Jimena Novaro Talks Anti-Heroes

Today Jimena Novaro, author of BLUE RABBIT, is guesting on the blog. In celebration of the upcoming release, if you add BLUE RABBIT to your shelf on Goodreads, you will be entered to win a copy on release day!  

Now, please welcome Jimena!

Bad Girls, Bad Boys

Thank you so much for hosting me, Mary! Hello, readers of Mary’s blog! Thanks for stopping by! 

I have a thing for antiheroes.

Take this, for instance: not too long ago I read Mary’s wonderful first book, Quest of the Hart. Out of the whole cast of great characters, it was Arabella, the main antagonist, whom I loved the most. I identified with her, sympathized with her, and felt like she’d gotten an awful deal in life―always overshadowed by her brother, the heir to the throne as the younger twin only because he was a boy. I didn’t condone her actions, but I understood them.

Other examples of characters who won my heart through anti-heroism include Starbuck and Laura Roslin from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica; Ripred from The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins; the entire cast of Firefly; Mogget from the Abhorsen series and Ella from Shade’s Children, both by Garth Nix; Rosto from the Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce; Spike from Cowboy Bebop... the list goes on and on.

Why do I love them so much? In general, I feel drawn to moral ambiguity―to stories where right and wrong aren’t clear-cut―because it’s truer to life and leaves room for the audience’s interpretations. See, in my opinion, a good story is like good music―you want a variety of notes, not just an endless progression of lows or highs. I like for a story to punch me in as many of the feels as possible, and watching characters struggle against darkness and sometimes overcome it, sometimes let it swallow them, certainly hits notes on all points in the scale.

Also, antiheroes also have more elements working against them than traditional heroes. In addition to the exterior obstacles, they also have to battle their inner demons―their past, their guilt, their jealousies, their vanities and their obsessions.

Plus... aren’t they fun? They can get up to all sorts of shenanigans that traditional heroes might not involve themselves in. They’re usually pretty badass, too. They say things that others wouldn’t dare to. Sometimes they even speak the truths that others don’t want to hear.

These kinds of characters take you for quite a ride. You have fun, you cry, you cheer them on, you get angry at them, you wish you could reach into the story world and give them a hug... or maybe a good shake.

Do you like antiheroes? Who are your favorites?

In Knoxville, Tennessee, there’s a bridge to another world.

When they first cross it, Erika and her friends feel like they’ve stumbled into a dream. Magical and mysterious, the other world becomes their little paradise, a place to explore and escape from their everyday lives. Until one night a boy from school, Mike, follows them to the other side―and he’s kidnapped by strange and powerful Creatures.

Back home, everyone thinks Erika and the gang are responsible for Mike’s disappearance. The dream has become a nightmare. How can they negotiate with these Creatures to rescue Mike and clear their names? And why are the Creatures fixated on Erika, who feels drawn to their world even as she senses the danger?

Jimena Novaro always knew she would be a writer. It just took her a few years to realize that she wanted to do it full-time, and relegate things like going into outer space and being an opera prima donna to hobbies. 

She loves reading and writing science fiction, fantasy, and YA. A self-proclaimed geeky sort of nerd, she spends a lot of her time fangirling over her favorite shows, books, and bands and educating herself about super-important topics such as how to survive an arrow wound and whether or not you can shoot a gun in space. Sometimes she gets super serious and rants about some socio-political issue or other. 

She’s a member of the awesome fantasy authors group Mystic Quills. You can find her free epic fantasy serial, The Withering Sword, on her website (a new chapter comes out every Sunday!) Her first book, Blue Rabbit, a YA urban fantasy, comes out this December!

Find her here:

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