Every Inferno by Johanna Parkhurst
Goodreads Link 

Release Date: July 24, 2014

We are lucky to have Johanna Parkhurst here today to talk about her newest YA novel, Every Inferno.  After the interview, be sure to check out the book via blurb and gripping excerpt.  Don’t forget to enter the contest at the end as well.

Our Q & A with Johanna Parkhurst…

• What was your inspiration behind the title and story?

Every Inferno started out with a dream I had—a boy was climbing out a window, and there was a fire behind him. The story eventually became much more than a boy escaping from a fire. The window didn’t make the final draft, but lots of other ideas did…including JJ exploring his sexual identity and working through his issues with alcohol.

The title is very much connected to JJ’s investigation into who killed his parents. You’ll have to read the book to find out more about it.

• When did you start reading romance, including YA romance?

I’ve always loved reading romance, whether it’s in the adult or the YA category. I enjoy reading stories about the different ways humans connect to one another, and the romance genre explores those connections so beautifully.

• What drew you to writing in the romance genre?

I don’t think of Every Inferno as a romance, to be honest. I think of it as a coming-of-age story that just happens to have an important relationship built into it. Most of my stories end up revolving around some sort of key relationship—probably because I believe the relationships we have with others are such a big part of what makes us who we are.

• What particular things do you consider romantic?  Gestures that would make you swoon?

You know what I find funny? Whenever I write a YA story with a romantic element, I end up comparing what I thought was romantic when I was a teenager to what I think is romantic now. I was so easy to impress as a teenager! Taking me out to a dinner at the local diner and picking out my favorite desert would have had me swooning. In some ways, I miss the magic of those days. Love was so new and different that every small thing seemed magical.

.  Where do you go for character names?   Professions?

All over the place! The story behind JJ’s name is bizarre. I started him calling the character JJ when I first started writing the book. I wanted him to be called by his initials because I wanted him to have distance from the father he lost, who he’s also named after. But for the longest time, I didn’t actually know what JJ stood for! I couldn’t decide. Eventually I settled on Jacob, which fit with the story and JJ’s character for a variety of reasons. But the poor boy was without a name for quite a while.

• Have you ever had research inspire a story?

I knew JJ would struggle with alcoholism when I first started writing this story, but the research I did into teenage alcoholism had a huge affect on JJ’s storyline and how I wrote that struggle into the plot. The story definitely changed the more I researched.

• What are your biggest influences as a writer?

So many! In the YA genre I’m influenced by Sherman Alexie, Brian Katcher, S.E. Hinton, and many others. Some of my favorite romance writers are T.J. Klune, Marie Sexton, Amy Lane, Nora Roberts, and Johanna Lindsey. I started reading Johanna Lindsey when I was just a teenager, and I always thought it was a good sign that we shared a name.

.  What’s next for Johanna Parkhurst?

I just finished drafting the sequel to my first book Here’s to You, Zeb Pike. That’s been an exciting adventure, as it’s taken me years to finish that draft!

Depressed. Defiant. Possible alcoholic. These are just a few of the terms used to describe fifteen-year-old Jacob Jasper Jones. Lately, though, JJ has a new one to add to the list: detective. He’s been having strange dreams about the fire that killed his parents ten years ago, and he thinks he finally has the clue to catching the arsonist who destroyed his family. 

A murder investigation isn’t the only thing the dreams trigger for JJ. They also lead to secret meetings with his estranged sister, an unlikely connection with a doctor who lost his daughter in the fire, and a confusing friendship with McKinley, a classmate of JJ’s who seems determined to help him solve the mystery. 

All JJ wants is to shake the problems that have followed him since that fire, and he’s convinced he must catch the arsonist to do it. But as JJ struggles to find the culprit, he sees there’s more than one mystery in his life he needs to solve.
Pages or Words: 180 pages

Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Mystery, Romance, Young Adult

Publisher: Harmony Ink Press
Cover Artist: Reese Dante

A smell that wasn’t there before filled the bathroom.

JJ drew in a deep breath, trying to match the scent to anything that might already exist in his short memory. It was a difficult scent to describe: like pine trees, but not the real ones in his backyard. More like the smell of the stuff his father used to clean the kitchen floor.

He tried to push off the sudden sense of apprehension that filled him; who cared if someone else had also come into the restroom? This was his town, the tiny world he had spent his entire five years in, and there was a good chance he knew whoever else had just joined him.

Even if he didn’t know anyone who went around smelling like pine trees.

JJ took a few breaths and flushed the toilet, eager to get back to the movie and his parents.

As he shoved the door of the stall open, though, the scent grew stronger. The person who had brought the scent in with him—a man—was facing the wall across the room. He was wearing a backpack and hugging his arms to his chest.

“I did it… I did it,” the man whispered. “I finally did it.”

JJ moved to the sinks, more eager than ever to return to the comforting gaze of his mother. But the noise of his sneakers against the tile alerted the man to JJ’s presence, and now the stranger was turning around to face him.

It was the oddest sensation to only be able to see certain details of a person: blue jeans, a red long-sleeve shirt. And then a detail so clear it almost seemed to be the only thing JJ could see: the outline of a long and winding paintbrush, tattooed on the man’s hand, snaking down from just below his thumb to where it disappeared beneath the cuff of his shirt.

But nothing else. No other details were there. The man was faceless. The color of hair was… what was it? It was as if it had never been there.

Then JJ could see nothing, and all he could hear was the man shouting. Something about how JJ shouldn’t be there, and he couldn’t know, and it wasn’t time yet….

The pain began then. Horrible, burning, pain, and JJ knew he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear himself over the roaring in his ears. He needed to find the door, the door, where was the door—
Jacob Jasper Jones woke up sweating, twisted into a trap of sheets and blankets. He frantically cast his eyes around the walls of his bedroom, looking for anything that would remind him he was not in that restroom again. There was the Modest Mouse poster, his bookshelf, the old dresser that had once belonged to his aunt—yes, he was safe.

Safe from what? Or who?

JJ quietly wrestled with the covers, thankful that he wasn’t a screamer and didn’t seem to have woken Aunt Maggie up. If it was up to JJ, Maggie would never know that JJ was having dreams about that day again.

They’d started about a month ago. Before then JJ had never dreamed anything specific about the fire. The nightmares were always vague and mushy, filled with flames and noise and not much else.

Not like this dream. This dream was clear and specific and so real it was as though JJ was reenacting every detail from that day. Right up until the end, when the faceless man turned and everything went black.

It was so vivid that JJ was starting to think it might be more than just a dream. That it might be a memory.

Sales Links:

Harmony Ink Press:
Dreamspinner Press:
Amazon:
Barnes and Noble:

About Johanna Parkhurst:

Johanna Parkhurst grew up on a small dairy farm in northern Vermont before relocating to the rocky mountains of Colorado. She spends her days helping teenagers learn to read and write and her evenings writing things she hopes they’ll like to read. She strives to share stories of young adults who are as determined, passionate, and complex as the ones she shares classrooms with.

Johanna holds degrees from Albertus Magnus College and Teachers College, Columbia University. She loves traveling, hiking, skiing, watching football, and spending time with her incredibly supportive husband.

Where to find the author:

Website: http://www.johannaparkhurst.com
Twitter: @johannawriteson
Tumblr: http://johannawriteson.tumblr.com/

Enter to win a Rafflecopter Prize: E-copy of ‘Every Inferno’. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter. Link and prizes provided by the author and Pride Promotions.

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