Welcome to our interview with Aaron Patterson, author of the YA paranormal novel
Airel. Aaron has agreed to give away 3 copies of his book, so make sure you leave a comment below with your email address to quality for entry into the giveaway.
So, tell us a little bit
about you. What makes you tick?
I am a big nerd really. I
love to read, paint, hike and play with my kids. We hang by the pool, go out
dancing on the weekends and have a ton of fun. I was a big reader as a kid,
once read 100 books on summer break and now that I write, well, there is no
better life in my book. (No pun intended=)
Who is your favorite
author at the moment?
Ted Dekker
Now on to the important
bit, your book. Can you tell us about it?
Airel is a mixed up girl,
she has a crazy best friend Kim and is just trying to get through high school.
She falls hard for the new boy Michael and kind of loses herself in the
process. She is kidnapped and finds out she may not be all human. There are two
parts to the book and I take you back to 1250 BC and you meet a Angel named
Kreios. He loses his wife and must protect his daughter from a group called the
Brotherhood. Both stories mesh in the end and all I can say is, you will love
it!
What inspired you to write
in this genre?
That is a funny story.
First I wanted to kill the main character. That was all I wanted because so
many books are the "Happy Ending" kind. So I went from there and I
wont tell you what happens in the end but it will blow your mind!
Is this your first book?
No I have two other books
published and two short stories. My other books are adult thrillers and it is a
three part series. The first is Sweet Dreams, and the next is Dream On. They
are in the CSI world and I am told that they are way cool, not sure who told me
that but...
Do you have plans for
more?
Yes, Airel is the first in
a five book series. i love writing YA and will keep doing it as long as I can.
Describe your main
characters in a single word.
Complicated.
Okay, now you can tell us
more about them.
Airel is pretty but not a
Hottie. Smart and funny and kind of a loner. She is small, only 5,1 and thin.
But don't mess with her or she will put you down.
Kim is her best friend and
will not stop talking! She opens her mouth and thinks later, always in trouble
and never learns.
Michael is tall, a hunk
and sort of a mystery. He may be evil but you never know. He likes Airel but
not sure why, does he have something going on? Maybe.
What was the hardest scene
to write?
Anything with Michael...
he is a hard one to write as I connect with Airel better. I know weird...
What is your favorite
scene?
The end scene. It was fun
and heart-wrenching.
Can we read it?
WE MADE IT TO the theater
before anything disastrous could happen. After I parked, Michael opened my door
for me, and on the way to the ticket booth, he grabbed my hand and held it, and
would not let go. I was glad, but terrified. On one side of this shiny new
coin, he was not shy about his affection for me, and didn’t feel like he needed
to ask permission for anything. On the other side, what the heck was he
doing holding my hand without asking permission?
We bought our tickets and
went in to the theater, but not before Kim and I had a conference in the
bathroom to compare notes. She insisted on digging for all the dirt on me and
Michael from the five minute trip over to the theater and dished me all the dirt
that I didn’t really want to know about her and James.
“Guess what? Guess who his
favorite band is? Just guess!” She was giddy. It was cute. They were both crazy
about the exact same music. We walked out holding hands and giggling. Luckily,
that discouraged any more handholding by Michael as we found our seats. But, of
course, I let him sit next to me. I couldn’t be rude. Besides, I wanted to sit
by him.
Darkness filled the movie
theater as the previews started rolling. It was girl, girl, boy, boy, Kim on my
left, Michael on my right and James next to Michael. Kim didn’t seem to mind or
maybe she just didn’t care. Michael was making jokes about the different movies
that were coming out and leaned over, whispering in my ear, “Do you want
anything? Popcorn or a drink?”
Just the sound of his
voice in my ear made the hair on my arms stand up again. Not to mention the
goose bumps. “Sure. Diet Pepsi and popcorn. Thanks, Michael.”
“No problem.” He slipped
out and James followed..
“They went for a junk food
run,” I whispered to Kim
“Good, I’m starved.” Then
she changed gears again, almost giving me whiplash. “So. I see you and Michael
are getting friendly…” She had a glint of sarcasm in her voice.
“He’s nice, but he’s a
little out of my league, if you know what I mean.” I didn’t dare even think
about anything more with Michael other than friendship... even with
the handholding. It could have been a fluke. Or maybe I’m being
neurotic.
If there’s one thing I’d
learned about guys, it was that they can hurt. I was going to be as cautious as
possible about all of this. Michael was friendly with everyone, anyway, and I
had no reason to believe he was seriously considering me as one of his many,
many options.
“Come on, he likes you.
Anyone can see that. Don’t worry about anything, just leave it to me.” I gave
her that don’t even think about it look and hit her in the
arm. “Ow, so mean!”
“Ha! You deserved it. Now
don’t try anything or I’ll tell James you’re a stalker.”
“So? I am.” Kim laughed,
adjusting her purse. She flipped out her phone and left a movie theater
check-in on Facebook, moving quickly on to Twitter. I guess a girl’s got to
stay in touch with her peeps, but Kim was a little overboard. I was on Facebook
too, but that was only because Kim had set it up for me. If I didn’t get on it
often enough, she would hack in and post stuff on my behalf—just another reason
why I could never lose her.
Michael came back up the
stairs and slid in next to me. He handed me a large soda and smiled. “Big
enough for ya?”
“Yeah, ya think? Holy
BUCKET.” I giggled like an idiot and turned my face away. What was this guy
doing to me? “Where’s James?”
