KRONICLES OF KORTHLUNDIA SERIES | by Jamie Marchant #Excerpt #Interview #YA #ComingOfAge #Giveaway #GoddessFish

Welcome to my stop on the excerpt tour for Kronicles of Korthlandia by Jamie Marchant.  This tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.  Here on my stop, I have an exclusive excerpt for y'all as well as the tour-wide giveaway, which is for a chance to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card.  Pretty cool, right?  Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more exclusive excerpts and opportunities to enter the giveaway.  Have fun and enjoy!

(Kronicles of Korthlundia)

by 

Jamie Marchant 

Publication:  DECEMBER 1, 2019

Length:  335 pages

Genre(s):  Coming of Age, Young Adult

Queen Samantha’s spirit brightens as the festival of renewal approaches. The Ancient Evil that drained life from the land has been destroyed, and life is returning to the joined kingdoms. The birth of her heir gives her even more reason to celebrate. But a coup orchestrated by the unlikely alliance between a freedom-loving count and a fanatical church shatters both her plans and the ancient throne itself.

With her infant daughter missing and death and destruction spreading, Samantha finds herself faced with an impossible choice: save her daughter or her people. Already torn between a mother’s love and her duties as a queen, Samantha learns that an even greater danger threatens: the goddess herself is fading. What sacrifices will Samantha have to make to stop an evil god from taking Sulis’s place?

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW :

1.      Tell us about your series in 280 characters or less (like a tweet on Twitter).

You are cruel. I can’t tell in a story in under 100.000 words. Here’s my best shot.

They see themselves as the mad princess and the demon peasant. But the Goddess has chosen them to rule. As the court and the church unite against them, they discover the Goddess has a task for them far more daunting than saving a crown. Only they can prevent the coming cataclysm.

2.       What was the most difficult thing about this story?

Getting Samantha’s character right. Robrek, the male main character, is essentially the same as I first envisioned him, but Samantha gave me endless trouble. In “The Princess and the Glass Hill,” the fairy tale that inspired the first book in The Kronicles of Korthlundia, the princess is unnamed. She has no personality and isn’t even described physically. She is nothing more than a prize to be handed off to the victorious male. One of the most important things to me in writing The Goddess’s Choice was to change that. I wanted my princess to be as strong, powerful, and interesting as the male character. I wanted her to be his heroic equal. But in attempting to accomplish this, the Samantha of my early drafts became a feminist caricature. She was generic “strong woman,” flat and uninteresting. All real people are flawed, even the best of us. I needed to find a way to keep her strong at the core, but flesh her out as a flawed, and therefore, real person. I don’t know how many revisions I had to go through before I was happy with her. In the final version, Samantha is a character that my previous readers have loved. She is no damsel in distress, but she struggles to become the woman she needs to be. Curiously, Samantha has continued to give me trouble in the later volumes in the series. I’m pleased with what she has become, but it was no easy task getting her there.

3. What surprised you about your series?

I think the most surprising thing about writing to me is that the things that I don’t plan, the things that just come to me as I’m writing end up being the most powerful parts of my novels. In particular in The Shattered Throne, Samantha learns a surprise about the goddess (no spoilers as to what the surprise is). Truth be told, I was surprised to learn it as well. I hadn’t thought to include this idea in the book, but the goddess spoke to me, and let me know how to write her story. It is that exact thing that makes the novel what it is.

4. Did the characters “talk” to you? If so, how?

Yes, I believe when you create truly deep characters, they come to life in a way, at least mine do. I’ll have an idea in my mind for a scene and try to write it the way I’ve envisioned it, but one of my characters will object, saying in effect, “I’d never do that. This is what I’d do instead.” They take over and speak through my fingers. When I allow them to do so, the results are almost always magical. When I try to reign them in and reassert control, the life drains out of the book. I’ve learned that my characters know their own story better than I do.

5. Think Fast: Dark or Light Chocolate?

Light. Absolutely light.

6. What’s next for you?

I’m presently working on the fourth novel in The Kronicles of Korthlundia, which I believe will complete the series. It doesn’t have a title yet, but I call it the dragon book. I wonder what kind of creature it may introduce into my world. I also have ideas for at least two other side novels involving characters from the series. Eventually, I also want to get back to the other series I started with The Bull Riding Witch and finish that story. 

EXCERPT:

As The Ghost entered Ares’s temple, an oppressive presence settled over him. He seemed to be alone in the huge sanctuary, but he knew the acolytes of Ares watched through hidden panels. Rumors claimed they waited for someone with signs of weakness to enter. Then they would pour forth, seize the unfortunate, and sacrifice him to their god. The Ghost had found no evidence to support such rumors, but he knew that animals and criminals were regularly sacrificed on Ares’s altar, bleeding out their lives into the bowl at the foot of his statue. It was a hard death, both the blood and the pain feeding the magic of Ares’s priests. The Ghost knelt at Ares’s feet, where the stench of blood was nearly overpowering. The altar was stained with it, and the bowl at the god’s feet was full from a fresh sacrifice. The power present in this place was undeniable—dark and forbidding, far from the peace and serenity in Sulis’s temples. But he was no longer worthy of Sulis’s blessing. The Ghost drew his dagger, held his left forearm over the sacrificial bowl, and sliced a new cut alongside his numerous scars. As he bled into the bowl, he felt the magic of the place coalesce around him. His blood sizzled as it hit the bowl, and the wound on his arm healed instantly, signaling that The Ghost truly belonged to the Saloynan god.

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 AUTHOR Bio and Links: Jamie began writing stories about the man from Mars when she was six, and she never remembers wanting to be anything other than a writer. Everyone told her she needed a back up plan, so she pursued a Ph.D. in American literature, which she received in 1998. She started teaching writing and literature at Auburn University. One day in the midst of writing a piece of literary criticism, she realized she’d put her true passion on the backburner and neglected her muse. The literary article went into the trash, and she began the book that was to become The Goddess’s Choice, which was published in April 2012. Her other novels include The Soul Stone, The Ghost in Exile, The Shattered Throne, and The Bull Riding Witch. In addition, she has published a novella, Demons in the Big Easy, and a collection of short stories, Blood Cursed and Other Tales of the Fantastic. Her short fiction has also appeared in the anthologies Urban Fantasy, Of Dragons & Magic: Tales of the Lost Worlds, and Waiting for a Kiss. She claims she writes about the fantastic . . . and the tortured soul. Her poor characters have hard lives. She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband and five cats, which (or so she’s been told) officially makes her a cat lady. She still teaches writing and literature at Auburn University. She is the mother of a grown son. 

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082S5J8RR
Email: jamie-marchant@jamie-marchant.com
Website/Blog: http://jamie-marchant.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jamie-Marchant-Author/164706710298768
Twitter: @JamieMarchantSF
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5258855.Jamie_Marchant

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 GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE Jamie Marchant will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. RAFFLECOPTER: a Rafflecopter giveaway If you cannot embed the code, please use this HTML link: Enter to win a $25 Amazon/BN GC - a Rafflecopter giveaway