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1. The idea for the story came about originally when I was in the sixth grade. I used to read those YA and middle grade novels about those groups of girls who had the perfect close-knit relationships—the whole best friend forever thing personified. I was in grade school and I saw the cover of the Bangles “Everything” cd and they looked like that type of clique and I wondered what they were like at thirteen/fourteen.  As an adult I wrote the story to show how Landry thinks everyone else has these tight groups of friends who never get mad at one another and everything is always perfect and she wants that and hopes to find it with Devon, Peyton and India. However, reality sets it…reality is such a bummer sometimes, isn’t it?

2. The older actor Devon has a crush on that the other girls make fun of her for is based on my crush on Liam Neeson.

3. People ask if I had best friend necklaces/bracelets/earrings/etc. when I was growing up. Yup, with several friends. Some I’m still close with, too. The day I told my writing group about my book contract I noticed I was wearing a silver bracelet with a heart charm and it never occurred to me before how much this was like the bff bracelet in the story—or the bracelet Landry’s dad gives her. I took that as a sign and that’s why you see the broken bff heart on the cover dangling off the, “s,” in “Colors.” BTW, one of my favorite gifts is still a thoughtful bracelet from a friend.

4. Landry’s last name, “Albright,” comes from Madeleine Albright. As a kid I was very aware there weren’t a lot of female role models in my social studies books. I distinctly remember being amazed as a kid seeing Benazir Bhutto in my Weekly Reader at school. So I used the name to pay tribute to a woman who broke through the glass ceiling—the first female U.S. Secretary of State.

5. The designer, Franciszka T, all the girls are obsessed with got the name because my great-grandmother, two of my great-great-grandmothers, and my great-great-aunt, were all named Franciszka. I picked “T,” because the great-great-aunt used to design and make clothes (she made her sister’s wedding dress and her own bridesmaid’s dress). Her last name started with a, “T.” I also look a little bit like her—we have the same big alien eyes.

6. When I first saw the possible cover models, I thought the one who ended up on the cover looked like a couple cousins of mine. I knew she was the perfect choice. Months later, the cover model found out about being on the book and contacted me. Turns out she lives in Poland and is from a town next to the city my great-grandpa was from! Crazy coincidence.

7. I’m not from the city the story is set in (Grand Rapids, MI), but my parents were, so I decided to have Landry and her mom live there. I’m actually from the other side of the state—an hour north of Detroit.

8. Landry’s name was originally, Sydney, but I changed it because the name was getting overused. My mom suggested the name Landry because she had a little girl in her class years ago with that name. I loved it and what’s funny is she had a student named, “Krysten,” too, and she told me that Landry and Krysten were best friends.

9. I named the ice cream parlor everyone hangs out at in the story after my great-grandfather. I picture the ice cream place being  in Grand Rapids, MI (where the story is set)right near where he lived when he first moved to this country. In case you’re from the area and curious, I picture it being on Diamond Avenue.

10. Like Landry and Ashanti, I was a big soap opera fan. My favorite was, One Life to Live. I pictured two of the characters, Colin and Lanie, as being Landry’s parents. If you look at the cover model, she really resembles them both.

Krysten Lindsay Hager is an author and book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like.
She’s worked as a journalist and also writes middle grade, YA, humor essays, and adult fiction. TRUE COLORS is her bestselling debut novel from Astraea Press. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in South Dakota, Portugal, and currently resides in Southern Ohio where you can find her reading and writing. She received her master’s in American Culture from the University of Michigan-Flint.

Krysten's Links:

Website:
http://www.krystenlindsay.com

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/KrystenLindsayHager?fref=nf

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KrystenLindsay




Author Giveaway Krysten Hager

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Kristin Hannah --- author of MAGIC HOUR, FIREFLY LANE and TRUE COLORS --- recalls how a thoughtful Christmas gift and a nasty case of the flu introduced her to what has since become of her favorite and most important book she's ever read.


When asked to write about my memorable holiday reading experiences, the difficulty lies in choosing. I was lucky to be born into a family of readers. I started my journey of words as most children do, curled in my mother’s lap, listening to her beautiful voice and looking at pictures as she turned the pages. Every Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open one present --- always a book --- and we raced upstairs in our pajamas to read by lamplight as we listened for Santa’s sleigh. It wasn’t until I was a mother myself that I realized the true genius of this tradition: we kids stayed up late into the night…and slept in just a little bit later on Christmas morning.

Obviously, I have a string of books that mattered to me, that changed the way I saw the world. Early on, there were the Oz books by Frank L. Baum, and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. These were novels that helped me grow up, showed me that the world could sometimes be a scary and unexpected place. I felt very grown up when I read them, and if I often ran up to Mom in the kitchen afterward and stayed close, she never seemed to mind. Or perhaps she knew that that’s what books are all about --- they take us places and show us things and even terrify us, but we are stronger for it in the end.

But even with all of that, when asked to choose a most important childhood book, the answer is ultimately easy; I can do it without even thinking about it: The Lord of the Rings. When I was 13 years old --- in 1973, the “make love not war” years --- these fantasy novels were the talk of my household. My parents tried repeatedly to get me to read the trilogy. Because I was a teenager, I refused on principle alone. Several times, I attempted to read the first one, but I always put it down. Too many words, I’d say. Too confusing, too slow. And my mother would smile.

Then I got the whole hardcover set for Christmas, and on the next day, I came down with the flu. Well, without school to go to or friends to visit, I started THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, and that was it. Fever? Who cares. Hacking cough? Hardly noticed. I walked into Middle Earth and was never quite the same again. I fell in love with Gandalf and Frodo and Aragorn and Sam (him especially). It was the sheer heroism of the hobbits that slayed me. The friendship and the courage.

I couldn’t wait to share these novels with my son. When he was about 13, I handed him the first one and told him he had to read it. He refused, of course (him being the teenager now), and I understood. One Christmas, I gave him his own hardcover set of the novels, and I inscribed them with the same words my mother had once written to me.

I knew that sooner or later, he’d open that first volume and try again. I knew that when the time was right --- maybe on t

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