Blog Tour-PERSUASION by Martina Boone An Interview And A Giveaway!

I am so excited to be kicking off the official PERSUASION blog tour! I am obsessed this series! I have an interview with Martina to share with you today! And make sure to enter the giveaway for an AMAZING prize pack!
Haven't heard of PERSUASION? Check it out!

Title: PERSUASION

Author: Martina Boone

Release Date: October 27, 2015

Pages: 464

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble |iBooks

Beautiful Creatures meets The Raven Boys in the spellbinding second novel in the Heirs of Watson Island trilogy that “skillfully blends rich magic and folklore with adventure, sweeping romance, and hidden treasure” (Publishers Weekly, on Compulsion). 
Grieving the death of her godfather and haunted by her cousin Cassie’s betrayal, Barrie returns from a trip to San Francisco to find the Watson plantation under siege. Ghost-hunters hope to glimpse the ancient spirit who sets the river on fire each night, and reporters chase rumors of a stolen shipment of Civil War gold that may be hidden at Colesworth Place. The chaos turns dangerous as Cassie hires a team of archeologists to excavate beneath the mansion ruins. Because more is buried there than treasure. 
A stranger filled with magic arrives at Watson’s Landing claiming that the key to the Watson and Beaufort gifts—and the Colesworth curse—also lies beneath the mansion. With a mix of threats and promises, the man convinces Barrie and Cassie to cast a spell there at midnight. But what he conjures may have deadly consequences. 
While Barrie struggles to make sense of the escalating peril and her growing and forbidden feelings for Eight Beaufort, it’s impossible to know whom to trust and what to fight for—Eight or herself. Millions of dollars and the fate of the founding families is at stake. Now Barrie must choose between what she feels deep in her heart and what will keep Watson’s Landing safe in this stunning addition to a series filled with “decadent settings, mysterious magic, and family histories rife with debauchery” (Kirkus Reviews, on Compulsion).

Now on to the interview!

Hi Martina! First I want to say welcome back to Two Chicks on Books! I loved COMPULSION and PERSUASION and am so happy that you could stop by for a visit! BTW I can’t wait for book 3!

I’m thrilled to be here, Jaime! You’ve been so supportive of these books, and I can’t even believe that you ordered the sweet potato mustard for the giveaway. That means so much to me that I can’t begin to tell you. I’m sending you so much love and thanks! I also adore the Pinterest board, and I had to restrain myself from adding more food to the book in revision just so that I could add more recipes.

For the readers: can you give us a recap of COMPULSION and the characters?

Barrie Watson, after growing up very sheltered and alone with her shut in mother and her fabulous ex-drag queen godfather in Los Angeles, arrives to live with her aunt in South Carolina, knowing nothing about her family or the plantation that has been in the family for 300 years. But the plantation is haunted by the spirit of an ancient Cherokee witch, and other small spirits are taking the house apart, wanting Barrie to do something. Since the family magic, received from the witch when the family first settled the island, is the gift of finding lost things, and because Barrie is now the heir to that magic, she begins to uncover a series of secrets buried on the island. This includes discovering a murder, which is indirectly the reason her mother ran away before Barrie was born, and the reason her grandfather tried to suppress the magic that both Barrie’s mother and aunt had inherited from him, as well as a very real danger that is putting Barrie at risk as she investigates.

She is helped in her investigations by the young man who lives across the river—Eight Beaufort, Charles Beaufort, VIII, whose family has a gift for knowing what people want most most. As Barrie’s gift pulls her toward Eight, she fights the pull because she doesn’t want to be tied to someone so quickly, and she isn’t sure whether it’s her gift pulling her toward Eight, or whether the fact that he knows what she wants makes it easy for him to get her to like him, or whether her feelings are genuine.

To complicate things even more, Eight is determined to get as far away from Watson Island as he can, and he has a scholarship to go play baseball at the University of Southern California in the fall. But Barrie ends up magically bound to Watson’s Landing, which makes it physically impossible for her to leave the plantation for any length of time.

