Torment Interview

Torment

How many lives do you need to live before you find someone worth dying for?

In the aftermath of what happened at Sword & Cross, Luce has been hidden away by her cursed angelic boyfriend, Daniel, in a new school filled with Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans. Daniel promises she will be safe here, protected from those who would kill her. At the school Luce discovers what the Shadows that have followed her all her life mean - and how to manipulate them to see into her other lives. Yet the more Luce learns about herself, the more she realises that the past is her only key to unlocking her future ... and that Daniel hasn't told her everything. What if his version of the past isn't actually the way things happened ... what if Luce was really meant to be with someone else?

The author of several pseudonymous novels for Alloy's Inside Girl series, as well as the forthcoming The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove, Lauren Kate grew up in Dallas, Texas. She received her Bachelor's degree in the deep South at Emory University, then went to New York for a brief stint in publishing, before enrolling in the University of California, Davis's Master of Arts Creative Writing program. She is finishing up her degree at UC Davis, where she also teaches. She lives and writes from an old farm house in Winters, California.

Random House Australia
Torment
Author: Lauren Kate
ISBN: 9780385618090
Price: $29.95

Interview with Lauren Kate

Question: What originally inspired you to write Fallen?

Lauren Kate: I've been writing love stories for as long as I've been writing. To me, the most complicated romances make the most interesting narratives, so I'm always looking for new obstacles to throw in my lovers' paths. When I came across a line in Genesis that describes a group of angels who fell in love with mortal women, I was fascinated. Putting this reference together with a mention in Isaiah and another in Palsm 82, biblical scholars conclude that these angels were actually cast out of Heaven for their lust. Which means-you could say-that these angels chose love over Heaven. I found this to be an endlessly interesting set up for an incredibly complicated romance. I started thinking about what kind of mortal girl it would take to attract an angel's attention. And what it would be like for her to find herself in this position. What kind of baggage would an angel have? What would her very over-protective parents think? From there, this whole world unfurled in my head with fallen angels, demons, reincarnation, and the war between good and evil all battling for a piece of the action.


Question: Is the character of Lucinda loosely based on anyone you know?

Lauren Kate: The physical traits of Luce are based on my oldest, closest friend-the dark wavy hair, hazel eyes, tiny teeth, etc. When I first started writing her, I pulled some personality traits from this friend, but as I continued with her story, Luce veered away from my friend into an identity of her own. I share some traits with her-like her stubbornness and tendency to get swept away by romance. But if I had to which one I'm most like (though this is hard to imagine), I might be a crazy combination of Arriane and Penn.


Question: What's the best thing about creating a character like Daniel?

Lauren Kate: Knowing that in Passion, I get to tell a huge chunk of the story from his point of view--and show all the readers who've been waiting patiently (or impatiently) just how wonderful he is. That and writing about his incredible wings.


Question: What was the most challenging part about writing Torment?

Lauren Kate: Luce's character grows and changes so much in Torment, compared to where she started out in Fallen. Because Daniel isn't physically with her for many of these changes, it was tough to strike a balance between love and struggle in the scenes where they're together. It's a growing pains book for their relationship. I loved writing about Luce's development though, and I can't wait to deliver lots of Luce-and-Daniel one-on-one scenes in Passion.


Question: What authors or what books inspired you to write?

Lauren Kate: So many books! I love Dickens, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf. My dad used to read Roald Dahl to my brother and me every night. As far as teen books go, I'm in awe of Suzanne Collins, Philip Pullman, Frances Hardinge, John Green, and Meg Rosoff. It's an ever growing list.


Question: Is Sword & Cross based on a real place?

Lauren Kate: Sword and Cross is purely fictional, but like most things in my books, it's Frankenstein-fictional, an amalgamation of many places I've been to. For a long time, I've wanted to set a story in Savannah, because it's such a wonderfully creepy place. There's an old fort out near the waters edge and that's the place where I envision Sword and Cross sitting. But the details--the dorms and the church/pool and the cemetery all came from some weird place in my brain!


Interview by Brooke Hunter