Interview with Across The Universe Author- Beth Revis

We are excited to have Across The Universe author, Beth Revis with us today! If you haven't picked up Across The Universe, I highly recommend that you do! It's a fabulous debut and I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Here's a little bit about the book-

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming (quoted from Goodreads).

What inspired your story, Across The Universe?

The idea came about when I started thinking of mysteries. I thought of (imo) a really great solution to a mystery, and so I built the entire story around solving that mystery. Everything from the characters to the spaceship were invented to make the twist at the end happen.

Amy never had a trunk packed for herself. What three things would she have brought with her?

Oh, good question! She would have brought something along that had once belonged to her grandmother--Amy never really connected well with her mother, and her grandmother fulfilled that matronly role for her. I think, probably her grandmother's cookbook. She also would have packed a brand-new pair of her favorite running shoes, and finally something that came directly from Earth, maybe even something as simple as a bag of dirt.

If we could ask Eldest, Godspeed's current leader, which world leaders he used as models for his leadership style, what would he say?

Oh, he would definitely pick a dictator. He believes in absolute control, and he's obviously rather xenophobic. Some people felt I used a reference to Hitler too casually, but I sincerely believe that Hitler really would be the kind of leader Eldest would look up to. I also mention in the book other tyrants, like Kim Jong-il and Nero and even Genghis Khan. Essentially--anyone who had absolute control.

We are really fascinated by the lay out of Godspeed. What inspired your design?

You're going to laugh at me--but...Futurama's ship, Planet Express. My original sketch of the ship was just an egg-shaped oval divided into levels. When it came time to make that egg fly, all I could think of was the general round-ish shape of the cartoon ship, and there you have it.

We are eagerly awaiting the sequel for Across the Universe. Are you able to tell us a little bit about the sequel?

I can only say this: two things you think are true in Book 1 are actually lies.

Have you recently read anything that you'd highly recommend we go pick up?

Unfortunately, I've had my nose in a lot of ARCs lately, so you're going to have to wait on my recs! But Veronica Roth's DIVERGENT and Elana Johnson's POSSESSION are both brilliant and are going to be spring and summer hits!

I love that twist that some of what we thought was truth, are actually lies. Great recommendations, thank you! I just received Divergent and I can't to dive into it. Thank you so much Beth for being with us!

Thank YOU!

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Be sure to visit Beth's site here and follow her on Twitter here

You can read my review of Across The Universe here