Two Chicks On Books: Blog Tour- LAST STAR BURNING by Caitlin Sangster An Interview & Giveaway!

Hey everyone! I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the blog tour for LAST STAR BURNING by Caitlin Sangster!

I have an interview with Caitlin to share with you today! And make sure to enter the giveaway below!

Haven't heard of LAST STAR BURNING? Check it out!

Title: LAST STAR BURNING

Author: Caitlin Sangster

Pub. Date: October 10, 2017

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Pages: 400

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD, Goodreads

Sev is branded with the mark of a criminal—a star burned into her hand. That’s the penalty for being the daughter of the woman who betrayed their entire nation.

Now her mother’s body is displayed above Traitor’s Arch, kept in a paralyzed half sleep by the same plague that destroyed the rest of the world. And as further punishment, Sev is forced to do hard labor to prove that she’s more valuable alive than dead.

When the government blames Sev for a horrific bombing, she must escape the city or face the chopping block. Unimaginable dangers lurk outside the city walls, and Sev’s only hope of survival lies with the most unlikely person—Howl, the chairman’s son. Though he promises to lead her to safety, Howl has secrets, and Sev can’t help but wonder if he knows more about her past—and her mother’s crimes—than he lets on.

But in a hostile world, trust is a luxury. Even when Sev’s life and the lives of everyone she loves may hang in the balance.

Now on to the interview!

Hey Caitlin!! First I want to say welcome to Two Chicks on Books I’m glad you could stop by for a chat! LAST STAR BURNING was awesome and I can’t wait for everyone to read it!

Thanks! I’m so glad you liked it!

For the readers: can you tell us a little bit about LAST STAR BURNING and the characters?

For sure! LAST STAR BURNING is a book about a girl named Sev who lives in an extremely rigid society attempting to survive a plague called Sleeping Sickness. Because of some nasty things her mother did, Sev has been categorized as a threat and has to spend most of her time being reeducated or working in the city factories. She’s best friends with a boy named Tai-ge who happens to be a high-ranking military member. A bomb goes off inside city limits, and Sev is blamed for the blast, so she has to escape from to Outside, where Sleeping Sickness is running rampant. She finds help in an unlikely quarter, from a boy named Howl who had been looking to leave the city too, but once they get Outside, he won’t tell her why he wanted to get out or where he’s taking her.

So book 2! Is there a title yet?

Yes! I love the title for book two, and I’m so excited to share it, but I can’t yet!

Were any of the characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?

Not particularly. There are little things inspired by real people, mannerisms and thought processes or ways of speaking, but no one is wholly inspired by anyone real.

Who was your favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?

June (a character Sev meets once she’s Outside) was my favorite to write. I usually ended up writing dialogue for her and then had to go cut most of it out and replace it with other ways of communicating. It was really fun to get her to speak without actually speaking.

What is your favorite passage/scene in LAST STAR BURNING?

So, Sev actually has Sleeping Sickness, and has weird hallucinations as a result . . . and they were super fun to write. There’s something about making the walls melt and shadows turn into monsters that’s more exciting than it probably should be.

What kind of research did you have to do for the story?

Well, I have a degree in Asian Studies, so I pulled out some of my old primary sources from the Cultural Revolution for a general feeling of what it was like to live in a similarly structured and strict society. I had fun reading THE DICTATOR’S HANDBOOK for ideas about leadership, I read a lot about encephalitis lethargica.

And, of course, there are lots of google searches that probably has my IP address under FBI surveillance. How fast bodies decompose under different sorts of conditions. Different kinds of bombs and how to make them. You know, the usual.

Who is your ultimate book boyfriend?

Howl from Howl’s moving castle. You can’t really beat coating an entire house in green goo because your hair dye-job came out a little ginger.

What inspired you to write YA?

It’s a really hopeful and interesting genre to write. Young adults are in a place where they’re deciding what and who they want to be, venturing out by themselves and seeing the world through their own eyes for the first time. It still deals with real issues and real responsibility, but happy endings are much more likely to occur.

Lightning Round Questions

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

At the moment, I’m reading FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS by Julie Dao (also coming out on October 10th!) which is fabulous. Books I’m looking forward to… I’m dying to read Patrick Rothfuss’s last book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. I don’t know if it counts as TBR if the book doesn’t even have a release date, but add my name to the thousands of other people hoping it comes soon. Also looking forward to Brandon Sanderson’s next installment in the WAY OF KINGS series.

What Hogwarts House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

I’m probably a Ravenclaw. Badgers are cool.

Twitter or Facebook?

Ha . . . Neither? Public-facing, Twitter. Family circle and friend-facing, Facebook.

Favorite Superhero?

1960’s Batman.

Favorite TV show?

Firefly is the best. Stranger Things was awesome. Very much looking forward to the second season.

Sweet or Salty?

Salty, all the way.

Any Phobias?

Not that I know of.

Song you can’t get enough of right now?

I just picked up Muses’s last album, “Drones” again after giving it a rest. It is now firmly back on repeat.

2017 Movie you’re most looking forward to?

I don’t usually watch movies until way after they come out, so the movies I’m looking forward to, everyone else has already seen. I still haven’t even seen Wonder Woman. It’s on my to do list.

Thanks so much Caitlin for answering my questions! I can’t wait for everyone to read LAST STAR BURNING!

Thanks for having me!

About Caitlin:

Caitlin Sangster grew up in the back woods of California and would rather go hiking, running, swimming, or general outdoorsing than just about anything else. If there aren’t any mountains, it doesn’t count as a real place. At eighteen, she moved to XinJiang, and at twenty-one it was Taiwan. She did eventually buckle down and graduate from Brigham Young University with a BA in Asian Studies and is now that person you avoid at parties because she'll probably start talking about Shang dynasty oracle bones.

Caitlin has been writing since middle school. She always thought of it as a silly sort of compulsive habit until she realized that people like reading stories and she liked writing them and there wasn’t much silly about that.

She currently lives in Utah with her husband and four children.

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Giveaway Details:

3 winners will receive an ARC of LAST STAR BURNING, US Only.

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