Interview with Karen M. McManus, Author of “One of Us Is Lying”

Described as “The Breakfast Club” meets “Pretty Little Liars”, Karen M. McManus’s debut book has exploded internationally as one of the best YA mystery thrillers in 2017. The New York Bestseller focuses on four students who find themselves at the forefront of a murder investigation when their classmate dies inexplicably in detention. McManus briefly discusses the inspiration behind One of Us Is Lying, the E! adaptation of her book and different reader reactions to the poignant storylines of some of her characters.

SOURCE: @demeriahh

Christopher Zeischegg’s “The Wolves That Live In Skin And Space” & “Come To My Brother” | Booktalk |

Christopher Zeischegg is a writer, musician and filmmaker who spent eight years in the adult film industry under the name “Danny Wylde“. Upon contacting him in hope that I would be able to interview him, he was kind enough to send me his two books – The Wolves That Live In Skin and Space and Come To My Brother.

I read The Wolves That Live In Skin and Space first, wanting to garner a sense of Christopher’s life as I had read that it was semi-autobiographical. He draws upon many elements of his life throughout his work, interspersing some fictitious moments for the sake of the story, but the result is a very human novel. The same goes for his other book Come to my Brother. In examining our psychosexual patterns – be it through the lens of a burned-out porn star who acts as a conduit for our fantasy or that of a tortured boy who is turned into a vampire by his long-lost love – the same undercurrent of intimacy and closeness is brought up to a microscope. It’s not always through rose-tinted glasses that Christopher depicts these relationships, some of them are very toxic and damaging, but in creating these slice-of-life characters and their interactions we’re left with raw emotions that are honest, vulnerable and fascinatingly real.