Interview With Sandy Hall + 2015 ARCs Giveaway

Want a chance to win all of these highly anticipated 2015 ARCs? Is that THE WINNER'S CRIME I see? Well, I'll tell you more about that in one minute. Thanks to the fabulous people at Macmillan, I had the honor of interviewing Sandy Hall, author of Swoon Reads first published novel, A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Y'all, I read devoured this novel last week, and it is SUPER cute! If you haven't read A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT yet, this interview will definitely make you want to ASAP. Without further ado, here's Sandy!

How did you come up with the storyline for A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT? Why did you decide to write this novel in 14 different points of view?

These first two questions have related answers because the idea for the book came about in a bunch of different ways. As a teen librarian, I know what my kids at work are looking for and what they're not finding on the shelf. Several years ago, I had a teen ask why there weren't many books about the first year of college. I filed that question away, thinking that if I ever wrote a book it should show normal everyday college life. Then when I heard about Swoon Reads I asked some teens what kind of romance they'd like to read. And one of the girls gave me a long paragraph about a boy and a girl who live parallel lives that never intersect. I loved the idea of that story, but felt like it'd been written many times. BUT! I realized that if I got out of the main characters' heads, and told it from everyone else's point of view, that it would be something different. And definitely nothing that I'd personally read before.

Which character in your novel do you relate the most with?

I like to think that there's someone in this book for everyone, but I feel like I personally relate to all of them in one way or another. Although I recently took a quiz that Swoon had linked on their website to find out which ALSD character you are and I got Victor.

If you could pair Gabe and Lea with other fictional characters, who would they be and why?

Oh gosh, as much as I love this question it's so hard for me to answer! I like to think of ALSD as sort of an ode to shipping and Gabe and Lea are the OTP of everyone in the book, and they're definitely mine. I just like them together so much that my brain is rejecting any legitimate answers.

What's your favorite quote from A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT?

It's not so much a quote, but a moment. When Gabe is reading his essay about himself and compares his shyness to the bicycle that grew into the tree. It's the first bit of Gabe characterization I came up with and I really love that image.

Care to share what you're currently reading and working on now?

Reading-wise, I'm catching up on my lengthy TBR list. I have a ton of ARCs from Book Expo that I haven't touched yet, not to mention all the great books that came out while I was busy editing and touring. I listened to I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson over the weekend and I loved it. It was such a great story to immerse myself in while I was driving to Virginia for a convention. Writing-wise, I'm one of those people that doesn't like to talk about what they're walking on until it's done. Otherwise I feel like I could jinx myself. But I'm definitely working on another romance!



Sandy, thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for us. Now, it's giveaway time! Let's take a second and take a look at the prize again, shall we?

What you can win:

*I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios
*The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Curse #2) by Marie Rutkowski
*Cut Me Free by J.R. Johansson
*Dream A Little Dream by Kerstin Gier
*A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me by Jason Schmidt
*Save Me by Jenny Elliot
*The Secrets We Keep by Trisha Leaver



I'm seriously jealous of the winner here! To enter, all you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. This giveaway is only open to US participants and ends October 25th. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

"The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out. But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship.

Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together...."

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