Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
LIFESTYLES OF GODS & MONSTERS
About the Book:
Title: LIFESTYLES OF GODS & MONSTERS
Author: Emily Roberson
Pub. Date: October 22, 2019
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Pages: 352
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD
Sixteen-year-old Ariadne’s whole life is curated and shared with the world. Her royal family’s entertainment empire is beloved by the tabloids, all over social media, and the hottest thing on television. The biggest moneymaker? The Labyrinth Contest, a TV extravaganza in which Ariadne leads fourteen teens into a maze to kill a monster. To win means endless glory; to lose means death. In ten seasons, no one has ever won.
When the gorgeous, mysterious Theseus arrives at the competition and asks Ariadne to help him to victory, she doesn’t expect to fall for him. He might be acting interested in her just to boost ratings. Their chemistry is undeniable, though, and she can help him survive. If he wins, the contest would end for good. But if she helps him, she doesn’t just endanger her family’s empire―the monster would have to die. And for Ariadne, his life might be the only one worth saving.
Ariadne’s every move is watched by the public and predestined by the gods, so how can she find a way to forge her own destiny and save the people she loves?
About Emily:
EMILY ROBERSON is the author of LIFESTYLES OF GODS & MONSTERS (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2019). She lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Emily has been a bookseller in Little Rock, a newspaper reporter in Vicksburg, a marketing manager in Boston, and a writer in Chapel Hill and Dallas. She graduated from Brown University and has a master’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin. She now lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her husband, three sons and no pets.
You can find her on the web and on instagram @robersonemilym and on twitter @RobersonEmily.
Sign up for Emily’s newsletter here if you would like book news and other updates.
Image by: Laura Kellerman photography
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INTERVIEW
- What is on your nightstand?
A very tall stack of books. They were spread throughout the house, but I decided to move them all to my nightstand, thinking I’d be more likely to read them there. I have been reading more, but given the dustiness of the books, I should be going faster.
- What author would you totally fan?
There are so many. But right now, if I met Madeleine Miller, author of CIRCE, I would be losing my mind (on the inside), while trying to look cool on the outside.
- What makes you cringe?
When people embarrass themselves in public, whether it’s books, movies or real life, it makes me want to hide under the sofa. Especially the kind of thing when someone declares their true love to the person who isn’t interested. Add extra cringe points if the person doing the declaring has spinach in their teeth.
- Do you obsessively plot out each point or just go with the flow?
I do plot, but not obsessively. If I’m too regimented, I end up taking the characters places where they don’t need to be, and the emotions feel wrong. It works better for me to loosely sign post things, and then check back in as I go, and see if things are working. For LIFESTYLES, since it was a retelling, the major beats were already there, it was more a matter of deciding if I wanted to keep them as they were in the Wikipedia entry version of the myth or switch them around.
- Is there a word you love to use?
I am a lover of words, and there are a bunch that give me incredible joy to deploy – like picking a piece of jewelry. I was glad to get to use “inexorable” in a way that didn’t feel clichéd or false. It means impossible to be moved or stopped, and has a sense of relentlessness, and I really like how it sits in its sentence: “The amplified drums beat their slow, inexorable rhythm, like the heart of some giant subterranean creature.”
Also, if you have any pictures of your pet you would like to share, please attach them. My readers love animals!
I don’t have any pets, but here are my sister’s dogs — Sagan (the Schnauzer) & Kepler (the poodle), named after scientists.
Giveaway Details:
3 winners will receive finished copies of LIFESTYLES OF GODS & MONSTERS, US only.
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
| 10/21/2019 | Two Chicks on Books | Excerpt |
| 10/21/2019 | DjReadsBooks | Spotlight |
| 10/22/2019 | Kait Plus Books | Excerpt |
| 10/22/2019 | Moonlight Rendezvous | Review |
| 10/23/2019 | BookHounds | Interview |
| 10/23/2019 | A Bookish Dream @a_bookish_dream | Review |
| 10/24/2019 | Lifestyle of Me | Review |
| 10/24/2019 | The Phantom Paragrapher | Review |
| 10/25/2019 | Dazzled by Books / @love2dazzle | Review |
| 10/25/2019 | Mythical Books | Excerpt |
Week Two:
| 10/28/2019 | Here’s to Happy Endings | Review |
| 10/28/2019 | Lilly’s Book World | Review |
| 10/29/2019 | Kat’s Books | Review |
| 10/29/2019 | Turning the Pages | Review |
| 10/30/2019 | Smada’s Book Smack | Review |
| 10/30/2019 | Book-Keeping | Review |
| 10/31/2019 | A Gingerly Review | Review |
| 10/31/2019 | Sometimes Leelynn Reads | Review |
| 11/1/2019 | @fictitious.fox | Review |
| 11/1/2019 | Jena Brown Writes | Review |
It seems we have an intriguing myth 5retelling here. Best wishes on the new release.
I loved reading the interview, and am definitely looking forward to reading this. I especially liked hearing how much you are a fan of Madeline Miller, since I also loved her book Circe. I couldn’t help but think of her when I realized that this book was a retelling of the story of the Minotaur and centered around Ariadne, since I’m such a big fan of looking at Greek mythology in a different light.
Congrats on the new release! It sounds fascinating.
Sounds like a mythical Hunger Games/Maze Runner mix. I would definitely pick this one up.
sounds like a fun one