An Interview with Trish Doller, author of Where the Star’s Still Shine

Today I have the amazing Trish Doller here for an interview. She wrote the recently released novel, Where the Star’s Still Shine. It’s fabulous, and you can find my review of it here. Without further to do, here is the interview-

1. Which character in Where The Stars Still Shine can you relate to the most, and why?

I think I most relate to Callie’s dad, Greg. While I’ve never had a child go missing, I am a parent and to write Greg I had to put myself in his shoes. Callie is frustrating and I can imagine that sometimes he wants to lash out at her and be angry, but at the same time he’s fearful that he’ll push her away. Greg and I both had to coax Callie slowly out of her shell.

2. Did you have to do any research before/while writing Where The Stars Still Shine? If so, what was your favorite and least favorite things to research?

The most fun research was visiting Tarpon Springs--the town in which the book is set--where I ate a lot of Greek food, visited gift shops, and took a ride on the dive tour boat that was inspiration for the boat in the book. It was much more difficult to research sexual abuse and mental illness. But I wanted to make sure that Callie’s mother’s illness was handled with sensitivity--and accuracy--and that Callie’s responses to sexual situations rang true.

3. Both your first book, Something Like Normal and Where The Stars Still Shine deal with really intense topics. What do you think draws you to write such intense novels?

The easy part of my answer is that I like reading intense books. The harder part is the why...and I guess it’s because I find the darker parts of life more interesting. That’s not to say I’d never write a light-hearted romance, but I’m fascinated with finding out what my characters will do when life is hard.

4. Where The Stars Still Shine has a wildly swoon-worthy love interest. Can you recommend some YA books (besides your own, of course) that have some swoon-worthy boy characters?

I swoon so hard for Ryan in Raw Blue, an Australian YA novel by Kirsty Eagar. He’s my hands-down favorite book boy. Followed a close second by Jonah Griggs from Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta and I really love Brigan from Kristen Cashore’s Fire.

    5. Can you tell us anything about what you have coming up next?

My next book is tentatively titled Arcadia Falls, but that will be changing soon, and it’s due in April 2015. It’s about Arcadia Wells, a small town Florida girl who impulsively joins a couple of good-looking boys on a road trip through Florida. Except one of the boys is not what he seems. The trip goes tragically wrong and Arcadia hopes she’ll make it home alive. It’s a little bit of a departure from Something Like Normal and Where the Stars Still Shine because it’s kind of a psychological thriller, but I’m really excited about it!