First Friday-Five Favorite Things: Charm & Strange

by Stephanie Kuehn

This past Friday, October 4, Marcy and I posted our answers to Stephanie’s debut novel, Charm & Strange. Today, you get to read Stephanie’s favorite's. She's picked some great lines that bring to life some of the amazing characters she's created which will allow you a better understanding of how they think and feel.

1) What is your favorite line or paragraph from the novel as it relates to the main character's development and/or growth?

The attraction part is a given, but maybe opposites really can coexist in peace.

2) What is your favorite chapter ending or cliffhanger?

Chapter 7

I am of the sea.

I am of instability.

I am of harsh, choppy waves roiling with all the up-ness, down-ness, top-ness, bottom-ness, contained within my being.

I am of charm and strange.

Annihilation.

Creation.

Annihilation.

3) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

Keith Winters, Win’s older brother. He is a sensitive, smart boy, burdened by the weight of terrible secrets and a grim sense of responsibility to his younger siblings. Even when he’s hurting, he cares about others. Also, he’s different from Win. He can’t look away.

4) What is your favorite line or paragraph of description?

I don’t rejoin them right away. I let them talk. Maybe it’s the cadence and timbre of their speech or the meaning of their words. Maybe it’s the way the morning sun cuts the swirling valley mist or the way dew beads across the laces of my shoes, but my heart burns like flames lick ice. I am bound between two worlds. I don’t want to die and I don’t think I can live. How can the same God that created all this beauty have created me?

5) What is your favorite line of dialogue?

“No way, Winters. I get to be miserable, too. You don’t get to be the best at everything.” 

Congratulations to Stephanie on Charm & Strange and her second YA novel, Complicit, which will be published by St. Martin’s on June 24, 2014.

From Publishers Marketplace:

Author of the forthcoming CHARM & STRANGE, Stephanie Kuehn’s second YA novel, COMPLICIT, about a young man who is forced to deal with the murky memories of his childhood and confront his dark past when his sister comes back to town; memories that may or may not be real, again to Sara Goodman at St. Martin’s, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (NA).

To find out more about Stephanie, check out the following links:

Website:  http://stephaniekuehn.com/

Blog:  http://stephaniekuehn.com/blog/ 

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Charm-Strange-Stephanie-Kuehn/dp/1250021944