1--What is the title of your latest release?
SINNERS OF STARLIGHT CITY
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Revenge is a family affair: A burlesque dancer at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair enlists her estranged mobster family in her vendetta against a fascist pilot flying to the Fair from Mussolini’s Italy.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
When I couldn’t travel during the pandemic, I decided to write about the places I missed traveling to the most: Chicago and Sicily
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely! Rosa is an entertainer, and she would probably dazzle me with magic tricks and stories about circus life.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Tough, Whimsical, Determined
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
How to do a coin drop, the simplest sleight of hand magic trick. I’m still terrible at it.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
A little of both. Usually I need the first quarter or so of the book relatively clean before I can continue finishing the whole story. The foundation has to be solid.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Cookie dough!
9--Describe your writing space/office!
When I’m working from home, I’m at the oak table in the kitchen. I do have an external office in a belle epoque villa that used to be a doctor’s surgery from 1899. It still has crown molding and chandeliers. Beautiful!
10--Who is an author you admire?
There are too many! Right now, Margaret Atwood and Kate Atkinson for their pitch perfect prose and the range of stories they write.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road inspired me to reach for more in historical fiction.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
My agent had submitted Sinners to my editor on proposal, so it wasn’t even really done yet! I was nervous about that, nervous about my editor liking the different direction it took from my previous books. I was on pins and needles until I got the email “US Offer” and my agent called to congratulate me. I was so relieved!
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Anything in any genre as long as it has a strong element of suspense in it and doesn’t dumb things down for me.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
I don’t have just one, but I love classic movies like The Thin Man or The Maltese Falcon
15--What is your favorite season?
Summer
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Go out to eat with my family
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I loved The Diplomat on Netflix. It gave me flashbacks to when I studied international politics and interned at the State Department in Washington.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Play games with my kids or read
20--What can readers expect from you next?
A Casablanca-inspired drama set during one night at a nightclub in Jazz Age Istanbul
A Novel
From the author of the international bestseller The German Heiress, a gripping historical drama about a woman determined to avenge the crimes against her family, set at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
“The magnificent Anika Scott has written a lush and beautifully rendered novel that will keep you turning pages long into the night." —Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left Undone
Vengeance is in the family, and the family is a bond like no other…
It’s the worst year of the Great Depression, and America needs all the hope it can get. The Chicago World’s Fair, a glittery city-within-a-city, becomes a symbol of the good that’s yet to come. But every utopia has a seedy side—and that’s Rosa Mancuso’s world. As the mysterious Madame Mystique she mixes magic with a dose of bare skin burlesque, bringing customers to the home of the Fair’s carnival rides and spectacles.
Rosa doesn’t perform for fame, though. She has come from Mussolini’s Italy to America, where she’s plotting her revenge for the murders of her family. The perpetrator will soon arrive at the World’s Fair via a celebrated Italian air fleet, and Rosa is determined to be prepared.
But when her estranged cousin, Mina, comes to her desperate for help, with a dangerous mobster close on her heels, Rosa agrees to protect Mina and her new baby, born across the color line. With the clock ticking, Rosa decides the only way to survive is to make vengeance a family affair and prompt everyone to, at last, confront the sins from their pasts.
A gripping story of retribution, belonging, and survival, Sinners of Starlight City boldly explores the complexity of identities straddling ethnic lines and asks, who gets to decide who we are and where we belong?
Women's Fiction Historical [William Morrow Paperbacks, On Sale: July 18, 2023, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063306226 / eISBN: 9780063306233]
Anika was born on an air force base in Illinois, spent her small childhood years in Omaha, and finally moved to Michigan, where she grew up outside of Detroit. She studied international politics and journalism at MSU and Columbia and worked on staff at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Chicago Tribune. She now lives in Germany with her husband and two daughters.
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