IN ANOTHER LIFE BOOK INFO
Jacket Copy
What would you
do if your whole life was a lie and learning the truth could cost you
your life?
From New
York Times bestselling author
of the Shadow Falls series comes C. C. Hunter’s new YA thriller
about a girl who learns that she may have been kidnapped as a child,
and must race to uncover the truth about her past before she winds up
a victim.
Chloe was three years old when she became Chloe
Holden, but her adoption didn’t scar her, and she’s had a great
life. Now, fourteen years later, her loving parents’ marriage has
fallen apart and her mom has moved them to Joyful, Texas. Starting
twelfth grade as the new kid at school, everything Chloe loved about
her life is gone. And feelings of déjà vu from her early childhood
start haunting her.
When Chloe meets Cash Colton she
feels drawn to him, as though they're kindred spirits. Until Cash
tells her the real reason he sought her out: Chloe looks exactly like
the daughter his foster parents lost years ago, and he’s determined
to figure out the truth.
As Chloe and Cash delve deeper
into her adoption, the more things don’t add up, and the more
strange things start happening. Why is Chloe’s adoption a secret
that people would kill for?
Author Bio
C.C. HUNTER is a pseudonym for
award-winning romance author Christie Craig. She is lives in Tomball,
Texas, where she’s at work on her next novel.
Christie's
books include The Mortician's Daughter series, Shadow
Fall Novels and This Heart of Mine.
Reviews
"Hunter deftly delivers a
complicated back-and-forth point of view between Chloe and Cash,
building suspense along with a steamy sense of attraction between the
two teens." -- Kirkus
Social Links:
Buy Link:
http://wednesdaybooks.com/the-real-deal/in-another-life/
My Review:
Review of IN ANOTHER LIFE:
IN ANOTHER LIFE is a heartwarming and emotionally powerful story about seventeen-year-old Chloe, who moves with her cancer-stricken mother from El Paso to Joyful, Texas, because of her parents' divorce. They move into her late grandmothers' home, and Chloe starts in a new school. Anxious over her mother and furious about her father's infidelities, Chloe encounters Cash Colton, also 17, foster child of wealthy physicians, who suspects Chloe is a con artist like his sociopathic late father. Chloe resembles the daughter of his foster parents, kidnapped at age three almost 15 years ago. Both Chloe and Cash suffer serious trust issues, but they must learn to trust each other if they are to discover the truth.
In Another Life Blogger
Q&As
Q&A
1
Two
things.
Writing
is a tough business and only the determined make it, so be
determined. Don’t give up. It took me ten years to sell my first
book and another thirteen to sell my second, but I am now working on
book 44 if you count my non-fiction books and novellas. It would’ve
been easy to quit after the first year, or the second, but I’m so
glad I didn’t.
2.
Write as often as you can. Writing is like exercise, skip several
days and it’s harder to get back into it.
I
used to say at Wal-Mart on the clearance rack. But honestly, they
come from everywhere and sometimes I feel like they come from
nowhere. A newspaper article sparks an idea or a conversation I
eavesdropped on gets me plotting. A personal experience makes me
ask, what if? An old memory is triggered and it leads me to a plot.
Or an idea just falls from the sky and lands smack dab into the
story-idea crevice in my brain.
Well,
I have all kinds of people reading me. More females than males, but
just this weekend at a book festival, I had numerous young men buying
my books. I have gotten emails from readers as young at ten, and I
would say that about half my readers are past their teen years. I
think anyone who enjoys an emotional story with suspense is a
targeted reader for my books.
Q&A
2
Yes.
I love creating characters that have lessons to learn and emotional
hurdles to overcome. To me, this journey is what makes a story. It
offers layers of emotion as we see a character struggle with their
past and decide to break free of old beliefs and change their future.
I also purposely created Cash’s past to both reflect and contrast
Chloe’s past. It’s important that two people who are falling in
love be able to empathize with each other.
I
think there’s a fine line between knowing and accepting. Deep down
Chloe knew it was true when she was at the library and saw and heard
Mrs. Fuller on the video. The voice resonated with her and stirred
feelings of deja vu. She went back to denying it, but in her heart
she knew the truth. And isn’t that the way we are in real life?
When something painful presents itself, it’s easy to bury our heads
in the sand.
The
story of being adopted is one that I was intrigued with when I was
really young. I am, and have always been, different from my family.
Not so much in appearance, but in interests and outlooks. My two
brothers and parents are people who like to work with their hands,
who seldom slow down. They play sports, do crafts, and build houses.
