Hello Readers & Writers,
Joining me on the blog today is Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone which comes out January 2nd, 2018 from Simon Pulse. This is Rachel’s debut novel and I couldn’t be more than excited for it as I’ve heard it is a heart-wrenching and addicting read.
Before I kick off the interview, here is a synopsis of You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone.
Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist—and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon.
But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind. It’s turned their Israeli mother into a near stranger and fractured the sisters’ own bond in ways they’ll never admit. While Tovah finds comfort in their Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules.
When the results come in, one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. The other tests positive.
These opposite outcomes push them farther apart as they wrestle with guilt, betrayal, and the unexpected thrill of first love. How can they repair their relationship, and is it even worth saving?
From debut author Rachel Lynn Solomon comes a luminous, heartbreaking tale of life, death, and the fragile bond between sisters.
1: Thanks so much for joining me, Rachel! It’s great to have you on the blog. To start things off, how did you discover you liked to write?
Thank you for having me! Like a lot of writers, I’m sure, I can’t quite pinpoint “discovering” that I loved to write. It’s something I’ve always done: as a kid, I scribbled stories on stapled-together scraps of construction paper, as a teen, I posted stories on Fiction Press (which are still up there because I can’t remember my password), and in college, I studied journalism. I took a break from fiction during that time because I was pursuing journalism pretty hardcore, but once I graduated, I started and finished my first full-length novel. I queried it and got one request and many, many rejections, but I keep writing. Four books and many more rejections later, I had You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone.
2: Your debut novel comes out in January! That’s crazy exciting and probably terrifying, I’m sure. Where did the idea for You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone come from?
One day I tumbled down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and somehow wound up on a page about Huntington’s disease. The name was familiar—anyone who watched the show Everwood probably remembers a plotline involving a decision to get tested for HD—and I knew a little about the genetic testing some people with a family history of HD choose to undergo. As I continued researching, one particular statistic struck me: a child of a parent with Huntington’s disease has a 50/50 chance of inheriting it. I wondered, what if twin sisters received opposite results from a genetic test for Huntington’s? How would that affect their relationship and the trajectories of their lives?
3: Family, especially the bond between siblings, is a big influence in your book. Did you grow up with any siblings?
I have a sister who’s two years younger than I am. We were awful to each other until high school, when we started sharing some of our friends and extracurriculars. The sister relationship in my debut is not at all like the relationship between my sister and me. I don’t believe we’ve ever been competitive like they are, and I also don’t think there’s an undercurrent of jealousy between us…but maybe she’d have a completely different answer! J
4: What do you want readers to take away from your book?
When I decided to write about twin sisters, I wanted my characters to be equally ambitious, committed to goals they’d do anything to achieve. I would love especially for teens to see themselves in my bold, occasionally tempestuous girls who want things so desperately and refuse to bend to anyone’s whims but their own. I think the book is also sex-positive and hopefully empowering with regard to female sexuality and desire. Lastly, because there are so few books with Jewish characters that aren’t Holocaust narratives, I would also love for readers to learn a little more about Judaism.
5: Out of your characters, which one do you relate to the most and which do you differ from the most?
I like to describe Tovah as the person I was in high school, and Adina as the person I was too afraid to be, the thoughts I had but never acted on. Strangely, I relate more to Adina because I was able to pour into her everything I never did but spent a lot of time thinking about 😉
6: Describe You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone in three words.
Sisters at odds
7: What books influenced you or what books did you enjoy growing up?
Growing up, I inhaled Meg Cabot books. As a somewhat lonely teen who often struggled to make connections with other people, I found solace in her characters, many of whom were exactly like me. Her premises were so compelling, and all her characters were lovable and flawed in different ways. And her voice was just so fun! Even today, The Princess Diaries and All-American Girl are such comfort reads for me.
8: What are some hobbies you enjoy?
I tend to spend most of my free time tap dancing, playing with my sweet rescue dog Wally, and sitting in Seattle coffee shops and drinking anything except coffee! I also love experimenting with makeup, and I am addicted to Indian food. I wish I had more time to play piano and write songs, two things I loved as a teen.
9: Is there any advice you’d offer to other writers?
Write something that scares you a little, something that challenges you. The only way I feel I’m improving as a writer is if I take a risk with each new book.
10: Tell us a fun fact about yourself!
In high school, I sang and played keyboard in an all-girl band. We had a song called “Pants,” and at our very last show, people in the audience took off their pants and threw them onstage.
Author Bio:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35297395-you-ll-miss-me-when-i-m-gone
Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the Festival’s Freak Show.
Amanda Foody has always considered imagination to be our best attempt at magic. After spending her childhood longing to attend Hogwarts, she now loves to write about immersive settings and characters grappling with insurmountable destinies. She holds a Masters in Accountancy from Villanova University, and a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from the College of William and Mary. Currently, she works as a tax accountant in Philadelphia, PA, surrounded by her many siblings and many books.
Kat and Meg couldn’t be more different.
Anna Priemaza is a contemporary young adult author and a practicing family and immigration lawyer in Edmonton, Alberta, where she lives with her husband. She can never quite remember how old she is, as she knits like an old lady, practices law like an adult, fangirls over YouTubers like a teen, and dreams like a child.
Kelley: I read a book as a kid called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. It’s a historical fiction about a little girl (who actually existed) in Japan who contracts leukemia after the bombing of Hiroshima. She starts folding cranes in order to be granted a wish. I first read this book in grade school, and the idea of this legend has stuck with me so strongly ever since. It’s a great kid’s book and I suggest everyone check it out.
in my mind, that Halloween, we took our kids to a pumpkin patch. Of course we explored the gigantic corn maze. Now, I’ve always found corn mazes creepy-beautiful. There’s something undeniably majestic and sinister about being trapped in a field of dried out cornstalks surrounded by nothing. As I followed my daughter through the maze, encountering dead ends and turning sharp corners it hit me: what a perfect place to run away AND what if when you ran away, you ended up somewhere else? With that, an early conception of The Castaways was born.
Jessika Fleck is an author, unapologetic coffee drinker, and knitter — she sincerely hopes to one day discover a way to do all three at once. Until then, she continues collecting vintage typewriters and hourglasses, dreaming of an Ireland getaway, and convincing her husband they NEED more kittens. Her YA debut, THE CASTAWAYS (Entangled TEEN), releases 4/3/17. Her next YA novel, THE OFFERING (Swoon Reads/Macmillan) is due out in the fall, 2018. Jessika is represented by Victoria Marini of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.
Rosalyn Eves grew up in the Rocky Mountains, dividing her time between reading books and bossing her siblings into performing her dramatic scripts. As an adult, the telling and reading of stories is still one of her favorite things to do. When she’s not reading or writing, she enjoys spending time with her chemistry professor husband and three children, watching British period pieces, or hiking through the splendid landscape of southern Utah, where she lives. She dislikes housework on principle.