Interview with YA & Romance Author Stephanie J. Scott

Welcome author Stephanie J. Scott to the blog today! If you like beach town romances, read on!

Tell us about your latest book!

Sunset Summer is about a girl who tries to do everything right but we all know how that goes, right? Exiled to her grandparents’ sleepy beach town to work community service hours, she meets Will, a bad boy who spells trouble. Only Will is not all as he seems. As they grow closer over the summer, Holli worries he’ll uncover her big secret which threats to ruin everything they’ve built.

We both have series set in Lake Michigan beach towns (both my Star Series and Cecily Taylor Series are set there—one in a real town, one I made up!). What inspired you to set your series there?

How cool! I grew up in Michigan and still try to get to the beach on the Michigan side every year. I loved growing up around lakes of all sizes. The key is to know somebody with a boat.

Do you have a favorite beach town?

As much as I love Lake Michigan towns, I’ve got to give this to Cannon Beach, Oregon on the Pacific coast.

Favorite thing to do in summer when you were a teen?

Sticking with beach themes, I have great memories of riding with friends to the beach at South Haven, listening to music, and just laughing and being silly. 

What was your favorite book when you were growing up?

I should mention I’m terrible at naming a single favorite anything. My mom gave me a paperback of Little Women with a pretty awful cover. I ended up liking it and reading it multiple times. The ‘90s movie version became one of my favorite movies. When I was younger, I loved Roald Dahl books for their total weirdness.

I have a special love for YA books as those are the books I devoured growing up. Why do you like writing YA books?

I think there are a lot of us who wished we’d had more books aimed at where we then, and now we’re writing what we wanted to see. I read old Sweet Valley High books from the library because there were so many of them even though I thought they were dumb. There was a real gap back then from what we now call middle grade to older YA. So many writers I know now went from Babysitter’s Club to Stephen King in an eighth grade summer.

I always reread my favorite books. Do you reread books and if so, which one(s) have you read over again?

I rarely re-read. My TBR causes me mild panic sometimes. Too many other books to read, but every so often I revisit a few favorites with a skim, mainly to see if I can see the craft behind the magic.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

As noted, I have a hard time picking favorites. I’ve read a LOT of romance this past year. Authors I consistently read: Sandhya Menon, Alexa Martin, Kristan Higgins, Joanna Shupe, Sarah MacLean, Sonali Dev, Tif Marcelo, Kate Clayborn. I like Kelsie Stelting’s Curvy Girls YA series. I recently hopped on the Lisa Kleypas train and just bought a whole backlist series of hers.

A lot of creatives (artists, writers, musicians) have talked about how the pandemic has impacted their creativity. How has it been for you?

For a stretch of time, it felt strangely comforting to have no weekend plans and nowhere to go. I will note, I am privileged to work at home primarily even before the pandemic and my husband was able to be at home this past year. So many of my friends’ lives were turned upside down with loss of childcare or having family working in high-risk jobs. When my own day job grew very busy and intense – it’s healthcare related – my creativity shut down. I played a lot of Destiny to de-stress myself. And I found an amazing book club through Instagram that provided so much joy the past year.


What are you working on now?

Polishing up book 3 in my summer series and brainstorming a potential book four! Meanwhile, I’m revisiting a YA with threads of magic – also set in coastal Michigan – to send to my literary agent, and shaping up another idea I’ll need to write from scratch to send the agent. I have an adult romcom making the rounds with publishers, so I aim to stay busy while that’s going on.

Where can we find you online? 

website: www.stephaniejscott.com/
twitter: @StephScottYA  https://twitter.com/StephScottYA
Instagram: www.instagram.com/stephscottya/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stephaniescottauthor

This or That Questions:

Autumn or Spring? autumn
Ocean/Lake or Mountains? Tough call – I love mountains but I live somewhere very flat. I’ll say lakes.
Coffee, Tea, or soda? Tea
Song you could listen to on repeat for hours: I’m going to pick an album: Metric – Fantasies 

Favorite show to watch: Killing Eve – the aesthetic, the cast – amazing. And I can’t predict it. 

Bio:
Stephanie J. Scott writes young adult and romance about characters who put their passions first. Her debut ALTERATIONS about a fashion-obsessed loner who reinvents herself was a Romance Writers of America RITA® award finalist. She enjoys dance fitness, everything cats, and has a slight obsession with Instagram. A Midwest girl at heart, she resides outside of Chicago with her tech-of-all-trades husband and fuzzy furbabies.

Buy Links: https://www.stephaniejscott.com/books

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Amazon: amzn.to/3oYtbEK