Happy Release Day to Defector by Susanne Winnacker!

DEFECTOR is the sequel to IMPOSTOR (our League review here), so slight spoilers for book one ahead. Ready? Okay!

As you no doubt recall from IMPOSTOR, Tessa is a Variant who lives and works with a special unit of the FBI known as the FEA (Forces with Extraordinary Abilities). Her power is shape-shifting, and like Mystique of the X-Men, Tessa can take on any identity. In IMPOSTOR, she impersonated a murder victim for a special mission. In DEFECTOR, she goes on her second mission, impersonating a senator who is being targeted by Abel's Army, a radical group of Variants.

The mission goes anything but smoothly and Tessa ends up discovering several shocking truths about herself and about her boyfriend Alec. This truths are such game-changers that Tessa goes on the road with Devon (brother of the dead girl she played in book one) on a rogue fact-finding mission. But with both Abel's Army and the FEA after her, Tessa has to be smarter and more resourceful than ever before.

A Personal Journey

In book one, Tessa struggled to define her place within FEA, but her character arc in book two is about self-discovery, coming to terms with her origins, and learning to make decisions for herself. It's a fascinating character study that explores how our alliances shape us, but how we ultimately control our own destiny.

Major Reveals

Who can you trust when everyone lies to you? Tessa's eyes are opened via several huge plot twists that put everything she thought she knew into question. Tessa's willingness to give up everything to find out the truth drives the action and sets up some stellar confrontation scenes (I especially loved the underground bar).

Read Now!

Fortunately, you don't have to wait to defect with Tessa. DEFECTOR is available now at all major retailers.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
Book Depository

Interview with Susanne Winnacker, Author of IMPOSTER

Today, it’s my pleasure to interview Leaguer Susanne Winnacker about her new book IMPOSTER. Don’t miss her newest addition to the family at the end.

Susanne, I'm sure the League readers would love to know where you got the idea for Impostor?

My main character Tessa came first. I just knew I wanted to write about a girl who could absorb the DNA of other people and turn into them. And once that was settled, I very quickly decided that she’d go on an undercover mission. I watched the Miss Congeniality movies more times than I care to count – and what’s not to love about undercover missions?

So is Impostor a trilogy or a standalone?

Heh, that’s an interesting question. Right now, the plan is that Impostor has one sequel. J

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Making sure the mystery worked. I needed to plant enough clues to suspects without giving away the real killer too soon. NOT easy.

Okay, gotta ask, what's your favorite scene?

My favorite scene is in the later chapters and involves the killer but of course it’s VERY spoilery, so…But I also love the scene that inspired the cover. It’s in the middle of the book, and shows Tessa’s inner turmoil. She’s feeling like she’s losing herself. I call it the mirror-scene (people who’ve read the book will know what I’m talking about).

Impostor was sold to Warners for TV! What's the status of that? Dream casting?

I was so excited when I found out about Warner Brothers optioning Impostor’s TV rights. Sadly, there is no news I can share right now. And I don’t have a real dream cast. I don’t want Alec (fellow FEA agent. Tessa has a crush on him) to be just a pretty face. He’s gone through a lot in his life and I think his face should reflect a certain kind of depth. Not very helpful, I guess?

Maybe the readers who have had a sneak peek will have some casting ideas in the comments. So what are you working on now?

I’m working on a middle grade, another unrelated YA horror, and I’m waiting on edits for the sequel to Impostor!

You’re branching out. Is there anything else you'd like to tell the League readers?

I’m at BEA today, so say hi if you see me walking around. I’ll be the woman with the terrified and lost expression on her face. And I’ll be handing out Impostor swag.

Susanne Winnacker studied law before she became a full-time writer. She lives with her husband, a dog and three bunnies in Germany. She loves coffee (in every shape and form), traveling and animals.

When she isn't writing, you can usually find her in the kitchen, experimenting with new vegan dishes.

Be sure to enter the raffle! If you love bunnies, or want to say anything to Susanne, leave a comment.

View Susanne on Facebook here and see Leaguer Lenore's interview with Susanne here.

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The Cover of Impostor

So excited for the release of IMPOSTOR by Susanne Winnacker this week! I was hooked on the story idea and when I saw the cover, I thought it was beyond perfect. Susanne graciously let me attack her with questions on the insider details on all things cover-related!

Your cover is extraordinary. It's so fitting for your book! I understand it wasn't the first cover considered. What was the first one like?

The first one was darker (black background – not white) and not splintered. It showed two different girls (Tessa and Madison) opposite from each other, and DNA was mixed into their hair. It was very sci-fi. It was beautiful in its own way, but I don’t think it was quite as striking as my final cover.

How much input did you have on the cover process?

