Sovereign Hope Virtual Tour: Interview with Frankie Rose

I'm very excited to have with me today Frankie Rose, self-published author of Sovereign Hope, the first book in her new Hope series! My review for the book is on its way, but for now enjoy our interview. You will also find the book's official blurb and a buy now link that will take you to Sovereign Hope's Amazon page. Without further ado... please welcome Frankie Rose! 

Wicked Interview with Frankie Rose

First off I just want to say thank you, Frankie for including Wickedly Bookish in your book tour and answering our questions!

You're welcome! It's wonderful of you to have me on your blog. Thank you!

Sovereign Hope isn't your average YA novel. Readers can take a peek at the official blurb at the end of this interview, but let's hear from you, Frankie. What sets The Hope Series apart from common YA trends? 

Well, I wanted the story to be completely different to anything out there right now. So there are no werewolves, and no vampires. The paranormal aspect in Sovereign Hope are the Immortals, Soul Reavers, who are a bloodline of men who posses extraordinary powers. They steal people's souls in order to gain more power.

Farley Hope is the first female to ever be born of this bloodline, and her coming is part of a prophecy that will destroy the Reavers forever. She meets Daniel under very unlikely circumstances, and is thrust into a world she never knew existed. Faced with the challenges of adjusting to her new life and the discoveries she makes relating to her own family, Farley also has to battle against her attraction to Daniel, and learn how to fight in order to stay alive. 

What inspired the core ideas of your novel?

I've been asked this question a whole bunch and it doesn't get any easier to answer. I didn't actually take inspiration from anything else.  I spent a long time thinking about the storyline and the characters- who they were and what their backstories would be- and I sort of went from there. I tried a number of things when I started writing, and some of them worked out and some of them didn't. There was a handful of ideas that I wanted to incorporate into the book but they just weren't practical, and I had to let them go.

I tried really hard to be creative and come up with something I hadn't heard about before. The sad thing is, there really is no such thing as original thought anymore (there are only 7 different formats for story writing in the whole world!) and no matter how hard you try, there's always going to be something that can be compared to your work. 

One of the things we love most about reading is stumbling across a new fictional guy to fall for. Care to tease us a bit about what we can expect from Daniel?

Daniel...ha ha, Daniel is a little different to the other book boys I've read about, or at least I tried to make him that way. He's arrogant and pig-headed, for sure, but there's a really broken side of him, too. He's not a typical hero in the sense that he resists the way he feels about Farley in order to keep her safe- he's also doing it to protect himself. There are some really painful things in his past that still trouble him, and that lends an air of vulnerability to his character, I think. You catch a glimpse of that in Sovereign Hope but even more so in the next book. And, of course, it always helps when a guy is smoking hot and a little bit badass to boot! 

Speaking of book boyfriends, do you have any of your own? Are there any fictional heroes that make you SQUEEE?

I have a veritable harem of book boys locked away in my basement ha ha! No, that's weird. Um, I really like Cassel Sharpe. His character in Holly Black's The Curse Workers series was so good- relatable because he made some crappy decisions and messed up a lot. I don't like when guys are unbelievable in books. It kinda ruins the illusion that they're real people for me- and that's what we all want to pretend, at the end of the day- because no guy is perfect. I can't swallow some portrayals of young guys  because they're too self-sacrificing and lovey dovey. It's just nowhere near the realms of reality. You should wanna shake the male protag sometimes, and probably clock him one just to make sure he's thinking straight!

We love our indie authors here at Wickedly Bookish and are always fascinated to hear their experiences. What made you decide to take the leap into self-publishing?

Originally I did try and go down the trad pub route, but I quickly became disillusioned with the whole process. I got to thinking about the sheer volume of queries agents received every day, and the fact that there was very little chance my manuscript was ever going to make it onto the desk of the person I'd sent it to. By the time I did actually receive an offer of a contract from a small pub organisation, I was so underwhelmed by what I'd hope to benefit from working with a publisher that I decided to knock their offer back and go it alone. I love being in charge of my own projects, and I've learned so many new skills in the time I've been working on my books. I wouldn't trade that for anything, but I can see why some people do trade off the independence and control for some help with everything they have to accomplish. There's so much to do, and it can be exhausting sometimes!