Me, I’m a thinker. Being dyslexic, I wasn’t a reader growing up,
but I was writing books in my head by the time I was eleven. These
stories, starring certain characters, would last months. Several of
my stories included discovering that I was adopted, or that I had
been mixed up with another infant at birth. And to this day, that
theme still intrigues me.
As
for deciding that the adoption agency would be the guilty party, I
knew I didn’t want it to be either set of parents. And if Chloe’s
parents thought it was legal then the deceit had to be on the part of
the agency. When I was writing the book, I recalled the story about
Britain’s Adoption Scandal where babies were taken from their
mothers by the Catholic church. I don’t believe that sparked the
idea, but it might have left footprints for the idea to follow.
Q&A
3
Inspiration
comes from everywhere. A newspaper article, a personal experience, a
word or two of dialogue you overhear from a stranger. The story of
being adopted is one that I was intrigued with when I was really
young. I am, and have always been, different from my family. Not so
much in appearance, but in interests and preferences. My two brothers
and parents are people who like to work with their hands, who seldom
slow down. They play sports, do crafts, and build houses. Me, I would
find a quiet spot and ponder. I always have been a lover of a good
story. Being dyslexic, I wasn’t a reader growing up, but I was
writing books in my head by the time I was eleven. These stories,
starring certain characters, would last months. Several of my stories
included discovering that I was adopted. And every book I write has a
little of the theme, Who am I? or Who am I now? I love identity
crisis books.
That’s
a great question. I believe I learn and grow as a writer with every
book I write. This
Heart of Mine was
inspired by husband’s kidney transplant, so I really tapped into an
emotional vein to write it. I wanted that same emotional feel in my
novel In
Another Life.
So I worked at creating that heart-tugging essence. What’s crazy
is that I sort of tapped into another vein and didn’t even realize
it at first. My husband walked into my study when I was writing the
scene where Chloe finally unloaded on her dad and expressed how she
really felt about his infidelity and leaving her mom. I was crying
as I was writing, and when I explained the scene to my husband, he
said, “So you were actually telling your real dad how you felt.”
I was shocked, and how right he was, because a very similar event
happened in my family, but I hadn’t really put the two things
together. So I think perhaps learning to tap into my own emotional
veins might be the lesson I learned from writing This
Heart of Mine.
Right
now, I’m finishing the third book in my YA series, The Mortician’s
Daughter: Three
Heartbeats Away.
It’s sort of Ghost
Whisperer
meets Veronica
Marrs.
Also, I just turned in a proposal for a speculative fiction YA.
It’s about young girl who is a sole survivor and how she learns
Fate sometimes get things wrong, and she might have the ability to
change Fate and save hundreds of lives, including those of her own
family.
Q&A
4
Being from the Deep South, storytelling was
infused in my blood. As far back as I can remember, my grandfather
would get all of us grandchildren around in a circle and he’d tell
his childhood stories.
Storytelling was part of my immediate family as
well. Our dinner table conversations were supposed to be
interesting. If our day was boring, we had to find some deeper
meaning to the mundane events or elaborate to make the conversation
more interesting. Sometimes someone would ask, “Did that really
happen?” And the person talking would say, “Almost.” I now
call it “creative faction.”
Because I was dyslexic, I never allowed myself
to dream of being a writer. However, from the time I was about
eleven, I would run off by myself into the woods, find a tree to lean
on, and I would create stories in my head. Stories of young love and
adventure. It wasn’t until I was twenty-three, when my husband
asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, that I
admitted I wrote stories in my head and I wondered if I could learn
to put them on paper. I started writing that same week. It took me
ten years to sell my first book. Then another thirteen to sell book
two, but the day I sold book two, I actually sold four books. And In
Another Life is my forty-third book
if you count my novellas and my non-fiction books.
I’m
not really organized, but the fact that I have you fooled means a
lot. LOL. Honestly, this career involves a lot of juggling. You
have to write your novels, market, plan events and signings and do
blogs and interviews. I often feel like I drop a lot of balls. That
said, years ago, I read The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People. To this
day, I try to remember to prioritize my to-do list and figure out
what matters the most. And as a writer, it’s always to write the
next book. Because I write three or more books a year, I have hired
an assistant to help me keep up with the business side of it.
I
wear my pajamas to work every day. LOL. Seriously, I do love that,
but it’s not my favorite thing. My favorite thing is sharing my
stories and learning that they touched, helped, or got someone
through a difficult time in their own life. I’ll admit I started
writing to entertain and that’s still my main objective, but when I
get those emails that tell me my book touched them in a personal way,
I get all warm and glowy inside.