I didn’t really give any input, since I didn’t have a vision for the cover, but luckily the team at Penguin did a wonderful job. It reflects the inside of the book and Tessa’s power as well as her turmoil perfectly. I was blown away when I first saw it.

Who is your cover designer, and would we recognize his/her other work?

The designer is Theresa Evangelista. She designed the covers of Ally Condie’s Matched Series, Gordon Dahlquist’s The Different Girl, Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray and many more! (http://www.tevangelista.com/covers.html)

There are so many fantastic YA sci-fi covers out there. Tells us some of your favorites.

I really love the covers of Michael T. Martin’s The End Games,  Debra Driza’s Mila 2.0, Elsie Chapman’s Dualed, Mindy McGinnis’s Not A Drop To Drink, Demitria Lunetta’s In the After, and many others! So many pretty covers! Ahhh!

There you go! The insider scoop on the cover of IMPOSTOR. Thanks Susanne! And if you haven't yet, please enter the IMPOSTOR giveaway!

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Today is release day for Leaguer Susanne Winnacker and IMPOSTOR! In case you haven't heard about the book, I'll be introducing it, and then since I've already had the amazing opportunity to read IMPOSTOR -- and my review follows.

This is a book you DON'T want to miss!

About IMPOSTOR: Tessa is a Variant, able to absorb the DNA of anyone she touches and mimic their appearance. Shunned by her family, she’s spent the last two years training with the Forces with Extraordinary Abilities, a secret branch of the FBI. When a serial killer rocks a small town in Oregon, Tessa is given a mission: she must impersonate Madison, a local teen, to find the killer before he strikes again.

Tessa hates everything about being an impostor—the stress, the danger, the deceit—but loves playing the role of a normal girl. As Madison, she finds friends, romance, and the kind of loving family she’d do anything to keep. Amid action, suspense, and a ticking clock, this super-human comes to a very human conclusion: even a girl who can look like anyone struggles the most with being herself.

• Add IMPOSTOR to Goodreads. 
• Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, or your favorite independent bookseller.
• Catch up with Susanne on her blog, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

My review: IMPOSTOR is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I had it on my Kindle, and I stayed up way too late one night, reading reading reading. I couldn't read fast enough! And my Kindle died! Grrr. I had to read it the next day during my lunch. I was that ravenous to finish!

Susanne is a master with pacing. IMPOSTOR is a mystery as well as a science fiction novel, and I literally could not guess who the killer might be. Just when I thought I had it figured out, Susanne would lead me down a different path. The mystery, tension, and pacing were brilliantly done.

I really liked Tessa as the main character. She is so human--so unsure of herself despite having this almost super human ability. I liked that she had a past that haunted her, and a future that was impacted by what happens in IMPOSTOR. I hope there's a second book, because I want to spend more time with Tess!

As if a great main character and a tension-filled plot weren't enough, Susanne adds in a swoon-worthy boy. His name is Alec, and I liked that he was tender yet tough. I especially liked that while he came to the rescue a few times, he didn't save Tess from herself. She has to figure out how to do that herself--and how Alec fits into her life--all while dodging a murderer.

You can listen to an excerpt (the first 10 minutes!) from the audiobook of IMPOSTOR right now!



IMPOSTOR has everything a great novel should. You definitely want to read it! Be sure to enter our League giveaway of a hardcover copy of IMPOSTOR in the widget below. Contest is open until Sunday, June 1.

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An Exclusive Interview with Susanne Winnacker

Austria
Susanne was nice enough to sit down during this busy launch week to talk about her new book and her writing process. You'll see by the photos that she's a world traveler.

My first question is why did your book release in the UK before the US? Did the US publisher use the same edited version from the UK? It’s typically the other way around.

That’s because Usborne, my UK pub, is my main publisher. My agent and I went on sub in the UK first and after the book had sold, we sent it out to US publishers. The US and UK version are very similar, but the US version is shorter, though no events have been cut.

You live in Germany now, what brought you there and what’s your daily life like there?

Actually, I’ve been born in Germany and have never lived anywhere else. But I’d love to live in the US or the UK for a while. I studied law before I became a full time writer. Now I get up with my husband in the morning, go on a walk with our dog and then I spent about 1 – 2 hours catching up on emails and checking my social networking sites. After that I edit or write. Then I go with our dog on another long walk and work out on my elliptical. Sometimes I manage to read a bit.

What made you choose LA for the setting of your story?

My husband and I travel a lot and one of our favorite destinations is the US. When I visited L.A, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t as “glamorous” as I’d thought it would be. But still most people associate the city with beauty and fame, and parts of L.A. reflect that and I just thought that a city like that, a city that’s the home of Hollywood, would be perfect to show the downfall of everything beautiful. What happens to a city that was full of life, once everyone’s gone and everything’s destroyed? What’s left?

