Interview with Bree Despain

1. What caused you to write about werewolves out of all the creatures that go bump in the night? 
It was actually my mom's idea. I was telling her about my story idea and how I wanted to have a character who had an inner demon that would occasionally take over his body and manifest as a real physical monster. She looked at me and said, "Like a werewolf?" And I was like, "No! Not like a werewolf. Totally different." But then after a couple of days of thinking about it I realized that werewolves were probably the perfect fit. 

2. How much research did you have to do into werewolf folklore for the Dark Divine novels? 
 After I decided to explore the idea of werewolves, I started doing a lot of research. I watched classic werewolf movies and researched werewolf lore. I came across an old court record of a man in the 16th century who was accused of being a werewolf, and instead of denying it, he told the court that he was indeed werewolf but that they didn't know what a werewolf really was. He claimed that werewolves were created by God to protect humans from demons, and that if the court sentenced him to death, their town would no longer be protected. Needless to say, the court decided to let him go free--just to be on the safe side. I was so fascinated by this very brief account that I decided to run with the idea and created my own mythology around it. In my mythology, werewolves were originally created by God in order to protect humans from demons, however they became prideful of their special powers and began to disdain regular humans, and they eventually became even more evil than the demons they were created to destroy. Did you do less as the series progressed or more? I did less research as the trilogy progressed because now I was working within the framework of my own made up mythology. I did refer back to research every once in awhile when I'm looking for new ideas. 

3. Who is your favorite character in the Dark Divine novels? 
It really depends on the day. My affections waver according to my mood. Today Daniel is my favorite character. I really got to do some awesome stuff with his character in THE SAVAGE GRACE and I'm still a little swooney for him even after the series is over. 

4. Are you a pastor's daughter or why did you decide to make Grace one? 
My dad isn't a pastor, but he his a local religious leader, and I know what it is like to have people in your community watching what you do all the time. I mostly wanted to capture what it is like to be a teenager whose life is centered around questions of faith, religion, and living up to expectations because that was my experience growing up. 

5. Are you working on anything new right now? 
I'm working on a new book that is slated for publication in Fall 2013. It's a book I started several years ago before THE DARK DIVINE was published, and it's really exciting to be working on again. 

6. What is a book that you've read recently that you can't stop recommending? 
EVERNEATH by Brodi Ashton. LOVE IT! 

7. Anything else you'd like to mention? 
Thank you so much for the interview. It feels sad, scary, awesome, and exciting to have the trilogy finally finished. I hope everyone enjoys THE SAVAGE GRACE.


Thanks so much to Bree for stopping by and answering some question. Tomorrow I'll have my review for The Savage Grace up, so come and check it out! You can see my reviews of The Dark Divine here and The Lost Saint here. If you haven't started this series yet, you probably should!