Many of our followers are aspiring authors. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice on the writing process?

Don't give up!! There are a hundred points in any writer's career where they could simply smash their fist their computer screen and say, "I've had enough, I'm done!", but you can't do that. I read somewhere that the majority of authors who aren't successful don't make it because they self-terminate on their own dreams. I don't doubt that's the case. You have to learn to be thick-skinned and persistent, and to never let anyone else make you feel like what you're doing isn't valuable and worthwhile. Easy advice to give, but incredibly hard to follow sometimes!

How do you handle the frustrating and unavoidable occurrence of writer's block?

I always just force myself to sit down and write at least one sentence. It's sitting there, staring at the computer screen that makes the writing hard and exacerbates writer's block. If you just write something, even it's rubbish, you'll realise that fact and go back and change it so that it's good. From there, the writing just flows for me. It's just breaking that initial block.  

Nerdy Confessions!

 
On Wickedly Bookish we have a little interview segment where we ask our guest to divulge a bit about their nerdy side as we believe everyone has one. 

My nerdy confession this time around is that I cannot get enough of the Game of Thrones fandom. Whether it be the books or the HBO Original Series I am constantly  indulging in fanart, funny memes, gifs, and an indecent amount of screenshots of the sexy male cast. 

Your turn, Frankie! Show us your nerdy side!

 

I love GoTs, too. I'm obsessed, in fact. Check this one out. 

I love Jon Snow. I think I'd probably accost Kit Harington if I saw him walking down the street. I can't steal your nerdy fact though, so I'll share another one. I'm addicted to sci fi. Star Wars, Star Trek (the only one I didn't watch was the original because the effects were crap), Battlestar Galactica, V...ALL of them, basically. If it's about space and aliens, I wanna watch it. I am totally not ashamed of this fact, either. Heaps of people are horrified when I tell them I loved Deep Space Nine as a kid. Hell, I'm okay with it. At least I wasn't watching Big Brother or Jersey Shore equivalents. 

  

Thank you, Frankie, for stopping by and chatting with us! 

Thanks again for having me over, Jessica! Hopefully I can come back soon when Eternal Hope is released! 

About the Author:

Frankie Rose is a British expat, who is currently enjoying the perks of living in Australia- her awesome husband, sunshine, and vitamin D. She spends her time creating fictional universes in which the guy sometimes gets the girl, the heroes occasionally die, and the endings aren't always happy. But they usually are.


Everyone has a soul

Some are just worth more than others

Farley Hope was seventeen when her mother disappeared. In the last six months not much has changed, except that her eighteenth birthday came and went and still no sign of Moira. Her life is just as complicated as it always was. Since her father died in a car crash before she was even born, she’s officially parentless, and to top it all off she’s still suffering from the hallucinations. Mind-splitting, vivid hallucinations- the kind prone to induce night terrors and leave you whimpering under your covers like a baby.

The last thing on her mind is boys. Farley is on break from St. Judes’ when she meets Daniel. It’s not some casual run in at a party, or even a blind date with friends, though. Daniel is the guy following her in his 1970′s Dodge Charger; the guy standing at her window in the LA lunch hour traffic, trying to persuade her to leave everything behind and follow him. And he's hot as all hell.

The moment Farley lays eyes on Daniel, everything changes. He is cold and withdrawn, but there are cracks in his harsh veneer- cracks that betray the secrets he is trying so hard to hide. Farley is drawn into a world that will shake apart everything she thought she ever knew. There are truths out there that she must learn: that a person’s soul is their only real currency, and there are people who would do anything to take hers; that loving someone can hurt so much more than hating them; but, most importantly, when your future is predestined, there is little you can do to change it.

Farley Hope is prophesied.

Her coming has been awaited for hundreds of years.

She is destined to end the tyranny of the Soul Reavers.
To do so she must die. 

Official Book Trailer for Sovereign Hope