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sandraantonelli · 4 years

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On occasion, an author is asked who influenced them, whose storytelling had an impact, what authors they admired. Alistair McLean and Ludlum, sure, yes. But I never would have written my In Service series if it hadn't been for @meganwhalenturner telling me stories when we were adolescents. We told stories to each other, and hers were always so much better. I was always in awe of her, of the tales she could conjur out of mid-air, of the amazingly torturous things she would do to her heroes. She beat the living crap out her heroes (which was something I found thrilling) and they, in true heroic form, still came out on top, even if she cut off one of their hands.

I have to confess that the reason Major Kitt loses a few fingers along the way in my series about the Irish butler and the spy who loves her, is because of Megan. But the mushy romantic side of things, the kissing bits in my books, that's all me. I always wanted kissing bits. Megan beat up the hero I wanted to kiss.

I still think whenever Megan writes a new book she has written it for me.

#MeganWhalenTurner #AtYourService #SandraAntonelli #InServiceseries

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meganwhalenturner · 6 years

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At Your Service

Have you ever read the dedication in The Thief? It’s dedicated to my best friend in high school. We had a shared universe of Star Wars fan fiction, though we didn’t call it that back then. We had a secret horde* of personae we wrote stories about. Spy stories. Murder mysteries. She leaned toward con artists and I preferred jewel thieves. At school we exchanged little triangles of folded paper between classes updating our adventure in epistolary fashion. We both read voraciously, but didn’t always like the same books. She forgave me for hating Summer of My German Soldier. I forgave her for not recognizing the BRILLIANCE of Alistair McLean’s Fear is the Key.

I went away to college. She went away to college. Life happened and then one day I sat down to write my first novel. I knew what I was aiming for. I wanted to create something she and I would have read and loved and shared. So The Thief is peak Megan-writing-for-her-high-school-friend. That’s why it’s dedicated to her.

My friend also grew up to write books. Ones very different from mine. Thank God, she hasn’t written anything like Summer of My German Soldier, either. Her name is Sandra Antonelli. I’ll let her introduce herself: https://sandraantonelli.com/about/

A few years ago, she sent me a draft of At Your Service.

It is PEAK Megan’s-favorite-stuff and I love it. Passionately. It is all those notes we passed back and forth grown up to be a real book. It’s not YA, though plenty of YA readers would enjoy it and young adults who do read it might learn sooner rather than later that even when you grow up -- you don’t have to leave the stuff you love behind. Adventures don’t happen only when you are young.