Debut Review and Interview of The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

Step 1: The Interview

Do you relate to your MC?

I'd say that in this novel, both Kailtyn and Carly are some aspect of myself. Kaitlyn is the wounded, guarded side of me during a very difficult time, while Carly was my sense of fragile hope.

What or who got you into writing?

I was not a natural reader growing up, but I was always telling stories. I started by drawing comic books with elaborate, dark tales of vampires and evil men with long trench coats. Then, when I was 12, my mother returned from a business trip to Boston with a gift for me. I remember the moment she slowly pulled out this beautiful, brown, embossed leather notebook. It was held together with little leather ties. I started my first real novel in there and never looked back.

Did you listen to a playlist while writing?

Absolutely! Music is a vital part of my process. The playlist will be released in August as part of a very special event. I'm sworn to secrecy at the moment, I'm sorry! 

What book would suggest to be on the lookout for besides yours?

2015 has been an AMAZING year for books so far, and is promising to get even better! I was lucky enough to be contacted by Christopher Pike for a blurb of his new novel Strange Girl, coming December 2015 from Simon Pulse. Let me just say, it is brilliant. Even now, I can't stop thinking about it. Other books on my radar are:

1. I Crawl Through It by A.S King, coming September 22nd from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers 

2. The Death House by Sarah Pinborough (published by Orion)

3. Mary: Unleashed by Hillary Monahan (coming September from Disney Hyperion)

4. The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy, coming September 15th from Simon & Shuster

5. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (because obviously!) Coming in September and October from Henry Holt and Indigo/Orion

6. The Witch Hunter by Virgina Boeker, which just came out, from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

7. Catacomb by Madeleine Roux, coming September 1st from Harper Teen

8. The Lost and the Found by Cat Clark, which was published in April

9. Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett (coming September from G.P Putnam's Sons)

10. A Murder of Magpies by Sarah Bromley (coming in October from Month9Books)

11. Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Plus so many more!

Outside your book who would you “Ship” your MC

That's a really good question! Kaitlyn would probably do well with someone as broken as she is—someone who understands. Perhaps Linus from The Bunker Diaries who is trapped in a cage too. Or, quite possibly, for her darker breaking-into-people's-bedrooms-and-cutting-them side, Victor from Vicious by V.E Schwab. For Carly, She's need a real romantic lead. I believe she'd like a quiet sort, a real thinker, like Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower mixed with someone with charm, like Finnick from The Hunger Games.

What is your favorite "writing brain" food?

Tea (not food, I know, but vital) and PB sandwiches. Yum! 

Step 2: The Book

Author: Dawn Kurtagich

Published On: 9/15/15 

Publisher: Little Brown

Page Count: 432

Synopsis: (Found on Goodreads)

Over two decades have passed since the fire at Elmbridge High, an inferno that took the lives of three teenagers. Not much was known about the events leading up to the tragedy - only that one student, Carly Johnson, vanished without a trace...
...until a diary is found hidden in the ruins.
But the diary, badly scorched, does not belong to Carly Johnson. It belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, a girl who shouldn't exist Who was Kaitlyn? Why did she come out only at night? What is her connection to Carly?
The case has been reopened. Police records are being reexamined: psychiatric reports, video footage, text messages, e-mails. And the diary.

Cover: 5/5

The actual dead house described in the book totally fits the cover. I love books when they do that. However I am not a fan of girls on the cover. (as creepy as they are) Although I now know who to look in dark corners for.

Characters: 5/5

Carly is good, demure and friendly, Kaitlyn is cheeky, fidget and paranoid. Kaitlyn is sick. Sometimes you read a passage of the book, and she is quite normal, and for the next 50 pages you find yourself in the mind of a schizophrenic person. I admit, I like it, she is completely unpredictable.

Plot: 5/5

I love the reading format. You get footage, interviews and diary entries. Don`t know about you guys, but this made it interesting for me. I also learned vlogging the supernatural is just not a good idea, like at all. The school the "girls" go to is an old mental hospital (seriously if I knew my school was like that I would be out the door faster than you could say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"

Overall Rating: 5/5

If you are going to read it before sleep –you should make sure you won`t have to get up out of bed, because you might start to look for monsters in the dark corners. I had the brilliant idea to finish this at 2am. Needless to say I didn’t get any sleep afterwards.

How is your spooky week going? Enjoying yourself?

TTFN,
Ashley