Today we’re partying with author Marlene Perez, who has been very busy this year! She’s released two books in her DEAD IS series since the start of the year, DEAD IS A STATE OF MIND and DEAD IS SO LAST YEAR, and she and I will be celebrating our next book releases at the same time–Mar’s book THE COMEBACK is out in August, just like TROY HIGH!
Something very strange starts happening in Nightshade the summer that the eldest Giordano sister, Rose, gets a job working at Dr. Franken’s research laboratory. People are starting to see double. Doppelgängers of Nightshade residents are popping up all over town. Daisy, Rose and Poppy think it’s a coincidence, until the rumors start that their father, who disappeared several years ago, has been spotted in town. Meanwhile, Daisy’s beau, Ryan is spending all of his time training for football, and like the other guys on the team, he’s grown enormous almost overnight. Samantha Devereux’s boyfriend’s neck has doubled in size since school ended. Could the football players be resorting to extreme measures to win? Between summer jobs, sugar rushes, and beach parties, the Giordano girls get to the bottom of these mysteries and more.
Sophie Donnelly is one half of the most popular and powerful couple in school, until new girl Angie Vogel shows up and compromises everything. Angie steals Sophie’s starring role in the school play, and, worse, her super-popular boyfriend. Sophie has been quickly dispatched to social Siberia, but not for long–she’ll do anything it takes to make a triumphant comeback.
Thanks for stopping by and joining in the blog party, Mar! Let’s get started with some music: What song always makes you want to dance whenever you hear it?
I love to dance, which doesn’t necessarily mean I’m any good at it. I can never name just ONE song, but LOVE REMOVAL MACHINE by THE CULT or TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS by BTO (Remind me to show you this dance called The Alligator that we all used to do in high school.) David Bowie’s LET’S DANCE. Or I love to slow dance to Etta James’ AT LAST. Sorry, Beyonce, but Etta OWNS that song. That’s today’s answer. Tomorrow, it would probably be something different.
I have to admit I have a weakness for David Bowie, all thanks to the movie Labyrinth. Who else thinks that Mar should post a video of her doing The Alligator so we can all learn it? 😉
Where did the idea for THE COMEBACK come from?
I wanted to write a novel about someone who isn’t necessarily that likeable. Maybe someone who is her own worst enemy in a way. I was a total drama nerd in high school, so I wanted to do something with that experience. And I’ve always been intrigued by how Vivien Leigh made Scarlett O’Hara so watchable. Not likeable, but we were fascinated by her. I wanted Sophie Donnelly, the main character in THE COMEBACK, to have a little bit of that.
Have you ever had to make a comeback of your own in any way? If so, did it turn out the way you planned?
Well, I’ve definitely been dumped before. Does that count? And it definitely came out for the best, and as a bonus, I got to use some of that remembered emotion for Sophie in THE COMEBACK. And I think as a writer, I’m always making a comeback. Every book is a new beginning, and in some respects, you have to start all over again.
Oh, I like that and I definitely agree that each book is a comeback.
I love that Daisy is trying to figure out where she fits in, with her family in particular, in the DEAD IS series. Can you tell us about how you came up with the idea for the books?
I’m a huge vampire lit fan, starting with Anne Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE. If the word vampire is anywhere in the description, I’m there! I’m also a huge BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER fan. In fact, I’m re-watching the dvds right now. I also really like Charlaine Harris’s SOUTHERN VAMPIRE series, which became the HBO show TRUE BLOOD. I’d wanted to write a vampire and/or paranormal novel since the early 90s, but hadn’t. There are a lot of books out there and have been for years and years, so I think I was a little intimidated, but then the first line of the first book just popped into my head.
The fitting in with her family thing is something I experienced. I’m the youngest of twelve children and the older kids always seemed to be closer to each other than they were to me, so I felt left out sometimes. I was the typical younger sibling, always trying to tag along. They’d get really creative about finding ways to ditch me!
Your DEAD IS series includes a lot of different paranormal people in the town of Nightshade, from vampires to werewolves. If you could have any paranormal ability at all, what would you choose?
I’d like eternal life (maybe I’d finally get my house cleaned) if I didn’t have to suck blood to do it. Or I’d like to be a psychic as long as I could shut it off at will. I can’t think of anything worse than hearing everyone’s thoughts all day every day.
Can you give us any hints about what the future holds for Daisy and the residents of Nightshade?
There will be two more books in the DEAD IS series! DEAD IS JUST A RUMOR will be out in the fall of 2010 and DEAD IS NOT AN OPTION, which is the final book in the series, will be out spring of 2011. Those books will take Daisy and friends through her high school graduation.
Can you tell us one weird fact about you that makes you the life of the party?
Hmm. Not that I want in print.
Oh, scandalous! 😉 Where can you be found during a party? Are you making the rounds talking to everyone, enjoying all the great food, or doing something else?
Talking or dancing. Or probably both.
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Marlene Perez lives in Orange County, California, with her husband, children, and psychotic little cat. She watches way too much TV in between writing. Visit her online and learn more about her books at www.marleneperez.com.
Look for the first three books in the DEAD IS series in bookstores now and look for THE COMEBACK next month!
fun interview!!!
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