about the book
Nastya (“NAH-stee-ya”) Kashnikov is a sullen pale, dark-haired girl caked in makeup, attired in tight black whore wear, lingering on four-and-a-half-inch insanity stilettos. It is all a carefully constructed façade. She has more issues than National Geographic. The stay-away intimidation costume hides fear, deep deep anger, and lots of fragile emotional detritus.
A little more than two years ago Nastya was murdered. She’s not afraid of dying again—it isn’t so bad if you’ve done it once before—she’s just afraid of everything else. What happened left this aspiring concert pianist so traumatized, she remains totally mute. Her left hand is ruined and she will never play the piano again. Nastya is living with her Aunt Margot, not because she doesn’t have anyplace else to go, but because there is no other place she can stand to be.
After two years of home-schooling, she is starting her senior year at Florida’s Mill Creek High School. While registering for classes, she spots Drew, a blond blue-eyed Ken doll clone with a killer smile. Though all Nastya wants is to be left alone, he attaches himself to her. But it is his friend, Josh Bennett, that catches her eye. The whole school knows Josh’s story. Everyone he has ever loved has died. His name is synonymous with death, and all his classmates keep as far away as possible. It’s like he lives in a bubble.
Inexplicably, Nastya is drawn to the one person who is as isolated as herself. Over the next days, weeks, months, the two loners become closer, despite Nastya’s painful and secret past. Just as he begins to wonder if he will ever learn what has damaged her, events force her to confront her past one last time. The question is will their very unusual relationship help one or the other…or both…to heal, a second-chance miracle?
about the author
Katja Millay grew up in Florida and graduated from the Tisch School of Arts at New York University with a degree in film and television production. She went on to work as a television producer and a film studies/screenwriting teacher. The Sea of Tranquility is her debut novel.
The idea for the book began with just one scene: Nastya being attacked. As Katja started writing it down, she didn’t know if she was writing a feature movie, a television scene, or the beginnings of a novel. She just knew she had to learn the story behind the attack.
So she began to write in spurts on anything and everything—index cards, spiral bound notebooks, even on the back of old receipts. Waking in the middle of the night or racing out of the shower dripping wet, she’d grab the nearest pencil stub or broken crayon whenever an idea struck, a snippet of dialogue, a visual image, a character’s back story. The story came to her completely out of order and she was compelled to get it onto to paper before it got lost in her mind.
Shuffling scraps of paper, she rearranged and rewrote until she had a first draft of a book. She edited it until she was afraid if she edited it any more it would be completely gone! She decided to self-publish it and had to teach herself the entire process.
When she finally sent it off to the formatter, she cried. She had written a book where the main character didn’t speak! She was afraid people would hate it and was pretty sure no one would buy it. Happily, she was very wrong! Now she has a publisher and is busy writing more novels.
Katja currently resides in Florida with her husband, the man who once was her senior prom date, and their two perfect children!
Sources:
Author biography: Goodreads
Author interview: School Library Journal
Author interview: The Midnight Garden
Book trailer: The Sea of Tranquility
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