Catherine Blog Tour Stop

Catherine
by April Lindner
Pages: 320
Release Date: January 2, 2013
by Poppy (an imprint of Little Brown)

Goodreads / Purchase

A forbidden romance. A modern mystery. Wuthering mHeights as you’ve never seen it before. Catherine is tired of struggling musicians befriending her just so they can get a gig at her Dad’s famous Manhattan club, The Underground. Then she meets mysterious Hence, an unbelievably passionate and talented musician on the brink of success. As their relationship grows, both are swept away in a fiery romance. But when their love is tested by a cruel whim of fate, will pride keep them apart? Chelsea has always believed that her mom died of a sudden illness, until she finds a letter her dad has kept from her for years—a letter from her mom, Catherine, who didn’t die: She disappeared. Driven by unanswered questions, Chelsea sets out to look for her—starting with the return address on the letter: The Underground.
Told in two voices, twenty years apart, Catherine interweaves a timeless forbidden romance with a compelling modern mystery. 

Author Interview:

1. Why did you decide to become a writer?

I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was little.  There were other things I wanted to be as well—a rock star, a painter, a tight-rope walker—but writing was the one that stuck.

2. Who were your biggest influences?

Over the years, I’ve been in a lot of creative writing classes, and have had many amazing teachers.  In college I took a poetry workshop with the wonderful poet Mekeel McBride, and her playful way of looking at world really won me over; I primarily wrote poetry for a long time after that and studied with a series of poets—Andrew Hudgins, Charles Simic, Thomas Lux—more than I could list here.  But I’ve always read novels and wanted to write one of my own, so I’ve taken fiction classes too, with the late Thomas Williams and Charles Wachtel.  When I sit down to write I still sometimes hear the voices of my teachers in my head, telling me what’s working and what isn’t, urging me to do better.

3. Where do you like to write?

There’s a coffee shop a few blocks away from my house and I write there at least half the time.  Writing can be a lonely endeavor; it helps to be surrounded by people, even if you’re not interacting with them.  And the baristas all know me by name, which is nice.

4. Do you have a special routine you like to do before you write?

No…and that’s deliberate.  I used to have a whole ritual for writing.  I’d decorate my desk at home with sea glass and bouquets of herbs from my garden, and I would light a candle—everything had to be just so!  Then I had a really bad period of writer’s block, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to sit at that desk since then.  I now associate that spot and those rituals with feeling tense and blocked.  Ever since, I’ve tried to keep things casual and shake it up a bit.  When I get tired of writing at the coffee shop, I write on my front porch or even in bed.  Now there are only two things I need when I write—quiet and coffee.  And even the quiet part is optional.

5. When and how did you get the idea for Catherine?

After I wrote my first novel, Jane, a modernization of Jane Eyre, I knew I wanted to write another retelling of a classic novel.  Wuthering Heights was the most obvious choice, since it’s my other all-time favorite novel.  But I had trouble settling on how to make the story contemporary.  I knew I wanted the setting to be as important as any of the book’s characters, as in the original source material, and I started out by setting a few chapters in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire, a place that can feel almost as stark and remote as the Yorkshire moors—but that’s not my world.  I’m a city girl, and I just wasn’t feeling it.  Then one night I was seeing a rock show at the legendary Stone Pony—a nightclub in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and I felt more energized, more electric, than I had in a long time.  That’s when I came up with the idea of setting my story in a punk rock club on New York’s Lower East Side—a place that has a lot of character and edge of its own.  I’ve never lived there, but I’ve always wanted to.

6. Is there another book in the works? If so, what can we expect?

I’ve been working on a third contemporary retelling, this time of E. M. Forster’s A Room With a View.  I came to this novel by way of the delightful Merchant-Ivory film adaptation, starring a very young Helena Bonham Carter.  I loved it so much that I went right out and read the novel, and fell equally in love with it.  It’s the story of a conventional young British girl who goes on a tour of Italy and falls in love with a freethinking young man, an experience that throws the rest of her whole life into question.  In my retelling, a young American girl takes a backpacking trip through Europe.  In Italy she falls in with a street musician from New Jersey, and all the careful plans she’s made for her future start coming unglued.

THIS OR THAT

1. Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

Dark

2. Cats or dogs?

Dogs!

3. Hardcover, paperback or ebook?

Trade paperbacks

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE?

1. Movie?

It’s still A Room With a View

2. Ice cream flavor?

Peppermint Stick—especially if I can have hot fudge on top

3. Animal?

How to choose?  I love them all—but I have a particular soft spot for deer.  They’re so graceful, delicate and shy.  And I’m a sucker for those big brown eyes!

4. Book?

Jane Eyre will always be my first love.

5. Actor and actress?

Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.  (You can probably guess that Roman Holiday is another of my favorite movies.)

6. Fictional character?

I wish my answer wasn’t so predictable…but I cannot tell a lie.  Jane Eyre!

Get to know April Lindner:

Bio:

April Lindner is the author of two novels, Catherine, a modernization of Wuthering Heights, and Jane, an update of Jane Eyre.  She also has published two poetry collections, Skin and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped. She plays acoustic guitar badly, sees more rock concerts than she’d care to admit, travels whenever she can, cooks Italian food, and lavishes attention on her pets—two Labrador retriever mixes and two excitable guinea pigs.
A professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, April lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two sons.

Connect:

Goodreads | Website | Blog | Twitter

Giveaway:

A hardcover copy of CATHERINE by April Lindner to THREE (3) winners.

It is a tour-wide giveaway shared across all the stops via a common Rafflecopter.

Giveaway is US only.

Must be 13 or older to enter.

Giveaway ends July 4 at 11:59 p.m.

Winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter and contacted by email.

Mandatory requirement is to leave a comment. Optional entries are to Like the CATHERINE Facebook page, follow the author on Twitter and Tweet (daily) about the tour/giveaway.

All giveaway options are weighted evenly.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the Tour:

Week One

June 17th – Bewitched Bookworms – Review + Interview

June 18th – Jessabella Reads – Guest Post

June 19th – Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews – Interview

June 20th – Romancing the Dark Side – Guest Post

June 20th – Between the Pages – Review

June 21st – Emily’s Crammed Bookshelf – Interview

June 21st – A Little Shelf of Heaven – Review

Week Two

June 24th – Parajunkee – Guest Post

June 25th – The Book Belles – Interview

June 25th – The Bookmark Blog – Review

June 26th – Curling Up With A Good Book – Review

June 26th – Ink Skies – Interview

June 27th – BookHounds – Guest Post

June 27th – To Read or Not To Read – Review

June 28th – Tales of the Ravenous Reader – Guest Post