Blog Tour & Author Q&A: TOUCHED: A Caress of Fate by Elisa S. Amore

Hi guys! Welcome to my stop of the blog tour for Elisa S. Amore's book Touched: A Caress of Fate!

Based on a Norwegian legend
A Sealed Fate
An Angel of Death 
A Forbidden Love 

What are you willing to sacrifice when the only person who#fff8c6can save you is the same one who has to kill you?

After vampires and werewolves, after wizards and fallen angels, a new breed of Angels is here to usher you into their dark world. An ancient, deadly, inescapable race. 
No one can see them. They’re shadows of destiny. They’re knights of death. They’re the Subterraneans and they’re here to claim our lives. 
Commanded by a mysterious congregation called the Màsala, the Angels of Death ensure that each man’s destiny takes its due course on Earth.
But what happens when love intervenes?
Can an Angel of Death deny his own nature and challenge destiny?
Can love rebel against fate?

When Gemma’s eyes first meet the dark, piercing gaze of Evan James, an ominous shadow creeps into her life, ultimately leading her to face her destiny. She doesn't realize Evan is one of Death's soldiers and that Death is summoning her. 
Her time is up: Gemma must die . . . and Evan has been sent to kill her.
But what if she’s the only one who can truly see him? 

Against every rule. Against fate itself. Against everything and everyone. A story of forbidden love and star-crossed destinies.

Dark. Romantic. Dangerous.

Touched combines devastating passion and unconfessable secrets, heartrending decisions and deep emotions, giving life to a love story as intense as the feelings that unite Evan and Gemma, as inescapable as the destiny that looms over them...

Goodreads / Amazon US / Amazon CA

For my stop, I have a Q&A for you all with the author. Enjoy!

1.     Tell us the story behind the story. How did TOUCHED come to be?

The story of Evan and Gemma just popped into my head one day while I was driving to work. I had a sort of vision in which I saw a boy with eyes of ice staring at me from the side of the road. I immediately felt like the heroine of that new story. I thought, "Who was that guy? And why was he staring at me so intently? What if I were the only one who could see him? And what if he were there for me?" Then I came up with the most important question of all, the one that gave me the answers to all the others: "What if he were there to take me away?" The whole idea of the Angel of Death was born from that question. I immediately pulled over and started writing down my ideas until I’d come up with the premise for the whole saga. During that period in my life I worked as a server at my parents’ cafeteria, and that day I was late for work! When I finally got home, I couldn’t wait to find out how the story would continue and I wrote for hours. With a husband and a full time work, I could only write every night and nine months later I finished writing the first three books in the series.

2.     What was the most challenging aspect of writing TOUCHED?

All the books in the Touched series have a dual POV and the chapters narrated from Evan's point of view are always the most difficult to write because the narrative style changes and I have to switch from Gemma’s thoughts to Evan’s, but they’re also the ones I'm most satisfied with. Before I start to write from his point of view I always experience some anxiety, but once I start the narrative grabs me so strongly that everything flows beautifully. I love it when Evan’s telling the story. His chapters are my favorites.

3.     What is the message you want readers to take away from your book?

Some readers write that my Death Angel backstory about heaven and hell changed the way they perceive death and the afterlife and gave them hope. That makes me very happy because writing this story helped me through a difficult time. The story was born from my need to believe that there is something beyond death and it’s exciting to discover that your own story is able to have the same effect on people you don’t even know. A mother told me once that her little daughter asked if angels really existed and she answered: "Sure, they exist and one of them is called Evan." That was very moving for me.

Another key point of the story is the true love that exists between Evan and Gemma: a kind of love that does exist, but that many people have forgotten to believe in. The new generations are growing up with the belief that love is possession, that passion is submission, that the solution to a relationship’s problems is to run away, and that love triangles are normal, but I don’t agree. Love is passion; it is a fire that consumes both partners and from which neither wishes to be saved. A fire no one else can enter. A love like Evan and Gemma’s is not without obstacles; quite the contrary. Yet together they face adversity and never give up. The two of them are united against the world. This is the message I want to convey to the Touched saga readers: believe in true love.

