Blog Tour: Conner by Miranda Stork

Welcome to the opening of Conner Tour! I'm so thrilled to be the first stop of this great tour and I have to thank Miranda for giving me the chance to discover this awesome novel! 

Now, don't go away, as I have a review, a great interview, and a multi-prize giveaway!! So, what are you waiting for? Keep reading!! 

Summary (taken from Goodreads):

Erin is a young psychologist, with no time for anything but her work, and unable to remember anything about her past. She leads an uneventful life, but a lonely one, in which she secretly wishes for a soulmate... Conner is an unusual patient who approaches her, thrusting her into a strange world of darkness that runs beneath our own. He believes himself to be a creature of legend-a werewolf. But he also draws Erin with a roguish charm, and an irresitible feeling that seems to bind them together... Conner desperately tries to save her from an unknown evil that persues her with a relentless passion that crosses centuries, an evil that once took her very soul away, somewhere in Erin's lost memories. As she becomes more entwined in a series of events that will remind her of who she really is, will she make it away from the oncoming darkness unscathed...?

*copy received by the author*


My Review: 

Wow... Just wow. The cover is what hooked me the most, but after reading the blurb I knew I absolutely had to read this book! 

I know I don't read as fast or as much as everyone else does, but I found the story really original. You start following Erin's adventure (even though this first book is about Conner) and you get to a point in which you find yourself doubting the events like Erin does, wondering if what you're reading is real or not. And that was really cool.

The sexual tension is unbearable, so much that you want to strip off your clothes and join the party. It's fantastic!

The huge cliffhanger at the end left me bummed. Ms Stork, you can't end things like that and not give me more to read. I NEED to know!

Amazing job, I really am looking forward to book 2 now!

Overall Rating: 

Miranda Stork

I was born in Guisborough, North Yorkshire in 1987 and have lived in various places around Britain, including Newcastle and Glasgow. My writing is inspired by various writers, including the vivid characters of Charles Dickens, the imagination of Stephen King, and the gothic imagery of Anne Rice. My love of horror began at an early age, when I was only three or four. I could read proficiently at the age of three, and devoured fairy-stories, but I always had a bent towards the darker stories, such as the Brother's Grimm's tales...Red Riding Hood was always a firm favourite, although I always felt sorry for the wolf, despite him having tried to eat everyone! I also had an incredibly vivid imagination, leading me to believe that the noises that the radiator in my room made, were in fact the noises of monsters hiding behind it. This led to me having terrible nightmares, in which I believed I woke up and would see them sat in my room, doing nothing more extraordinary than playing cards or reading a book. As I got older, my love of tales about unknown creatures persisted, always wanting to devour tales about ghosts or other beings. Being born in Guisborough was also a coincidence, as it is a town rich in folklore and ghosts in various places, such as the Black Monk of Guisborough Priory...whether or not any of these stories were true, I still don't know, but I love the tingle of imagining whether or not they might be. As I began school, I began to read more books, and became enraptured with the tales of ancient Greece and Rome, loving the explanations for simple things around us turned into figures and gods. To this day, I still have an avid love of ancient customs, and I have especially fallen in love with Celtic symbolism and myths, winding them into my novels whenever possible. As I got older, about ten or eleven, I had moved, to a small village, with only about 80 children or so. I quickly became the main story-teller of my friends, my favourite one being a story about a girl who buys a porcelain doll, only to hate it after a few days and lock it away in her family's garage. The doll of course, is haunted, and breaks back into the house, calling, 'I'm coming, I'm coming...!' until she reaches the little girl, who is hiding under her cover, where she whispers, 'I'm here, I'm here...!' The poor mother of course comes into her daughter's room in the morning and finds her daughter dead, with the doll sat on top of her. I have a vague memory of telling a wide-eyed group of peers one morning, and one of them running off crying...I think I got told off for telling stories that were too scary at school. At the age of seven or so, I was given two books by a relative; one of them was a large collection of Lewis Carroll, and to this day my favourite poem is 'Phantasmorgoria'. The other book was a collection of weird tales, all involving fair maids and witches, devils and wicked spirits in some form or another, a lot of them derived from eastern story-telling, where children and evil witches constantly collide-usually with awful consequences. This persisted with a series of magazines and music called 'The Magical Music Box'. At this point I began to really get into more horror books, watching all and any horrors on television, even ones that were far too cheesy to watch without laughing. Point Horror stories became a favourite on my shelf as I went into my teens, alongside my classic favourites such as Dorian Grey and Great Expectations (still my favourite book to this day). I got hooked onto Anne Rice novels as well, loving the combination of a typically monstrous creature who had redeeming qualities akin to human ones. The most terrifying book that ever made an impression on me has to be The Exorcist. The film is nothing compared to the book-I don't believe I slept the night after finishing it, waking up at every noise in my room, imagining it to be a voice or whispered giggle. (If you want to cut my bio down a little, please feel free, it's simply the author bio I use everywhere else, so I thought it would be best to send you the whole piece.)

Where you can find Miranda
Website - Blog - Twitter - Facebook - Goodreads - Amazon

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Where did you find the inspiration to write Conner?

Wow, it was so long ago I can barely remember! I had this idea when I was about 14, of a journalist questioning someone who came to them claiming to be a vampire. I guess the idea came from the bits and pieces floating around in my head, because I can’t remember any one thing that inspired it. Well, the vampire turned into a werewolf, and the journalist turned into a psychologist when I started psychology classes at college. The rest came from my love of horror and romance.

