daynight by Megan Thomason
Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance™. Reality: the SCI subjects Second Chancers to strict controls and politically motivated science experiments like Cleaving—forced lifetime union between two people who have sex.
Meet Kira Donovan. Fiercely loyal, overly optimistic, and ensnared by the promise of a full-ride college scholarship, Kira signs the SCI Recruit contract to escape memories of a tragedy that left her boyfriend and friends dead.
Meet Blake Sundry. Bitter about being raised in Exile and his mother’s death, Blake’s been trained to infiltrate and destroy the SCI. Current barrier to success? His Recruit partner—Miss Goody Two Shoes Kira Donovan.
Meet Ethan Darcton. Born with a defective heart and resulting inferiority complex, Ethan’s forced to do his SCI elite family’s bidding. Cleave-worthy Kira Donovan catches his eye, but the presiding powers give defect-free Blake Sundry first dibs.
Full of competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, daynight is Megan Thomason’s debut young adult dystopian novel and first in the daynight series.
Purchase
Praise
“Sure to win over YA readers looking for a dangerous, dystopian adventure story” —Kirkus Reviews
“Gripping young adult dystopian novel; compelling conflicts; high stakes; powerful narrative; surprises keep coming; strong writing; page-turner; engaging characters; Readers will be hungry for the sequels.”—BlueInk Review (starred review)
“The writing is impressive and the story is a real page-turner. So many twists and turns… I’m hooked… I can’t wait for the next installment to come out…4.5 out of 5 stars”—Self-Publishing Review
“Delicious humor, intelligence, and sparkling dialogue” —Amazon reviewer
“Strangely brilliant and imaginative”—Amazon reviewer
“Grips you from the first page and keeps you wanting more”—Amazon reviewer
“Plot twists kept me reading till late at night”—Amazon reviewer
“Every page a thrilling experience”—Amazon reviewer
“Hooked from the first chapter and could not put it down”—Amazon reviewer
“It's like a CW fantasy TV show in a book with a really interesting environment.”—Amazon reviewer
“I'm a little tired of dystopian novels, but Daynight has a unique and fresh story line that didn't have any trouble keeping my interest.”—Amazon reviewer
Author Megan Thomason
Megan Thomason lives in paradise aka San Diego, CA with her husband and five children. A former software manager, Megan vastly prefers writing twisted tales to business, product, and marketing plans. When she isn't typing away on her laptop, she's reading books on her phone—over 600 in the last year—or attending to the needs of her family. Megan’s fluent in sarcasm, could potentially benefit from a 12-step program for road rage, struggles with a Hot Tamales addiction, loves world travel & fast cars and hates paperwork & being an insomniac. Daynight is Megan's first published novel, but fourth written one.
INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR MEGAN THOMASON
Where did you get the inspiration for your book?
As I hiked through the canyons of San Diego on an unusually hot day, I wondered what would happen if temperatures were so extreme that days and nights had to be switched. This was the impetus for Thera, the main setting for daynight. Quickly, Thera became a fully inverted Earth, with not only days and nights switched, but land and sea, direction of the sun, etc. I researched the extreme temperatures would have on the environment and what a society would have to do to adapt to it. Even the lingo was affected… Monnight, Tuesnight, etc.; daygowns instead of nightgowns; daymares and more… I had a lot of fun with it.
As for The Second Chance Institute, benevolent non-profit on Earth by day and totalitarian ruler on Thera by night, and their unusual agendas and methods… these are all products of my very warped mind ;).
What other novels in your genre would you compare Daynight to?
Unlike other young adult dystopian novels, daynight transpires in a modern day, rather than post-apocalyptic or future setting. Everything The Second Chance Institute does on Thera is meant to test best practices to bring to Earth. As with all dystopias, the extremes presented are meant to make the user think about how perhaps our society is only a hop, skip and a jump away from theirs. The SCI has some Orwellian Big Brother tendencies… perhaps quite loosely some themes from Brave New World or The Handmaid’s Tale.
Cleaving might be compared to the Matching in Matched (Cleaving is forced lifetime union between two people who have sex; at 18 the government assigns a Cleave, if the person hasn’t already done so), but the stories are radically different. There’s a love triangle in daynight, which might make some people jump to a Hunger Games comparison, but there’s little actual similarity in setup or execution of the romantic entanglements.
What are you reading right now?
I have more than 50 books in the queue on my phone, as well as dozens of samples (I always read samples first). I’m currently switching between re-reads of Brave New World (been so long, I’d forgotten how incredibly clever it is; fabulous writing) and The Handmaid’s Tale (also excellent); a sample of Vain by Fisher Amelie (I like) and The Moon Dwellers by David Estes. I read rapidly, extensively, and as often as I can.
What’s your writing process? How long did it take to complete your novel?
To give context, before writing daynight, I’d written a full trilogy of teen romantic comedies for my daughters and their friends: the thin veil, the thin line, and thin skin. With the thin veil, I had a clear idea of what I wanted and pounded it out; the sequels I plotted, but the writing went quickly. However, daynight was a much more ambitious project. Written from 3 point of views, each told in the present and with flashbacks; the complexity of The Second Chance Institute; Exilers (those banished from SCI cities), broken into two factions with a vendetta against the SCI; multiple villains; all characters will very detailed back stories and depth… this all took detailed plotting and notes that I continually revised as I wrote and thought up better ideas.
I completed my first draft of daynight in early 2009. Six full months of writing and another six of editing, rewriting, more editing, more rewriting, proofreading, etc. It still didn’t sit right, so I tabled it for a long time (was busy with other things), periodically doing re-writes as new ideas came. Finally, in the latter half of 2012, inspiration hit, I did a final re-write, editing, proofreading, etc. and I published.
To me, a writing project is like a living breathing entity that requires continual nourishment, adaptation and adjustment!
What was the most difficult part of writing Daynight?
Pleasing the constituents. I had lots of different ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ readers, and everyone wanted something different. The girls: more romance, less action. The boys: more action, less romance. The classic readers: more deep symbolism. I came across this quote and love it: "If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run."--Viggo Mortensen. In the end, everything I wrote, I wrote for a reason--because I felt it necessary to fully tell the story and set up for the sequels.
What are your future writing plans?
I am currently writing the sequel to daynight, arbitrate, and targeting a summer 2013 release. In addition, I’m writing B*Lies, the story about a girl who decides to run from her abusive father. If I ever find time between the writing new books and promoting published books, I may do a re-write of my original trilogy and publish them. I love the characters and stories, but the writing isn’t to the level I think it needs to be for mass consumption.
Any advice for aspiring writers?
- Plot! Certainly, there have been some successful books written off the cuff, but to have good pacing, story development, character development, building of tension, etc. it typically takes good plotting.
- Flexibility! Revise, revise, revise. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Don’t get so stuck on your initial concept that you reject an even better idea.
- Edit! Editing is hard. I typically go through my book over a hundred times, looking for something different each pass.
- Proofread! Yes, I list this separately from editing. Have someone (or even better, many someones)—other than you—someone with a sharp eye and very keen grasp of the English language, proofread your book. The brain compensates for missing words, extra words, etc. and they are very hard to find. If problems are found after publishing, fix and update.
- Work hard! If you thought the writing was time-consuming and hard, promoting your book takes as much, if not more time.
- Start writing the next one. Your chances increase exponentially of having a ‘hit’, the more offerings you have.
Blog Tour Giveaway
$50 Amazon Gift Card
Signed copy of Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Signed copy of daynight
Ends 2/7/13
Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer http://iamareader.com and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
