Author Interview: Jennifer L. Armentrout

When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time, reading, working out, watching zombie movies, and pretending to write. She shares her home with her husband, his K-9 partner named Diesel and her hyper Jack Russell Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent her time writing short stories. Therefore explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes Young Adult Contemporary, Urban Fantasy/Paranormal and Romance.

If you could sum up Half-Blood in four words, what would they be?

Half-bloods kick daimon butt.

In the beginning, what or who spoke to your first? The story or the characters?

Alex spoke to me first. It was her snarky “whateva” type attitude. Then came Aiden, who was the opposite of Alex. And then there was Seth.

Since the story has strong ties to gods & myths did you do any unique research for the story?

Yes and no. I studied a bit of Greek mythology and ancient civilization. But Half-Blood doesn’t center around any one myth that is well known.

Was there any scene or part in Half-Blood that was difficult to write? And if so how did you get through writing it?

The ending! Oh, my goodness, the ending is always killer. It has to be epic, you know. It came be like: awesome, cool, awesome, epic, swoon, fight scene and then meh for the ending. And my original ending was pretty meh. Writing an end of the novel is the hardest part for me. One of my crit partners gave me the best advice when she read by craptastic ending: It should almost be awe-inspiring and cinematic. I don’t know if I captured that or not in the end, but it’s better than the original.

Any parting words for your fabulous readers?

All of you rock! And I hope you enjoy Alex and Half-Blood as much as I enjoyed writing it. =)

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi—pure-bloods—have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals—well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.
 
Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:
 
Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden.
 
Unfortunately, she’s crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn’t her biggest problem–staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.