The Academy and Charcoal Tears…

Hey Everyone!

 

Since the release of Charcoal Tears I’ve had a bunch of people asking me if I wrote it as some kind of fan-fiction based on the Academy books by C. L. Stone… in the interest of not having to answer this question a hundred more times before next week, I thought I’d do a blog post about it!

 

In short: No.

Sorry!

 

At the time of publication, I actually hadn’t even read any of C. L. Stone’s books–though I have now (thanks to everyone mentioning them). Side note: immense respect to that author, I’m loving what I’ve read so far!

I think when you have two writers going for the same little pocket-genre (in our case, reverse-harem type books based in high schools) then you are inevitably going to stumble across a few similarities, but that’s as much as I can say without spoiling the rest of my books! The only thing that has really shocked me so far, was the fact that we both picked the name “Silas” for one of our characters.

My influences for the Seraph Black series were few and many, but I suppose the biggest influences were the TV series “Pretty Little Liars” (since I binge-watched it before I started writing) and a shoujo anime series “Uta No Prince Sama”. It’s kind of ridiculous, but kind of hilarious and amazing at the same time, and it’s another reverse-harem, high school romance. If you liked the Academy series, and you liked Charcoal Tears, you should also watch Uta No Prince Sama! Even if you hate shoujo! Even if you hate anime! Even if you hate TV!

 

-Jane