Another complicating factor is Barrie’s cousin Cassie, whose family didn’t receive a magical gift from the Fire Carrier, but received a curse instead. For 300 years, the Colesworths have wanted what the Beauforts and the Watsons want most, but they never get it. For years before Barrie came, what Cassie wanted most was to get away. To do that, she needed to find the treasure that was rumored to be buried on her family’s property and lost since the Civil War. When Barrie first arrives with her gift for finding things, this seems like the perfect opportunity to find the treasure. Except that the treasure isn’t what Barrie finds on the properly, and as she investigates and tries to befriend Cassie, Cassie discovers that what What Eight and Barrie want most is each other, and that leads to interference from the curse.

What can we expect in PERSUASION?

Persuasion continues very shortly after Compulsion left off. Barrie’s godfather has died, and she’s having trouble letting go. She and Eight have deepened their relationship while they’ve been gone, but Eight’s departure for college is looming over them both—so much so that Eight decides to give up his scholarship and find a way to go to school in South Carolina so that he can stay close to home. But as much as Barrie wants to be glad about that, she can’t help wondering if that’s his own decision. Does he want her for herself, or is the magic making the decision for him?

To complicate matters, as Seven learns that Eight intends to stay to be close to Barrie—as opposed to staying for the sake of family responsibility—he reveals a secret to Barrie that he has kept hidden from Eight all his life. That secret not only effects the relationship between Barrie and Eight, but Eight’s entire future and also Cassie’s future.

The decisions Barrie makes as a result of that secret are further complicated by the arrival of Obadiah, a man who can turn himself into a raven or disappear altogether. Having heard about what happened recently on Watson Island, he has returned to search for Cassie’s lost treasure and to break the Colesworth curse, which he claims has brought disaster on his family as well as Cassie’s family since it was originally cast. And, as he explains, the story that Cassie told Barrie about the curse and how it came about isn’t at all how Cassie portrayed it.

What about book 3? Do we have a title yet?

We have a title—it’s Illusion. And also we have a cover color—teal. It’s gorgeous. The brilliant Regina Flath is still finalizing it, but I’ve seen the initial direction and it’s the best one so far!

I know I asked this last time but who was your favorite character to write? What about your least favorite? Has that changed between the two books?

I still adore Barrie and Eight, and the scenes where they’re together are always such an absolute joy to me. Even when the magic is tearing them apart, their love and concern for each other is very real and beautiful. And by real, I mean that true relationships are messy. They’re never perfect, especially when two people are under extreme pressure and when what each wants and needs in their own lives conflicts with what the other wants and needs. Add magical compulsions into that mix, and it makes it even harder.

That said, in Persuasion, my favorite new heart throb is Berg. I really need to give him his own book.

And my favorite villain is Obadiah. He really was not what I expected, and to be honest, I didn’t know until the end of Illusion whether he was going to turn out to be a hero or a villain.

What is your favorite passage/scene in PERSUASION?

There are a lot of scenes that I love for different reasons, but the cemetery scene when Eight builds a tire swing for Barrie at midnight is my favorite. I love that Justine Magazine picked that one too. : )

What kind of research did you have to do for the story? There’s more magic in this one (or it seems like there is) so did you create your magic or did you research different kinds of magic?

The books require a huge amount of research. The trilogy is based on the very real history of the Carolina Lowcountry, where at the turn of the 18th century when the Watson Island plantations were settled, over 50 percent of the slaves who worked the plantations were Native American, most of them women and children. The slaves imported from the West Indies and from Africa were pulled into this horrible framework, and the resulting the blend of Native American, African, and European belief systems and magic called Hoodoo still exists in the Lowcountry today. None of this is written about nearly enough, and even the inhabitants of the Beaufort and Colesworth plantations don’t understand this history enough to explain it to Barrie as she first arrives at Watson’s Landing. The journey of discovery that she undertakes as she and Eight investigate the magic more deeply in Persuasion and Illusion brings to light a lot of omissions and errors and reveal how history is warped and changed by those in power. I also wanted to make the connection to the power imbalances experienced by women and children over the course of history, and still today—there are still 30 million slaves in the world right now.

What are you reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?

I’m reading Thief of Lies by Brenda Drake, which I’m loving. I can’t wait to get my hands on Liza Wiemer’s Hello?, which I’ve already read and is fabulous, in print form. And I’ve got Gabriel by Nikki Kelly coming up as soon as I finish up Six of Crows which is beyond fabulous!

