Cold, fine drops of rain fall softly on my cheeks as I emerge from the darkness of the ship's interior to the gray, overcast sky of the main deck. Pulling my dark pea coat tighter to my body, the wind lifts red tendrils of my hair. I walk slowly to the railing overlooking the water.
I catch my first sight of the Irish coastline; its craggy landscape makes me shiver in dread. I find it difficult to imagine now how the Gancanagh had made this their home for so long without anyone realizing it. The cold, moss-covered edifices practically scream their presence. As I study the shadows between the falling-down stone, I imagine creeping shapes of undead Faeries grasping the rock, waiting for our ship to draw nearer to their position.
Tipping my face up, I let the rain wash over me. It bathes away the frigid sweat of fear that has broken on my brow. "You don't know how fiercely beautiful you are, do you?" A quiet voice behind me asks, causing me to stiffen and fix my eyes on the rocks along the shoreline.
My review:
In this book Evie meets her father Tau and fight against Brennus which he want's her as his queen.I hate Brennus.But Evie isn't alone she has her friends and her lover Reed.
Reed is her aspire and she just wants to be with him but Tau doesn't want that she to be with Reed but they fight for their relationship.The love between them is so strong and sweet.
Reed is my favorite character he is loyal loving and protective.He will do anything for Evie and he will fight with anyone for Evie.The love between them is so strong and sweet.He is happy when he has Evie in his arms.
He is perfect for her.He is very protective with his new family Zephyr Bruns Brownie Russel and Anya
Anya is a new character in this series and I love her.She is sweet and smart and she loves Russel because he is her aspire and she knows him from Paradise.She is hurt when Russel doesn't recognise her and when he is a jerk with her.But Ruseel feel the need to protect her because somewhere he knows that she is very important fot him and
I love the book Incendiary and the series.Thank you Amy for this ebook.
Welcome to my blog Amy and thank you for your interview and for stopping today on my blog.
Interview with Amy Bartol.
1) Please tell us something about you?
I’m an indie author, but I started my career by querying agents. There’s a very good reason why I self-publish my manuscript. It has to do with a dog.
When I first wrote Inescapable, I had a different working title for it: The Evolution of Evie. Evie was 170,000 words, more or less, and for about the first three or four months I sent out query letters to literary agents touting this. (A query letter is like a résumé for a manuscript.) Needless to say, I rarely got a response and when I did, it was a form rejection letter.
Then one day, an agent sent me a rejection letter stating that my manuscript was “way too long.” I did some research and discovered that, unless you are a previously published author, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting your book published with that word count. (Naïve thy name is Amy.)
By this time, I was almost finished with my second book that was longer than the first. (Lucky me.) Anyway, I did a few rewrites and got my manuscript down to around 135,000 words, but I still wasn’t getting any interest. Finally, I pared my book down to 105,000 words. I sent out about 20 queries and I had an almost immediate response. One of the agencies asked for a query, twenty-five pages of the manuscript, and a brief synopsis. I sent it. A week later, this agency requested the entire manuscript. So, I’m totally geeked, right! You bet your ass right! Someone was finally reading my novel!
Furiously, I researched this agency that was considering representing me and found that one of my most favorite authors (I mean, he is a book-writing machine) is a client of this agency. You notice that I haven’t named this author or the agency; this is because I respect the author and his work and do not wish to taint it. I also do not bear the agency any ill will, so they will remain anonymous, too. Anyway, it’s really not about this amazing author, it’s about his dog. You see, this author has a dog; I think it’s either a yellow lab or a golden retriever (sorry, I don’t have a fact checker) and this author’s dog is also a client of this agency. A client…as in: the dog is an author. (I am so not making this up, if I was, I would have to make it more believable, but because it is nonfiction, it doesn’t have to make sense.) Apparently, this talented canine has penned a manuscript that reveals the “true spirit of Christmas.” Good for her! At this point, I’m super psyched, right, because these people are giving book deals to dogs! (I can’t lose!) They have to give one to me, too! (Naïve, thy name is Amy.)
About a month later, I received my rejection letter stating that I was not a “good fit for the agency at this time,” which left me to think: I must be the worst writer in the world if a dog can get a book deal and I can’t. That was my first thought. My next thought was: maybe I’ve been too harsh with my criticism. Maybe this dog is really talented and mystical and has discovered some insight on a holiday that most of my relatives manage to screw up annually and with aplomb. (Ha, ha.)
Mystical dogs aside, it was for me the deciding factor in my decision to self-publish. I could have sent out more queries, but I didn’t like my book at 105,000 words and I was trying to please people I don’t understand. At the end of the day, I want to like what I write and it took a dog to teach me that. So, maybe it is a mystical dog after all.
2) When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
I never thought I'd be an author. I still can't believe that I have actually accomplished it. I read a lot of books and when those books end, the stories don't end for me. I find myself still living in the world the author created.
In 2007, I was inspired to write after reading Markus Zusak’s book entitled I Am The Messenger. It’s about Ed Kennedy, an underage cabdriver who has a coffee-drinking dog named The Doorman and a secret crush on his best friend Audrey. Ed has a peaceful routine until the day he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. After that day, Ed becomes the messenger.
The book, written in the first person present tense, was funny and heart pounding and sad and euphoric. It read like you could step into Ed’s shoes, breathe his air, see what he is seeing. In short, it was amazing. But, there was a message at the end of the story that struck me as if it was written just for me. It says, quote: “Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of…I’m not the messenger at all. I’m the message.”
