Researching Kindred by Tammar Stein

On the blog today, I have Tammar Stein, author of Kindred, which I reviewed yesterday. She's going to share a little about how she came to write Kindred.

A little about her first from her website:

Tammar Stein is the award-winning author of the young adult novels Light Years and High Dive. Her third novel, Kindred, will be published February 8, 2011.

Tammar has lived in Israel, Italy, Germany and all over the United States. She currently lives in Florida with her family and bilingual dog. When she’s not working, chances are she’s reading, or day dreaming, or slapping at mosquitoes, or washing the dishes that seem to breed and multiply while her back is turned. Okay, not really. Really, if she’s not working, she’s reading.

Researching Kindred...


Until I wrote KINDRED, I had a very basic grasp of the bible. I knew the major stories (Noah, Job, slaves in Egypt etc). I didn’t really know about angels in the bible. I ended up reading a lot of bible commentary and interviewing a professor in religious studies and a rabbi. As you can imagine, they had very different takes on what angels mean and between the two of them I was able to come to what I felt comfortable with in my novel. It’s funny to say that I wanted a “realistic” angel book, but that’s really what I was going for. If angels are real, then what would it be like if one appeared?

“Are angels scary?” I asked the professor.

“The first thing they say when they appear to someone is: ‘do not be afraid,’” he answered. “They would only say that if there was reason to be scared.”

I took that idea and ran with it.



I love the way the book turned out! Definitely scared me when angels were about. :) Thank you for stopping by today Tammar!