4.     Describe your background.

I live in Italy and since when I was just a little girl I’ve always had a huge love for the United States. I studied foreign languages, focusing on English and I even had a US flag which covered the entire wall in my small room. That’s the reason why, when I wrote Touched, my biggest dream was to reach the English readers. So I started to send submissions to english agents, but despite the fact that my books were bestsellers in Italy and were published by a major publishing house, my italian novel was rejected for years by all the foreign agents to whom I submitted it. They all said that the market was satured in my genre. It took me four years to finally reach out the English market thanks to my determination because I didn't give up. I had so much trust in Evan and Gemma's love story (the main characters in Touched) and was so anxious to let them reach out new readers in the world that I couldn't deny them a chance. So, after four years of waitings and searching for the right team to work with I decided to translate the books with my own efforts and money, though my husband was a mechanic and we didn’t have so much money at that time. Despite that, I focused on quality and hired a great editor, Annie Crawford and an excellent translator, Leah Janeczko, (who has also worked for Random House, scholastic, Harper Collins and Disney). The english market was completely unknown to me and my english isn't perfect, so it was more difficult to start for me and I had no guarantees. But I taked the risk and I’m very glad I did because the enthusiam for my series has been something amazing and totally unexpected. At the beginning I translated only the first two books in the series because I couldn't afford the expensive costs of translations/editing/promotion, but thanks to the huge success of Touched I've been able to translate the whole saga, with the third book coming out this fall and thousands of readers waiting for it. Being a foreign and unknown author, It was not simple to build a so strong fan base from nothing, and now I'm really happy with the results I've been able to get with my only efforts. It’s a dream come true.

5.     Describe your writing schedule. Do you outline? Any habits?

I handwrite all my books and at the end of the story I copy what I’ve written into my laptop. When I start a new story, I usually write for about eight hours every day. It took me three months to write each book in the Touched series and as one of my habits, I have collected and numbered all the pens I’ve used to write the Touched series.

6.     What books are on your nightstand? What are you currently reading?

On my nightstand there are Nicholas Sparks’ last book SEE ME, and the first book in the WICKED series by Jennifer L. Armentrout, which is anxiously waiting for me on my Kindle.

7.     Which authors inspire you?

Every story I read has some sort of impact on me that afterwards is inevitably reflected in what I write. Nicholas Sparks, however, is my all time favorite author, along with William Shakespeare. He has always fascinated me since his stories are so full of passion! He’s definitely one of the authors that inspires me when I write.

8.     What have you learned from this experience?

I wrote the story after a sad event that affected me a lot because it was my first experience as an adult with death. I needed to externalize my fears in order to try to analyze them. And Touched, though it’s about love as well, is mainly focused on the threat of death that hangs over the protagonist. It’s about the way she deals with her fate, growing and learning to fight the fears that had made her a prisoner of herself. That helped me a lot.

In addition, from this experience I’ve learned to always follow my dreams. And even if it is difficult that they may come true, the important thing is to never give up.

9.     What is your advice for aspiring writers?

My advice is that they should always write about what they love and I strongly suggest them to focus the writing on the character’s emotions, instead of writing only about their thoughts or actions. Feelings go straight into the reader’s hearts.

10.  What are you working on now?

After delivering the last book of the saga to my publisher a few months ago, lately I’ve worked on the translated editions with my copy editor to be sure that everything was as I wanted it.

Now that we have almost done with the third book, BROKENHEARTED, coming out in October, I will soon start a spin off of the series.

About the author:

Elisa S. Amore is the author of the paranormal romance saga Touched. She wrote the first book while working at her parents’ diner, dreaming up the story between one order and the next. She lives in Italy with her husband, her son, and a pug that sleeps all day. She’s wild about pizza and traveling, which is a source of constant inspiration for her. She dreamed up some of the novels’ love scenes while strolling along the canals in Venice and visiting the home of Romeo’s Juliet in romantic Verona. Her all-time favorite writer is Shakespeare, but she also loves Nicholas Sparks. She prefers to do her writing at night, when the rest of the world is asleep and she knows the stars above are keeping her company. She’s now a full-time writer of romance and young adult fiction. In her free time she likes to read, swim, walk in the woods, and daydream. She collects books and animated movies, all jealously guarded under lock and key. Her family has nicknamed her “the bookworm.” After its release, the first book of her saga quickly made its way up the charts, winning over thousands of readers. Touched: The Caress of Fate is her debut novel and the first in the four-book series originally published in Italy by one of the country’s leading publishing houses. The book trailer was shown in Italian movie theaters during the premiere of the film Twilight: Breaking Dawn—Part 2. 

And that's it! Thanks for reading!