Swoontini Interview: VICTORIA SCHWAB

Hi swoonies!! It’s been a long week, can we sit down? Put our feet up? Let’s let Christina paint our nails (so relaxing). We hope you all caught up with us for the Swoony Boy Alert yesterday *fans selves.* We’re giving away a copy of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE! Woot! And today, we have the SERIOUSLY ADORABLE Victoria Schwab here visiting! If you haven’t read her book, THE NEAR WITCH, well get on that ASAP! Don’t have it? Leave her some love and be entered to win one. YES WE LOVE GIVING AWAY BOOKSES.

Hello GORGEOUS! We are so thrilled that you’re here having a Swoontini Slumber party. And thanks for bringing the cupcakes! *gobbles*
Lovelies!!! Thank you so much for having me. I brought you a delicious spread, but as you can see, I had to poison test them.

Can never be too careful when it comes to cupcakes…

You are forgiven!! So, we asked Agent Holly about your narwhal love, and the story is totally adorable.  Would you share your version with our readers?
Okay, so here’s the truth. I was living in Liverpool last spring, writing a book (THE ARCHIVED, January 2013) and even though I lived with eight other people in a house, I was lonely. Specifically, I was feeling hug-deprived, and since the majority of my housemates were not the hugging sort, I went online and was looking for a stuffed animal. I’d wandered onto squishable.com and it was there I discovered a dog and a cat and a bird and THIS:

And I was delighted, but had NO IDEA what it was. So I looked it up, discovered it was a “narwhal” and became positively taken with it as a mythical species, spreading my narwhal love across the internet.

The problem is, narwhals AREN’T mythical. They’re totally real. And I didn’t know that until SIX MONTHS LATER, when it came to light ON TWITTER, and half my followers gave me the 140-character equivalent of this look … (O_o) … because apparently they all knew, and assumed I did too, since I’d spent months preaching about the epic level of narwhals.

And maybe they thought I’d be embarrassed, but the truth is, learning they were real made me love narwhals EVEN MORE because it was proof of how much magic there is in the world.

Seriously. Cutest story ever. Tell us about teenage Victoria. What books would have her swooning and what books would have her standing on the table, cheering for the badass chick?
Oh dear. Teenage Victoria, then with more valley girl accent, got dropped into a SOUTHERN ALL GIRLS PREP SCHOOL at the ripe bold rebellious age of 13. And from books to TV to movies, even teen V would have been cheering for the secret agents and the villains. I have to think she would have loved Ally Carter’s books had they been around then. Instead she devoured Harry Potter, and kind of wanted to be a Slytherin. Teen V also would have SWOONED for Graceling, White Cat, and Hex Hall. Give her Graces, Curse Workers, Demons, and hot boys like Archer 😉

OH SWOON. We agree. You have a month off and Warren Buffett’s credit card at your disposal. You are NOT ALLOWED TO WRITE. So, what do you do?
There are two things I love to do in this life. One of them is write. The other is travel. Well, actually the other is WANDER, as in wanderlust, but let’s call it travel so it sounds less like an affliction and more like a hobby 😉 Anway, I’d take that card and do a trip around the world, first-class, swanky hotel, room service and private tours of old cities.

Who would be your fictional best friend? Who would be Lexi’s fictional best friend (in a non-Near-Witch book!)
Fictional best friend? Give me Cassel from Holly Black’s Curse Workers series. To elaborate would be to incriminate, but I think we’d get along swell. Or as well as Cassel can get along with anyone :p

Lexi’s fictional friend is a harder pick, but her fascination with natural magic would have drawn her to someone like Cate from BORN WICKED, or someone strong and independent, like Katsa from GRACELING.

Is there a book out there you think deserves more love and attention? Tell the Swoontini readers what they should drop everything to read right now.
It’s getting quite a bit already, but it’s so, so deserved that I want to keep shouting it from the rooftops: SHADOW AND BONE by Leigh Bardugo. It’s the best thing I’ve read lately. The way I like to describe it is that it’s fantasy has been stripped to fairy tale elegance. There’s nothing extraneous or long-winded, and yet the world feels so deliciously rich, the plot wonderfully compelling, and the characters are just fantastic. It’s positively brilliant.

We have heard a TON about that book! CANNOT WAIT. Ok: Quick Fires:

Favorite accent: Scottish. Mmmmm. I’m actually fairly fond of English as well. But I don’t swoon for Irish. One might speculate that it’s because I’m mostly Scottish and English, and have some kind of inbred animosity with the Irish, but I think it might be because Irish is in a higher register than Scottish and…I’ve clearly given this too much thought.

You cannot possibly give “favorite accent” too much thought (if you ask us). If one food could be calorie-free, what would you choose:
Nutella and Teddy Grahams. It’s a PROBLEM, kids. I can’t stop dunking. It all started because I felt nostalgic for Dunkaroos, this kids snack with a little bit of frosting and this kangaroo shaped cookies, so I tried to recreate the delicacy with the only things I had, namely Nutella and Teddy Grahams, and the result was the most addictive snack I’ve ever discovered.

The world would thank you for making nutella calorie free, girlfriend. Best Halloween costume you’ve ever seen: Besides my own gender-bending take on D’Artagnan? 

Hmmm…probably this:

Oh, wait, that’s not a Halloween costume! That’s Holly Root’s face photoshopped onto Jon Snow.

HEE! YOU ARE CUTE! And that picture of Holly gave us all the lols. You are currently reading: I HUNT KILLERS by Barry Lyga, SPELL BOUND by Rachel Hawkins, and DEMON’S LEXICON by Sarah Rees Brennan…it’s possible I have a slight problem when it comes to doing one thing at a time. I just treat books the way I treat meals. I get a taste for something, and go for it. Sometimes it’s murderers, sometimes it’s magic, and sometimes it’s both.

Buttered popcorn Jelly Belly’s are awesome or vomit-inducing: They’re tricky buggers, because they smell tempting, and at FIRST they’re tasty, or at least intriguing, but then they’re disgusting so you spit them out, and then you smell another one, and think maybe you should give them a second chance, and the violent cycle starts all over again until you give up and eat chocolate because it’s a far less abusive sweet.

Actually…I think we can both agree with that answer. Strangely. Thanks so much for playing with us! We love you like Edward loves smelling Bella’s hair.
My pleasure, lovelies! Also, someone found my blog today by searching Edward Cullen Bedroom Time. I’m…I’m not sure how I feel about that. Especially because I’ve never mentioned that particular corner-lurking vampire on my site.

Isn’t she adorable!?! Leave some love and you could win your very own copy of  The Near Witch!