Friday, May 11, 2012

Coffee Talk with Addy from The Veil




Alex:  Okay, Addison, since this is coffee talk, what is your coffee drink of choice?

Addy: Hi Alex! Thanks for having me! And it’s Addy, please!

Coffee is totally my thing – but I’m a purist. I like my coffee black with just a splash of nonfat milk. It drives my best friend, Nate crazy! He works at a coffee shop and likes to show off by making the fancy stuff. But what can I say? I like what I like!

Alex: Before we get down to the nitty gritty, I was facebook stalking you and saw that are a David Copperfield fan (the novel of course). Very refreshing. Any other of the classics you are into?

Addy:  I do love my Dickens. I also like Jane Austen, the Brontes (all three of the sisters, especially the poems) and Agatha Christie. I guess it’s an English thing? I’m from England, originally, so maybe that’s why I like them. But I also think they just don’t write books like they used to.

Oh boy, that makes me sound like a nerd. I guess I am. Just a little bit.

Alex: And oh, be still my heart you are a Cary Grant fan! Do people give you flack for that? Because a lot of people don’t understand my love of Dustin Hoffman.

Addy:  Ha ha – I live with my grandmother, so I grew up watching old movies with her. She’s a big Cary Grant fan, so I guess it rubbed off on me! Tall, dark and handsome – but also funny! You just can’t beat that combo.

Actually, my name comes from a Cary Grant movie (Can you keep a secret? Oops, I guess I should have asked before I told you. Too late now!) It’s kind of a long story, but I left England with my grandmother when I was six, and she had to come up with a new, fake last name for me so that certain people wouldn’t be able to track me down. She chose “Russell” in honor of the actress Rosalind Russell, who stars with Cary Grant in His Girl Friday. She liked her spunk.

People only give me flack for liking Cary Grant until they see him in Arsenic and Old Lace. Then they get it. And if they don’t, they just aren’t worth knowing.

Dustin Hoffman, eh? Interesting . . . no judgment here, friend.

Alex: Okay, not back to the real reason you are here, the boy. Before this interview we were talking about our boy issues. How the heck do you deal with being with someone and everything seems to be telling you to go against it?

Addy:  Interesting question. You know, Luc and I are such an unlikely couple – he’s like the god of my high school and I am nothing but a lowly little book nerd who would ordinarily never attract the attention of someone like that. But circumstances brought up together in such a way that we had to pretend that we were dating, for a while, even though we weren’t. That was weird. People were flat-out shocked to see us “together” and that was sort of hurtful. And embarrassing. And lying to my friends about it was really hard.

From the beginning, the voices inside my head were telling me to stay away from him. First, he was too perfect – untouchable, unreachable, destined to break my heart. Then, I thought my actual crush on him might hamper our fake relationship and put us both in danger. And now . . . I don’t know. There are a lot of complications. I just know how I feel, and how I feel is that I love him. Bottomline. People can think whatever they like.

Being with him is a danger to me, because if he ever broke my heart I’m not sure how I would survive it. But being with me is actually way more dangerous for him (for a lot of reasons having to do with Annorasi laws and prejudices against humans). I worry about that the most – that our relationship may end up bringing harm to him.


Alex: Since you’re stuck here in small town Winnebago instead of the west coast, what is your favorite place back in Novato?

Addy:  Hmm, well, my friends and I hang out a lot at this coffee shop called Sully’s. They have really good coffee there (you’d like it!) and the best pastries in town.

Alex:  Okay, let’s say you and I are hitting the town in Novato with our respective boyfriends. Where do we go and what do we do? (Without getting attacked by any evil beings, God Willing.)

Addy:  Well, Novato isn’t exactly big on the nightlife, so I think we’d definitely head down to San Francisco, where there’s more to do! I’ve actually been meaning to take Luc to Ghirardelli Square – there’s this thing that my friends and I do for special occasions: we order this enormously big sundae called The Earthquake. It has 8 scoops of ice cream (more if you flirt with your waiter), 8 toppings (not including the whipped cream, bananas, cherries, nuts and chocolate chips – those come standard), and it comes in this huge dish. People stare at you when you order it and the wait staff totally cheers you on to finish it. Pigging out on ice cream is such a human thing to do – I’m sure our boyfriends would get a kick out of it. Or at least a stomachache J

And if it was just you and I alone in San Francisco – if we could convince the boys to let us go out on our own for awhile, doubtful because of the aforementioned Evil Beings – we would definitely hit Jest Jewels – the most awesome jewelry/clothing/stuff store on earth. It’s the kind of place that makes girls want to swoon and boys want to vomit – it absolutely reeks of “girliness.” I’m not even a “girly girl” and I love it - you and I could easily spend a small fortune there.

Alex:  Okay to round this interview out, favorite movie, food, and book?

Addy:

Movie: Arsenic and Old Lace

Food: My grandmother’s homemade gnocchi, with spicy tomato sauce and goat cheese. I am drooling just thinking about it . . .

Book: Well, right now I’m reading Peter Pan (the original, by J.M. Barrie). It totally fits in with my love of English literature, but I’m actually reading it because my friend Olivia is making me. It’s rumored that the spring play at my school this year is going to be a steampunk revival of Pan, and Olivia really wants to play Peter. So I’m helping her do research. That’s kind of funny, actually, because – arghhh!

*Cory Putman Oakes strides angrily into the coffee shop, grabs Addy by the ear, and hauls her off before she can reveal any more spoilers from the next book of The Veil series, coming March 2013 from Octane Press.*

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Seventeen-year-old Addison Russell is in for a shock when she discovers that she can see the invisible world of the Annorasi. Suddenly, nothing is as it appears to be—the house she lives in, the woman who raised her, even the most beautiful boy in town all turn out to be more than what they seem. And when this strange new world forces Addy to answer for a crime that was committed long ago, by parents she has never known, she has no choice but to trust Luc, the mysterious Annorasi who has been sent to protect her. Or so he says . . .
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