Interview with MG Reyes, author of Emancipated

Pretty Little Liars fans get ready to read your next favorite book. Emancipated by M.G. Reyes is all of the edgy drama that we love in a YA novel, so we reached out to learn more:

Tell us a little bit about your new release, Emancipated.

EMANCIPATED is a story about what happens when six very different teenagers move into a beach house together after emancipation from their parents. “The bad boy, the good girl, the diva, the hustler, the rocker, and the nerd. Six teens legally liberated from parental control for six different reasons, but all with one thing in common: something to hide.”
Over the series mysteries will unravel, secrets will be disclosed and the past will catch up with some of the characters with cataclysmic consequences for all six teenagers.

What fictional literary world would you most like to visit?

Well, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, obviously. I’d be ever so good too, and only take modest amounts of everything yummy.

What makes your world go round?

Story. Wish I could say otherwise but it’s just the way I am. I live for stories – mine and other people’s.

Where is your favorite spot in Oxford?

Favourite spot – the Broad. It’s a beautiful street in the heart of the ancient university where you’ll find bookshops, pubs, colleges and the Bodleian Library.

What is the last song that was stuck in your head?

Kathleen by Catfish and the Bottlemen.

Which book from your childhood or teenage years has stuck with you as an adult?

A Crowded Hour with William by Richmal Crompton. She wrote lots of books about William Brown and that’s one of the funniest. It still makes me laugh so hard I can hardly get through reading it to my kids.

If you had to pick one place to vacation for the rest of your life, where would you choose?

Andalucía, in the south of Spain.

What’s your favorite line from Emancipated?

Probably one of Candace’s snarky comebacks, to be honest. I’d wanted to make her a super-foul-mouthed diva. I’ve met a few people who work in television and also some actors and for some reason they’re the sweariest people I know! But the YA audience for EMANCIPATED meant I really had to pull back on that. So I decided that given that she’s a Shakespeare fangirl, she’s got a thing for Elizabethan curses of the type that Shakespeare used. She’s a down-to-earth type of girl when all is said and done, but she does have this one quirk.

The line is: “The word on the street, Master Paolo, is that thou art nothing but a goatish knave.”

Do you have a quote or philosophy that you live by?

Like most Christians (I’m a Roman Catholic) I try to live by Jesus’s commandment to ‘love thy neighbor’. Luckily, my neighbors are lovely! But I think it goes beyond and requires us to put something directly and personally into caring for people who aren’t our family, as well as the family. Easier said that done, of course.

Do you have a favorite local bookstore we can give a shoutout to?

Yes! Please give a shoutout to my friend Caroline’s store the Book Mart in Starkville, Mississippi http://bookmartandcafe.com/

MG Reyes is the author of the new book Emancipated.

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