“He had to go to the
bathroom. He should be back soon. Unless he’s running scared from … ahem…” He
pointed with his thumb over to Kim who was busy checking her reflection on her
phone.
“Ha, she would find him,”
I whispered in his ear. I could smell his shampoo and feel the warmth of his
skin next to mine. His arm brushed mine and I almost embarrassed myself by
screaming. It probably would have come out really weak, given the heart
palpitations I was having to deal with.
James came back a few
minutes later and took a handful of popcorn. Sheesh, help yourself,
pal. The movie started and I scrunched down in my seat, wondering what
I was doing. Was I a glutton for pain? Did I just like to have my heart
broken? Just the thought of…
My thoughts were instantly
cut off by something I had never felt before. It was like a splitting headache
in the back of my skull. Everything went fuzzy. I closed my eyes and tried to
focus and for the second time today, I felt like throwing up. This time it was
not as strong, though. I controlled my lunch, breathed in deep three times,
then opened my eyes.
The people in front of us,
all the way down to the front row, were all a blur—all but two, who sat in the
second row. It was a tall man with short blond hair and a shorter man with a
ball cap on. They were talking and from where I was sitting, I could tell they
were not happy.
The tall blond man leaned
over and whispered something to the ball cap man and he stiffened. I had a bad
feeling that something was going to happen, but I wasn’t sure. What are
they talking about?
Then I saw it. The glint
of a blade, catching the light from the movie screen, appearing from the blond
man’s coat. I saw his arm wrap around the ball cap man’s shoulder, reaching
around to cover his mouth.
I tried to yell, but
nothing came out. I just opened and closed my mouth like a fish. There was no
way this was real. Everyone else seemed not to notice the two men, but I could feel what
happened.
The tall man jerked his
arm, making the ball cap man’s body twitch crookedly. A second time he thrust
the knife in and after a few more seconds the ball cap man went limp in his
seat. I was speechless. I had just witnessed a cold-blooded murder. I couldn’t
breathe, let alone talk. It looked like the ball cap man was napping in the
darkness. There was no way anyone would see he was dead until the end of the
movie.
Now, just as if I had
shouted at him, the tall man with the knife turned and looked dead at me. His
piercing dark eyes shot a hole right through me. I jerked my gaze away and
tried to act like I was lost in the movie. He stared at me and refused to let
me out of his sight. I managed to grunt something like, “I have to go to the
restroom.” I stood and slipped by Michael and James.
I hiked down the stairs
and past the killer’s row, was and I could feel him watching me hatefully. He
sat still as I passed. I didn’t look his way. I could feel his gaze follow me
as I turned to go out into the lobby. I was scared and in a panic, not sure
what to do. My mind felt like sludge and would not work like I needed it
to.
I hit the lobby quickly
and ran full blast to the bathroom where I promptly threw up in the sink. I
looked into the mirror. My reflection was the image of a stranger—I wondered at
all of this for a split second. Questions came tumbling in, all jumbled up and
twisted together with answers that didn’t fit. I fumbled with my phone and
dialed 911. Come on, pick up!
“Nine-one-one, what’s your
emergency?”
I was just about to answer
when I heard the door open. I turned and rushed to an empty stall. I shut the
door as quietly as I could and crouched down on top of the toilet. I quickly
turned off my phone but it played that irritating jingle that’s always way too
loud, giving me away. There was silence then for what felt like eternity. Then
I heard heavy footfalls. Someone was walking slowly through the room…toward me.
Like a crazy person, he
was whistling some random tune, very low, like a whisper. At first it was
unintelligible, total nonsense. But then he came even closer to the stall where
I hid, and as he did, I swear I could recognize the tune. It was beyond me to put
a name to it, but it filled me with horror.
I shivered as he came
closer, the footfalls like heavy machinery, dropping like lead weights on the
tile floor. I saw under the door the shine of a pair of men’s dress
shoes.
Oh God, oh God…! Don’t
let him find me… I was crouched
like a jungle cat on the toilet and if I could have pinned my ears back, I
would have.
I could see him hunch down
on the balls of his feet, his coat touching the floor around him like a tent.
He started looking under the stall doors, crouching lower. His hand dropped
down and a bloody eight-inch long knife was in his hand. I just about screamed
but I clamped my hand down over my mouth, only allowing a frightened gasp to
escape.
I watched him through the
crack of the door, his body tensed like a vicious predator. He sniffed at the
air. Then his hands slowly came down and rested on the floor, balled up on his
knuckles with silky elegance. It was more frightening than the anger and
violence I was expecting. He seemed to be completely calm and collected.
Down he sank, and as he
did, he slid his feet back away from his hands. Lower and lower to the floor as
if doing a push-up, he descended, the knife in the hand nearest to me.
I could not bear it, but I
knew I would see his face... it was inevitable. I dreaded the seconds as they
ticked along with me riding inside them, but I also dreaded those that were
coming for me.
Then it happened. His face
appeared in the small space under the door. He was looking directly at me. I
could not bear his gaze. My body twitched and I turned away and trembled in
panic.
~ * ~
A big thank you to Aaron for chatting with us today. He will be our guest on
Blog Talk Radio on Wednesday, so make sure you stop in and listen at 3:30pm PST.
It's contest time! Leave a comment below with your email address in the following format to be entered into the giveaway. parayournormalteam(at)gmail(dot)com. Good luck to everyone!
