[Daph's BBE] Day 3: Guest Post by Josephine Angelini

Welcome to day 3 of my Birthday Bash Extravaganza! It's my birthday today (!!), so I'm celebrating by hosting a week filled with giveaways and other awesome stuff! Be sure to check out my introduction post to see what else is going on :)

One of my favorite books of this year was Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini and Josie is here on the blog today to do a guest post on strong female characters! I love me some kick ass heroines and I don't have to add that I don't like damsels in distress, right? Well Josie sure knows how to write strong female characters and she is here today to tell us why she loves them just as much as I do.

A little bit about Starcrossed:

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.

On Women

I have a lot of women in my life.  I always have.  I was born the youngest of eight siblings and there’s only one boy nestled right there in the middle of all of us.  For those of you who don’t like to do math while reading (like me), I’ll translate.  I have six big sisters, and I do mean big.  I’m 5’9” and I’m the littlest of the bunch. 

We Angelini girls are all tall, and since we’re half Italian, we all have a ton of hair.  When you ask most people to list what homey smells bring them back to their youth they usually say things like cookies baking in the oven.  Not me.  My childhood smells like hairspray baking on a curling iron.  

And it sounds like Led Zeppelin.  I was the only eight-year-old I knew that could recite all the words to “Stairway To Heaven”.  That’s because my sisters raised me right.  In the morning when I would get up to pee, they would lock me out of the bathroom, turn off the tape recorder (this was the 80’s) and make me sing the next line of whatever Led Zeppelin song they happened to be playing at the time in order to get in.  I learned fast.

I’ve noticed that people comment a lot about my female characters, saying that I write strong women.  There is a very simple explanation for why I do this, one very near and dear to me.  My sisters would pummel the daylights out of me if I wrote a weak one. 

Of course, now that we’re all grown-ups and pretty much civilized, the pummeling isn’t physical.  It’s much, much worse.  It’s “the look”.  There’s nothing like six girls, all raised ultra Catholic, to shame the pants off of someone.  Get them all in the same room—giving “the look” together—and I’m pretty sure they could glare a perfectly healthy person to death.

I’m no dummy.  I know my sisters have a very good reason for forcing me to respect women on the whole.  It’s because they want me to contribute to a world where women are valued as much as men.  They want me to dig a little deeper and question the way women in our society are treated and demand better for the future.  They love me with all their hearts, and they want me to respect myself as a woman. 

I write strong women because I love and respect the strong women in my life. 

I write strong women because my six sisters raised me right.

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Thank you so much Josie for this guest post! I don't think I would want to get "The Look" from you and your sisters.. *shudders* I'm looking forward to seeing more strong women in Sleepless :)!

And because I loved Starcrossed so much, today wouldn't be complete without a giveaway! I'm giving away one (1) copy of the UK paperback edition of Starcrossed to one lucky winner. Make sure that Bookdepository ships to your country, as the prize will be shipped out by myself using BD. All you have to do is read the rules listed on top of the form, and fill in the form *HERE*. That's it! 

This giveaway is now closed. Winner TBA

You don't need to be a follower to be able to enter, but it is of course much appreciated if you'd follow the blog :) 

Thanks for stopping by in my EPIC Birthday Week! Be sure to come back tomorrow to see what's up on the fourth day of my Birthday Bash Extravaganza :) 

Today's question: What is your best birthday memory?