Title: The Girl Who Saved Ghosts
Author: KC Tansley
Series: Unbelievables #2
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Time-Travel
Release Date: October 17, 2017
She tried to ignore them. Now she might risk everything to save them.
After a summer spent in a haunted castle—a summer in which she traveled through time to solve a murder mystery—Kat is looking forward to a totally normal senior year at McTernan Academy. Then the ghost of a little girl appears and begs Kat for help, and more unquiet apparitions follow. All of them are terrified by the Dark One, and it soon becomes clear that that this evil force wants Kat dead.
Searching for help, Kat leaves school for the ancestral home she’s only just discovered. Her friend Evan, whose family is joined to her own by an arcane history, accompanies her. With the assistance of her eccentric great aunts and a loyal family ghost, Kat soon learns that she and Evan can only fix the present by traveling into the past.
As Kat and Evan make their way through nineteenth-century Vienna, the Dark One stalks them, and Kat must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to save a ghost.
I’ve always been curious about the afterlife. As a tween/teen, I studied different religions to try to understand what might come next. I remember reading about Buddhism and Daoism. I really liked the concept of reincarnation. I couldn’t explain why but it just felt right to me. I ended up building that into my story world.
I snuck into the library’s occult section to read about psychics, witches, and ghosts too. Interestingly, when I was older I would discover that many cultures have these concepts. I’ve even had a couple encounters with ghosts. When I lived on Wall Street, there were several nights in that haze between dreaming and fully awake where I saw ghosts at the end of my bed. People dressed in clothes from another era and exuding an eerie bluish light. It turns out there were some horrible fires that destroyed buildings down there. I think when people die tragically something of them remains.
I tend to be a believer in the unbelievables—ghosts, spells, time travel. The world is so much more interesting if you believe in these possibilities.
When writing a book, what is your favorite part of the creative process(outline, plot, character names, editing, etc)?
It really depends on the book. Usually, it’s the storystorming where I’m creating the world, the characters, and the plot in my head and playing around with it. Sometimes, it’s the first draft because that is where I am still actively creating so many things. With this book, however, I can honestly say that I enjoyed each process, and it’s the first time I can say that about a book of mine. Usually the editing is the hardest part, but I really dug in and enjoyed it. I felt like a sculptor getting to the heart of my story and making it more clear to my readers. I am so proud of how it turned out.
When reading a book, what genre do you find most interesting/intriguing?
YA Paranormal. I gobble them up. I love getting immersed in the world building and understanding how the abilities work.
If it’s contemporary, it’s rare that I read it. It always feels like it’s missing something—the paranormal aspects.
If you could co-author with any author, past or present, who would you choose?
I’d love to co-author with Richelle Mead. Her writing is so smooth and her paranormal elements are so well created. I tore through all the books in her Vampire Academy series and loved each one. I feel like she has the perfect balance of rhetorical devices and smooth sentence structure. The plot moves at a great pace and nothing distracts from the story in her books. I would learn so much from her.
Have you always wanted to write or did it come to you "later in life"?
I always loved to write. I have journals filled with poetry and short stories and abandoned novels from when I was a child. Writing was always something I had to do because it helped me make sense of the world and my place in it. But I have an incredibly practical streak, so I studied finance and worked on Wall Street for a decade. From 2006-2010, in my spare time I wrote 2.5 manuscripts, went to writing conferences, took writing classes, and tried to learn as much about publishing as I could. Then in late 2010, I started to pursue writing as a full-time profession.
K.C. Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, and two quirky golden retrievers on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables—spells, ghosts, time travel—and writes about them.
Never one to say no to a road trip, she’s climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days. The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is her award-winning and bestselling first novel in The Unbelievables series.
As Kourtney Heintz, she also writes award winning cross-genre fiction for adults.
KOBO / iTUNES / GOODREADS TBR
Thanks for hosting my tour! You gave me great questions, and I had a blast answering them.
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