Guest Post and Giveaway by Author Marisette Burgess!

*Giveaway details at the bottom of the post*

To be perfectly honest I never even thought I would write a YA novel. While in college going through my English degree, I always wrote on adult topics and mature material. The thought to write in the perspective of a teen never occurred to me. It wasn’t until I read the Twilight series that I thought, hmmm. When I was in middle school, I wrote romantic period pieces and enjoyed my writing far more than anything I wrote for an assignment in college.
    After reading Twilight I said to myself, if I were to tackle a YA series I know just the heroine I’d write about. I always had my main character Kasey in my head based loosely off my favorite childhood character. The ideas for the books started to form and once I came across the legend of the Seven Sleepers that was it, the storyline formed. I couldn’t stop the ideas from rolling in. They were coming quicker than I could get them down. I had to teach myself quite a bit about the YA genre and had to change the story to fit the parameters of YA. Originally, Kasey was a college student.
    I ask myself the same question, what is it about the teenage perspective that makes me want to write in it? After really pondering this, I figured it out. What I love most about Men of the Cave, is all of Kasey and Dion’s first. As a teenager or in your early twenties a lot of first’s happen. That period in life is so full of excitement, tension, over-reactions, and pure ignorant bliss without the worry of responsibilities. As a writer there is a plethora of material and situations that your characters can go through at that point in their lives. 
    Rarely do you hear an adult say they would love to go back to their teenage years, I think that’s because of the emotional roller-coaster that those years sent us through. But, I get a chance to re-live some of those wonderful horrific sensations safely through my characters. That’s why I read YA, that’s why I write YA.


GIVEAWAY: Marisette Burgess has generously decided to give away either an autographed copy or ebook.  Please enter to win by leaving a comment with your email address.  Thank you very much to the author and thank you for stopping by!