Tour Stop: Eliza Crewe and 'Why I Write Paranormal'

Please welcome Eliza Crewe here on YA Fanatic!

I love all kinds of fiction (especially the speculative kind) but I think I’m drawn to paranormals/urban fantasies in particular for a few reasons.  

First, because kickass heroines are the norm.  

I like epic fantasies and historicals and science fiction too, but I feel like no single other genre has the same high-concentration of female bad-assery that paranormals/UFs do. I mean, there are all kinds of emotionally/mentally tough heroines in other genres, but sometimes its nice to imagine a girl who gets to be as physically strong as the dudes, and I think that’s most often found in this genre.  And as fun as kickass heroines are to read, they’re even more fun to write. My main character in Cracked, Meda, eats tough guys for breakfast--literally.

Second, the voices in my head sound like friends. 

Because paranormals & UFs typically take place in the modern world, my characters’ voices sound like people I know.  My characters can reference current events and pop-culture (and make fun of them) like any of my friends would.  Plus, when you spend hours talking to yourself every week, you feel slightly less crazy if you don’t have to do it in a made up accent.

And lastly, because they make boring days exciting. 

Paranormals/UFs introduce the possibility that there’s magic everywhere, I just can’t see it--at least not yet (I’m obviously the Chosen One and they’re on their way with my magic powers and crown.  Any day now...wait for it….). Especially during that hell-on-earth known as high school, I loved to imagine the possibility that everything wasn’t quite as it seemed, that I could be more than I seemed. Rationally I knew these hidden worlds weren’t real (of course I did…), but it was nice to imagine.  I love the other spec fic genres, but they are all clearly elsewhere--UF’s and paranormals take place here.

What about you?  Why do you read and/or write paranormals?

Cracked by Eliza Crewe

Publisher: Strange Chemistry     
Publication date: November 5th 2013

Meet Meda. She eats people.
Well, technically, she eats their soul. But she totally promises to only go for people who deserve it. She’s special. It’s not her fault she enjoys it. She can’t help being a bad guy. Besides, what else can she do? Her mother was killed and it’s not like there are any other “soul-eaters” around to show her how to be different. That is, until the three men in suits show up.
They can do what she can do. They’re like her. Meda might finally have a chance to figure out what she is. The problem? They kind of want to kill her. Before they get the chance Meda is rescued by crusaders, members of an elite group dedicated to wiping out Meda’s kind. This is her chance! Play along with the “good guys” and she’ll finally figure out what, exactly, her ‘kind’ is.
Be careful what you wish for. Playing capture the flag with her mortal enemies, babysitting a teenage boy with a hero complex, and trying to keep one step ahead of a too-clever girl are bad enough. But the Hunger is gaining on her.
The more she learns, the worse it gets. And when Meda uncovers a shocking secret about her mother, her past, and her destiny… she may finally give into it.

Eliza Crewe always thought she’d be a lawyer, and even went so far as to complete law school. But as they say, you are what you eat, and considering the number of books Eliza has devoured since childhood, it was inevitable she’d end up in the literary world. She abandoned the lawyer-plan to instead become a librarian and now a writer.

While she’s been filling notebooks with random scenes for years, Eliza didn’t seriously commit to writing an entire novel until the spring of 2011, when she and her husband bought a house. With that house came a half-hour commute, during which Eliza decided she needed something to think about other than her road-rage. Is it any surprise she wrote a book about a blood-thirsty, people-eating monster?

Eliza has lived in Illinois, Edinburgh, and Las Vegas, and now lives in North Carolina with her husband, her hens, her angry, talking, stuffed dwarf giraffe, and a sweet, mute, pantomiming bear. She likes to partially-complete craft projects, free-range her hens, and take long walks. Cracked is her first novel.