TP, author of the Afterlife series, is dropping by Xpresso Reads today for an interview. She has also generously offered up a few copies of Beyond, the first in the series, to some of my lucky readers.
THE BOOKS:
TP Boje
Released September 9th, 2011
Add it to your Goodreads to-read shelf
Beyond
Have you ever wondered where you go when you die?
Meghan is 16 when it happens to her. She wakes up on a flying steamboat on her way to a school run by Angels in a white marble castle. She meets Mick who helps her through a difficult time in a different world filled with heavenly magic. One day she finds a mirror in the cellar of the school and goes through it. She ends up back on earth where she meets Jason. But Jason is in danger and Meghan knows something important. Soon she will have to choose between the two worlds. The one she belongs to now, and the one she left.
Beyond is a Y/A paranormal romance and the first book in T. P. Boje’s Afterlife-series.
The Afterlife series includes:
THE INTERVIEW:
Q. Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with your series, Afterlife?
Haven’t we all at some point wondered where we are going when we die? I used to do it a lot as a kid. Is heaven for real and what is it going to be like once I get there? What kind of a body will I have? What will I look like? Will all of my family come with me? Will I meet my grandmother there? When I was a child I remember reading Astrid Lindgren’s “The Brothers Lionheart”. To those who don’t know it, it is a book about two brothers that both die and go to the country Nangijala, a land in "the campfires and storytelling days". Here the brothers experience great adventures. Together with a resistance group they lead the struggle against the evil Tengil, who rules with the aid of the fearsome fire-breathing dragon Katla. It is really a very beautiful book and I remember how it made me look upon death in a totally different way. Like it could actually be a new adventure.
As I grew up I never thought much about life after death and if there really was one or not. I was busy living my life and thinking about my life here on earth. But then one day not many months ago a thought just popped into my head. What if we have to go to school when we die?
As it so often happens, the thought wouldn’t go away again once it had come into my head, and I started playing with the idea. If it is true that we leave our bodies here on earth, then we must have some new body on the other side, right? And it would probably take some time to get used to that new body. And how about going through walls and doors and stuff? I mean if we become spirits then we would have to learn how to do all those things, right? And what about flying? That is not something that comes to us easily. We would have to practice first, right? And someone would have to teach us. So eventually I started imagining this school that we all had to graduate from in order to be let into heaven, and soon Meghan popped into my head and started walking around on that school - that just had to be run by angels. She soon made some friends and fell in love (as it often happens when you are sixteen). And that was when the problems began. Because the boy was still human, living on earth, so how could they ever be together?
That was when I realized that a book-series was born. And just like the book “The Brothers Lionheart” from my childhood, it was about how dying is only the beginning of the next great adventure.
Q. When you started the series, did you already have it all planned out to the end, or did you go with the flow?
I saw the whole story in front of me to the very last scene. As far as I can figure out, there is going to be six books in this series. I have everything planned in details and I had from the beginning. My husband always asks me how I can manage to have all that in my head at once, and I have no answer. It is just there, it just came one day and refused to leave.
Q. What was your most memorable moment while writing?
I am only halfway with the series and so far and there has been many memorable moments, but one of my favorites has to be when I wrote about how Meghan and her classmates were taught how to fly through tornadoes. That was a lot of fun. Also when they went surfing on the clouds or in book three when they were balancing on rainbows. I have had a lot of fun writing this series so far.
Q. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I don't know if it is interesting, but I must absolutely have a big mug of steaming hot tea, I cannot and will not write without it. I must also be surrounded by books from authors that I admire. Like C. S. Lewis, and Jules Verne. They are always at my desk. So is Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. It has been with me since I was a teenager. I refuse to put these books on shelves. They have to be near me, so I can touch them and sometimes flip a few pages in them if I need inspiration.
Q. Do you have a favorite writing spot?
I am so lucky that I live in a house with the most beautiful view, so I am always in my office looking out on the water when I write. I love it there and I never know where all the hours went when it is time to stop writing and go get the kids. Often I see dolphins and pelicans right outside my windows. It doesn't get much better than that.
Q. What do you like to do when you're not writing?
We live in Florida so we go to the beach a lot. We come from a cold cold country in nothern Europe so being able to see the sun every day and actually go to the beach is extremely wonderful and we enjoy it all that we can.
Q. You're at Starbucks - what do you order?
Okay, I have to admit that I belong to a very small and rare group of people that doesn't like coffee. But my husband loves Starbucks so whenever he wants to go there I always order a smoothie and some kind of cake - maybe a muffin. They have great cake and I just love any kind of cake.
Thank you so much, TP, for dropping by Xpresso Reads it was a lotof fun getting to know you, and even though you don't like coffee, I forgive you! ;)
T. P. Boje is a mother of two, a stepmother of another two and a hardcore cartoon lover, Tim Burton enthusiast, and enjoys any movie the Coen Brothers have made (with the big Lebowski being her favorite strongly followed by Burn after Reading). She is also a writer of Y/A Paranormal Romance, fantasy and mystery. She is originally from Denmark but currently living in Florida, USA. Her books are translated into several languages.
THE GIVEAWAY:
T.P. has generously offered up 2 paperback copies as well as 2 ebook copies of Beyond- the first book in the Afterlife series. Thus, there will be 4 winners!
Giveaway details:
Open Internationally!
Ends December 25th, 2011
Use the Rafflecopter below to enter.
*Note: when winners are chosen, the first 2 get paperbacks, the last 2 get ecopies.
