I’m thrilled to be featuring Fallen by Traci L. Slatton. I’m always a bit nervous when I agree to feature a book on the blog before I’ve read it. What if it’s terrible? I worry. What do I say? But I’ve been pleasantly surprised lately; most of the books I’ve been asked to review have been good, so good that I breathe an enormous sigh of relief when I realize that reading them is a pleasure and not an obligation.
After reading Fallen, I got to pick the brain of author Traci L. Slatton about the story, her characters, her upcoming projects, and how she would fare in a situation like Emma’s. Thanks, Traci, for taking the time to answer my questions.
What challenge that Emma faces would you find the most difficult?
Emma is challenged by loving two men at the same time. She loves them equally but differently, and she has to make a choice. That situation would be hard for me.
If you could choose one character from this book to have by your side in a post-apocalyptic world, who would you choose and why?
The one character from this world whom I would want by my side is Theo, because he’s caring and devoted and strong. He also has many useful skills, and he’s funny.
What was the hardest scene in this book to write?
The hardest scene in FALLEN to write was the one where she goes mad in order to save her daughter and Alexei. Madness is something everyone fears in the dystopian world, and I had to write the scene so Emma was facing her fear but willing to risk everything to save Mandy.
What comfort (technological or otherwise) of modern society would you miss most if you were thrown into the dystopia you created?
If I were thrown into a post-apocalyptic world, I would most miss refrigeration and ease of cooking with electric stoves. Those two inventions free up a lot of time for other pursuits. They also ensure viability and longevity of food. WIthout them, there’s a lot of hunting and gathering, followed by smoking, drying, curing, and cooking over a fire.
What upcoming project(s) are you working on?
I am currently finishing an eBook called “How To Write, Publish, and Market Your Book, Yourself, Independently: A manual for the courageous and persistent.” I am also working on a book called “THE YEAR OF LOVING,” about a woman in a love triangle with a younger man and an older man, while her daughter from her first marriage goes off the rails and her best friend faces cancer.
Let’s start with the opening scene. It’s gripping. I started reading Fallen in the car on the way home (relax…my husband was driving, not me!), and I asked my husband to let the car idle in the driveway for a minute…I needed to finish the scene and find out what happened!
The rest of the book holds up to the promise of the first pages. Slatton’s writing is smooth and efficient; she crafts scenes so easily that you can’t help but see them in your mind’s eye, and the writing doesn’t get in the way of the story, which is always a good thing in my book. (I HATE pages upon pages of description, analysis, or backstory. It’s distracting to get yanked in and out of the plot like that. This book manages to incorporate all of those things seamlessly.)
I really enjoyed Emma as a protagonist. She’s passionate and devoted and real and funny and imperfect. At first, I was disappointed not to hear more about how she was feeling — but consider all that she had been through, it made sense that she needed to sort of stop up her feelings in order to survive. The rest of the characters are full of life and personality; I enjoyed watching the eclectic members of the camp work together to form a safe place.
There were only two things about this book that I didn’t care for: one, I felt that too many chapters ended ominously, like (and I paraphrase), “I wish I had known that was the last time I would touch him,” or “Little did we know what was still to come.” Doing this once is okay, but when there’s too much foreshadowing it distracts from the flow of the novel (for me, at least). And two, there’s a forced-sex scene that just didn’t sit right with me and didn’t seem to fit with the characters’ overall relationship arc. I know that “rape” is a very charged word, and maybe a forceful sexual encounter doesn’t immediately spell “rape” for everyone, but…call me old fashioned, but I like things to be 100% consensual.
All in all: Worth reading. There are two other installments in the series, which is a plus in my book, because I hate waiting to find out what happens!
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