Spotlight: Bethany Wiggins {Shifting}

How would you describe Shifting?

Shifting is a Character driven YA novel about a girl who has no clue what she is--she's a shifter, but an orphan, and has no control over the shape-shifting ability in her life. When she moves to a new town, she realizes that something is hunting her. She hopes she lives long enough to find out what it is and why they want her so badly! Plus, there's a huge chunk of swoon-worthy romance.

Which of your characters do you feel you relate to the most and why?

The character I relate the most to is actually . . . Mrs. Carpenter (minus the gray hair). I based aspects of her personality on my mom, and I'm a lot like my mom. Here's something my mom would SO say (and embarrass me to death!) : Mrs. Carpenter says to the young and strapping Bridger, who has to carry her into her house because of a leg wound, "If I knew it would take a wolf bite to get a young man like you to carry me across the threshold, I'd have got bit years ago."

Were you a reader in your teen years and if so, who was your favorite author?

As a teenager, books were my escape! In high school, my best friend decided to ditch me--she literally ran away from me at the beginning of lunch break, laughing (envision wicked witch cackle)--so that she didn't have to sit with me. I guess I wasn't cool enough for her. Well, I was so humiliated to be friendless, I started taking books to lunch with me and burying my nose in them so no one realized what a loser I was (I have friends now!). I loved Robyn McKinley, Tad Williams and Robert Jordan. 

What one 2012 release are you most looking forward to reading?

Veronica Roth's sequel to DIVERGENT! CAN'T WAIT!!!

Are you currently in the process of writing a sequel or newer book?

I have written--and sold--another book to my publisher. It is totally different than Shifting, a story about a girl who wakes up in a grown up body--but the last thing she remembers is turning thirteen. And for some reason the world is dead. And the humans that she runs into? They're insane beasts. And she finds a wall--which she's trapped on the wrong side of.