I would picture Vane-at the time, I didn’t know his name-but I would picture him walking on the wind and I just kept thinking about him. From that point on, I could not stop thinking about it and every time I thought about that word, I would picture this teenage boy walking on the wind. I woke up with the word “windwalker” in my mind. SM: This is when you’re going to realize just how boring my dreams are. I read in the acknowledgements of the first book that there was just one idea for this series that kept you up at night and you couldn’t sleep so you just started writing.

While I enjoy that story, I kind of wanted to do something different, so I flipped it and this time we have a guy who is just completely clueless and the girl who is constantly kicking his butt and saving him throughout the series, which is very fun to write. In this kind of book, a lot of the time it’s this hopeless female character who doesn’t have any powers or abilities and then meets this supernatural character who then saves her over and over again. And I like to also point out that one of the funnest things about the series for me is that it’s a dude in distress. It’s not necessarily just a romance, but if you don’t like love stories, then it’s probably not the right book for you either. And then, of course, there’s a love story it’s sort of a little bit of both. It’s basically about air elementals who are caught up in this big wind war that’s been going on for a while and that one of the main characters is very crucial to, even though he has no knowledge or training of his world. SM: Yeah! When you have to do that elevator pitch, I call it Last Airbender meets Twister with kissing. Could you give us a quick rundown of the basic need-to-know facts of the series as a whole? HW: We’re here to talk about your newly completed Sky Fall series that finished with the release of Let the Wind Rise.

HW: Hadley Willman (from the Teen Advisory Board) (Any of her responses that contain specific spoilers will be preceded by a warning.) The two series under her name are the ongoing middle grade Keeper of the Lost Cities series and the newly completed YA series she’s here today to talk about, Sky Fall. In August, one of our teen reviewers got the chance to snag a Skype interview with Shannon Messenger, one of the authors who will be featured at our annual Pasadena Loves YA book festival on September 17.

Shannon messenger skyfall