Title: What Happens in College . . .
Author: Vanessa M Knight
Series: Ritter University #2
Genre: New Adult Romance
Release Date: August 25, 2015
One upload. One thousand likes. One lapse in judgment and she lost it all.
Ritter University Novel – Book Two
Egged house, keyed cars, and lawsuits all behind her, Karina Wolfe needs to bury her past deep beneath the skeletons in her closet. No one can ever find out what she did. No one.
Her freshman year at Ritter University is the perfect opportunity to re-invent a better, shinier, more responsible Karina. Her goal? Keep her head down and stay away from the thing that screwed up her life in the first place—guys. It shouldn’t be that hard, in theory. If only Ryan Kent wasn’t so darn gorgeous.
Ryan Kent is the poster child for responsibility. He’s always done what’s expected of him. He didn’t have much choice. But now that his mother’s cancer is under control, he finally feels free. Almost. If he could only convince his dad to trust him to make his own choices, life would be good. If he could get Karina to take a chance on him, life would be perfect.
Ryan doesn’t know what Karina did before they met. Karina doesn’t know how to protect Ryan. When taking chances collide with trust, can what happens in college endure, or will it stay in college?
*Reader Note* This Ritter University book is part of series of interconnected but stand-alone books.
I'm so glad to be here today. I love talking about the new adult genre (I love reading and writing it even more). It's such a great time in life. Generally the parents are out of the picture— well— maybe not completely out of the picture, but their taking a backseat to the future that the new adults are trying to build.
It's a time of exploration. What do you want to do with your life? Where do you want to live? Who do you want to be with? There are so many questions and so many options available at this point. It's the special time in life when the options outweigh the questions.
As you get older, the dating pool narrows as people marry and pair off. The options narrow as well, as bills and potentially children and family become the focal point of your life. (Not complaining here, I love this part of my life too, it's just different.)
To me, this was a great time in my life. It was fun and scary and full of promise. And I love to visit there in my New Adult novels.
2. When writing a book, what is your favorite part of the creative process(outline, plot, character names, editing, etc)?
I'm a super-dork. I admit it. I love planning out the book. I love creating the characters and outlining the story. I make graphs and there are pictures and flowcharts (I said I was a dork, did you not believe me?)
Each document helps me piece together the basic elements of the story and allows me to focus on narrowing down those basic elements into a workable story.
3. When reading a book, what genre do you find most interesting/intriguing?
I love anything contemporary. I love getting lost in the emotions of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading a good suspense, fantasy or historical as well. But my heart lies in the present.
There's no extensive world building needed when you're looking at the here and now. It allows you to focus on people and the emotions that are inherent in the genre. It's fun to see how the author works with current topics and trends. It's also fun to see if they can step outside of the stereotypes and weave a tale that's different and unexpected.
4. If you could co-author with any author, past or present, who would you choose?
This was a hard one. There are so many amazing authors I'd love to work with. So many of them are for different reasons. I absolutely adored Judy Blume growing up.
I have two sisters and brother, all younger and I could relate to those older siblings. There was an entire year in junior high, where I had to have the vaccuum in my room so my baby sister wouldn't come in and break my stuff. She liked pens and would write on anything that she found. So the vaccuum literally stood in the doorway, guarding my room, since she was terrified of the noise and refused to go anywhere near the machine.
I always wanted to write like Judy Blume and would have loved to do something with her.
As I grew older I loved, loved, loved Christopher Pike. I'm not normally into scary, but he did scary in such a way that I couldn't put it down. And I would buy book after book, even though I knew I'd have to sleep with the lights on for the next couple nights after finishing his latest novel.
Today, I would love to work with Cora Carmack. I can't stop reading her books and I love her characters. I would love to do a Rusk University/ Ritter University crossover. How fun would that be?
5. Have you always wanted to write or did it come to you "later in life"?
I always wanted to write. When I was in eighth grade, I wrote the dedication to two of my teachers in the yearbook. It was pure heaven. I continued to enjoy writing all through high school, but it was never something I took seriously.
It wasn't until after college, when my son was at an age where he no longer needed my attention 24/7. It was then I picked up my laptop and wrote my first novel.
It was horrible and sad, but it's complete. That book will never see the light of day, but it got me interested. That interest lead to me to join writing groups and take writing workshops at local colleges. It was the stepping stone to all of the other books I've written and I don't regret writing it, no matter how atrocious the grammar.
It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today. Thank you so much!
I write contemporary romance novels with a dash of suspense. I’m a member of Romance Writers of America and Windy City RWA.
Living in Chicagoland with my husband, son and menagerie of dogs and cats, keeps me on my toes. When not writing or working or playing wife and mom, I love to scrapbook, watch movies and read anything I can find.
Thanks for hosting today! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jodi. I had a great time with it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for having me here today. I delved deep for the answers. All right, it wasn't that deep. : )
ReplyDelete