Author Interview & Giveaway: Karen Ann Hopkins

We're excited to welcome one of our favorite authors, Karen Ann Hopkins, back to Reading Lark today. She's here to dish on her latest release, Embers, and offer up a giveaway for our lovely followers.

Andrea @ Reading Lark: Your other YA series is contemporary so I was excited to see you try the paranormal genre. What inspired you to write a paranormal story?

Karen Ann Hopkins: Actually, Embers was my very first writing project. I switched to contemporary when I moved into an Amish community seven years ago and was inspired to write the Temptation series. I went back to Embers last year and rewrote much of it, keeping my favorite aspects, such as the Tennessee Mountain setting, the walled compound and the kick-butt heroine. 

Andrea @ Reading Lark: I love that the Smoky Mountains play a role in this one. Why did you choose this as a setting?

Karen Ann Hopkins: I truly believe that it’s best to write about settings that you’re very familiar with. The authenticity comes through in the storyline and since I lived in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee for eighteen years, I know the area well. There is a primitive wildness in the Smoky Mountains that create the perfect setting for a showdown between Watchers, who are the descendants of angels, and a tribe of demons. Secluded parts of the Smokies are also believable backdrops for strange activities to be going on without the notice of the populous. 

Andrea @ Reading Lark: If this novel was a cupcake, what kind would it be?

Karen Ann Hopkins: If Embers was a cupcake, it would be extremely unique. I’m thinking that banana frosting over a peanut butter-chocolate mousse cake might represent the story well enough. Something that you’re kind of hesitant to bite into, but when you do, the ingredients melt together perfectly into a surprisingly to-die-for treat. 

Andrea @ Reading Lark: I loved the romance between Noah and Rose in the Temptation series. Can I expect to see a romance in this one?

Karen Ann Hopkins: Yes, Embers has a blossoming hot and heavy romance between, Ember, a descendant of angels and, Sawyer, a demon. I love the forbidden love aspect in this story, which makes Rose and Noah’s cultural clash in Temptation seem like a calk walk. Ember has a difficult time reconciling to the fact that she’s falling for a demon, and then there’s the issue of the approaching war between the forces of heaven and hell, which Ember and Sawyer are supposed to be fighting on different sides of. There are real struggles ahead for these two. 

Andrea @ Reading Lark: What sets Embers apart from other angel novels?

Karen Ann Hopkins: Embers is a very unique angel story in that it isn’t a black and white, good versus evil portrayal of angels and demons. The grayness to the storyline is what makes it so interesting. The angels and their descendants aren’t always good and right and the demons, and other so-called monsters, aren’t always wrong and evil. The Wings of War series takes actual biblical references and interweaves them into its very own fantastical lore that will keep the reader enthralled until the last page. The elements of horror, fantasy, folklore, contemporary, paranormal, romance and supernatural are all in play in Embers, making it an exciting and memorable ride that will leave the reader begging for more.

About the Author

You can visit Karen Ann Hopkins at her website: www.karenannhopkins.com. 

Karen Ann Hopkins resides in northern Kentucky with her family on a farm that boasts a menagerie of horses, goats, peacocks, chickens, ducks, rabbits, dogs and cats. Karen's main job is home schooling the kids, but she finds time to give riding lessons, coach a youth equestrian drill team, and of course, write. She was inspired to create her first book, Temptation, by the Amish community she lived in. The experiential knowledge she gained through her interactions with her neighbors drove her to create the story of the star-crossed lovers, Rose and Noah. 

Karen grew up about a mile from Lake Ontario in Upstate New York. She was bitten by the horse bug at the age of five, and after diligently taking riding lessons for several years, was rewarded with her first horse at the age of eleven. The feisty horse's name was Lady, a Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred cross, who became Karen's steadfast companion. Through the years, the constant force in her life was horses. Eventually, she found her place as a riding instructor herself. Before accepting her fate in the barnyard, she worked a short stint as a paralegal, traveled abroad, and guided tourists on horseback riding tours in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. 

Karen is currently working on her Amish mystery series, Serenity's Plain Secrets, along with the YA paranormal/fantasy series, The Wings of War. Karen is also excited to announce the Temptation series has been optioned for TV by Pilgrim Studios.

About the Novel

There are descendants of angels walking among us. Ember is one of them. And she may be the only hope mankind has as the rapture approaches and evils rises. 

Embers is an epic paranormal adventure about a seventeen year old girl who discovers that she's immune to fire and any other injury when she’s in a horrific car crash that kills her parents. Following a violent episode with her aunt's boyfriend, Ember flees Ohio to live with an old relative in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Ember's exuberance at escaping a bad home life soon turns to trepidation when she finds out that she's a Watcher, a descendant of angels. While Ember learns about her heritage, and the powers that go along with it, she strikes up friendships with two teenagers who live in a frightening walled compound in the forest. Inexplicitly drawn to one of the young men in particular, an impossible romance develops. But it is cut short when Ember discovers that her new friends are fighting on the opposite side of a war, one that’s been raging between two factions of Watchers for thousands of years. When the compound’s inhabitants threaten the townspeople, Ember takes action, sealing her fate in the ancient battle of good versus evil, and the grayness in between. Ember is up to the challenge, until she realizes that she isn’t only fighting for the lives of the locals and the souls of her new friends. She also might be one of the few champions who will make a stand for all of mankind as the rapture approaches and the end of days begin.

Embers is a dark and gritty YA novel that’s the first book in the series, The Wings of War.

Goodreads

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

We have TEN eBook copies of Embers to give to our lucky readers. This giveaway is open to those who can receive books from Amazon and who are 14+ years of age. If you are under 18, you must have parental permission to enter. Reading Lark is not responsible for prize delivery.

The giveaway runs from October 28 - November 28. Winner will be notified via email on November 29.

a Rafflecopter giveaway