I knew instantly that I had to try to write a book because maybe I was able to live beyond what I always thought I was capable of.
I didn't realize I wanted to be a “writer” at first; I only knew that I wanted to see if I could produce a story worth reading. I know it sounds counterintuitive because you'd think that it would be a logical conclusion that I wrote a book so I could be a writer, but for me, it was more like I became a writer because I had to write a book—I had to tell a story. I didn't have “be a writer” aspirations, maybe I did when I was younger, but when I began writing Inescapable there was no real fantasy of becoming an author. Inescapable just began as an experiment to see if I could write a book—I wanted to see if I was capable of writing a story and then LIKING what I wrote.
3) What inspired the Premonition series?
I've been a really avid reader of the paranormal fantasy genre for a while now. I was obsessed with Odd Thomas, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter to name a few, so I knew I wanted to write a story that took place in the “real world,” but which also had supernatural elements to it.
While reading “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, I stumbled across a stanza that had the word “Seraphim” in it. I was annoyed that I didn't know exactly what that word meant because I'm preoccupied with words. I googled it and found that Seraphim are angels, and not just any angels; they're the highest rank of angels in Heaven. Angels have ranks? I had thought. Really? I did some research and discovered that a theologian in the fifth century named Pseudo-Dionysius the Aeropagite wrote about a hierarchy of angels. The angels from my stories are loosely based on Pseudo-Dionysius' writings, but I took a lot of poetic license in my writing.
4) What is your favorite book and favorite author?
If I were to choose a favorite book, it would have to be Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. James Fraser is my favorite book boyfriend. Enough said?
5) Outside of writing what you do for fun?
I’ve become a social media freak. You can usually find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Goodreads, and my website (www.amyabartol.com). I answer questions and respond to comments that readers leave me. I love it. It takes me longer now because there seems to have been an explosion of comments lately, but I try to respond to as many people as I can.
6) Where do you get the motivation to keep writing and doing what you love?
When I started, I didn’t think that I could write one book, let alone two. As I said before, Inescapable was an experiment to see if I could do it. Once I finished Inescapable, I was sure it was a fluke. That scared me because writing had become an exquisite escape for me. I didn’t want that to end. I started writing Intuition right away because I thought I was going to run out of things to write about if I didn’t. As it turns out, the reality is that I can’t stop writing. It’s an addiction, a compulsion—a need. I read like that, too. It doesn’t matter if it’s four o’clock in the morning, if the book is good; I’m going to keep reading.
7) What is your ideal day as an author?
My ideal day as an author would be one wherein my family wouldn’t need me for anything and all my social media obligations were fulfilled. I could wake up in the morning, workout for an hour or so, and then write for as long as I wanted. (I’m the most creative after a workout.)
8) Do you need some background when you write?
First of all, let me just explain my writing style for a second. I’m what most people in the industry refer to as a “Pantser.” There are “Plotters” and there are “Pantsers.” Plotters meticulously plot out the outline to their stories chapter by chapter or plot point by plot point and adhere to them. Pantsers, on the other hand, start with maybe an idea of what will happen and then they write something completely different. I’m definitely a Pantser. No question. I am often surprised by what happens in my stories.
I start off with just a general idea of the plot of the story and I work from there. If the setting needs to change, then I research the location as I go along. It generally takes me about four months to write the rough draft for each novel.
9) What's next for you?
I plan to write the Fifth book in the Premonition Series entitled Iniquity. I hope to release it by summer of 2013. I also plan to publish the first book in a new series.
Kricket is a working title for a manuscript I wrote in 2010. I wrote it in tandem with Incendiary. I’d write a couple of chapters of Incendiary, and then toggle over to Kricket and write a few chapters of it. I did that because I was afraid that after writing three Premonition Series books the storyline would get stale if I didn’t mix it up. I had also been interested at the time in trying to find an agent to represent my work, so I wrote it with word count in mind. It’s only 90K, which is 50K less than Inescapable. Essentially, Kricket is a dystopian novel with sci-fi and supernatural elements intended for the young adult market.
Seventeen-year-old Kricket Hollowell’s only wish is to find a home where she belongs. An expert at dodging the Chicago Department of Social Services caseworkers who want to force her back into foster care, Kricket is unprepared to avoid Trey and Kyon, soldiers from opposing factions sent from another world to remand her back to their own. Desperate to avoid capture and remain in the city, Kricket trades one cultural prison for another when Trey takes her beyond this reality to an entirely new one. With her uncanny ability to discern truth from lies, Kricket will need every instinct, all her street sense, and the gifts that she has inherited from her priestess mother in order to avoid being controlled and sold to the highest bidder. And...she’ll need Trey.
The thing I really love about this character, Kricket, is that she’s not like Evie. She’s completely ready to smack the taste out of your mouth if you back her into a corner, so she’s fun to write. I have written one book in this series and I plan to make this a trilogy.
10) Please leave a message for your readers.
I never thought that I would get this far in my writing career. I have only one explanation for my success and that is that it comes at the hands of my readers. You have been so generous to me. Since I’m an independent author, I have no publicity machine driving my work. That has been you. You tell your friends, your sisters, your mothers, and your grandmothers to read my stories. I’m so grateful for your support. Never in my wildest dreams could I have conceived of you when I was sitting alone in my room with my computer, dreaming dreams of other worlds. So thank you for being incredibly generous with your time, with your praise, and with your enthusiasm. I am humbled by it and by you.
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