An Interview with Samantha Durante Plus an ebook Giveaway of Stitch!

We are happy to have Samantha Durante, author of The Stitch Trilogy, on the blog today! She's also offered an ebook of Stitch up for grabs. Details later in the post, but first let's chit chat with Samantha! 

How long have you been writing?

Thanks so much for hosting me, Gabby! I’ve been writing ever since I can remember, but I’ve only been writing professionally (read: someone pays me for it!) for about two years (as a business writer), and Stitch is my first foray into the world of novels.

What inspired you to write your first book?
A love of reading – what else? :-) I finally got to a point in my life where I had some free time, so I decided to use that time to try writing fiction, since that’s what I love to read. (And now since I started doing the book thing, I no longer have any free time!)

When you first started writing Stitch, did you plan for it to be a trilogy?
Yup! When I thought of the idea, I immediately knew that there was too much backstory to fit into one book, and I always love reading multi-book series anyway since you can really lose yourself in them, so that’s what I decided to shoot for with Stitch.

Which of your characters do you relate to most and why?

There’s a little bit of me in each of my characters, but Alessa is probably the most like me. I’d like to be more cheery and fun like Janie, but if you ask anyone who knows me well, they would certainly NOT use the word “bubbly” to describe me, haha.

What is a secret about you that nobody else knows?

I’m a self-loathing meat-eater. I love animals and hate to think of any creature dying just to suit my appetite… but I also can’t imagine living without bacon or braised beef short ribs or chicken quesadillas. Plus, I recently developed a bean allergy, which makes it more difficult than ever to cut meat out of my diet, since beans were my go-to vegetarian protein… So for now, I just try to only eat meat when I really want it and only buy meat from small farmers who raise animals humanely. But I hate myself for it anyway. :’-(

If your real life was a fictional character, what would you, the main character, be like?

I’d be a lot like Alessa, just a few years older and in a happier (albeit more boring) place!

What book have you read too many times to count?

Pride and Prejudice. It’s my go-to book whenever I want to curl up with something warm and fuzzy (other than my cat).

What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received?

Not to worry about writing the BEST BOOK EVER and just to write a good book that someone out there will enjoy. That took a lot of pressure off!

If you could hop into the life of any fictional character, who would it be and why?

Anyone from Harry Potter – I could never pass up the chance to live in that world!

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

That writing the book isn’t even half the battle! SO much time goes into marketing a book – I really had no idea. Oh, and how important reviews are. I rarely wrote them before I became an author, but now I always do since I know how much books need them to succeed.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I’m addicted to wayyy too many TV shows (The Vampire Diaries, American Horror Story, and The Bachelor are probably the ones I most look forward to each week), and I love to read and just spend time with family and friends.

Are any of the things in your books based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?

Yes, definitely! Luckily none of the big scary things (like losing your parents like Alessa did, or living through an apocalypse…), but small things, for sure. In Stitch in particular, I drew heavily from my college experience to build the setting, and I always base my descriptions (like the feel of being outside, the wondrousness of eating mac & cheese after a long day, that sort of thing) on personal experience. I try to include small details to make the story more real, which a lot of readers have commented really helped them to feel like they were there right alongside Alessa.

About the Author:
Samantha Durante lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, Sudeep, and her cat, Gio. Formerly an engineer at Microsoft, Samantha left the world of software in 2010 to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams and a lifelong love of writing. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, Samantha is currently working full time for her company Medley Media Associates as a freelance business writer and communications consultant. Stitch is her first novel.

To learn more about Samantha Durante and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

The Blurb:
Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa's body screams at her to run... but yet she's powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees - and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell - Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn't figured out yet is that she's not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university's idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface...

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.

The Giveaway!
Please fill out the Rafflecopter Form below to enter. Open internationally. Good luck!

Enter the giveaway HERE!