Interview & Excerpt With Debut Author Erin Hahn!

In 2019 our goal is to work with as many debut authors as possible and spread the word about their debut novels. Follow us this year as we pick the mind of the 2019 debuts and chat with them. Also stay tuned for news of giveaways, Twitter chats and more!

Over the summer of 2018 we had Tweeted about wanting to discover more debut authors and their books and Erin Hahn responded with her novel YOU'D BE MINE and we have been interested in it since. We are so excited to have Erin on the blog today to answer some of our questions! 

About Erin! 

Erin started writing her own books when her little sister gave her shade about a country music-themed Twilight fanfic. By day, she gets to share her favorite stories with her elementary students. By night, she writes swoons. Erin married her own YA love interest whom she met on her first day of college and has two kids who are much, much cooler than she ever was at their age. She lives in Michigan, aka the greenest place on earth and has a cat, Gus, who plays fetch.

Keep up with Erin: Website / Twitter / Goodreads

Interview!

The Book Bratz: First of all, congratulations! How does it feel to be a debut author?

Erin: IT IS BANANAS. You spend your entire life dreaming of having Other People read your books one day and then all of a sudden they ARE and its terrifying to hear what they actually think. Fortunately, I’ve been super lucky so far and have an extremely supportive publisher, but goodness! It’s so much more everything than I ever thought. I think my favorite part is when bloggers and early readers reach out to me to share their thoughts and enthusiasm about You’d Be Mine and how excited they are to talk about my characters. I’ve wanted that for so long. Ultimately, we’re all book nerds in this industry, aren’t we? At the end of the day, we just want to have crushes on fictional characters. To get to do that, on a professional level, is amazing and I am so grateful. 

The Book Bratz: In your opinion, what is the best part of the writing process? What's the hardest?

Erin: My favorite part is when the first draft is on the page and I get to go back and give it life. I write very lean at first and my drafts read more like a skeleton outline of dialogue. When I get to go in layer atmosphere and physicality and those self-depracating inner thoughts… ooooh I love it so. Putting on the face of the character and seeing it all from their perspective is an incredible rush. Some people jump out of planes, I write voice. :) The hardest? That bloody first draft. Getting a character from one place to another feels so tedious to me. Those little transitions that are so vital are such a sludge to write. I just want to write kissing and emotions and witty banter!

The Book Bratz: What made you decide to write YOU'D BE MINE?

Erin: Good question. I’d just finished getting my heart tore out over a zillion rejections on a previous book and was feeling terrible, when I decided to write about something I wanted. Just for me. For fun. Because, honestly, who thinks to themselves “Oh! A book about country music is just want I need!” :) Probably ten years ago, I’d written a chapter of Twilight fanfic that centered on the characters being country music stars (I’m not kidding) and sent it to my sister who read it and was like, “Nice job. Now write your own damn book.” So the county music thing was inside of me, unfulfilled. Fast forward five books and I was watching a documentary on the Carter Family and the beginnings of country music, when the late great Johnny Cash was suddenly on the screen. He was being interviewed about June Carter and her legendary roots and he was talking about how in awe of her he was when they first met…. How *her* family intimidated him. This was news to me. I mean, Johnny Cash is a legend and here he was, essentially, fangirling, over the Carters! It made me think about the whole “Famous Boy falls for the girl next door/ Cinderella” trope and I wanted to flip it on its head. What if they were both celebrities but she was the legend and he was the hack? Or at least, on the surface. Obviously, once you dig deeper, it's more than that. :)

The Book Bratz: Who was your favorite character to write? Who was the most difficult?

Erin: God, I loved to write Annie. She’s so sassy and has gobs of charm. It felt like channeling my inner Reese Witherspoon, honestly. I could write Annie forever. I really didn’t have a difficult character in this one. I didn’t like to write Mean Clay early on in the book, but mostly just because I knew how much he was hurting and lonely. A good friend told me, “You need to make them suffer and I realize that’s hard because you love them...” and that’s so true. I LOVE THEM TOO MUCH. I promise, Readers, if you are mad at Clay at certain points, I was MADDER. :) But he came around in the end, thankfully. 

The Book Bratz: On your website you have a playlist for YOU'D BE MINE -- what made you choose the songs for it?

Erin: And a shiny, new Spotify one! I am very musically-motivated in all of my writing. I favor dual POVs and in order to execute that well, I need to create separate playlists for each of the characters so I can swap in and out of their minds. So these playlists are straight from MY original writing playlists. Also, if I reference a song in the book (aside from the four or five I wrote), it’s on the playlist so others can hear it!

The Book Bratz: What do you hope that readers will take away from reading YOU'D BE MINE?

Erin: I hope they take away an affection for country music, of course, but more than that, I really want my readers to see that love alone won’t fix a person. Annie can’t love Clay better. It’s not real. Clay and Annie had to fix themselves, first. Did that mean their relationship wasn’t all rainbows and kissing? Yep. But *that’s* real life. Growing up is hard. Mistakes are made, even when you are a celebrity. In fact, the mistakes might be bigger if that’s the case! But still, you have to take responsibility for yourself and become the best possible version you can. Then, kissing. :)

The Book Bratz:  Do you plan on returning to the world of YOU'D BE MINE in the future, or do you have other projects in mind? Can you say anything about them?

