Interview with C.G. Drews // The Boy Who Steals Houses RELEASE DAY!

I recently had the privilege of interviewing the wonderful C.G. Drews (aka Cait from Paper Fury)! She’s the absolute queen of blogging, all things cake, and the art of breaking hearts.

I’m very beyond excited to share this interview with you all today!

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The Boy Who Steals Houses 

Synopsis: 

Can two broken boys find their perfect home?

Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known. Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a family returns home.

To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie.

But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.

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1. Thank you for doing this interview with Starry Sky Books! Can you introduce yourself a little bit, in your own words? 

Thanks so much for having me, Xandra! It’s an honour to be visiting your blog. So my name is C.G. Drews… or I usually go by Cait from Paper Fury. I’m a YA author and book blogger from Australia who is determined to read absolutely all of the books and I firmly believe in cake for breakfast. My debut, A Thousand Perfect Notes, came out June last year, and The Boy Who Steals Houses is out April 4th!

2. Was there ever a specific time in your life when you decided to be a writer? If so, what was it? 

I do remember scrawling down my own versions of fairy tales (illustrated and very firmly stapled on coloured paper) as a little kid and announcing that I’d imagined them myself. Uhh…yeah. But at about 15, I decided I really wanted to be a professional author. I wanted to walk into a bookstore and see my book on a shelf! I started writing intensely and seriously and ended up signing with my agent at 19.

3. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers, maybe something you would have liked to hear when you were starting out? 

That it’s okay to be a complete and catastrophic mess! When I first began writing, I thought you had to get your story perfect the first time. Oh small ridiculous young Cait. There are infinite chances to write and polish your novel, and just as many to try and get an agent, or land a book deal. Keep going. Keep writing. If one project doesn’t take flight — start another.

4. What was the inspiration for the plot of The Boy Who Steals Houses? (In other words, what inspired you to do a Goldilocks retelling, rather than any other retelling?)

I really love going for long walks and since I pass by a lot of seemingly empty houses, my author imagination started to work and ask, What if a teen broke in, not to steal, but just to live while the owners were away? It fit so solidly with the Goldilocks tale, that the two meshed into my mind and I wrote a retelling!

5. Which characters or scenes in TBWSH were the most fun to write? 

Ooh definitely the banter! There is a lot of sibling shenanigans in this book and, particularly chapter twenty-six, just had me typing gleefully as hilarious chaos ensued.

6. Did you do anything special to celebrate your first published novel, A Thousand Perfect Notes? 

There was perhaps a very delicious cake and also a very long nap haha.

7. Where is your favourite place to write? Do you have any special writing routines (or snacks)? 

I am woeful and actually write on my bed oops. Or on the floor. I’m actually on the floor while I type up these answers because apparently it is my preferred office space. I don’t eat while I write (I reward myself with snacks for finishing a chapter) but I am fond of writing in long, intense sprints and then taking several weeks off. I also work with very detailed outlines… I’d be lost without them.

6. ATPN and TBWSH are both Contemporary, but I heard you like to write in many different genres. Are you planning on releasing any books of a different genre next? If so, which genre.

So I have written drafts in a lot of genres, but so far contemporary is probably where I’ll be staying for now!

7. And finally, as we all know, you are the queen of cake. Which of your characters loves cake the most? 

Oh definitely Moxie in The Boy Who Steals Houses. She has a wicked love of caramel brownies and will go to war for them. She’s very relatable and I love her.

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About C.G. Drews

C.G. Drews lives in Australia with her piano and the goal of reading every book in existence. Consequently, her brain has overflowed with words and she spends her days writing novels to make you laugh or cry (or both). She never sleeps and believes in cake for breakfast.

She blogs at paperfury.com.

Visit her website for more information and hilarious posts about all kinds of bookish things!

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I’d like to say thank you again to Cait for doing this interview with me! 

Happy reading, everyone! 😀 I hope you can pick up your copy of The Boy Who Steals Houses as soon as possible – I know I will!