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Blog Tour: Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne (Interview!)

Posted July 8, 2021 by Kaity in Book Tours, Interviews / 1 Comment

Blog Tour: Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne (Interview!)

Happy Thursday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for JOSEPHINE AGAINST THE SEA by Shakirah Bourne! I’m so excited to share my interview with Shakirah with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so excited to for you to find out more about it!

Blog Tour: Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne (Interview!)Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne
Published on July 6, 2021 by Scholastic Press
Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Pages: 304
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram

Eleven-year-old Josephine knows that no one is good enough for her daddy. That's why she makes a habit of scaring his new girlfriends away. She's desperate to make it onto her school's cricket team because she'll get to play her favorite sport AND use the cricket matches to distract Daddy from dating.
But when Coach Broomes announces that girls can't try out for the team, the frustrated Josephine cuts into a powerful silk cotton tree and accidentally summons a bigger problem into her life . . .
The next day, Daddy brings home a new catch, a beautiful woman named Mariss. And unlike the other girlfriends, this one doesn't scare easily. Josephine knows there's something fishy about Mariss but she never expected her to be a vengeful sea creature eager to take her place as her father's first love! Can Josephine convince her friends to help her and use her cricket skills to save Daddy from Mariss's clutches before it's too late?

What would you do if you spent the day with Josephine? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?

I think Josephine would only agree to spend the day with me if I took her to the cricket museum, or to a cricket match. We’d pack a bunch of her favourite snacks like tamarind balls and sugar cakes, and guava-pineapple juice and have a grand time.

If Josephine were to hang out with characters from other books, who would they be and why?

She’d have fun playing cricket with Rea from Rea and the Blood of Nectar–female cricket players ftw! And she’d also enjoy hanging out and solving some mysteries with the Famous Five.

If there was one fictional place you could travel to for a day, where would it be and why?

I’m torn between traveling to Etheria and befriending the Princesses of Power in Mermista’s kingdom or traveling to the Lost City of Atlantis to give them a map. Maybe Mermista knows their location… I am obsessed with discovering secrets in the 80% of unexplored ocean so give me the power to breathe underwater so I can find out. 

If you buried a time capsule with three items inside, what three items would you choose and why?

  1. A flash drive with photos and a compilation of videos from my close family members and friends (myself included), with thoughts about our hopes for the future and messages of encouragement for our loved ones. It’s a morbid thought but it’s likely that at least one of us would no longer be alive. It would be a message from the grave.
  2. A bottle of ash from when La Soufriere volcano in St Vincent erupted, and the ash fall reached Barbados. It’s a tangible piece of history and also a reminder of the mind-blowing events we’ve been through in 2021. 
  3. Antiques like an old Blackberry phone, and a lot of coins–yes, I know that’s technically more than one item but I’d put anything that may be discontinued in the future and have increased value. 

What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?

I discovered a creature called a “churile” which is the spirit of a woman who died during childbirth. She’s dressed in all-white with long, flowing hair over her face and carries a baby in her arms, crying for her unborn child. It is very creepy! The lore reminded me of “the Llorona”, the crying woman in Latin American folklore, so I loved the  connection but in the end I thought it was a bit too dark to explore in this particular story. 

What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Josephine Against the Sea?

Josephine has just been introduced to Mariss and realizes that this girlfriend is not easy to get rid of. She goes to a cliff, looks out at the ocean, and wonders if “somewhere in the great, big ocean, there is a fish that gets upset every time the tide changes.”

About Shakirah Bourne

Shakirah Bourne is a Barbadian author and filmmaker. Her first feature film, the comedy-drama, PAYDAY, was screened throughout the Caribbean, USA and UK. She has written three films since its debut in 2013: Two Smart (writer/co-director), Next PAYDAY (writer/producer) and A Caribbean Dream (writer/director). A Caribbean Dream is distributed by Verve Pictures and had a cinema release in London in 2017. The film won several awards, including Best Drama at the National Film Awards UK, Best International Feature at the Charlotte Black Film Festival and best UK Feature at the London Independent Film Festival.

Her short stories have been featured in many literary journals (see below). Her self-published collection of short stories, IN TIME OF NEED (2013), won the prestigious Governor General Award for Excellence in Literary Fiction. She was a finalist for the BURT/CODE Award for Caribbean Literature in 2018. The Caribbean edition of her middle grade novel, MY FISHY STEPMOM, was published by Blue Banyan Books (2019) and the North American edition, JOSEPHINE AGAINST THE SEA, will be published by Scholastic in 2021.

She was a Part-time Lecturer at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, and is a Part-Time Lecturer in Screenwriting at the Barbados Community College. She currently holds Certificates in Screenwriting from the Barbados Community College and the University of Edinburgh, and an MA (Hons) in Arts and Cultural Management from Queen Margaret University.

What do you think about Josephine Against the Sea? Have you added it to your tbr yet? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!

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