Interview with romance novelist Krysten Lindsay Hager

The author spotlight turns to Krysten Lindsay Hager today. She’s here to chat about her new YA contemporary rom-com, In Over Her Head: Lights, Camera, Anxiety.

During her virtual book tour, Krysten will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Krysten Lindsay Hager writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. She is the author of True Colors, Best Friends...Forever?, Next Door to a Star, Landry in Like, Competing with the Star, Dating the It Guy, and Can Dreams Come True. True Colors, won the Readers Favorite award for best preteen book and the Dayton Book Expo Bestseller Award for childen/teens. Competing with the Star is a Readers' Favorite Book Award Finalist. Landry in Like is a Literary Classics Gold Medal recipient.

Krysten's work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times, Springfield News-Sun, Grand Blanc View, Dayton Daily News and on Living Dayton.

Welcome, Krysten. Please share a little bit about your current release.

In Over Her Head: Lights, Camera, Anxiety is a romantic comedy about a high school girl who has started dating her favorite singer and all the challenges that come with that. Cecily gets the chance to achieve her dreams as well as an opportunity comes up to help her get exposure for her acting career. Who wouldn’t want to see what it was like to live the life of your dreams and date the singer you love?

What inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to take a regular teen and give her the chance to have her dreams come true, but in a realistic way with all the thoughts you’d have if you had these opportunities present themselves.

 

Excerpt from In Over Her Head: Lights, Camera, Anxiety:

One day I had the career and the guy of my dreams. Then Danielle King came along. If people could be trusted, maybe it would have been okay, but they can’t. They suck. And now my dream relationship was gone and no one would ever know what had actually been in my grasp.

How can a person go from having a whole life with someone, and then it ends like you were never even together? No wonder people talk about how awful divorces are. That must hurt a million times more. Sure, I don’t have to see Andrew every day at school like I did Zach, but it seems like Andrew was everywhere. I went to the grocery store with my mom and they were playing one of his songs because he’s technically a local.

Andrew’s music was always what I listened to when I was sad. His heartache music got me through the worst times and now, not only could I not stand to listen to it, there was now the chance I could end up hearing music about our breakup. Actually, I didn’t know which was worse: the possibility he’d use our relationship as inspiration for a song, or finding out I was barely a blip on his radar and not even warranting a mention.

What was I supposed to do now?

What exciting story are you working on next?
I’m working on the next book in the Cecily Taylor Series which has Cecily back in New York and this time in a music video for another singer. I’m working on another YA book as well as some adult rom-coms as well.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

It was when I was in college when the column I wrote for the university newspaper started getting attention. It was when my dad said I was becoming more of who I was and he liked seeing the confidence I was building by sharing my work. I wrote about my thoughts on popular culture and it was a lot of fun. Sometimes it would be a tribute to someone who passed, worries about the future (after college), or just fun observations.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I don’t have a typical work day, but basically I do something writing related every day even if I’m not actually at my desk typing or writing away. I try to get a handle on my emails which is a losing battle and there’s so much writing admin stuff that takes up a lot of time. I do little mini blogs on my Instagram page which I enjoy. I might write about things that have inspired certain books or where certain themes came from. You can find those here: https://www.instagram.com/krystenlindsay/

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I put humor in everything I write because it’s how I deal with things. I had several family members pass away suddenly in a short amount of time and it makes you realize you need to do what you can to get through life. For me humor helps me get through a lot.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer, screenwriter (particularly for soap operas and comedies), or reporter. I was always making up stories.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I watched a lot of music biographies while working on this book and I was really surprised to see how many big music stars past and present dealt with anxiety issues. It was something I felt needed to be addressed in the rock star character, Andrew Holiday, and how he would find relief from his overwhelming life.

Social links:

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

Buy links:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository | IndieBound | Walmart

Thank you for being a guest on my blog!

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Interview with YA novelist Krysten Lindsay Hager

Novelist Krysten Lindsay Hager is here today and we’re chatting about her new young adult book, Can Dreams Come True?