And
the hardest? I think it’s balancing and juggling. I remember there
was a day when all a writer did was write. Now, with social media,
blogs, and all the on-line opportunities and book festivals, it’s
hard to keep up. But whenever I start to get stressed, I tell myself
that I’m lucky I have these problems. This career beats any other
career out there. This is what I’m supposed to do.
Q&A
5
The
story of being adopted is one that I was intrigued with when I was
young. I am, and have always been, different from my family. Not so
much in appearance, but in interests and outlook. My two brothers and
parents are people who like to work with their hands, who seldom slow
down. They play sports, do crafts, and build houses. Me, I’m a
thinker. Being dyslexic, I wasn’t a reader growing up, but I was
writing books in my head by the time I was eleven. Because of those
differences in myself and my family, several of my stories included
discovering that I was adopted. Every book I write has a little of
the theme, Who am I? or Who am I now? I love identity crisis books.
Also, my parents went through a bitter divorce when I was sixteen.
That pain Chloe felt was part of my teenage years.
I
like this question. I think the relationship affects the search in
many ways. 1. There are times that falling in love became so
consuming that I think the search became less consuming. I wanted to
show how great falling in love feels and how the wonderment of it can
help soothe the bad things that come our way. 2. While their
relationship brought them close. I wanted to showcase their different
past experiences and how it affected how they each thought the search
should proceed. Cash felt more loyalty to the Fullers, and
naturally, Chloe felt more toward the mom and dad who raised her. 3.
I also wanted show that while the bond Chloe and Cash formed was
solid, it was tested because of their different backgrounds. Cash
was willing to steal the information from the adoption agency, Chloe
wanted no part of it.
I
ask each author I interview to do this (so I hope you don't find it
weird) but can you summarize In
Another Life
using 3-5 emojis?
I would say the emojis would be, chew on
your lip suspenseful, love, and either happiness or family.
Q&A
6
It was characters
and the story. I didn’t set out to cut back on the snark. I love
snark. However, I did feel the absence of it when I was writing the
book. I even tried to add it to a few scenes, but if felt forced and
off. So instead, I let the characters take over.
The
bitter divorce theme In Another LIfe
is one I lived. My parents got a divorce when I was sixteen. The
story of being adopted is one that I was intrigued with when I was
really young. I am and have always been different from my family. My
two brothers and parents are people who like to work with their
hands, who seldom slow down. They play sports, do crafts, and build
houses. Me, I’m a thinker. I can sit and muse for hours. Being
dyslexic, I wasn’t a reader growing up, but I was writing books in
my head by the time I was eleven. Several of my stories included
discovering that I was adopted. Also, if you think about it, almost
every book I write has a little of the Who am I? or Who am I now?
theme. I love an identity crisis in books.
We only moved once.
But to be honest, I felt it at the start of every school year. You
see, being dyslexic sort of made me a wall flower. I was a loner.
So every year when I started, I felt like everyone had a tribe but
me. I think I adapted by creating more stories. There was hardly a
day that I didn’t go inside my head, where I lived an exciting
life. I had a hot guy who loved me. Sometimes even two. LOL. I
had best friends who would go to the end of the world for me and keep
my secrets safe. It’s funny how creating stories got me through the
teen years and how writing has brought me out of my shell. I’m no
longer a wall flower or a loner. I love meeting new people. I guess
you could say writing helped me survive and it helped me become the
person I was meant to be.
Chapter 1 Excerpt:
1
“What
are you
doing?”
I ask
when Dad
pulls over
at a
con
venience
store
only a
mile from
where Mom
and I
are now
living. My
voice
sounds
rusty after
not
talking
during the
fivehour
ride. But
I was
afraid that
if I
said
anything,
it would
all spill
out:
My
anger. My
hurt. My
disappointment
in the
man who
used to
be my
superhero.
“I
need gas
and a
bathroom,”
he says.
“Bathroom?
So
you
can’t
even come
in to
see Mom
when you
drop me
off?”
My
heart
crinkles up
like a
used piece
of aluminum
foil.
He
meets my
eyes,
ignores
my
questions,
and says,
“You
want anything?”
“Yeah.
My
freaking
life back!”
I jump
out
of the
car and
slam the
door
so hard,
the sound
of the
metal
hitting
metal
cracks in
the hot
Texas
air. I
haul ass
across
the parking
lot,
watching my
white
sandals eat
up the
pavement,
hiding the
sheen of
tears in
my
eyes.
“Chloe,”
Dad
calls out.
I move
faster.
The Haunting of Elmwood Manor by Pamela McCord
