied Paris.
During my research, I came across a few specific people who were so perfect that I drew directly from their stories. For example, Lucien is based on Philippe Henriot – “The French Goebbels.”
How long did DIE FOR ME take to write?
As professor of English at Tours University, I had to wait until exams were over in May to start the book, and then wrote non-stop until August. The first draft took around three months, and then I did two more drafts before giving it to my agent, Stacey Glick, in October. I accepted HarperCollins’s offer fourteen days after she began submitting it to publishers.
Who is your agent?
Stacey Glick of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management
Will DIE FOR ME be a movie?
I hope so! Movie rights are being handled by The Gotham Group.