Erin: Will I return to country music? I really do hope so. There’s nothing in the works as yet, but before I sold YBM, I’d already started a spin off starring Annie’s best friend and drummer, Jason Diaz. It’s been put on a back burner and it may always remain there, but I hope not. For now, I do have another standalone YA contemporary romance coming out in 2020 called MORE THAN MAYBE. It’s about the son of a former British punk rocker who falls for a music blogger and whose love song about her accidentally goes viral. They have to navigate fledgling feelings with a national audience. Also, they have to save the dive bar they both work at. It’s my grungy-alternative love story and I can’t wait to share it with the world. 

About YOU'D BE MINE!

Title: You'd Be Mine

Author: Erin Hahn

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Publication Date: April 2nd, 2019 

Summary: Annie Mathers is America’s sweetheart and heir to a country music legacy full of all the things her Gran warned her about. Superstar Clay Coolidge is most definitely going to end up one of those things. But unfortunately for Clay, if he can’t convince Annie to join his summer tour, his music label is going to drop him. That’s what happens when your bad boy image turns into bad boy reality. Annie has been avoiding the spotlight after her parents’ tragic death, except on her skyrocketing YouTube channel. Clay’s label wants to land Annie, and Clay has to make it happen. Swayed by Clay’s undeniable charm and good looks, Annie and her band agree to join the tour. From the start fans want them to be more than just tour mates, and Annie and Clay can’t help but wonder if the fans are right. But if there’s one part of fame Annie wants nothing to do with, it’s a high-profile relationship. She had a front row seat to her parents’ volatile marriage and isn’t interested in repeating history. If only she could convince her heart that Clay, with his painful past and head over heels inducing tenor, isn’t worth the risk.

Excerpt!

If I die, it’s Trina Hamilton’s fault. She’s hard to miss; statuesque blonde with angry eyes and tiny nostrils wearing top-of-the-line Tony Lamas so she can kick my ass at a moment’s notice. When the early-morning sun finally burns through my irises and kills me dead, she’s the one you want.

“Christ, Trina, it’s barely seven.”

My road manager flashes cool gray eyes at me while pressing her matte red lips into a thin line. Her expression hasn’t changed in the minutes since she came pounding on my hotel room door. She’s a study in stone, but not for long. Better to get this over with.

I mumble another curse, yanking the frayed brim of my baseball hat lower. “At least slow down. I have a migraine.” Trina whirls around and shoves a manicured nail in my face. “Don’t,” she spits, “pull that migraine bullshit, Clay. You look like death, smell like sewage, and if you think those glasses are doing anything to hide that black eye, you’re sorely mistaken.”

I scratch at the back of my neck, playing for time. “Are those new Lamas? Because dang, girl, they make your legs look incredi—”

She grabs my chin in a painful squeeze, her sharp claws digging into my bruised cheekbone. “Don’t even try it. What happened to you last night?”

I wrench my face away. “Nothing serious. A little scuffle with some fans after the show.”

Trina stares at me a long minute, and I start to fidget. It’s her signature move. I might be a country music star, but Trina makes me feel like a middle schooler who just hit a baseball through her window.

“A little scuffle,” she repeats slowly. “Yeah. A scuffle.”

“Really. Just a few good old boys shooting the breeze, probably,” she offers with a too-bright smile.

“Right.”

She nods and starts walking, her heels clacking on the asphalt and ringing in my ears. A couple of middle-aged tourists halt, curious, midway through loading their golf bags into a rental car to watch us. I tug the brim of my hat even lower and hustle to match her strides through the hotel parking lot.

“So, that’s it?” That can’t be it.

“No, Clay. That’s not it. Your face is all over TMZ this morning. We, as in you and me, because I’m irrevocably tied to your fuckery, are due at the label at 8:00 A.M. sharp.”

I release a slow breath. “Trina, I have a contract. They already started presale on the summer tour. It can’t be that bad.”

Trina’s cackle is edged with hysteria. “That guy you punched after throwing a beer in his face and waving a knife—”

“Knife? Really? It’s a Swiss Army pocket tool. Every self- respecting Boy Scout owns one.”

She plows on. “He was the SunCoast Records CEO’s youngest son. His legally old-enough-to-drink son, as a matter of fact. Which you are not. How you manage to get served time and time again—”

I roll my eyes. “I’ve been playing bars since I was fifteen, Trina.”

“—when you are so publicly underage—”

I lift a shoulder and wince as pain shoots down to my elbow. Must have tweaked it last night. “I’m a celebrity.”


Trina grunts, her derision clear, just as my phone chimes in my pocket. I pull it out, ignoring her.

Thank you so much to Erin for stopping by and answering our questions! We are super excited about YOU'D BE MINE and can't wait for it to be out in the world on April 2nd!