Step Into Fiction: Blog Tour: The Darkest Path by Jeff Hirsch: Ten's List + Giveaway

The Darkest Path by Jeff Hirsch
Release Date: September 24, 2013
Publisher: Scholastic Press; 336 pages

A civil war rages between the Glorious Path--a militant religion based on the teachings of a former US soldier--and what's left of the US government. Fifteen-year-old Callum Roe and his younger brother, James, were captured and forced to convert six years ago. Cal has been working in the Path's dog kennels, and is very close to becoming one of the Path's deadliest secret agents. Then Cal befriends a stray dog named Bear and kills a commander who wants to train him to be a vicious attack dog. This sends Cal and Bear on the run, and sets in motion a series of incredible events that will test Cal's loyalties and end in a fierce battle that the fate of the entire country rests on.

I live in upstate New York with my wife and a small passel of animals. I used to write plays (I actually have an MFA in it, which is number 8 on US News and World Report's list of the top twenty most useless masters degrees) and now I write books for teens. I've written three, The Eleventh Plague, Magisterium and The Darkest Path.

A few random facts about me:

• I’m incredibly superstitious.
• I believe in baking as the ultimate stress reliever. I mean, sure, I write pretty good books but have you tasted my Triple Chocolate Espresso Cookies?
• I’m deeply obsessed with the work of Joss Whedon, Stephen King, Bryan K. Vaughn, Prince and Tom Waits.
• I started writing because of two women—Susan Cooper, author of the Dark Is Rising Series and Denise Stewart, my 7th grade English teacher.

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Top Ten List

Your favorite guy characters from your books, including random facts about them.

Hmmm. I have a limited number of novels, all of which have fairly small casts. How about top 5 and just for fun let’s mostly stick with secondary characters?

1. James Roe (The Darkest Path) – He’s the younger brother of the main character, Caleb. James and his brother were kidnapped at a young age and forced to work for The Glorious Path, an army of fanatics trying to take over the United States. He loves his brother intensely but their time with the Path has had a very different effect on him than it had on his brother.

2. Aamon Marta (Magisterium) – A guy? Well, kind of. He’s intensely loyal to the main character Glenn but has a complicated and dark past. Loving and dangerous in equal proportions.

3. Derrick (The Eleventh Plague) – I just really loved the idea of a super hyperkinetic kid who in our world would be highly-medicated, but after the apocalypse is free to be just as odd as he wants to be.

4. Greer Larson (Untitled novel that I can’t wait to tell you all about) – Not too much I can say about him yet. What I can say is that he’s a kid who’s led a very troubled and violent life until one day the town he lives in changes irrevocably. One of the big questions of the book is whether or not Greer changed along with it.

5. Dan Cahill (39 Clues: Breakaway) - Ok, so he’s not a secondary character but I like him a lot. Dan and his sister Amy are the stars of the long running 39 Clues series and I was so happy to be able to write one of their upcoming adventures. It’s impossible not to love someone like Dan who’s smart, fun loving and intensely loyal to his sister.