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Shawna Romkey, Speak of the Devil

So, shame on me. I haven’t done an Evolution Thursday in a while. Lucky for me, today is Thursday. And Shawna Romkey hasn’t been a guest yet. AND she has a book coming out next week. It’s like the perfect storm of blogginess! If you haven’t met Shawna Romkey yet, here’s a bit about her.

She grew up in around farms in the heart of Missouri but went to the University of Kansas, was raised in the US but now lives on the ocean in Nova Scotia with her husband, two sons, two rescue dogs and one overgrown puppy from hell. She’s a non-conformist who follows her heart.

She has her BA in creative writing from the University of Kansas where one of her plays was chosen by her creative writing professor to be produced locally, and two of her short stories were published in a university creative arts handbook.  She earned her MA in English from Central Missouri State University where she wrote a novel as her thesis.

She’s taught English at the university and secondary levels for close to twenty years and can’t quite fathom how all of her students have grown up, yet she’s managed to stay the same.  She’s a huge geek and fan of Xena, Buffy and all kick ass women, and loves to write stories that have strong female characters.

You may stalk her at the following locations: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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WSR: What gave you the idea for your novel?

SR: Three of my friends were killed in a car accident in high school. I think trying to come to terms with that and come up with a reason for such a tragedy had a lot to do with it. I was also supposed to be in the car with them when it happened, but had to work, so like Lily in Speak of the Devil, I had survivor’s guilt to deal with on top of the grief and mourning.

WSR: Do you recall the first scene you wrote?

SR: I write from start to finish but the first scene I wrote didn’t make the cut. I wrote the beginning of the book as if Lily got a phone call that her friends were killed. It was too passive and not a strong enough beginning, so I decided to kill her off in the first chapter and that seems to have been a good choice for a more dramatic opening to the book.

WSR: Were there any scenes that you loved but ended up cutting?

SR: No. If I loved it, they stayed. If they were cut, they needed to be.

WSR: I usually have an a-ha moment, where an insignificant detail becomes something really important. Did you have a moment like that? Will it spoil the plot to tell me what it was?

SR: I had several and they would :p. I can tell you that one thing that was used at the end of the book, a mirror, became a huge symbol and plot device for the next book in the series.

WSR: Are you surprised where the story took you? Or if ended up where you planned, were you surprised how you got there?

SR: I was surprised by several things that happened. I had an outline of where it started and where I wanted it to go, but the characters threw me several curve balls as I was writing, taking the story places I hadn’t imagined when I started out.

WSR: What story idea is sitting in the class right now, raising his hand madly, begging you to call on him?

SR: I’m polishing the second book in the series and preparing to send it out.  There’s another one after that. Then I have an idea I got when I was in Greece last summer that deals with the Oracle of Delphi.  But she has to wait until I’m done with angels and demons.

WSR: Thanks for visiting me today, Shawna.

SR: Thanks for having me, Wendy!

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Speak of the Devil
Releases March 15, 2013
Print Copy is available NOW on Amazon

What happens when falling in love and falling from grace collide?

After dying in a car accident with her two best friends, Lily miraculously awakens to grief and guilt. She escapes to her dad’s to come to terms with the event and meets some people at her new school who seem all too eager to help her heal. Sliding deeper into sorrow and trying to fight her feelings for two of them, she finds out who…what they really are and that they are falling too.

Can she find the strength to move on from the past, reconcile her feelings for Luc, find a way to stop a divine war with fallen angels, and still pass the eleventh grade?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a book on my iPad that needs reading. Shawna Romkey’s tour takes off on the 11th. Bookmark her site, for there will soon be details of tour stops and Easter Eggs.

My editor, Melissa Robitille, and CMP sister, Cindy Young-Turner, tagged me in their The Alternative Booker Award posts. The object of this exercise is to share my five personal favorite books, and then tag five more bloggers to get them to share their faves. If you’ve been reading my interviews lately, you can probably guess at a few on my list. These are in no particular order.

“The Diamond Age“ by Neal Stephenson. There is so much to like about Stephenson’s work, but this one is his best (in my humble opinion.) AT 400+ pages, it’s the last of his shorter novels. (The six books that follow average more than 900 pages.) The characters are rich and the world is at once familiar, strange, and fully realized. We are introduced to the main character, Nell, at the age of four. Born into poverty to an alcoholic mother, a father who is executed almost literally for stupidity, Nell eventually finds herself in upper class society through the fierce love and devotion of her older brother, Harv, and the guidance of a very special book.

