#MMBBR Showcase: Absolute Truth, For Beginners by Katarina West @WestKatarina

Elisa Mancini is a Nobody. Painfully insecure, more at ease with books than with people, at twenty-three she’s a university dropout living at her aunt’s, drifting from one day to another, and waiting for something big to happen. 
Judith Shapiro is a Somebody. Arrogant and eccentric, she’s a superstar of mathematics, the subject of scientific articles, and the undisputed ruler of the world around her. 
In a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, Elisa falls madly in love with Judith Shapiro. For sixty-eight days she is the mistress of an internationally acclaimed mathematician. 
But loving Judith Shapiro is like running a marathon in a war zone. As days pass, Elisa’s wild infatuation takes on a suicidal bent, and the world around her starts to go to pieces. Just as everything is about to blow up, the moment of truth comes. 
Absolute Truth, For Beginners is a story about truth, time and love. Or about identity, positive nursing, degrees of happiness, Baroque art, scientific theories, homosexual lovemaking, arrogant television producers, and becoming who you really are.

Katarina West was born in Helsinki, Finland, into a bilingual family that in addition to humans consisted of dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs, canaries, rabbits and - thanks to her biology teacher mother - stuffed owls and squirrels.

She spent time travelling in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and went on to study at Queen Mary and Westfield College in London and the European University Institute in Florence, where she completed a PhD in political science and published a book based on it, Agents of Altruism. During those student years she started work as a journalist, and continued writing for various Finnish magazines and newspapers for over ten years, writing on various topics from current events and humanitarian issues to celebrity interviews and short stories. She also briefly worked as a university lecturer on humanitarian issues in Northern Italy.

Katarina lives in an old farmhouse in Chianti with her husband and son and when not writing, she is fully immersed in Tuscan country life, from jam-making and olive-picking to tractor maintenance.

Witchcraft Couture is her first novel and, unlike the unearthly clothes in its pages, her outfits are not shining.

You can visit her website at http://www.katarinawest.com, read her blog at http://www.katarinawest.com/things_I_know_about_life and follow her on Goodreads, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter @WestKatarina

What inspires your writing?

Anything and everything. Books, concerts, music, exhibitions, ideas.

What is your favorite thing about being a writer?

Writing! There is nothing quite like it.

What is the toughest part of being a writer?

Like so many other writers, I am one of those people who would love to spend days in the company of fictional people, and forget about the rest. But nowadays that just isn’t possible, not any more.

If you could not be writer, what would you do/be?

I was trained to become an aid worker – I even have a PhD in humanitarian studies.

What would the story of your life be entitled?

Gone with the Wind?

What is your favorite book of all time?

A tricky question. You need a lifetime to answer it.

Which character from ANY book are you most like?

To my great misfortune, I have rarely, if ever, identified myself with fictional characters. They say that fictional characters are like us, only more – more dramatic, more passionate, more emotional. So maybe I’m not just, you know… enough.

What character from all of your book are you most like?

There’s something of me in many of my characters, like Oscar from Witchcraft Couture, or Elisa from Absolute Truth, For Beginners.

Which book would you love to take a weekend vacation inside of?

As we’re living in the digital age, I just take my Kindle, and that’s it. It’s a wonderful feeling of liberty and lightness, to carry an entire bookshelf with you, wherever you go.

What is your favorite season?

Autumn. Summer. Spring… Oh well, I really love them all!

What inspired your book covers? 

I have the great privilege to work with Andrew Brown at Design for Writers. He has designed my book covers. We exchange ideas about my books, and in the end he has free hands to do whatever he wants. The results have been wonderful – he is just so creative.

Tell me something funny that happened while promoting your book.

OK, so there is one peculiar thing... Because ever since I started to prepare my December book launch in late-September, I noticed that my chocolate intake has risen to record levels. I began to keep ‘Book Launch Chocolate Diary’, only to realise that there is a real correlation between Toblerone and a successful book campaign. So my message to all authors is: yes, you need reviewers, and you need interviews, and you need giveaways. But to make it all happen, you need a lot of chocolate!

Are you working on something new?

Yes, it’s a story about angels and destiny and having it all – in your second life. It is called The Thousand Tiny Miracles of Living Twice, and it’s coming out in December 2016.

Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?

Thanks for reading this interview! I wish you lots of joy, and lots of love, and lots of well-written stories. Because in the end that’s all that matters, right?