Blood Numbers
by C.F. Kreitzer
Genre: YA Dystopian
There are only two kinds of people left on the earth: Donors and Recipients.
Sixteen-year-old Aston Vazeto hates the idea of selling her blood for money and is determined to be the
first Donor in New World history to never donate.
But after a suspicious accident at her father's power plant leaves her family diving deeper into poverty,
Aston has no other choice except to enter the annual blood auctions, where Recipients bid on the richest
blood. With the highest test results ever seen, Aston’s blood becomes the most sought-after in history,
and will likely bring a large price at auctions.
When her friends are caught tampering with their donations, they are arrested and tortured. Knowing she
puts her family's safety and income at risk Aston takes advantage of an opportunity to escape donation
facility drugs meant to keep Donors complacent. Free to feel and free to love she is caught between
Gannet, a kind facility technician, and Marcus, a sarcastic rebel like herself. Dancing at Blood Auction
Balls and kissing a donor in coat closets under the stairs has Aston confused between joining the
uprising she hears rumors about or merely following the life her blood was meant to lead.
Book Trailer:
https://youtu.be/TY32Ta-3wdo
I grew up with a pretty normal childhood, running barefoot in the Appalachian mountains, playing with
turtles and innocently killing them by leaving them on their backs so I could play house with them again
the next day. I don't think I always dreamed of being an author. It was just something I did. I made up
stories about my dead turtles. I named my fingers and let them battle out family feuds. I wrote about
myself in my journal when what I wished would happen was better than what actually did (sorry, Mom for
the scare. I still promise I never really snuck over to a party and kissed my brothers friend). What a
wonderful surprise when something "I just did" suddenly became something others enjoyed. I'm so
forever grateful to my publisher for giving me a chance to share my not-so-normal stories with the whole
world.
GUEST POST
What
is something unique/quirky about you?
I
can whistle like a cricket? Lol.
Tell
us something really interesting that's happened to you!
I
was born with a blooddisorder called polycythemia which means my
blood is too thick. It’s possibly why I’m so fascinated by blood.
I’ve never been able to donate blood or plasma. I found out
recently I also have a blood disorder called Von Willebrands, which
means I bleed easily so maybe that
balances
out the thick blood, I don't know. When I was born doctors wanted to
do a complete
blood
transfusion. My dad refused, and a team of nurses stayed with me
overnight. Somehow
things
worked out, and now here I am writing books about donors and blood
banks.
Where
were you born/grew up at?
A
tiny town in the Appalachian Mountains called Low Moor, VA
What
kind of world ruler would you be?
Probably
a very inconsistent one. I'm no good at keeping up with schedules or
routines. I’m a “live by the seat of my pants” kind of person,
and it drives my husband crazy. But we get a lot of things done and
have a ton of amazing adventures.
What
are you passionate about these days?
Right
now I’m super into magic books. I just finished a contemporary
magic book and then watched the Witcher on Netflix. Now I want to
write a full-on dark fantasy novel.
What
do you do to unwind and relax?
We
may have just moved solely for the purpose of having a bigger
bathtub. A hot bath with a fun Netflix show or good book is my
favorite thing to do.
How
to find time to write as a parent?
I
think I’ve gotten really good at just zoning things out. Daniel
Tiger no longer phases me. I also am a crossing guard, so five times
a day I get to sit in my car, watch for kids coming to cross the
road, and think all about my books. I’d say about 40% of my books
are written on my phone in the car.
When
did you first consider yourself a writer?
When
I wrote my first book. I typed “The End” and felt so much
accomplishment. Writing a novel was so exhilarating and exciting to
know all the in’s and outs and the behind-the-scenes parts of a
story was so much more fun than reading. I got addicted pretty
quickly. I wrote five full-length novels, six picture books, 3 short
stories (one that won Silver Honorable Mention in the Writers of the
Future contest), and won a few flash fiction contests all in the
first two years after writing that first book. I’ve discovered that
writing is everything that has made me weird my whole life. Now in
the writing world I’m suddenly completely normal.
Do
you have a favorite movie?
“
While
You Were Sleeping” is one of my all time favorite movies, but
“Labyrinth” is a close second. If I could combine those two
that'd be a super cool story.
Which
of your novels can you imagine made into a movie?
All
of them. This dystopian I think would be a cool Netflix series. After
everything we’re going through now with COVID-19, my story is super
relevant.
