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AUTHOR CRUSH FRIDAY: MELISSA DE LA CRUZ AND MICHAEL JOHNSTON

Glitter girls, you have pressing questions for your favorite authors and we have their answers. Welcome to our new weekly segment, Author Crush Fridays.

AUTHOR-BANNER

We love asking questions and we love the answers from some of our favorite authors. Today we’re talking to New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz who co-writes with her husband, Michael Johnston. Stolen (Putnam), the second in the fantasy adventure Heart of Dread series, just released this Tuesday and we’re so excited to have been able to talk to Melissa!
STOLEN_cover_image

 

GLITTER: Can you tell us more about Heart of Dread series?

MELISSA: The Heart of Dread series is about a girl named Nat with a dangerous secret and a boy named Wes who helps get her to safety. Set one hundred years in the post-apocalypse New Vegas, the story melds fantasy and science fiction tropes to create a fast-paced and gritty story about two young people tossed together in a great adventure. In the first book, Wes helps Nat on her journey and in book two, Stolen, we find out more about their background and how the world was destroyed.

GLITTER: What’s it like writing with your significant other? 

MELISSA: It’s great, maddening sometimes, but ultimately very rewarding and brings us closer together. Although our kid has asked that we don’t talk shop at the dinner table anymore.

GLITTER: Do you have a favorite hero or heroine of yours? 

MELISSA: My dad who passed away five years ago was my hero. He was the funniest and kindest person I’ve ever met and my siblings and I say we won the Dad Lottery. He had the best sense of humor. I miss him every day.

GLITTER: Is there any other genre that you would love to write in? 

MELISSA: I keep wanting to write an adult mystery – no paranormal. We’ll see. Hopefully one day.

GLITTER: What are you working on right now?

MELISSA: My huge Disney book – Isle of the Lost – a Descendants Prequel. Descendants is the new huge Disney franchise, and they asked me to develop and expand the world in a prequel. It’s an amazing honor and I’m so excited to be part of the Descendants team.

GLITTER: What is your favorite childhood book? Favorite book right now? 

MELISSA: Favorite book of childhood was Little Women. Right now, I’m a huge fan of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle.

Mel and Mike pic credit Wendy Werris

 

Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, Angels on Sunset Boulevard, Girl Stays in the Picture, and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.

Her books for adults include the novel Cat’s Meow, the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys and the tongue-in-chic handbooks How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less and The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-inch heels and Faux-Pas, and the Witches of East End series.

She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews.

Melissa grew up in Manila and moved to San Francisco with her family, where she graduated high school salutatorian from The Convent of the Sacred Heart. She majored in art history and English at Columbia University (and minored in nightclubs and shopping!).

She lives in Los Angeles and Palm Springs with her husband and daughter.

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