Was there a scene in the book you found particularly hard to write?

Hmmm…yes, I think the part where Erin goes before the committee for Conner’s release. It wasn’t difficult, but I had to do an awful lot of research for that part, to make it as authentic as possible. I re-wrote it about six times, I think! I had (and still have) a very good friend who works as a psychologist, so I roped her in to help me with as many of the details as possible. Also, the err…sex scenes. Let’s just say you have to really slow a scene like that down, but make sure the action keeps up. :)

Did you get inspiration from someone specific to write your characters?

Ah, that would be telling! But no, really I don’t think so. I think Erin is a super-duper-if-only-I-was-that-awesome parallel version of me, with extra good parts I don’t have. Every other character, including Conner, is a mash-up of lots of different parts of other people. I usually get my inspiration for characters from films or books.

What kind of research have you done for the location?

For Ireland, I actually went there! I’m half-Irish, so I went to see the part of Ireland my family is from, Armagh (actually, the TOWN of Armagh in the COUNTY of Armagh….confusing, no?). I went there for a visit and absolutely fell in love with some of the villages and woods there. When I came to write Conner, I knew there was only one place I would want him to come from.

Among all the paranormal creatures, why did you decide to go with werewolves?

Good question! Originally, as I said above, Conner was going to be a vampire. But I decided that there was too much literature about vampires, and not enough about werewolves. And also I see vampires as smooth and sultry, and I wanted Conner to be more earthy and sensuous. I thought that a wild werewolf fitted this description better. :)

How did you become a writer?

I’m not sure I became one; I think I’ve always been one. When I was seven, I used to fold A4 sheets of paper in half to make ‘books’, and write stories and draw illustrations for them. When I was at school I used to get told off for writing stories instead of doing my work sometimes! It was just something innate inside me that connected with books from a very young age, and I was reading by the age of three, so I always wanted to create my own stories. I’ve always had an extremely vivid imagination, and I think I would go mad if I didn’t write down the characters floating around my head!

Do you have a writing process/schedule?

I always make sure I write something every day. Even if I don’t feel like writing, I force myself to. It isn’t really  how people imagine, with a writer twiddling their pen until inspiration hits, it’s incredibly hard to make yourself work every day with no-one else to push you on. If I get stuck on my WIP, I’ll go and write a post on my blog for a while. By the time I’ve finished, I’ll have thought of what I wanted to write for my novel.

Is there a particular place you feel more inspired to write?

I’m always happiest in a comfortable place. If I’m sat at a desk in an uncomfortable chair, I find it difficult to concentrate-I honestly have an attention span of five seconds if I’m uncomfortable. And yes, that makes it hard to write. J I also always need some sort of white noise in the background, even if it’s just the TV turned down low, or sometimes I blast my poor eardrums with loud music.

What is the most satisfying part of being an author?

Just…writing. I’ve always said that even if I never got recognised as an author, never got paid as an author, I would still write. It would be nice of course; I do still need to earn money in the real world! But I just love being able to share something of myself with other people, and I love it when people say they enjoyed my books. Not from an egotistical point of view, but because I love it that people can forget their troubles for a while, and lose themselves in a world of my creation.

Plus I’m slightly eccentric, so saying I’m an author gets me off with a lot of things. That’s a good perk! :)

What do you usually do when you're not writing?

Lots of things! I love travelling or trying out new things, especially adrenaline filled activities. Something I’ve done a few times, which I would love to do again is gliding. It’s awesome when you float with no noise at all, it’s far better than being in a plane. I also love sports, and will try anything once, and I’m a black belt in karate! So just saying…don’t say I didn’t warn you! J My other passion is also food. I used to work in a lovely Italian restaurant in Newcastle, and I learned a lot of things. I’m a real foodie and always look for new foods to try if I eat out or when I’m travelling. I also squeeze in some digital painting, and have a Saatchionlinepage if people want to see my attempts!

Are you working on any new projects at the moment?

Well, I’ve just finished Erin, which is the sequel to Conner. I’ve also finished the first novel in a new series I’m planning on writing, which is about a shadow-demon who works as a vigilante, which will be called ‘Vigilante of Shadows-Scarlet Rain Series #1’. I’m also going to see if I can write some short novellas about a Wiccan character, as I’m Wiccan myself, and I’d love to get something like that written.

What advice would you give to anyone who wants to start writing?

Don’t do it! Just kidding! Be prepared for a lot of work. No, really. Writing the novel, although it may seem hard, is actually the easy part. Whether you get it published by traditional or indie means, you will have to put in a lot of hours selling your books and yourself. I haven’t had a day off for about two years now! And the other piece of advice I would give is write. Write, write, and write some more. And read. If you don’t read anything, you can’t write anything. But always keep pursuing it. Writing is one of the hardest and most risky careers to choose, so if you decide to do it, you have to throw yourself into it, you can’t go at it half-heartedly. No-one will believe in you more than you yourself.

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GIVEAWAY TIME!! You all have been patient, getting to the bottom of this endless post, so now you will be rewarded. Miranda is kindly offering 5 e-copies of Conner!!
All you have to do is fill the Rafflecopter form & follow the instructions! The winner will be chosen and announced on June 17th and they have 48 hours to respond, otherwise another winner will be chosen.

Ready... Set... Go!

a Rafflecopter giveaway