I'm so excited today to wish a Happy Book Birthday to my fellow Electric18s debut, Kristina Pérez! And it's not just any book birthday - it's the third, and final, book in Kristina's beautiful and romantic trilogy that started with the release of SWEET BLACK WAVES in 2018!  I first interviewed Kristina two years ago for my essay on bilingualism and creativity for YA Interrobang (which you can read here ), but as I only got to use a short quote from Kristina that time, I wanted to publish my interview with her - and what would be the better moment to do so to help Kristina celebrate her latest release! So, please make yourself comfy, get a cuppa, and scroll down for an interview with Kristina Pérez! Please find more info about Kristina's books, including buy-links here . BRIGHT WAVES SKIES is the thrilling conclusion to the lush and heart-wrenching romantic fantasy trilogy about ancient magic, warring families, and star-crossed lovers by Kristina Pérez. To save the ...

I'm so excited to announce that you can now have your first look at Oasis - its exclusive excerpt was revealed this week over at The Nerd Daily. I'm beyond thrilled to see one of my absolute favorite entertainment sites host this reveal for my novel. Here's the snippet of the announcement on Twitter: You can now read this excerpt which I've personally selected for this purpose here: https://www.thenerddaily.com/oasis-katya-de-becerra-excerpt/ Like what you see? Don't forget to add this book on Goodreads . Or why not pre-order now , so you can receive it as soon as it's released AND support its author 😉(After all, pre-orders show to publishers that there's lots of interest in a particular book and that means the author's chances of ever publishing another book grow!)

Hey hey hey! If you're in Melbourne, I'm excited to tell you that autographed copies of my debut are now available in the following stores (while stock lasts!): [and if you're not based in Melbourne, scroll down to see some info on where to get signed copies!] Hill of Content   The Little Bookroom   Ulysses (Sandringham) Readings St Kilda Dymocks Melbourne CBD   Dymocks Camberwell   Readings Hawthorn   I also plan to sign some copies at Dymocks Chadstone, at three central Sydney bookstores (Abbeys, Kinokuniya, and Dymocks Sydney) as well as (potentially) a couple of central shops in Geelong. In the US... Maybe maybe maybe I'll sign in some LA bookstores this December. MAYBE. Also, maybe I'll sign in B&N Bakersfield, also in December. Keep an eye out for announcements here and on Twitter/FB/IG. Thank you!

Can you imagine how excited I am to be taking part in Tara Gilboy's blog tour for her Middle-Grade debut  Unwritten !? VERY. I'm very excited.  I had a pleasure of reading an early digital advanced copy of  Unwritten  awhile back and I loved it. A lot. It's a very unusual book that deals with the matters of good and evil as well as our evolving identity. The book also asks the question of how much our nature and nurture define us. Plus, the protagonist's voice was absolutely mesmerizing - I simply couldn't stop reading! So today, I'm so happy to publish my Q&A with Tara and share my ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review of her debut. Plus, I was so thrilled to read Tara's book that I became its official blurber! As authors, we get asked a lot to 'blurb' new books and, even though I'm a debut myself, I was asked to blurb four books already (and I was happy to do it), but - to my knowledge - Unwritten  is the first book that actually contains my ...

My launch day impressions, in no particular order:) I'm so grateful to everyone who braved the first day of hayfever-inducing Melbournian Spring to come to the Readings Kids shop in Carlton to celebrate the Australian release of my genre-bending YA debut, What The Woods Keep !  I was absolutely blown away by how many people attended, and it was a total thrill to see my dear friends, fellow authors, co-workers, friends from Twitter/IG and just a bunch of loveliest people ever who decided to come and support a debut author! I'm so happy that Imprint/Macmillan decided to pick up my weird, eerie, hard-to-define book 2 years ago, after it was on submission for almost a year! THANK YOU! Erin Stein, you're a dream-maker! Rhoda Belleza, I'm so grateful I got to work with you, however briefly, and of course my editor extraordinaire John Morgan - your dedication and complete and utter love for this book knows no bounds.  And, of course, I'm so grateful that Amy ...

Today I'm very pleased to share this interview I conducted with fabulous Candace Robinson! Candace is the author of  Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault ,  The Bride of Glass  and many other books. She is also a blogger, book reviewer (find her reviews at  Literary Dust ) and overall a great human! I hope you all enjoy our exchange of words. Katya de Becerra [KdB]: What book influenced you the most when you were a child (and why)? Candace Robinson [CR]: My parents let me watch a lot of horror movies when I was small, probably not the best thing in the world. But I loved them! I don’t like a lot of the newer ones, but I still cherish the classics! When it came to reading books, I didn’t really start getting into anything until I picked up The Haunted Mask Goosebumps book. Those books were all kinds of cheesy awesome! KdB: I seem to cause a lot of controversy with this question on my blog but I keep asking it anyway because I’m just a very controversial person I ...

It’s less than 7 months to go before WHAT THE WOODS KEEP will be published. My life’s been a blast lately, and even though I’m perpetually exhausted and anxious, I’m also . . . happy. When I was first starting to write WTWK, I knew that its eventual publication was a possibility, but it just seemed a very distant fantasy at the time. And now this fantasy is (morphing into) reality. The feeling is surreal, but again – happy. My highlights of the past few weeks were attending Shivaun Plozza’s launch of her second novel TIN HEART, where I also got to meet in person my fellow 2018 debut S. Gonzales ( THE LAW OF INERTIA ) and 2019 debut Astrid Scholte ( FOUR DEAD QUEENS ). The purpose of my attendance was twofold: aside from hearing Shivaun talk about TIN HEART and meeting my fellow authors, I’ve also been learning about how to do book launches, in hopes of putting this information to good use comes September.  Shivaun in conversation with Aida, an Inky judge 2018  S. G...

Hi All, This year as my own debut publication is looming on the horizon, I've been lucky and privileged to get to know many of my fellow debut authors. In particular, joining the Electric Eighteens support group (run by 2018 debuts for 2018 debuts!) has been fantastic. Not only I now have access to the brilliant hive mind that is this group, I can also celebrate my fellow authors' successes. What makes me especially happy is to see my author friends debut at last and witness all the love they get from their readers.    In this vein, I'm restarting my Industry Interview series and am happy to present to you the following interview with Diane Magras, whose medieval adventure THE MAD WOLF'S DAUGHTER is hitting the shelves as I type this sentence!    And so, without further ado, I present to you this interview, in which among other things, Diane talks about her writing journey, the in-depth research she's done for her stunning debut and her love for the m...

That question I used to dread... "So how's your book going?" is the type of question I used to/get a lot these days, but has been struggling to answer for a while. "Which one?", as in "Which one are you referring to" has been my first reaction response ever since my 2018-debut-to-be WHAT THE WOODS KEEP sold to Imprint Macmillan in 2016 (along with my book # 2, OASIS). I've been evasive in my responses, true, but only because it takes energy and time to explain the difference between 'I have a book contract' to 'I am a published author/You can buy/read my book NOW' to my friends, family and an army of acquaintances curious about the status of my writing career but not involved in the publishing in any way themselves. The truth is, it can take years for a book to be published. Factors affecting the book publishing process are many and, guess what, they are rarely in your control. When I first signed with my agent, she ask...