Tour_IN ANOTHER LIFE by CC Hunter

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:

http://www.cchunterbooks.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CCHunterFans/
http://twitter.com/CCHunterBooks

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

• What advice to you have for aspiring authors?

Two things.

1. 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.

• Where do you get ideas for your books?

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.

• What kind of people would be interested in reading your books?

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

• Cash seemed to have a very rough life, would you say that is important for the book?

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.

• When do you think Chloe realized that she was Emily?

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.

• Did you plan on the adoption agency being the kidnappers all along? What gave you that idea?

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

• What inspired you to write In Another Life?

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.

• What lessons did you learn from writing This Heart of Mine, and how did you apply them to In Another Life?

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.

• What projects are you working on now?

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

• How did your love of writing/storytelling begin?

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.

• You have a lot of awesome books under your belt! Tell me a little bit about how you keep yourself organized when writing!

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.

• What is your favorite thing about being an author? And the hardest thing?

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

• What's the story behind In Another Life? Where did you take inspiration from to write Chloe's story?

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.

• How do you think the relationship between Cash and Chloe affect her search for the truth about her origins?

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

• I loved this story like all others but your usual snark and laugh out loud moments where sparse. What was your frame of mind when you wrote it? Was it a conscious choice right from the start or something forced on you by the story and the characters?

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.

• What made you choose this topic? Was it something you’ve read in the newspaper? Something else?

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.

• Chloe is the new girl in a new school. How often have you been the new girl? And how did you adapt?

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.