I'm really pleased to be taking part in Katie Dale's blog tour for her new book Little White Lies! I'm so exicted because I loved her first YA book Someone Else's Life!! So without further ado, over to Katie! :D
Top Five Secret Identities
I love stories that have characters with secret
identities. I’m very interested in the idea of a person living
their life pretending to be someone else – for whatever reason – and all the
conflicts and difficulties that occur as a result.
How much of you is you, and how much is pretence?
Where do you draw the line? Does the pretence ever become a reality? Who might
you confide in, if anyone? How could you ever have a meaningful relationship?
I thought it would be interesting to take that
concept and give it a contemporary twist of my own, and that’s where the idea
for LITTLE
WHITE LIES came from, as both Lou and Christian arrive in Sheffield
under false identities – but for very different reasons.
Here are some of my favourite secret identities in
other books…
1) The Superheroes
It may be slightly cheating to class them all as
one, but otherwise this would just be a list of comic-book heroes, as they ALL
seem to have secret identities (often with alliterative names too!) My
favourites have to be Superman/Clark Kent – imagine having a nosy reporter
sniffing around when you’re keeping a secret that big – (actually, Lois was
probably subconsciously my inspiration for Vix, an aspiring reporter and Lou’s
best friend in Little White Lies) and
Batman/Bruce Wayne, because he doesn’t actually have any powers but still
manages to be a superhero in his own way.
2) Dexter
From heroes to antiheroes, everyone’s favourite
serial killer keeps us poised on a knife edge has he juggles his role as a
blood-spatter analyst with his secret homicidal tendencies – but he’s been
dropping balls lately – when are they all going to come crashing down, and what
will happen when they do? Dex has me utterly intrigued and disgusted all at
once – how can we sympathise with a killer? How can he keep such a dark secret?
I don’t know, but somehow we do, and I find him utterly captivating.
3) Jennifer Jones/Alice Tully
LOOKING FOR JJ by Anne Cassidy is another gripping read narrated
by a “villain”, teenage Jennifer Jones aka Alice Tully, who is newly released
from prison after killing her friend when she was a child. Cassidy effectively
shows us that behind every villifying newspaper headline are real human beings
with their own stories to tell, and I found it difficult not to sympathise with
JJ, whilst being horrified by the events that led up to that one life-defining
moment. It left me with a new perspective and plenty of food for thought long
after I turned the last page.
4) Ty/Joe
WHEN I WAS JOE by Keren David follows the story of Ty, a teenage
boy forced to leave his home, his identity and life as he’s always known it
behind after he witnesses a knife crime.
It is a gripping, authentic, contemporary read, and
all the more gripping as Ty/Joe himself isn’t always quite what he seems…
5) Father
Christmas
Quite different from the others, and yet in his way
just as much a superhero in his own right! Raymond Briggs’ book is delightful,
quirky and touching as it recounts the difficulties grumpy Father Christmas
faces just trying to get a bit of R&R. But how can you expect to be left in
peace when you’re the most famous man on the planet…?
So these are my top 5 secret identities – what are
yours…?
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This was brilliant, Katie!! Thank you so much! I love anything undercover - AKA, police shows on TV. But I really love the secret identity demon hunters have - Buffy, the Charmed Ones, Shadowhunters... I just think it's so cool!! :D But I must say, I do have a fondness for superheroes. ;)
And keep up to date with MonthOfGuests on Twitter using #MonthOfGuests2013! And stop by tomorrow for an interview with the brilliant Lauren Oliver!!
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