TeamNerd Reviews: Blog Tour: Promo + Guest Post + Giveaway: I Heart Robot by Suzanne Van Rooyen

I Heart Robot

Author: Suzanne Van Rooyen

Add on Goodreads!

Purchase on Barnes & Noble and Amazon!

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Tyri wants to be a musician and wants to be with someone who won’t belittle her musical aspirations.

Q-I-99 aka ‘Quinn’ lives in a scrap metal sanctuary with other rogue droids. While some use violence to make their voices heard, demanding equal rights for AI enhanced robots, Quinn just wants a moment on stage with his violin to show the humans that androids like him have more to offer than their processing power.

Tyri and Quinn’s worlds collide when they’re accepted by the Baldur Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. As the rift between robots and humans deepens, Tyri and Quinn’s love of music brings them closer together, making Tyri question where her loyalties lie and Quinn question his place in the world. With the city on the brink of civil war, Tyri and Quinn make a shocking discovery that turns their world inside out. Will their passion for music be enough to hold them together while everything else crumbles down around them, or will the truth of who they are tear them apart?

GUEST POST

How did music inspire the concept for I HEART ROBOT?

The idea for I Heart Robot came to me in the form of a single sentence: “What if a girl fell in love with a boy, but didn't know he was a robot?” From there I expanded on the idea and needed something to connect these two characters coming from such different worlds. As a musician myself, I've always wanted to write a book about teens who are as passionate and focused on music as I was growing up. So, the common ground between Tyri and Quinn quickly became music.

As a pianist and flutist, string instruments baffle me and yet, I've always harboured a desire to play one. After a brief attempt at cello, I all but gave up on that dream so when it came to giving Tyri and Quinn an instrument that would see them pitted against each other as rivals in an orchestra, I chose the violin, an instrument I still hope one day to learn to play. This allowed me to live a little vicariously through my characters and revisit so many of my favourite classical pieces.

Music is often described as a universal language, transcending time and place. Music is ubiquitous, and human beings, regardless of culture or politics, gender, religion or anything else that tends to separate us, can be united through music. This power of music was fundamental in my story because it needed to unite not only humans, but robots in a socio-political climate that wanted anything but unification between humans and androids.

Music definitely inspired the concept for I Heart Robot and remains at the core of the story that is part dystopian love story, part exploration of what it means to be human.

About the Author

Suzanne is a tattooed storyteller from South Africa. She currently lives in Sweden and is busy making friends with the ghosts of her Viking ancestors. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When she grows up, she wants to be an elf – until then, she spends her time (when not writing) wall climbing, buying far too many books, and entertaining her shiba inu, Lego.

Find Suzanne Van Rooyen: Website/Goodreads/Twitter/Facebook