Much gratitude to Melanie Selemidis for inviting me to participate in this blog tour interview. Melanie @Melpomuse is the mother and author of the coming soon YA Mermyth novel SIRENS OF SANTORINI. Sirens is about 3 generations of women struggling to free themselves from an ancient curse and a young woman’s search for her mythical heritage to find her place, her power, her myth. Look for SIRENS OF SANTORINI soon, as Melenie Selemidis continues to birth it on the sands of Santorini, Greece.
1) What is the working title of your book?
The Throne of Olympus Book One: Blood Bond
2) Where did the idea come from for your book?
The love for Greek myth and the stories I used to tell people when they would hear that my name was Aletha. I would tell them it’s Greek and means “truth” and I made up elaborate tales about how Aletha was the Greek Goddess of Truth and Vengeance. They’d be like, “really.” And I’d be like, “no.” We would have good laugh after.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
Urban Fantasy/Greek Myth/Paranormal Romance
4) Which actors would you choose to play in your movie rendition?
The alluring Lena would be played by Nina Dobrev, Alex Pettyfer would play the brooding Gabriel (Gabe) Andros, his twin sister Gabrie (Gaby) would be the lovely, doll-eyed Tracy Spiridakos, the older sister and family head Sophia (Sophie) would be Alexa Davalos and Johnny Depp would be the perfect, eccentric Directorate member Dodonis.
5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Throne of Olympus is the story of how two mortals become a modern-day Zeus and Hera, reviving Mt. Olympus, protecting it and the throne from the impending enemy takeover by the “Unworthy” descendants of the Greek gods.
6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
My book is self-published by Amazon’s CreateSpace.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote the first draft for books one and two in six weeks and three days.
There was lots of bottled up fantasy prose that needed to come out and a lot of sixteen-hour days of nothing but writing. Here it is three years later and book one was newly released the latter part of November, the exact month I started really writing it three years ago.
I talk about how it should have come out in the summer of 2011, minus the tragedies and setbacks, but my belief is that it actually came out right when it was meant to.
8) What other books would you compare this story to?
The book’s different spin on Greek myths being modern-day with a Greek myth twist makes it somewhat incomparable, but yet uniform in the sense of hero/heroine quests, challenges, good v.s. evil, and a satisfactory resolve.
9) Who or what inspired you to write the book?
In terms of who…Dickens did it for me. A breathtaking performance of A Christmas Carol as a young girl. It was my inspiration for writing in general.
The what…was anger inside from a promise unfulfilled that I made to myself after a close call with death. It was to live my life and become the writer I always wanted to be–because life is too short. It was a dark and utterly unhappy place that I wouldn’t wish for anyone to be in. But never willing to give up on life or the fairy tale, my true writing life had started blossoming. In fact, the first few drafts were pretty dark, so some of it changed as my mood began to lift.
10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s a modern-day story that’s part of a series, the characters, the fantasy realms and how the characters weave through them, the retelling of Greek myths, the family dynamics of the Androses and Anastoguses.
Check out the answers these unique storytellers share on their blogs next week, December 19th.
Samantha LaFantasie
Amethyst Marie
Luciana Cavallaro
Courtney Farrell
A.K. Taylor
Emm Cole
A Novel Perspective 