Blog Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway: Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky

Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky releases next tuesday, May 5th and I am very excited for this book and to be a part of this blog tour! We asked Demetra some of her Top 10 things and you just have to read them below to find out more! Be sure to check out the pre-order incentives and enter the tour-wide giveaway for a final copy of Last Girls!

Last Girls

by Demetra Brodsky
Published by: Tor Teen
on May 5, 2020
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
Pages: 368
Bookshop, IndieBound, Audiobook through LibroFM, iTunes, Book Depository, Amazon
Goodreads

No one knows how the world will end.

On a secret compound in the Washington wilderness, Honey Juniper and her sisters are training to hunt, homestead, and protect their own.

Prepare for every situation.

But when danger strikes from within, putting her sisters at risk, training becomes real life, and only one thing is certain:

Nowhere is safe.

Pre-Order Incentive

You can pre-order signed personalized copies from Mysterious Galaxy – Please indicate in the ORDER COMMENTS field you want a signed & personalized copy. Be sure to include the name you would like the author to inscribe. All signed/personalized orders are due May 16th!
Pre-order incentive must be submitted before May 5th! If pre-order from anywhere, you will get a signed bookplate and many other incentives & prizes! See all details here!

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Top Ten …

Everyday items that could make or break it in a dire situation:

While researching prepper lifestyles for this book, I found myself making sure my family was well-stocked on essential items. The need to prep was seeping into psyche with each thing I read, especially when there was general consensus. The things I deemed most important, and still do, are having clean water, shelter, and food, first and foremost. But not all food items are created equal, and those that have a long shelf life are most imperative. Stocking and rotating non-perishable food seems to be our new normal now. Having batteries, candles, matches, lighters, a hand-crank radio, first-aid kit, medicine (both prescription and over the counter), and a fire extinguisher are also important, functional things to keep on hand. After that, buying and storing organic, heritage seeds to grow food if needed is the next go to item for me. We seem to weather our current global crisis well, or as well as anyone can. But every week, my family discusses the viability of raising backyard chickens. Does the benefit of being able to collect eggs outweigh the extra chore it would put on us? We keep coming back to a collective yes on this one. I think it’s because I’ve already named them Thelma and Louise in my mind. Like characters in a book, I think naming the thing makes it more real.

People I would want with me in a bunker:

Social isolating has made me grateful that I actually like my family and we feel safe around each other. Both my husband and daughters are easy to get along with, for the most part, and we’ve been able to spend time together and give each other space in equal proportions. In a fantasy bunker, I would want to be surrounded by artists, musicians, other authors, and booklovers so we could talk about all the bookish things in between creating new works of art, because like the Juniper sisters, I would want to make sure the arts survived after the end of days.

Books I would read again during an apocalypse:

I love this question because I was just looking at my shelves thinking about this very thing. We all have those life changing books that we would take to the end of the earth. And in thinking about that, I realized how often I favor big, thick, standalone novels to keep me in deep for hours on end. You didn’t say how many I could choose so for me the essential titles are: The Mists of Avalon, Flowers in the Attic, Firestarter, White Oleander, I’ll Give You The Sun, The Glass Castle, Graceling, Bone Gap, Grasshopper Jungle, Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides, Circe, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (Hamilton), The Outsiders, I Know This Much Is True, Station Eleven, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Pride and Prejudice, Interview with a Vampire, Grendel, and Every Single book by Gillian Flynn, Alice Hoffman, Margaret Atwood, and Jodi Picoult. Honestly, I could sit here all day naming titles.

Qualities of the Juniper Sisters that I see in myself or people I know:

Honey, Birdie, and Blue all display a helluva of a lot of grit. I think we’re all displaying that necessary trait, given our current situation. Honey, in particular, is probably the most like me, even though in my family I’m the youngest of my parents three daughters. Honey is ruled by big R responsibility and curiosity. She’s not one to take answers at face value, nor is she quick to trust. I struggle with some of those traits myself. I have a strong drive to finish and see things through, to keep promises, and do what’s right, and protect the people I love. And like Honey, I have the heart of an artist. I’ve made so many paintings that I’ve given away or left behind. If I’m being honest, I’m also impulsive like Birdie. Quick to anger, but able to admit when I’m wrong. And like Blue, I have a deep love for animals and a need to find solace in my own thoughts.

Quotes or rituals that help me focus as a writer:

I always light a candle when I’m writing and often burn sage or palo santo first. I used to live in Salem, Massachusetts and picked up many things from the community there that I’ve carried with me for my entire adult life. I also need near artic silence. I use earplugs when I write because I’m highly distractible. I used to pick one song that I would play on repeat that trained my brain to know it was time to write. I’m thinking of trying that technique again.

These are my favorite writing quotes; the ones I return to time and time again to keep me glued to my chair, clicking away at the keyboard:

“There is only one plot. Things are not what they seem.” —Jim Thompson

“I try to create sympathy for my characters then turn the monsters loose.” —Stephen King

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” —Alfred Hitchcock

“Don’t say if was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your reads, ‘Please will you do the job for me?’” —C.S. Lewis

Giveaway

Win (1) of (3) copies of LAST GIRLS by Demetra Brodsky (US Only) – ends May 13th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There is also a separate giveaway happening over on instagram!