City of Hope and Ruin
by Kit Campbell and Siri Paulson
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GENRE: Fantasy (with LGBTQ romance)
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BLURB:
Every night the monsters hunt.
A city that is the whole world: Theosophy and her companions in the City militia do their best to protect the civilians from the monsters, but they keep crawling from the Rift and there’s nowhere to run. Theosophy knows she’ll die fighting. It’s the best kind of death she’s seen, and at least she can save lives in the meantime.
They say the Scarred carve you up while you’re still alive.
A village in the shadow of a forest: Refugees from the border whisper about the oncoming Scarred, but Briony can’t convince her brother to relocate his children to safety. Briony will do anything to protect them. She owes them that much, even if it means turning to forbidden magic.
When Theosophy and Briony accidentally make contact across the boundaries of their worlds, they realize that solutions might finally be within reach. A world beyond the City would give Theosophy’s people an escape, and the City’s warriors could help Briony protect her family from the Scarred. Each woman sees in the other a strength she lacks—and maybe something more.
All they need to do is find a way across the dimensions to each other before their enemies close in.
A city that is the whole world: Theosophy and her companions in the City militia do their best to protect the civilians from the monsters, but they keep crawling from the Rift and there’s nowhere to run. Theosophy knows she’ll die fighting. It’s the best kind of death she’s seen, and at least she can save lives in the meantime.
They say the Scarred carve you up while you’re still alive.
A village in the shadow of a forest: Refugees from the border whisper about the oncoming Scarred, but Briony can’t convince her brother to relocate his children to safety. Briony will do anything to protect them. She owes them that much, even if it means turning to forbidden magic.
When Theosophy and Briony accidentally make contact across the boundaries of their worlds, they realize that solutions might finally be within reach. A world beyond the City would give Theosophy’s people an escape, and the City’s warriors could help Briony protect her family from the Scarred. Each woman sees in the other a strength she lacks—and maybe something more.
All they need to do is find a way across the dimensions to each other before their enemies close in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt Three:
The spirit was beautiful, a tall, statuesque woman who had a hard glint in her eyes. Her hair was short, indigo blue through the glow and tightly curled, her skin a lighter shade over wiry muscles. One hand clenched a smallish item made of metal, the other a long tube with some kind of blade on the end. Briony had never seen anyone like her. Though she glanced around and held her body like someone expecting danger, her bearing was proud and strong, and every inch of her spoke of power and competency. A warrior. Briony had heard stories of them, left over from the Great War, but had never seen one herself.
Was that when this woman was from? The War?
“The trio—the monsters—where am I?”
Briony realized she hadn’t responded, and that perhaps this spirit had been looking for someone to talk to for a very long time, and maybe she would assume Briony couldn’t see or hear her either. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.
The spirit's eyebrows rose. "That's a...never mind. What is this place?"
“Well,” Briony started, taking a step forward. But her ankle buckled and she stumbled, managing to catch herself before she fell.
“You’re injured,” said the spirit. “Were you attacked?”
“Yes—you see, there was a Fracture back there, and—” Confusion crossed the spirit’s face. Maybe she was even older; maybe she didn’t know about the War.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
It is a little known fact that Kit was raised in the wild by a marauding gang of octopuses. It wasn't until she was 25 that she was discovered by a traveling National Geographic scientist and brought back to civilization. This is sometimes apparent in the way that she attempts to escape through tubes when startled.
Her transition to normalcy has been slow, but scientists predict that she will have mastered basics such as fork use sometime in the next year. More complex skills, such as proper grocery store etiquette, may be forever outside her reach.
Kit can be found cavorting about the web at her blog (http://landsquidattack.wordpress.com) or website (http://kitcampbellbooks.com), on Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/campbell1091/), and even occasionally on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/KitCampbell).
Siri Paulson writes all over the fantasy and science fiction spectrum, including (so far) secondary-world fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, Gothic, historical paranormal, and YA with spaceships. She is also the chief editor at Turtleduck Press (http://turtleduckpress.com/). Siri grew up in Alberta, Canada, but now lives in an old house in Toronto. By day, she edits non-fiction for the government. Her other current passion is contra dance, a social/folk dance done to live Celtic and roots music. Her favourite places in the world are the Canadian Rocky Mountains and a little valley in Norway.
Siri's short fiction and the anthologies she has edited can be found on Turtleduck Press, at http://turtleduckpress.com/wordpress/2010/11/30/who-is-siri-paulson/ . She blogs at https://siripaulson.wordpress.com/ and tweets at http://twitter.com/Siri_Paulson.
Thanks for having us! (Interview completed by Kit Campbell)
As a kid did you write or make up stories?
Sure! I started out the way I think a lot of people probably did—changing my favorite stories to appeal more to my personal tastes. Then I started telling new stories about the characters, and then I moved on to making up new characters to go in existing universes.
I actually was going through all my old stuff at my mom’s house the other day and came across one of my earliest stories, vaguely based off an old children’s book called Sparky’s Rainbow Repair. The original book is mostly a puzzle book, and younger!me apparently took umbrage at the thin story, since I rewrote it to feature a girl named Sparkle and made it considerably scarier.
Where does most of your Character inspiration come from?
I think most authors have some aspects of writing that come easily for them, and others that are harder. Characters are something that come easily to me—normally they show up fully formed and ready to go, which is very convenient, most of the time. However, it does mean that if someone isn’t working out, I have a harder time tweaking them.
Do some qualities of your characters come from real people?
In some cases, yes. I have a few characters that are directly based off of a real people. A healer character in a high fantasy trilogy I’m working on is based off a friend of mine, though admittedly with a lot of modification. I’m not sure said friend would recognize herself. I have a medium-level villain in another story that’s based off of a woman who caused me to miss out on a Wii preorder back in the day after I’d sat in line all night.
Sometimes I find it helpful to look at what role someone will play in a story and then look at people I know (both in real life and in media) that fulfill that role to pick and choose qualities that will work for what I want that character for. And sometimes there’s an aspect of the worldbuilding that can directly influence characterization—for example, another book of mine, Shards, has an elemental magic system, and what element people were aligned with had a direct influence on personality.
What was the inspiration for your book?
For City of Hope and Ruin, which is the first of a planned shared world series, Siri and I were basically given a lump of potential aspects and given free run. We actually wrote a beginning before we really got started to test things out, and it was terrible and didn’t work, but it was hugely helpful for setting us in the right direction.
Also, because City of Hope and Ruin has two distinct settings and cultures, Siri and I both got to stick things we liked in. So I got my deep, dark forests (based off the folklore of Eastern Europe) and Siri got her ruins and we were both very pleased.
What is your favorite spot to write?
Ideally, I enjoy claiming a corner in a quirky coffee shop with my laptop and something warm to drink, preferably while it rains (I do love a good rain, and we get it so rarely here in Colorado). But I have offspring, and so it kind of ends up being wherever I can manage, which is usually on the couch while my husband plays video games.
What advice would you give budding writers?
Keep with it! Sometimes writing can seem utterly thankless—you feel like no cares or likes your stories, or that you’re talking to thin air, or that nothing will ever come of anything. Just remember that if you do give up, all those fears become truth. Focus on writing for all the reasons you love writing, and the rest will come along eventually.
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE
The authors will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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