Who is your ultimate Book Boyfriend? Is it still Gansey or Sean Kendrick? Or have you met someone new? ;)

Maggie still does fabulous book boyfriends, so they’re still up there. I am loving Kaz in Six of Crows, and I couldn’t go without mentioning Elias from An Ember in the Ashes, and Arin from The Winner’s Curse and The Winner’s Crime.

What inspires you to keep writing YA?

I love the freedom to examine love, life, and history with fresh eyes and take them in new directions.

Lightening Round Questions

Twitter or Facebook?

Twitter.

Favorite Superhero?

Groot.

Favorite TV show?

Blindspot.

What Harry Potter House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

Gryffinclaw. ;)

Sweet or Salty?

Today? Sweet.

Any Phobias?

Heights. Snakes.

Song you can’t get enough of right now?

Brave. Just did a bunch of panels with Brenda Chapman who wrote and directed the movie this weekend, and listened to it nonstop on the way home.

Fall Movie you’re most looking forward to?

Mockingjay.

Thanks so much Martina for answering my questions! I can’t wait to read book 3 and we still need to get that glass of wine!

DEFINITELY need that glass of wine and a LONG talk about books. : ) Hugs and many thanks, Jaime!

About Martina:

Martina Boone was born in Prague and spoke several languages before learning English. She fell in love with words and never stopped delighting in them. She’s the author of SIBA Book Award nominated Compulsion, book one in the romantic Southern Gothic trilogy, the Heirs of Watson Island, which was an Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Bookstores Alliance, a Kansas State Reading Circle selection, a Goodreads Best Book of the Month and YA Best Book of the Month, and an RT Magazine Best of 2014 Editor’s Pick. The second book in the trilogy, Persuasion, will be published in October 2015.

She’s also the founder of AdventuresInYAPublishing.com, a three-time Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers site, the CompulsionForReading.com book drive campaign for underfunded schools and libraries, and YASeriesInsiders.com, a site devoted to the discovery and celebration of young adult literature and encouraging literacy through YA series. She is also a founder and permanent mentor at 1st5PagesWritingWorkshop.com, helping to shepherd aspiring writers into the publication process and help them find the right starting point for their novels in progress, Locally in her home state of Virginia, she is on the board of the

Literacy Council of Northern Virginia, helping to promote literacy and adult education initiatives.

She lives with her husband, children, and a lopsided cat, she enjoys writing contemporary fantasy set in the kinds of magical places she’d love to visit. When she isn’t writing, she’s addicted to travel, horses, skiing, chocolate flavored tea, and anything with Nutella on it.

Website| Blog | Blog | Series Site | Tumblr | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter | Feedly | Google+ | YouTube | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive THE DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE Series signed by Laini Taylor, signed personalized copies of COMPULSION & PERSUASION, a charm bracelet, and a jar of the sweet potato mustard that is on the cosmic dog in Compulsion. US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the Tour Schedule!

Week One:

10/19/2015- Two Chicks on Books- Interview

10/20/2015- A Dream Within A Dream- Review

10/21/2015- Bookish Lifestyle- Guest Post

10/22/2015- Curling Up With A Good Book- Review

10/23/2015- Dark Faerie Tales- Interview

Week Two:

10/26/2015- In Wonderland- Review

10/27/2015- Ohana Reads- Guest Post

10/28/2015- Fiktshun- Review

10/29/2015- Bookhounds ya- Interview

10/30/2015- Reading with ABC- Review

About Book 1

Title: COMPULSION

Author: Martina Boone

Release Date: October 28th, 2014

Pages: 433

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Find it: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks

Three plantations. Two wishes. One ancient curse.

All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lives with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt’s South Carolina plantation instead—a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions.

Stuck with the ghosts of a generations-old feud and hunted by forces she cannot see, Barrie must find a way to break free of the family legacy. With the help of sun-kissed Eight Beaufort, who knows what Barrie wants before she knows herself, the last Watson heir starts to unravel her family's twisted secrets. What she finds is dangerous: a love she never expected, a river that turns to fire at midnight, a gorgeous cousin who isn't what she seems, and very real enemies who want both Eight and Barrie dead.