The Beast of Callaire by Saruuh Kelsey

The Beast of Callaire by Saruuh Kelsey
Published May 20th, 2014
Genre: YA Fantasy/Mythology

Yasmin is a descendant of the Manticore. A creature of Persian mythology. A Legendary.
But she doesn’t want to be. Unlike the Legendaries in The Red, Yasmin wants nothing more than an ordinary life. She tries to fool herself into believing that she doesn’t change into a beast every full moon and savagely kill innocent people.
But when Yasmin starts hearing a voice in her head and is drawn into dreams that aren’t her own, she is led to Fray—a girl who once saved Yasmin from hunters, who has shadowy memories that hint at her having Legendary magic—and Yasmin is catapulted into a life of Majick and malevolence.
Despite the danger around her and Fray, Yasmin might finally have a chance at being a normal girl with a normal girlfriend. But with Legendaries being killed, a war between the Gods brewing, and the beast inside Yasmin becoming stronger each moon, her mundane life is little more than a dream.
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Can you tell us a little about your latest book, The Beast of Callaire? 
It’s a young adult novel about a girl named Yasmin who finds herself drawn back into a world of mythology years after she left it. Along the way she finds romance in a girl called Fray, who is having increasingly disturbing nightmares of a hidden past, and danger in an unexplainable wave of attacks that bodes badly for mythological descendants like Yasmin.

What inspired you to write it?
The Beast of Callaire came about because I couldn’t find a paranormal romance novel without a heterosexual couple in it. Not a single one. So I decided to write one. It expanded a lot from that initial idea, and took on a different shape when I started planning the setting and character’s back stories, ending up as a book heavily influenced by mythology.

If it was made into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters?

Jessica: cc. Andrich7777 
Adelaide: photo credit: gdcgraphics via photopin cc

I’m open to all kinds of fancasts for the characters, but I particularly like Jessica Sula for Yasmin and Adelaide Kane for Fray.

Why do you write YA sci-fi fantasy?
I was raised on science fiction films and TV shows, and have loved fantasy since I was a kid, so it was pretty inevitable that it would bleed into my writing. SF/F is the majority of what I read as well and shapes everything I write. I can’t see myself writing anything but sci fi and fantasy.

What made you want to become an author?
Writing, and reading, is what I’m most passionate about, so it was never really a choice to become an author. Writing was always what I would pursue.

Name one of your all-time favourite YA books?
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. Haunting, beautiful, and a story that has stayed with me since I first read it two years ago.

Who, or what, inspires you?
Books mostly – Reading is always showing me new ways to tell stories. And music has always inspired me, and motivates me to keep writing when bad days strike.

Where is your favourite place to write?
I don’t know about my favourite place, but I write most productively in my living room.

What is your favourite film that was based on a book?
That’s a really tough call between Divergent and Vampire Academy, both of which I watched recently and adored. Such amazing films.

Who is your favourite author (s) and why?
I could never name just one favourite author, but a few of my favourites are Tahereh Mafi, for her wonderful and unique style, Maggie Steifvater, for the lyrical, enchanting prose, and Sarah Rees Brennan, for the snark and the diversity.

If you could have a dinner party with any authors from any time in history, who would you choose and why?
Tough question. I’m gonna say Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J. R. R. Tolkein, Laini Taylor, and Terry Pratchett. Just for the hell of it, because that would be one interesting dinner party.

Tell us a random fact about yourself.
I have a slight Coca Cola addiction. Slight.

Who would play you in the movie about your life?

Photo credit: Steve Rogers Photography via photopin cc

I’d like to think Emma Stone would be a good me.

Tell us something interesting about the area where you live.
I live pretty close to where the Bronte sisters lived, which is awesome!

Saruuh Kelsey is the author of the Lux Guardians series. Her debut and the first in series, THE FORGOTTEN, a YA science fiction set in Victorian London and London 25 years in the future, is out now for free. Book two, THE REVELATION, releases October 7th. THE BEAST OF CALLAIRE, the first novel of a new YA fantasy series, with a same sex paranormal romance, is out May 20th.
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The Giveaway
2 Beast of Callaire paperbacks and one swag pack consisting of a paperback, postcards, stickers, and a tote bag open Internationally.

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