Blog Tour: The Kinder Poison by Natalie Mae (Interview + Giveaway!)

Happy Wednesday and welcome to my stop on the The Kinder Poison blog tour!! I am so excited to be a part of this tour, and I’m even more excited for you to discover what Natalie would do if she spent the day with Zahru! Read on to find out more about the book and author, plus follow the rest of the tour and enter to win a print copy of The Kinder Poison!

Zahru has long dreamed of leaving the kingdom of Orkena and having the kinds of adventures she’s only ever heard about in stories. But as a lowly Whisperer, her power to commune with animals means that her place is serving in the royal stables until the day her magic runs dry.
All that changes when the ailing ruler invokes the Crossing: a death-defying race across the desert, in which the first of his heirs to finish—and take the life of a human sacrifice at the journey’s end—will ascend to the throne and be granted unparalleled abilities.
With all of the kingdom abuzz, Zahru leaps at the chance to change her fate if just for a night by sneaking into the palace for a taste of the revelry. But the minor indiscretion turns into a deadly mistake when she gets caught up in a feud between the heirs and is forced to become the Crossing’s human sacrifice. Zahru is left with only one hope for survival: somehow figuring out how to overcome the most dangerous people in the world.

If you could trade lives with any YA character for a day, who would it be and why? What about a week? A month, year, or forever?

What a fun question! I think if I could just do a day, I’d switch with Nannerl from The Kingdom of Back. I’d love to go back in time and immerse myself in that wondrous world of music, and just see how different (or similar?) life was in 18th century Europe. If I could do a week, I’d go with Elisabeth from Sorcery of Thorns; a month, and I’m trading with Scarlet from Caraval so I can play in the Caraval games; a year, I’m switching with Shahrzad so I can lounge in the luxury of The Wrath and The Dawn, and for forever – I’m switching with the Darkling from the Grisha trilogy, though I’d probably take a slightly different approach to the whole evil overlord thing. 

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

Zahru and I would have a fantastic day! We like the same food (so weird, right?), and we both have a sense of adventure, so I imagine we would do at least one escape room, stop by a fancy French restaurant for lunch, hunt down homemade chocolates for dessert, and spend the rest of the day talking to animals, because she has the power to commune with pets and I have a lot I need to say to my cats. (Also, to be clear, France does not exist in the world of The Kinder Poison, but French restaurants have cheese plates, and everyone likes cheese plates.)

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

I think Zahru would love hanging out with Despina from The Wrath and the Dawn, because Despina has just the sort of sassy, mischievous personality Zahru would really click with. But I can also see her chilling with Puck from The Scorpio Races, because they could ride together and Zahru could talk to the water horses, and I know Zahru would also love Elisabeth from Sorcery of Thorns. They could talk about ridiculous boys and read all the books, all day long. 

What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from The Kinder Poison?

I can’t share my favorite scene, because that would be extremely spoilery, but I’ll share one of my favorite quotes: “And I wonder if this is why the travelers’ tales are so spectacular. If, behind every story about a felled tiger or a supposed dragon, there is a real person, someone the storyteller wishes to forget in the only way she knows, which is to retell the story again and again until even she believes it was a dragon, and not a boy, who left her with so many scars.”

Can you share some things that we might not know about your characters?

A few fun facts: Zahru is based on a real friend in my life, Kasta is a little more of me than I’d like to admit, the love interest was actually not the original love interest (>.>), and Sakira was originally a priestess before I gave that role to her bff!

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