Author Interview: Sarah Alderson

Today I'd like to welcome Sarah Alderson, the author of Hunting Lila to my blog. 

A bit about Sarah (as found on Goodreads): Having spent most of her life in London, Sarah quit her job in the non profit sector in 2009 and took off on a round the world trip with her husband and princess obsessed daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home. After several months in India, Singapore, Australia and the US, they settled in Bali where Sarah now spends her days writing by the pool.

How did you come up with the idea for Hunting Lila?

I was swimming. And I started off by thinking ‘what if..’: What if there’s a girl and she can move things just by looking at them. And what if her mother was murdered five years before? And what if she’s been in love with her brother’s best friend since forever?...and it kind of went from there.

If you had a psychic ability, what would you like it to be and why?

I’d like to be able to astrally project. I hate jet lag so this would be brilliant. Imagine – breakfast in Rio, lunch in New York, Dinner in Paris. Heaven. Though I guess if you’re only astrally projecting and not teleporting you probably can’t eat. That would suck.

You’ve suddenly developed that psychic ability you really wanted and somehow find yourself a member of Demos’ group. Who do you get along with the best and why?

I think I’d get along with Alicia. She’s feisty and, as a mind-reader, handy to have around. I also like Harvey. He’s laconic, laid back, but also a bank robber previous to his current employment. He’s based on my friend’s husband so I know we’d get on. Suki and Nate are hilarious together but I think I’d have to let them have their own space.

Lila, Jack and Alex realize that they’ve been led to believe things that may not be true. What’s something you thought was true for a while but actually wasn’t?

That politicians could be trusted? I think as a younger teenager I was quite an idealist. Now I live in Indonesia, which I think is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and I’ve kind of given up believing that any politician can be trusted.  Even those that aspire to be great – like Obama, I respect him greatly, but there are too many pressures from external interests for even the most admirable people not to become corrupt or break promises.

Oh, also my crazy Irish Catholic grandmother told me when I was 5 that I would die of cancer if I didn’t turn my duvet down and air my bed every morning. I believed that for a really long time.

And that I had a fairy called Emily who would visit me in the night (my dad would write me letters pretending to be from her).

This is funny – my dad also had be convinced until I was about 9 that he’d been a cabin boy on Black Beard’s pirate ship. He used to tell me and my brother these awesome stories about it. And man, I believed every word. Maybe that’s where I got my story-telling gene from.

Losing Lila, the sequel to Hunting Lila, will be released in the UK in a few months. What’s next for Lila (i.e. will there be a third book in the series); and are you working on anything else at the moment?

I’m not sure what’s next for Lila. We’ll see. I’m working on lots of exciting things right now; an adult book, a screenplay and I’m editing several YA books that I have coming out in the next couple of years ;)

A big thanks to Sarah for taking the time to answer my questions!

Sarah can be found on: [her website] [her blog] [Twitter] [Facebook] [Goodreads]

Hunting Lila can be bought from: [Amazon] [Barnes and Noble] [The Book Depository]