Title: Gifted
Series: The Hayvern Series
Author: J.A. George
Release Date: 10th May 2015
BLURB from Goodreads
“Why do birds fly? Why do lions hunt deer? Why does the sun shine and the moon glow? Because it must. I wish I could tell you why, I truly do. It mustn’t be easy, such pressure weighted on such young shoulders, but we do not always choose the lives we must lead.”
Avery Gray had no choice but to be different. She was not born that way; she was chosen.
After having met a special, silver-haired woman, and the handsome and enigmatic Theodore-James Connors, Ava finds herself in Hayven, a city separated from the rest of the world, where only gifters – ordinary people with extra-ordinary gifts – can go. With Theo, his friends, Hayven, her gift, and the ability to ‘travel’ in different colours, Ava must now accept that she can no longer classify herself as normal. As friendships develop, and Theo and Ava become closer than she anticipated, it turns out her new gifted life comes with a catch. With no choice or say on the matter, Ava must save a city she is starting to fall in love with; a city that has almost begun to feel like home.
Avery Gray had no choice but to be different. She was not born that way; she was chosen.
After having met a special, silver-haired woman, and the handsome and enigmatic Theodore-James Connors, Ava finds herself in Hayven, a city separated from the rest of the world, where only gifters – ordinary people with extra-ordinary gifts – can go. With Theo, his friends, Hayven, her gift, and the ability to ‘travel’ in different colours, Ava must now accept that she can no longer classify herself as normal. As friendships develop, and Theo and Ava become closer than she anticipated, it turns out her new gifted life comes with a catch. With no choice or say on the matter, Ava must save a city she is starting to fall in love with; a city that has almost begun to feel like home.
PURCHASE LINKS
MEET THE AUTHOR
***J.A. George***
Hello J.A. George, welcome to my blog! This is a fairly new post to my blog so . . .Please go ahead and tell us a little about yourself and your writing.
Hello!
You’ve probably never heard of me and so I suppose this
is the perfect opportunity to introduce myself. My name is J.A. George and I’m
the author of Gifted: The Hayven
Series. If I were to summarise Gifted
in a nutshell, it would go along the lines of something like this:
“Why
do birds fly? Why do lions hunt deer? Why does the sun shine and the moon glow?
Because it must. I wish I could tell you why, I truly do. It mustn’t be easy,
such pressure weighted on such young shoulders, but we do not always choose the
lives we must lead.”
Avery Gray had no choice but to be different. She was
not born that way; she was chosen.
After having met a special, silver-haired woman, and the handsome and enigmatic Theodore-James Connors, Ava finds herself in Hayven, a city separated from the rest of the world, where only gifters – ordinary people with extra-ordinary gifts – can go. With Theo, his friends, Hayven, her gift, and the ability to ‘travel’ in different colours, Ava must now accept that she can no longer classify herself as normal. As friendships develop, and Theo and Ava become closer than she anticipated, it turns out her new gifted life comes with a catch. With no choice or say on the matter, Ava must save a city she is starting to fall in love with; a city that has almost begun to feel like home.
After having met a special, silver-haired woman, and the handsome and enigmatic Theodore-James Connors, Ava finds herself in Hayven, a city separated from the rest of the world, where only gifters – ordinary people with extra-ordinary gifts – can go. With Theo, his friends, Hayven, her gift, and the ability to ‘travel’ in different colours, Ava must now accept that she can no longer classify herself as normal. As friendships develop, and Theo and Ava become closer than she anticipated, it turns out her new gifted life comes with a catch. With no choice or say on the matter, Ava must save a city she is starting to fall in love with; a city that has almost begun to feel like home.
Yup – that’s an acceptable nutshell.
As you could probably already guess from the blurb, Gifted fits into a few different genres,
but I would narrow them down to young adult, romance, and fantasy, but a few
traces of dystopian adventure and mystery can be seen floating around inside Gifted.
The one question I get asked the most about my book is
where I got the idea from. I have no idea where I got the idea from and I’m
guessing it would probably be useless of me to tell you it simply fell into my
head one day but it often does feel like that’s exactly what happened. I guess
I could say I got a bit tired of the UK (where I live!), setting-wise, and
thought it would be fun to make up my own place – Hayven. I think it’s
impossible for authors not to be inspired by great books they’ve read before
and some of my favourite YA books, (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Divergent,
etc.) aren’t set in your typical rainy UK climate. Plus, it was so much more
fun to make up my own world because really, anything goes; no-one can tell you
the place you’ve made up isn’t accurate because well, you’ve made it up, so it
can’t be!
