[Interview and Giveaway: The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters]

It's no surprise that I adored The Cure for Dreaming to pieces, and that there is no other book that I would rather promote on Halloween this year. Lucky for us, Cat Winter's agreed to do an interview and her answers will make you want to pick this book up ASAP.

Throw in the fact that I gave the book a 5 unicorn review (which you can read HERE) and you know it's a good one. In fact, I haven't seen a review lower than 4 stars anywhere, so far.

If you like vampires and classic horror novels and women's rights and dreamy hypnotists, then this is the book for you, because it has all of that. It also has awesome quotes and vintage pictures that add a special touch when needed.

So, let's get on with the interview, shall we?!

Question 1: What made you choose Dracula as the classic monster story you incorporated into The Cure for Dreaming?
 

Cat's Answer: During the major TWILIGHT craze, an idea popped into my head: Wouldn't it be fun to one day write a story about teens reacting to the publication of DRACULA when it was a brand-new novel? I tucked that idea into the files of my mind. When I started writing THE CURE FOR DREAMING, I originally set the book in the early 1880s and used older vampire novels as the source of Olivia's hypnosis visions. However, I've always been drawn more to the latter part of the Victorian era, so I realized I would enjoy writing the book more if I set the book in 1900. DRACULA was first published in the U.S. in 1899, so my protagonist, Olivia, turned into a major fan of Stoker's novel--a novel that follows her into her hypnotized state.

Question 2:  Adding magic and hypnotism into the plot made things really interesting. Did you ever think that you'd use a different profession for Henri, or was he always a hypnotist?

Cat's Answer: The book originally started with the idea of writing about a Victorian hypnotist, so that was always his profession. Three years ago I felt inspired to write something theatrical and Victorian, with a touch of Gothic horror. Erin Morgensern's THE NIGHT CIRCUS, a novel about fictional Victorian magicians, was a major new release at a time, so I didn't necessarily want to write about a magician. My mind instead veered to the idea of a stage hypnotist, and eighteen-year-old hypnotist extraordinaire Henri Reverie was born. 

Question 3: What made you want to write a novel about woman's rights in Portland?

Cat's Answer: I've been interested in the women's suffrage movement ever since I saw the HBO movie IRON JAWED ANGELS, which chronicles the struggles of real-life U.S. historical figures such as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who were active suffragists during the years leading up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. These women underwent arrests, hunger strikes, and force-feedings, all so women of the future--women like myself--would be given the right to vote. Their fight for equality deeply moved me.

I set the book in Portland, both because I live here and because the fight for suffrage in the state was such a frustrating one.  A measure giving women the right to vote appeared on ballots in 1884, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1910, but it didn't pass until 1911. That's a long and bumpy road to equality. I chose 1900 for the setting of THE CURE FOR DREAMING specifically because it was one of the years that saw the failure of the referendum.

Question 4:  Olivia sees the world as it is and yet magical realism is a huge tool in the plot, can you explain why you choose to add that into the mix?

Cat's Answer: I wanted the hypnosis to have a little twist to it. It would be extremely depressing to read about a man who wants to remove the rebellion out of his daughter's head . . . and to have the hypnosis actually work the way he wants. Henri tells Olivia she will see the world the way it truly is and that the roles of men and women will be clearer than they have ever been before. The results dip into magic realism: Olivia often sees glimpses of people's true natures, and sometimes even settings change before her eyes. My editor suggested that Olivia doesn't always see people and places for the way they truly are, and I agreed. It's more unsettling to suddenly become knocked off balance with a supernatural vision. I won't reveal why Henri gives Olivia this "gift" of seeing the true nature of things and whether it's more harmful or helpful, but I will say I thoroughly enjoyed venturing into the realm of a realistic fantasy. You'll see more of that technique in some of my future works.

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Giveaway:

One lucky person will be able to win an ACR copy of The Cure for Dreaming, so enter below!

 (the giveaway runs until November 5th and is limited to US residents only, because of monetary reasons)

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