“Foucault’s Pendulum“ by Umberto Eco. This book taught me more about reading than all my years of school combined. The author, a university professor in Spain, is incredibly smart. His novels are jamb packed with details ranging from delightful to mundane. On my first read, I attempted to understand every word and nuance of the book. More than two years later, I was about two-thirds of the way through the book when it hit me. The author doesn’t expect me to understand everything going on in this book. Most of the book is intended to explain how Belbo and his occult book editor friends got into the grave situation in which they’ve found themselves. My job, as a reader, is to simply listen. My second and third reads took about 10 days each while I was attending college full time, and I got more out of each one. So when I say “Foucault’s Pendulum” taught me how to read, I mean that it taught me how look through details to find the story underneath.

“Taste“ by Kate Evangelista, is a beautiful story. Phoenix is a lovely, yet flawed main character. Demetri and Luka play wonderful opposites, as well as the most beautiful zombies ever written. Technically, they’re flesh eaters on a strict vegan diet, but their people are the race that the zombie myths were based on, according to this novel. There’s love, action, a delicious cat fight complete with insults, taunts, and yanking of hair. There’s jealously, torture, and mystery. *Sigh* I have a signed copy.

“The Dragon’s Blood Chronicles“ by Sean Poindexter. Dragons and vampires and social workers, oh my! The fight scenes are brutal. The sex is hot yet realistic. And the characters have a need for a bathroom on occasion. Seriously, this author is crazy talented. I want book three right now.

“Mordant’s Need“ by Stephen R. Donaldson. Terisa is an all-but invisible girl, wealthy wallflower who surrounds herself with mirrors to assure herself that she’s real. One day, while staring, a young man appears in her mirror and invites her to the other side. There, she struggle in a world where the only mirrors are portals and looking into one will rob a person of their mind. There are debates on whether Gerarden pulled her through the mirror, or created her with it. As various powerful people jockey for position in a world on the brink of war, Terisa has to find the strength to become one of them, or else become a tool in someone else’s hands. I read the second book of the pair in one 15-hour sitting.

Now, I would love to see what five favorites are on these ladies’ shelves:

• Monica Enderle Pierce
• Sarah Wesson
• Kelly Seguin
• Christine Ashworth
• Joanne Brothwell

Tags

Mystery, Rebecca Trogner, Shifters, The Last Keeper's Daughter, Vampires

The Last Keeper’s Daughter (Book 1 of a series), by Rebecca Trogner

To the outside world Lily Ayres is the privileged daughter of an old moneyed family. She is young, beautiful, and a talented horsewoman. All of which are enviably qualities, but few know that beneath this thin veneer of societal perfection lies a deeply troubled young woman. For Lily rarely speaks and is incapable of normal, human interaction.

Unable to understand why she is this way, she further retreats inside herself, until memories and suppressed emotions begin to bubble to the surface. Murder, revelations of her family’s hidden purpose and dark secrets are revealed as she is thrust into the supernatural world of Krieger Barnes, Vampire King of North America.

Walter Ayers, the last son of one of Virginia’s old money families, owns a massive home on a sprawling estate, complete with it’s own cemetery and a whole wing that is forbidden to enter. Its summer, but a fire burns in the secret library’s hearth for the pleasure of a guest. Walter is a member of a secret order, the ‘keeper’ assigned to the King of North America, and Krieger Barnes has come to hear an odd request. The aging man is dying and fears his clandestine life will bring harm to his daughter, so he asks the king to take his daughter. In 2000 years, Krieger has never brought a human into his court. He is reluctant to do so now, but it is strange of a human father to offer his daughter to a vampire, and he’s intrigued.

Rebecca Trogner has an unusual voice that blends simple prose with stream of consciousness. This works particularly well with her lead female, Lily Ayers, a timid woman with the character traits of autism. She is highly intelligent, but timid, selectively mute, and highly sensitive to sound. Also, she can remember every face she’s ever seen and where she’s seen them, a talent she considers a curse and thus avoids meeting new people. We learn a lot about Lily in her first scene as she arrives a friend’s store at a scheduled time to be closed, uses the back door because the front has bells, and counts her steps to avoid a creaky board in the floor. Lily’s friends, accustomed to interacting with her over years, help her communicate to the reader who she is under the skin by responding to her body language.

