Remember The Second Chance Institute (SCI). Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. They’ve stepped up their game on Earth and on Thera—infiltrating political parties, preying on the downtrodden, and planning offensive maneuvers. The SCI’s abuse of their charter leads to Arbiter oversight and bitter consequences.
Remember Kira Donovan. Broken, burdened, and evading those who wish her harm, Kira enlists the Arbiters’ help when forced to return to the clutches of the SCI and her angry, estranged love.
Remember Blake Sundry. Exiled, determined, and packing an agenda, Blake seeks assistance on Earth and Thera to use his newfound knowledge to bring down the SCI.
Remember Ethan Darcton. Overworked, emotional, and holding a grudge, Ethan hunts down his stolen property, but finds himself in awkward territory, stuck between the Arbiters and the SCI.
Full of action, competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, arbitrate is Megan Thomason’s third installment in the award-winningdaynight series after daynight and clean slate complex (a daynight story).
READ OUR REVIEW FOR THE Book #1 DAYNIGHT HERE
MB's INTERVIEW
Having in view the course of events, the characters must evolve. They have real and palpable problems. How hard is to change them but keep the interest of young adults for the book?
I think that the only way to keep the interest of readers is to have the characters evolve. It was important to me that arbitrate have a very different feel and story than daynight. No one wants to read a rehashed plot. From day one, I knew that Kira would “break” post-daynight and that it would have a huge impact on everyone she cared about—that her choices would have long-impacting consequences. In arbitrate, Kira evolves from a relatively naive and idealistic teenager to a full-fledged adult. And Kira isn’t the only one who changes. All the characters change and evolve. It is one of my favorite things about arbitrate.
Secondary characters are critical to every story and particularly so in arbitrate. It is my belief that every character should have a fully fleshed out backstory, persona, and grow and evolve like main characters. I try to develop my secondary characters to the point that they could easily be a main character in their own right. Even if I don’t write their entire story, I know what they are doing in the “background” at all times. In arbitrate, the secondary characters that have a big impact on the book include Jax, Joshua, Alexa, Bailey, Madison, “B,” and “Darryl Bradford”.
What is significance of the title?
Arbiters are those chosen to judge, mediate, and decide matters at will—to arbitrate. The title fit since the Arbiters are, in arbitrate, bringing down judgment and consequences upon the SCI for the SCI’s acts on both Thera and Earth.
A new boy is “in town”! It is there a square love or just an illusion of it? Why did you introduced him? (a bit hard to answer without spoiler, but I’m quite curious)
There are no “new” boys per se :). Jax was introduced in daynight and Joshua was introduced in clean slate complex. Both play critical roles inarbitrate—I didn’t introduce them haphazardly. I like to think of Kira’s romantic dilemma as less of a love triangle or love square and more of alove evolution. The fact is, it takes young people a while to know what they want in a life mate. People grow, change, and have defining experiences that impact them.
I loved the first book and I cannot wait to read this second volume. Do you have entire series planed? How many volumes to expect, how… you know.. give us how many details you can about the series’ future.
Right now, it is a planned trilogy. I am starting to work on #3, generate, which I plan to release in 2014. I also have two arbitrate spin-off novellas planned—one about Madison and one about Kira and the guy she chooses in arbitrate. There is more to come for the main characters and new characters will be introduced. And, of course, plan for lots of twists and turns :).
Excerpt:
I nearly killed him. I can still feel the weight of the revolver in my hands, the cool feel of the metal against my skin, my finger pulsing against the trigger.
I still want to kill him.
Gads I hate him.
I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror above my dresser and barely recognize what I see. Dark circles under the eyes, unshaven face, expression that screams failure. I hate that guy, too.
I grab the lamp off my nightstand and hurl it into the mirror.
Shards of glass clank everywhere.
It’s oddly therapeutic.
A tall marble glass cat comes to mind. My mother got it for me as a housewarming gift. I stalk out to the living room and seize it. It’s heavy and awkward and the perfect accessory to mayhem.
The bathroom’s my next destination. I flip on the light switch and take a deep breath. Is it so wrong to want something to be more broken than me?
As I slam the cat into the mirror, the falling pieces clang out a musical masterpiece. A single chunk of glass remains hanging, showcasing the smirk on my face. I pry the heavy cat from the broken shards and send it flying through the glass shower door.
The statue lies at the bottom of a mound of glass. I roughly yank it out, cutting my hand in the process. My blood drips, cascading down the mountain of debris like a river of death, pooling at the bottom in a sea of woe born of my grief.
Ignoring the blood and pain I loosely wrap my hand with a towel and then purposefully march into the kitchen. There’s more hatred to unleash, despair to release, anguish to expel.
I target the glass paneled cabinet doors. They’re always collecting dust.
The marble cat helps me beat the crap out of them.
Onward to the living room. I swing and bash and crack until the TV’s beyond fixing.
Crash. Glass coffee table explodes.
Clunk. Sofa table’s in pieces.
I’m looking for my next victim when the front door opens.
My visitor looks at me like I’m a crazy man. I’d plead insanity, but that’d be as big a lie as he told me.
Bestselling, award-winning author Megan Thomason lives in paradise aka San Diego, CA with her husband and five children. A former software manager, Megan vastly prefers writing twisted tales to business, product, and marketing plans. When she isn't typing away on her laptop, she's reading books on her phone--over 600 in the last year--or attending to the needs of her family. Megan's fluent in sarcasm, could potentially benefit from a 12-step program for road rage, struggles with a Hot Tamales addiction, loves world travel & fast cars and hates paperwork & being an insomniac.
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