During her virtual book tour, Krysten will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky, randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Krysten Lindsay Hager writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. She is the author of True Colors, Best Friends...Forever?, Next Door to a Star, Landry in Like, Competing with the Star, Dating the It Guy, and Can Dreams Come True? True Colors won the Readers Favorite award for best preteen book and the Dayton Book Expo Bestseller Award for children/teens. Competing with the Star is a Readers' Favorite Book Award Finalist.

Krysten's work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times, Springfield News-Sun, Grand Blanc View, Dayton Daily News and on the talk show Living Dayton.

Welcome, Krysten. Please share a little bit about your current release.

Can Dreams Come True is about a high school girl who goes on a music video audition for her favorite singer and not only gets the part, but ends up getting to date him. She has a chance at her dream career and her dream boyfriend and it’s overwhelming! I had fun writing the parts of the story where she obviously knows a lot about Andrew, but has to try and hold back so she doesn’t look like an obsessed fan.

What inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to write a book about a girl who really connects with a singer/songwriter and then gets the chance to meet him by being in his video and they begin dating. I wanted to explore it from the aspect of what it would be like to feel like this guy is your musical soulmate and then getting the chance to date him. I admit my own music crushes came into play here!


Excerpt from Can Dreams Come True?

I started to feel anxious after lunch. After all, I had been an Andrew fan for a long time, and even though I had seen him in person, this was a huge deal to get to meet him. What if he wasn’t what I had imagined? I didn’t expect him to fawn over me or anything, but what if he was rude or ignored me? It would kill my fantasy of him as being this sweet, quiet, sensitive songwriter who wore his heart on his sleeve while also being kind of a loner/rebel with just a touch of bad boy in him. Oh man, I would be crushed if he didn’t notice me or worse—if he ended up flirting with Harlow.

In all his magazine interviews Andrew always said looks weren’t important to him, and what he noticed in a girl was if she was true to herself. He said he went for “bright girls who were sweet and easy to be with.” Now that I thought about it, that was the kind of fake crap magazines put out about all the teen celebrities. It was like when I saw Lawrence Claibourne, my favorite actor who claimed to be Mr. I’m-just-looking-for-a-sweet-girl-to-read-poetry-to on a red carpet with a model whose boobs were falling out of her dress and had overdone the lip fillers—I mean, you just knew he wasn’t into her for her personality. But Andrew wasn’t like Lawrence. Andrew seemed so sincere and deep. Lawrence had a smirk and you could tell he was a player, but Andrew seemed like he had been hurt and needed to find the right girl who he could open up to and learn to trust again. . .or at least that’s what he said in his last interview.

The final bell rang and my heart shot up to my throat. This was it. I was on my way to meet my crush. From now on, any dreams of him would be marred by the reality I was about to face.

Was it better to keep wondering what if and keep the fantasy alive or to go and actually meet him?

What exciting story are you working on next?
I’m working on the sequel to Can Dreams Come True and also a new adult book.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I always knew I wanted to write, but I guess I first started considering myself a writer when I was taking creative writing classes and I knew this was something I would continue doing even if I never got published.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Writing is my main thing. I used to do journalism and freelancing, but now my main priority is fiction with some non-fiction pieces. I write mostly at night and do the business admin side of the job earlier in the day.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I listen to breakup music for hours before writing a sad scene. Once I put a Mariah Carey song on repeat for hours and I thought my husband would lose his mind. I make playlists for each book.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to write for a soap opera! I used to be obsessed with soaps. I think that’s why I like writing series books because I love that episodic nature. I used to come up with my own storylines for the different soaps I watched.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I watched a ton of music documentaries and interviews while writing the Andrew character. I watched stuff on everyone from Ed Sheeran, Elvis, Kurt Cobain, George Michael, Marvin Gaye and more.

Links:

Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Amazon author page

Buy links:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon IN | Amazon Germany | Amazon Canada

Thank you for being a guest on my blog!

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