Friday 18 January 2013

Eternally Yours Blog Tour: Author Cate Tiernan on her Influences and Inspirations for the Immortal Beloved Trilogy.

Author Cate Tiernan has stopped by  today as part of the blog tour for Eternally Yours, the third and final book in the Immortal Beloved series. Read on to find out all about her influences and inspirations for the series!


Eternally Yours (Immortal Beloved #3) by Cate Tiernan
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton.
Release date: January 17th 2013.
Ages: 12+

After 450 years of living, Nastasya Crowe should have more of a handle on this whole immortal thing....

After a deadly confrontation at the end of Darkness Falls, the second Immortal Beloved novel, Nastasya Crowe is, as she would put it, so over the drama. She fights back against the dark immortals with her own brand of kick-butt magick...but can she fight against true love? In the satisfying finale to the Immortal Beloved trilogy, ex-party-girl immortal Nastasya ends a 450-year-old feud and learns what “eternally yours” really means.

Laced with historical flashbacks and laugh-out-loud dialogue, the Immortal Beloved trilogy is a fascinating and unique take on what it would mean to live forever.



Guest Post: Cate Tiernan talks Influences and Inspirations:



In some ways, I feel like Immortal Beloved is my message to the world: you can always turn a corner, can always choose to do good instead of bad. You don’t have to commit for a lifetime—sometimes you can see no further than ten minutes into the future. Try to do the best you can with that ten minutes, even if your best at that moment is simply not being evil. I believe that and I live that every day, just as my characters do. To me it means no situation is stagnant—every situation can be changed, minute by minute. It also shows so clearly that nothing and no one is all good or all bad—there are parts of both in each of us, in everything. And choices have a lot to do with that.

When I first started plotting out Immortal Beloved, my inspiration was to explore an awful character, someone hard to like, someone who seems irredeemable. Then I wanted her to redeem herself. The three books show Nastasya painfully learning how to do that: realizing that each baby step is still a step, and even a big step back doesn’t change the fact that she’s still facing the right direction. We see her go from self-loathing and self-destruction to self-acceptance and a feeling of self-worth, and it’s such an amazing change, an amazing process. My hope is that there may be a reader who feels some of the things that Nastasya does at the beginning of book one, and be inspired to begin her own journey of change. I hope that seeing someone like Nastasya finally coming to believe that she’s worthy of love will help someone else see that about herself. Because each of us is worthy of love, you know? No matter what.

Even though Nastasya is immortal, I feel that she’s very human, with human insecurities, fears, and weaknesses. She also has the human ability to love, to connect with others, to empathize, to help. I wanted to show that it’s useless to deny weaknesses, because everyone has them and they’re part of life. The point is that she must learn to choose her strengths, over and over, to take a chance on connecting with other people, let down her guard, and learn to give and receive love. A strong person is not one who lets nothing affect her; a strong person is someone who allows pain in as well as healing, who feels everything and yet keeps going, day after day.

Some days, that’s all you can do.

In writing Immortal Beloved, I was influenced by so many things—basically everything a writer hears, sees, thinks about, experiences, or stands next to becomes fodder for their work. A picture of Iceland, a castle I saw in France, my fondness for Vikings, a dream I had—all of those swirled together as the book began to unfold in my imagination. I can build a character around a real person’s voice that I’ve heard, or from my reaction to a song. The fun part is figuring out how it all fits together, and the purpose that each one plays in the fabric of the book. Each person is there for a reason—how do they contribute? How do they interact? What’s the story I’m trying to tell?
           
This time, the story came out as Immortal Beloved. I hope you like it!

Cate.

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Cate Tiernan Online: Website || Twitter || Facebook

4 comments :

  1. Heather@ The Flyleaf Review20 January 2013 at 23:14

    I am SO excited to read the conclusion of this series! I think it's a an amazing story (and one that doesn't seem to get as much attention as it should, imo) I LOVE the character of Natasya. I have a fondness for bad girl characters but Nas has always seemed more lost than truly bad. I have loved watching her journey to redemption and cannot wait to see how it all turns out for her:)

    This was a great interview, I love how she said she took care to give Nas so many human traits, even though she is immortal. And I love all the questions these books have posed about immortality in general.  In so many books (especially YA) immortality seems to be this awesome thing. But in the Immortal Beloved books we get to see the downside and the DARK side of being immortal. I will miss her and all the others from this world when this trilogy ends:)

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  2.  Thanks for the awesome comment, Heather! :) I can't wait to see how it all turns out for Nas in this book too.  I can't wait to see if I still have my hella weird crush on Incy too. ha!

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  3. Heather@ The Flyleaf Review22 January 2013 at 21:52

    Oh, I kinda have a thing for Incy too!  TRULY twisted bad boys are a rare breed and I love reading about them:)

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  4.  I thought I was the only one! haha!

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