As
a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
Oh
that’s a hard one. I love frogs, and collect little trinkets of
them, but I don’t know if I’d consider myself one. I also love
owls. I collect those too. As a writer I’m probably something that
hibernates. Like a bear. Mostly because I can’t stay consistent
with my writing. I’ll go weeks without turning my
computer
on and then sit down and write 40,000 words in a week.
What
inspired you to write this book?
Well
first off, like I said, I’ve always had a fascination with blood
and donations, since it’s something I have no experience in. But
the idea for this specific story started when my husband decided to
donate plasma one year in order to have a little extra christmas
money. He saw other fellow teachers there, and it made me a little
sad that they were making so little that they had to risk their
health in order to afford things for their families. And then he got
sick, and my husband never gets sick. Anyone who’s ever been in a
plasma facility knows what I’m talking about when I say they’re a
little trippy. Poster children on every wall and weird messages
talking about how your donations save people are all over the place.
The idea of a society separated by the need for blood formed, and the
donors were
patterned
off my poor husband who gave so much for us to have a great Christmas
one year.
What
can we expect from you in the future?
I
have lots of ideas all over the place, but something that seems to
stay consistent is my angsty romance that I just can’t get enough
of. I am querying a science fiction suicide story right now that has
a lot of magical realism, and I’m sending in book two of this
series to my editor next week. Lots of exciting things happening that
I’m super stoked about.
Do
you have any “side stories” about the characters?
Yeah.
Originally the best friend, Lazuli ( pronounced La - zoo- ligh)
wasn’t supposed to be a main part of the story. As it evolved,
though, she became a huge component to several plot points and
subplots. I have lots of small stories that were her version of the
story that I’ll probably put up somewhere sometime for fun.
Can
you tell us a little bit about the characters in Blood Numbers?
Oh
man, I really got to know and love these characters. It’s weird
when critique partners would give suggestions, and I knew my fake
people so well I could say “nah, they would never say that.”
My
main character is Aston. She’s a 16 year old donor who, as the
fourth daughter of a man
who
wanted sons, was raised with strong opinions about their government.
She is an artist.
She’s
impulsive and very naive. She’s a bit selfish but has good
intentions which is part of her
story
arc. She doesn’t want to admit it but she has a thing for her
technician, Gannet. He’s got a
pretty
face but is clearly a robot to the system because of the drugs given
to donors. When
Aston
finds a way to avoid the drugs, she doesn’t think she could ever be
with someone so
robotically
happy all the time. Which is what makes Marcus so appealing even if a
bit annoying.
He’s
rugged and sickly but free to do as he pleases. His determination and
zeal draws her in
even
though her parents would never approve of a low-numbered sickly
donor.
How
did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?
I
knew I wanted a society divided by blood, the infected on one side of
the wall that bid on healthy donors' blood in order to be cured, and
donors on the other side who are so poor they’re willing to donate
themselves to death. But the idea for the characters came actually
from watching Aladdin with
my
kids. Telling too much about that though would give too much away so
you’ll have to just
read
the book:) * wink wink*
Where
did you come up with the names in the story?
My
husband is a birder. I think without realizing it I patterned Aston’s
father after my husband. I love the kind of Dad he is and he loves
birds, so I put a lot of the names of birds that we joked about
naming our kids. Gannets are sea birds; Lazuli Buntings are beautiful
blue birds, and Aston- well that’s not a bird. I actually took a
job working at an apartment complex called “The Aston” the day I
started plotting the concept in my head. It only seemed fitting.
What
did you enjoy most about writing this book?
The
surprises. I always knew the basic skeleton of the story. I knew I
needed to get from one plot point to the next, but the way I would
get there sometimes was so exciting. “Yes, a ball! And at the ball
there will be this crazy awesome thing that happens that leads us
right to this ridiculous conflict!”
How
did you come up with the title of your first novel?
Um,
my husband, the Biologist, helped me come up with it, but I always
thought it sounded kinda cheesy. I originally wanted Book One to be
called “Donors”, and Book Two would be “Recipients”, and who
knows what Book Three would be. But my husband kept insisting and
then my critique group too. Then when the publisher took over they
also agreed that they liked it more.
Who
designed your book covers?
Ashley
Litersky with Immortal Works Press.
If
you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your
latest book?
Actually,
yeah there’s a couple things. Now that I’m writing the third book
there are a few ideas that come up that would have been really cool
to put some foreshadowing about in book one.
Are
your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely
from your
imagination?