Your tagline says so much in few words. Did the publisher come up with it or did you have any say in it?

My publisher and I have been working on the tagline together and it took a long time to come up with a good one. I sent a long list of suggestions and then the lovely people at Usborne discussed what would be best.

How much say did your publisher allow you to have with the cover?

My editor sent me the cover and asked me if I wanted to change anything. I asked them to change Sherry’s eyecolor and to add cracks to the street and make everything look more abandoned.

Are the WEEPERS meant to be a trilogy or a two-book series? Or longer?

The Weepers will be two books. The sequel “The Life Beyond” will be out in February 2013 in the UK.

What’s one thing readers would be surprised to know about you or your book?

That English isn’t my first language. I grew up with German and learned English in school. Parts of my law studies were in English too. Many people are surprised that I chose to write in my second language. For me it works perfectly. My work life is in English and my private life in German.

What’s next for you?

Well, I’ve been working on a new book. A YA thriller. Sadly I can’t say much more right now but I hope soon!

Is there anything else you’d like to tell the League readers about your book?

It’s action-packed and the Weepers will scare the living daylights out of you! That’s a promise!Budapest

Introducing Susanne Winnacker

You may have noticed we had a guest blogger a few weeks ago. That was Susanne Winnacker, the author of the upcoming YA dystopian debut called THE OTHER LIFE.  I'm excited to have her here on the League blog today because not only does her book sound amazing, but she's also a pub sister. Her book will be coming out from Marshall Cavendish in the US and Canada and from Usborne in the UK in Spring 2012.

A little about Susanne. She studied law and is reluctantly preparing for her second state exam. She lives with her husband, a dog and four bunnies in the Ruhrgebiet, Germany. She loves coffee (in every shape and form), traveling and animals.

A little about the book (from Goodreads): 

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other’s throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food.

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today! Would you tell us a little about your road to publication.

I started writing last year in January. The Other Life was my first novel and I finished the first draft in four weeks (crazy, I know). I revised and then started querying at the end of March. In July I heard from Julia Churchill of Greenhouse Literary Agency who was one of the first agents I'd queried. She'd read my full and asked me to work exclusively with her on revisions. I agreed and when I was done with revisions, she offered representation and I accepted. In September The Other Life went on submission in the UK and sold in October. In November it went on sub in the US and sold in December. It went all very fast. Sometimes I think my mind hasn't yet caught up with everything that happened.  

What inspired you to write the Other Life?

I've always loved watching post-apocalyptic and dystopian movies, so I knew I wanted to write a book with those themes. But when I started working on The Other Life I wasn't sure what it was at first. Numbers and counting play an important role in the book. The main character Sherry counts the days since she's done something - seen daylight or eaten an apple for example - because, after three years in a bunker, those are the things she misses the most about her other life, the time before the rabies. The counting and the oppressing atmosphere in the bunker came to me first, the rest of the story presented itself to me as I wrote.


English isn't your first language, right? Why did you decide to write in English rather than German? 


German is my first language. I learned English in school and over time developed a fierce love for it. I prefer reading books in the language they were written in and often that is English. The same goes for movies. When I started writing, I wasn't sure which language to use. The logical answer would have been German but I just didn't enjoy it. So I decided to give it a try and write in English and suddenly the words flowed and it felt right. After that I never tried to write in German again. It's funny how the brain works because when I think about my books and about new ideas, my thoughts are in English. Sometimes when I tell my husband about publishing he looks at me funny and then I realize it's because I'm using English words. I guess I'm a bit odd.

Who are some of your favorite writers and/or books? Is there one you wished you'd written?


I admire J.K. Rowling. The Harry Potter books are so amazing that even my husband loves them. I adore the world she created. I think her books are one of the reasons why Children's publishing is doing so well. Suddenly it was okay to read children's books in public. I saw grown men read Harry Potter in the bus and nobody frowned upon it. Who doesn't wish they had written the Harry Potter books? Another writer I admire is Suzanne Collins. Her Hunger Games books kept me up late at night and made me love dystopian concepts even more.

Are you planning a sequel? What else are you working on?

I just completed the first draft of the sequel to The Other Life. I'll start revising it soon and then I'll send it to my lovely editor who'll hopefully love it.

I'm also working on a new project, a YA thriller, and I'm almost done with the first draft. I've been writing a lot recently and it feels wonderful after working on edits for The Other Life for so long.

Thanks again, Susanne!

If you want to learn more about Susanne and THE OTHER LIFE, you can connect with her on

• Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/SusanneWrites
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100001628149738 
• Website: www.susannewinnacker.com
• Blog: http://susannewritesfiction.blogspot.com/