The time it was about Now I Rise

Kiersten White is a local author and she’s absolutely delightful.  I’ve always been a fan of her and her words, so when I got the email to participate in the blog tour for Now I Rise, I couldn’t fill out the form fast enough.

Before we get to Kiersten’s interview, let’s check out the book!

Title: Now I Rise {The Conqueror’s Saga #2}
Author: Kiersten White
Pub. Date: June 27, 2017
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 496
Find it: PRH | Indiebound | B&N | Amazon | Goodreads

Lada Dracul has no allies. No throne. All she has is what she’s always had: herself. After failing to secure the Wallachian throne, Lada is out to punish anyone who dares to cross her blood-strewn path. Filled with a white-hot rage, she storms the countryside with her men, accompanied by her childhood friend Bogdan, terrorizing the land. But brute force isn’t getting Lada what she wants. And thinking of Mehmed brings little comfort to her thorny heart. There’s no time to wonder whether he still thinks about her, even loves her. She left him before he could leave her.

What Lada needs is her younger brother Radu’s subtlety and skill. But Mehmed has sent him to Constantinople—and it’s no diplomatic mission. Mehmed wants control of the city, and Radu has earned an unwanted place as a double-crossing spy behind enemy lines. Radu longs for his sister’s fierce confidence—but for the first time in his life, he rejects her unexpected plea for help. Torn between loyalties to faith, to the Ottomans, and to Mehmed, he knows he owes Lada nothing. If she dies, he could never forgive himself—but if he fails in Constantinople, will Mehmed ever forgive him?

As nations fall around them, the Dracul siblings must decide: what will they sacrifice to fulfill their destinies? Empires will topple, thrones will be won . . . and souls will be lost.

Sounds good, right?

1. Please give the elevator pitch for The Conqueror’s Saga.

A gender-swapped historical retelling of Vlad the Impaler, in which two siblings must navigate the complexities of the Ottoman court holding them prisoner and decide how much they are willing to sacrifice for what they want most: love and power.

Claim the throne. Lose your soul.

2. What sparked the idea?

I love history and Romania, and had been thinking about how odd it was that Vlad the Impaler and Mehmed the Conqueror—the Ottoman sultan who ended the Byzantium empire at just twenty-one years of age!—were raised together. As I was thinking about their different routes to power, and methods once they got power, I wondered what it took for normal people to get to the point where they could justify atrocities in the name of their goals. Vlad’s drive in particular fascinated me. When I imagined him as a girl, suddenly the whole story fell into place!

3. Why do you love Lada and Radu and why should we root for them?

I love Lada for being utterly fierce and ruthlessly ambitious. While that isn’t the only way for women and girls to be strong, it was really refreshing to write a girl who is told “These are your only options” and fights back with fist, tooth, and blade. I love Radu because he is very much like me. He’s kind and manipulative, faithful and cunning, loving and calculating. They are sister and brother who both crave different forms of power and stability, and go about securing them in very different ways. That’s why the balance of the two POVs works so well and was so fun to write!

4. What is easier to write: a kissing scene or a fight scene?

They both require me to think of how many ways I can convey what hands are doing without specifically mentioning hands five hundred million times, and therefore they are basically the same thing: super hard to write.

5. What has been the weirdest thing you’ve googled while researching?

Various methods of impalement and how long they would take to kill a person. That was a cheery day…

Speed {ish} round:

1. You find out that you’re being published for the first time. Describe the next 5 minutes.

I sank down to the floor and laughed so I wouldn’t cry!

2. What three things would you take to a desert island?

Netflix, snacks, and a pillow.

3. You can only read one book for the rest of your life. What is it?

Netflix. Wait, sorry, is that not a book? I meant Netflix. Netflix? Netflix.

4. What book character would you want to date and who would you want to be your BFF?

Well, I for sure wouldn’t want to date any of mine from this series…except maybe Nazira? Otherwise, Cricket Bell from LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR by Stephanie Perkins, and for my BFF, Karou from DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor (because dude, if your best friend has wishes that can make you FLY?? Best best friend ever!).

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Kiersten White is the NYT bestselling author of the Paranormalcy trilogy, the Mind Games series, Illusions of Fate, The Chaos of Stars, In the Shadows with artist Jim Di Bartolo, and the upcoming historical reimagining, And I Darken. She has one tall husband and three small children and lives near the ocean, where her life is perfectly normal.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

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Huge thanks to Rockstar Blog tours for the invite and to Kiersten for taking the time! Be sure to check out the rest of the blog tour for extra goodies and keep scrolling for a giveaway!

**Good Luck!!**