Aston
calls her mother Mam and she is sort of the villain of book one. It
was actually one of the characters that was the most fun to write. I
kept having to call my own Mom though and make sure she knew I wasn’t
writing about her, haha. I knew she would be concerned about what
others thought about my relationship with her and so let me take this
opportunity to say: my mom is one of my best friends. Mam however is
an awfully nasty product of the system. She is patterned after the
mother in Pride and Prejudice. I took all the rude and awful things
about Mrs. Bennet and magnified them. She was the one voice in my
head that was louder and more obnoxious sounding than Aston’s.
What
is your favorite part of this book and why?
Weirdly
enough it’s a torture scene. It’s a moment when Aston learns to
have compassion on her own mother from seeing another mom get
tortured. It helps her understand a little about why her mom is the
way she is, and I cried through the whole thing. Mrs. Bennet in Pride
and Prejudice, after all, was only trying to get her girls married in
a society where that was the only prospect they had. Would she have
been a different kind of mother if they lived today where girls are
free to grow up and be astronauts and presidents of companies?
If
you could spend time with a character from your book whom would it
be? And what
would
you do during that day?
I
actually found Gannet to be a much more interesting character than I
originally realized. He felt so mysterious even to me. I think I’d
pick him and want him to just show me his childhood home and tell me
about his story. He’s one I’d love to write a backstory for as
well even though I know the basics of it in my head.
Do
your characters seem to hijack the story or do you feel like you have
the reigns of the
story?
I
have the reins but my characters definitely are vocal. Most of the
time they were the ones leading from plot point to plot point. Lazuli
wasn’t really unpredictable but just kept popping up as the
solution to certain plot predicaments. She was somehow always the
answer for how to answer certain needs for conflict. I put the poor
girl through a lot, the poor thing.
Convince
Us why you feel your book is a must read.
One
of the things that makes my book super interesting now is how
relevant it is to our times. A society that recovers from biological
warfare after viruses spread through and killed a third of the earth
population? A new government that separates and quarantines society
based on health? A system that is organized to take plasma from the
recovered and inject it into the sick in order to save them?
This
is what we are experiencing now with COVID-19! The American Red Cross
has agreed to
team
up with me and I’m holding a national blood drive on May the 4th
and will be at the Provo
Utah
Library to help American Red Cross! They are asking for anyone who
has recovered from
COVID-19
to please donate plasma. The very first patient that received this
treatment recovered
in
record time. It’s so crazy to read headlines that I made up in my
novel. Even if you haven’t
had
COVID-19 please consider donating blood. The American Red Cross helps
save lives
everyday
but their blood bank has dwindled significantly with the shut down.
Use the link
redcrossblood.org
and enter your zip code to find your nearest blood drive.
Using hashtag:
#BloodNumbersDrive
share a picture proving your donation whether a sticker saying you
gave
blood
or a picture of you donating on any social media and be entered for
extra chances to win
Blood
Numbers t-shirts, tattoos, and pens.
What
did you edit out of this book?
There
was a dream sequence that gives a huge foreshadowing of the end but
the editor didn’t think it was super necessary. I love reading that
kind of thing the second time through though once you know the ending
and can say “Oh my gosh it totally told me right here and I didn’t
even notice!”
Is
there a writer which brain you would love to pick for advice? Who
would that be and
why?
Stephenie
Meyer. I know she gets a lot of flak in the writing world, but no
matter what you
want
to say about her writing she is an amazing story teller. She’s also
who really opened up
the
world to this idea of stay-at-home moms turned authors. I remember
years ago listening to
her
say in an interview that if you have an idea just write it. She is a
big inspiration to me.
Fun
Facts/Behind the Scenes/Did You Know?'-type tidbits about book or the
writing
process
of the book.
A
vertical transfer virus is what I based my virus off of. It is
technically a thing in biology but has never really occurred yet.
It’s when a virus is passed down from mother to child. It’s, in
the simplest of terms, making cancer a virus. So not only can you
catch it if someone sneezes on you but then once you have it, it
attaches to your DNA and you can pass it on to your posterity as
well. Writing the backstory about the virus and the wars was actually
more exciting than I thought it would be. The first draft version of
the story didn’t have a whole lot about that. Originally I wanted
it to be more about the romance but, then a reader mentioned that she
was up late telling her husband about my book and all he had
questions about were the wars. How did they get that way? What is the
virus and why is it scary? It helped me realize I needed more about
the details of their world and went back to the drawing board.
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