Blog Tour, Author Interview & Giveaway: Friends & Other Liars by Kaela Coble

Friends & Other Liars by Kaela Coble just released this past week and we are thrilled to be a part of the blog tour! I loved this book and you can read my 5-star review here. Today we have an interview with the author, Kaela Coble, and leave us a comment for a chance to win a finished copy of the book!

 

Friends & Other Liars by Kaela Coble

Category: Young Adult, Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
Publication: February 6th, 2018; Sourcebooks
Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound

To all my old friends:
So here you all are. Nice to see you can show up for a person once he’s dead.

When Ruby St. James returns to her hometown, it is to the grave of her old friend Danny, a member of a group that was, ten years ago, Ruby’s whole world. The crew made a pact back then: stay together, stay loyal, and stay honest. But that was before all of the lies.

Because even friends keep secrets. They just don’t stay secret for long.

Now Danny has left behind a letter for each of them, issuing one final ultimatum: share your darkest betrayal to the group, or risk it coming out in a trap he has created. When past mistakes resurface, the lines of friendship blurb, and four old friends are left trying to understand what it means to lie to the ones you love best.

 

Interview:

1) This will probably be the most asked, BUT: is there ANY possibility of a Ruby-Murphy relationship down the road? Or is that over? 

Spoiler alerts in this answer!

I left things the way I did for many reasons. Most importantly, it felt like the right thing for those two characters considering what they had just gone through. Danny’s death and his “secret game” really forced these characters to unpack a lot of feelings they (thought) they had buried, and then learning each other’s secrets just added this whole other layer of complexity. There was just no way they could move into a relationship immediately after all that. They don’t even really know each other as adults yet, and they don’t trust each other enough.

That being said, I am really really hopeful that Friends and Other Liars will be successful enough that I’ll be able to revisit these characters, because I don’t feel done with them. So we’ll have to wait and see how Ruby and Murphy’s (and the rest of the crew’s) story continues…

 

2) Where did the Idea for the story come from?

Well when you strip away the sort of (okay, really) dramatic concept of the book, Friends and Other Liars is, at its core, about friendship. I grew up with a really unique group of girl and guy friends, and like Ruby, I moved away for a time but have drifted in and out over the years. I’ve always wanted to write about the dynamics of a group like ours – how those connections evolve and change but the foundation is always there. Growing up, your friends are pretty much your life, they have such an impact on who you are and who you become. The incorporation of the secrets was a fun way to raise the stakes and explore questions like: What happens when you do things or experience things that you don’t want your friends to know about? What happens when the lines between friendship and romantic love blur? What happens when there is distance between them – both physical and emotional…do those bonds ever really break? I have to say, I had a blast writing it!

 

3) Who was your favorite character to write, and why?

I love all of them, of course, but I have to say I had the most fun writing both Ally and Emmett. They both totally crack me up. Ally because of her unique dichotomy between fierce maternal friend and gossipy Queen Bee; and Emmett because he doesn’t let anyone get away with anything, especially Ruby, who he has such a funny brother/sister relationship with.

 

4) Did you relate to any one character on any level?

I actually relate to all of the characters – it’s hard not to when you write through their perspectives!

I perhaps relate the most to Ruby because we share some similar experiences. When I was a teenager I was desperate to get out of my hometown, to get to define myself rather than be defined by who I was at a young age. Ruby also has this disunion between belonging to her group and feeling outside of it. She feels different and dark, and worries that if people really knew her she wouldn’t be loved or accepted. Who doesn’t feel like that when they’re in high school?
That being said, Ruby and I are not exactly the same. We both like to think we’re tougher than we are, but Ruby is definitely tougher than me. I could never have gone through what Ruby went through without telling anyone. I think the major difference was in our upbringing. Ruby’s family life was so unstable, she was forced to learn how to bury her feelings. My family life was definitely much rosier and less dramatic than Ruby’s was!

 

5) I loved the past and present storylines. The past even more so; that’s probably the YA lover in me. Do you have a favorite genre to read and write? Any info about future works?

Oh I don’t really like to read…JUST KIDDING! I am a huge fiction lover; I sway back and forth between commercial and literary but it’s mostly adult. I actually didn’t realize that I had written a half YA book until I started getting interviewed – ha!
The working title of my next book is Remember That Night, which is about two best friends, one of whom kills the other one’s fiance in a car crash. And I’m already working on a first draft of a third, which is about three sisters who gather together for the anniversary of their mother’s death. They are all hiding something, but it’s nothing in comparison to a dark family history that’s about to be revealed, challenging their long-time status as the perfect family. Both stories are also set in small-town Vermont, where I live and love. And of course, ideas are always brewing about follow-ups to FAOL!

 

6) Coffee or tea?

Tea, although I’ve cut way back because my teeth were starting to get horrendously stained! I love the smell of coffee but not the taste.

 

7) Physical books or ebooks?

Physical, for sure. I think because I write mostly on the computer, when I try to read a book electronically I feel like I’m still “working.” I go into editing mode and can’t just enjoy the experience.

 

8) Favorite Chris? Pratt, Hemsworth, or Evans

Oh my God, I just had to look up who Chris Evans is but now I’ve got him. Of course I think of him more as the guy from Lucky 21 than as Captain America. I think I’ll have to go with Chris Pratt, but again because of his work as Andy on Parks and Recreation rather than the Avengers! Especially because I have my suspicions of what went down between him and Anna Farris once he got thin and hot. Huh, I guess I am a bigger Anna Faris fan than I thought, considering I’ve referenced her twice already in this answer…

 

9) Marvel or DC or none?

Ummmm….I really like superhero movies but I don’t ever really know their origins. I love Iron Man, because Robert Downey Jr. Does that answer your question?

 

10) Star Wars or Star Trek?

Yikes I feel like these last three answers are really going to alienate me from your audience! I don’t like either…I’m not big into SciFi.

 

Author Bio: Kaela Coble

Kaela Coble lives in Burlington, Vermont, and is a member of the League of Vermont Writers and a graduate of the WoMentoring Project. This is her first novel.

Links:

Website ** Facebook ** Twitter

 

Giveaway:

Leave a comment for a chance to win a finished copy of Friends & Other Liars by Kaela Coble. US & Canada only. Open until 2/22.