BLOG TOUR: The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Welcome to the first ever Traveling to Teens book blog tour! Created by the lovely Yan and lovely Carol! Traveling to Teens is shaping up to be a really exciting venture and I'm very excited to be a part of it!

The first touring book and author is The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams! Check out the rest of the tour stops here!

CAROL LYNCH WILLIAMS, a four-time winner of the Utah Original Writing Competition and winner of Nebraska’s Golden Sower Award, grew up in Florida but now lives in Utah with her husband and seven children. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and helped develop the conference on Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers at Brigham Young University.

From Amazon.com:
Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much---if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her.

But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle---who already has six wives---Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.

From page one it was evident that The Chosen One was going to be a raw and brutally honest book. It takes us to a world that many of us don't even think about let alone live in and pulls us in so far that there is no way we could not be invested in Kyra's well being. It takes out all the stops and by the end you need to take a seat and regroup.

The Chosen One isn't something that can be "enjoyed" exactly but it was so powerful and intense that I couldn't get enough. I admired Kyra's strength and her insistence on doing what was right for herself no matter the cost.

As others have said, I loved how much reading and the bookmobile played a part in the story. It illustrates just how much of an effect that reading can have on a person if only they will let it. I also really liked Kyra's pure and innocent relationship with Joshua, a young man from the compound.

All in all a very powerful book. Honestly I dare you not to be captivated by it.

The Chosen One is released on May 12th!

4.5/5 Stars

ARC received from publisher for blog tour

And here's an interview with Carol Lynch Williams!

1. How did you go about creating the character of Kyra?

I just knew that I had to have a girl who would be able to be tough. So I looked at a couple of my girls who are tough and took a few of their character traits. Like my daughter Kyra plays the piano beautifully. And she started plunking out songs when she was little. I borrowed that from my Kyra. But the characters in my novels do become their own selves, so I looked at places Kyra Carlson could become who she is: from the family she loves, the music she loves, and even her ‘sins’—all three things make her strong.

2. What would you like readers to take away from The Chosen One?

A good read. I want readers to feel worried and to wonder what will happen next to Kyra. I guess I want people to think that compassion and kindness are some of the most important parts of life—you know to feel for another that you may not understand.

3. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer, since I was a little girl. I’ve written since I could hold a pencil, told stories since I could boss my sister and cousins around and make them act in my plays. (I am the oldest of the cousins and I was pretty bossy. But hey, the alcoholic guy who imagined a girl dancing around in my grandmother’s nightgown? That was a good play! My Nana enjoyed it.)

4. What is your writing process like?

When I sit down to write, I try to get through a first draft as quickly as possible. I always get stuck in what I call the Icky Middles. So I whine about the middles for a while and then I attack the book again. Once I have gotten the book completed, I rewrite a couple of times, send the novel to my critique group (I have a terrific group that I work with) and let them read it. Then I make appropriate changes per their suggestions. Finally, I have my last readers go through the book. My last readers are my children. When they give me their comments I do another rewrite. Then the novel goes off to my editor or agent. Yup—that’s a lot of rewriting! And it starts again with the editors!

5. What is one of your recent favorite books?

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers. Or Ann Dee Ellis’ Everything is Fine. Or a novel-in-progress that I heard just a bit of when I was in school—by the wonderful Martine Leavitt. That one isn’t published yet but it’s amazing. Or . . . wait, I could be doing this forever! I better stop!