Interview with Beautiful Days author, Anna Godbersen

Happy Release Day to Anna Godbersen's Beautiful Days, the sequel to Bright Young Things. I'm really excited Anna has stopped by the blog today!

For the bright young things of 1929, the beautiful days seem endless, filled with romance and heartbreak, adventure and intrigue, friendship and rivalry.

After a month in New York, Cordelia Grey and Letty Larkspur are small-town girls no longer. They spend their afternoons with Astrid Donal at the Greys’ lush Long Island estate and their nights in Manhattan’s bustling metropolis. But Letty’s not content to be a mere socialite. She is ready at last to chase her Broadway dreams—no matter the cost.

Cordelia is still reeling from the death of her father at the hands of Thom Hale, the man she thought she loved. Now she is set to honor Darius Grey’s legacy . . . and take her revenge.

Promised to Cordelia’s half brother, Astrid is caught up in a world of dazzling jewels and glittering nights—and the sparkle is blinding. Charlie Grey is a gangster playing a dangerous game; and for Astrid, Cordelia, and Letty, the stakes could be deadly.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Luxe comes the second book in an epic series set in the dizzying last summer of the Jazz Age.- quoted from Goodreads

You can read my 5 star review here

I really enjoyed Bright Young Things and I'm excited to read your sequel, Beautiful Days. I'm looking forward to finding out what's in store for Cordelia, Letty and Astrid. Which of the girls do you feel you relate to the most?

Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed the first book! I started out thinking of Cordelia as the character I was most like, but the other day I was writing a scene from the third book, THE LUCKY ONES, and I was feeling very Letty-ish. But then all of my charactersrepresent parts of my personality, Astrid too, and when I am trying to describe their inner experience, I draw from my own life.

Which character has grown the most over the course of Bright Young Things to Beautiful Days? How have they changed?

Probably Letty. I think that she is the most insecure of the three girls, the most dependent on other people’s opinions, the most susceptible to being pushed around. But her confidence and sense of herself keeps growing, as does her idea of the world around her.

I am so intrigued by the 1920's and I love how you described this era in yourseries. What is one of things that fascinates you about this era?

I love that it was this exuberant time, an era when all assumptions and rules of behavior got exploded. But then it’s also a sad time in a way—all of life can’t be a party, and this decade ends in a big crash, and I think that’s such a beautiful and melancholy metaphor for youth, for a lesson all of us learn at some point—as Joan Didion puts it in her famous essay “Goodbye to All That,” that “it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair.”

When writing a series, do you find it more challengings or easier to write the second book? Why?

The second book is hard. The first one, so much of it is fleshing out your initial idea, the spark you had. And by the time you get to the last book, you really know where it’s going, and it’s so thrilling and exciting to see where fate has taken your characters. But the middle book can be tough—you have to keep all these things afloat, connect the beginning and the end. But I love the second books too, because you’ve set your characters up and you get to see what they do and who they are.

If you could spend the day with one author, who would that be?

Hemingway, of course! His quotes about what it is to be a writer, and how one should go about it, are some of my favorites, and he lived such a big, crazy life.

What's one of your favorite YA reads that you'd recommend to our followers?

The last time I was in my editor’s office, she handed me an advance copy of THE PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES by Wendy Wunder, which comes out in December, and I am LOVING it. She has such a sharp, smart voice, but then it’s also imbued with this profound compassion.

Thank you Anna for joining us today!

You can find out more about Anna by reading her Q&A and by visiting her website, her blog, and following her on twitter & facebook.

To find out more about The Bright Young Things series, please visit Anna's site.

You can purchase both Bright Young Things & Beautiful Days from Amazon| Barnes & Noble| Indie Bound