The concept of being gifted stemmed from me. No,
unfortunately, I am not supernaturally gifted (yet – I’m waiting on
it…patiently…) but I am obsessed with people who are different. I like the idea
of ordinary people being extra-ordinary in some way or another, and so I made a
city full of normal people with gifts that are anything but normal. None of the
characters in my book are based on people I know, rather influenced, and so
I’ve mixed different bits of like, four people and made it into one person. Are
any of the characters influenced by me? I suppose they are. I try to make them
as realistic as possible so readers can imagine seeing these people walking
down their streets on a regular Wednesday, so when it came to revealing
mind-blowing news, I had the characters react in a way I believe I would have.
That’s my main aim for Gifted, for
people like you (book lovers) to read it and think that what happens to Ava (my
main character) could happen to you (hopefully only the good bits concerning
Ava’s life happen to you!) because if you think about it, nothing’s impossible,
right?
My favourite thing about writing Gifted was thinking up different supernatural talents because I’ve
made a hook in the book to be that no two gifted people have the same gift, and
there are approximately two million people in Hayven alone, so it took some
imagination, and a lot of chocolate-eating. Another thing I enjoyed about
writing Gifted was planning out the
entire four book series because only Gifted
(book 1) is fully written and who knows, I may even edit that further. I
written a lot of bits and pieces concerning the other three books and even have
prospective titles but they are by no means finished yet. I am completing them
in order though, so book number two (The
Silver Orb – maybe…) is the one that is almost completed but I know what is
going to happen in books three and four too and I’ve written copious amounts of
scenes, that I’m sure will not all be featured in the books, but my mind comes
up with new things to add to the book series all the time so it truly is a work
in progress.
The title Gifted just
seemed the most appropriate as I wanted to summarise the entire book in one
word and I think Gifted does that
really well, and I will also follow that trend with my other three books that
form the series. My book cover is an interesting topic (well, to me anyway)
because when I found a cover designer I liked (viladesign - http://www.viladesign.net/)
the only thing I knew was that I didn’t want an actual person on the cover but
rather an important image, and I finally decided on Mysteria Park (a park in
the book that is featured on the book cover). The scene and significance
surrounding Mysteria Park is why I felt it was best to have it featured on the
front cover and Tatiana was perfect at
getting a real sense for what I was after and together we came up with the book
cover!
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
And now to a post style I am more used to, an more formal style Interview with the author of Gifted, The Hayvern Series, J.A. George.
What is your
name and where were you born?
My name is Jessica George and I live in London, UK.
Did you always
want to be a writer? If not what did you want to be?
Throughout my entire life I’ve wanted to grow up to be so
many things. I’ve wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a baker, a publisher
and many more, but until a few years ago, not an author. Not because the sound
of being an author didn’t appeal to me but because I didn’t believe I could
turn my hobby, something I enjoy doing and do for fun, into a job. My English
Literature teachers always had positive things to say about my creative writing
but I never really processed the idea of writing becoming a future job; now I
can’t imagine myself doing anything else.
Did it take a
long time to get your first book published?
I’m a self-published author and so publishing my own book
was a relatively quick and easy process but the stages before pressing the
‘publish’ button took over a year. My first book Gifted is part of a four book series and the first thing I did was
settle on the title of the first book as I felt if I had a title, I could go
from there. Next, I briefly planned out the entire four book series before
developing Gifted further until it
became the novel it is today. Then, I had to go through numerous drafts with my
editor before we both decided it was good to go. Then I had to look for a cover
designer who I worked with until we felt the cover fitted the storyline
perfectly.
Have you ever
based characters on people you know or based events on things that have
happened to you?
Oddly enough, none of the characters in my book are
wholly based on people I know, rather influenced, and so I’ve mixed different
bits of perhaps, four people and made it into one person.
Are character
names and place names decided after their creation? or do you pick a
character/place name and then invent them?
As for choosing the names, I had a lot of help from
Google. I would search until I found a long list of names; I would thoroughly
look through it, maybe even more than once, until I found one that suited the
personality of the character. When it comes to making up my characters, I start
off with their personality, then their name and then their physical
description.
What book
genre/genres do you like to read yourself?
I love to read a variety of genres but my favourites are
Young Adult, Fantasy and Romance. I love novels that cross over so that they
can’t fit into only one genre.
Which format of
book do you prefer to read yourself, ebook, hardback, or paperback?
I enjoy both
paperback and e-book now that I have a kindle.
Did you have a
favourite author as a child?
My favourite
author as a child is and still is, Roald Dahl; he was an absolute creative
genius. My favourite book of his is George’s Marvellous Medicine.
If you could
invite three favourite writers to dinner, who would you invite and enjoy
chatting with?
My first guest would definitely be Roald Dahl because I
would love to pick his brain. JK Rowling because she’s as equally as creative
and imaginative in my mind and lastly, Toni Morrison – her writing just blows
me away no matter how many times I read it.
Where can
readers follow you?
Goodreads author
page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25561417-gifted?from_search=true&search_version=service
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Gifted-Hayven-Book-J-George-ebook/dp/B00XIGZ41S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432986782&sr=8-1&keywords=gifted+hayven
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