In the first chapter, Krieger Barnes comes across as cold, calculating man. Born during the reign of Augustus Caesar, he’s born witness to the depths of what people are capable, human and otherwise. Like Joss Whedon’s Angel, these experiences have shaped Krieger into a man who is both a cold killer and yet just to fault. Unlike Angel, he has always had a soul. He is cautious regarding his personal relationships but not uncaring, and the author provides many ways for the reader to relate, even empathize, with the vampire king.

The Last Keeper’s Daughter is a mystery, as the first chapter clearly suggests, one that spans several generations of the Ayers Family and culminating within Lily herself. She is special, something between human and “Other,” and also more than both. The danger lays in the fact that Krieger and his inner circle, (a witch, a wolf shifter, and a slayer), are not the only people who know. Still, as much as Krieger is bound by blood and primal instinct to protect Lily, he cannot keep her caged to ensure it. The clues are specific to her, one, and two, she bristles at being treated as a child. So, solving the puzzle that is Lily and winning her love can only be accomplished if Krieger gives up his need to control every circumstance. It would try the patience of most men, let alone an ancient vampire king.

Given the stream of consciousness aspect, I feel that prose could have been stronger if the author had used deep third POV. Also, and it was possibly just overlooked in editing, but second person POV pulled me out of the narration on two occasions. But, the minor issues of voice aside, I very much enjoyed The Last Keeper’s Daughter. The story is intriguing. The characters are captivating, each with allure and mystery. The plot gives us a crack into a much larger story and all the implements necessary to rip the world wide open. I’m looking forward to the next book.

★★★★
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Darkness Falls, Krystal Wade, Paranormal Romance, Wilde's Meadow

Wilde’s Meadow (Darkness Falls #3), by Krystal Wade

Happy endings are hard to find, and even though Katriona is in the middle of a war with someone who’s already stolen more than she can replace, she aches for a positive future with her Draíochtans.

Armed with hope, confidence in her abilities, and a strange new gift from her mother, Kate ventures into the Darkness to defeat a fallen god.

Losses add up, and new obstacles rise to stand in the way. Is the one determined to bring Encardia light strong enough to keep fighting, or will all the sacrifices to stop those who seek domination be for nothing?

The Darkness Falls series takes a darker turn in book three. That might seem a difficult thing to pull off in a book where there is no sunlight, but Ms. Wade pulls it off with a lovely opening sequence. But first, let’s go back to Wilde’s Army for a minute.

The engagement between Kate and Perth Dufaigh became a moot point after she married Arland on the sly, which did not go over well with Perth’s father. BUT, there are higher powers in Encardia than scheming High Leaders and they don’t much care what Dufaigh thinks. Now, back to scene in progress.

Kate, Arland, and their ragtag army will head back out into darkness soon and they’re taking advantage of their time as newlyweds properly should. Then, there’s dancing. It’s a tradition in Encardia to celebrate life before sending brave souls to their deaths. Told you it was lovely, which is nice for the reader, because that’s when things turn dark.

So far, in the first two books of this series, the reader has been overwhelmed by darkness and glimpsed the dangers that lurk just beyond sight. In Wilde’s Meadow, Ms. Wade leads the way into a wasteland of putrescence, misery, and despair. Here, the beasts that Kate has learned to fight are not all that stands between her and the light of day. The blanket of darkness that shrouds this world is mirrored by the sins of its past and present. Like a hasty tower of blocks assembled by a toddler, one wrong move could bring this world down on itself.

Wilde’s Meadow plays with the stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Kate’s army, each soul among them knowing he could die at any moment, works its way through them. With the focus of the story on Kate, her power, and her destiny, I found that Brit Wilde represented concerns that the reader might otherwise forget while worrying about whether Arland would live or die. Each person in this world has a prophecy. Each has a part to play in whether Kate ultimately wins or loses, and Brit shoulders a burden heavier than most everyone else.

I must say that as a whole, I enjoyed the Darkness Falls series. Krystal Wade’s use of magic is very simple, and it is very consistent through all three books. Her prose is unpretentious. Her characters are honest, even the devious ones, and allowed to grow naturally within the confines of their storylines. At it’s core, it is a story about love and courage in the face of impossible odds, and I would recommend it to an older teen audience.

★★★★

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