On her sixteenth
birthday, Ellie Lyons discovers her entire life has been a lie. She’s kidnapped
from her home and left in Alladon, a kingdom controlled by an evil man named
Morfan, a kingdom that she was born to rule.
Ellie reluctantly
faces the impossible tasks confronting her; like learning to control the magic
that now roars through her and burns everything she touches, training to become
a lethal warrior, or dealing with the fact that Devin, the guy she is
irresistibly attracted to, is actually one of the assassins sent by Morfan to
kill her.
Devin has a troubled
past; he has spent the last five years tracking the person who murdered his
family. He is dark, dangerous, and deadly serious, but Ellie can see the core
of kindness shining deep within him, as well as the fear of getting hurt again
that makes him push people away. Though Ellie knows her life might be at stake,
she can’t seem to stay away from him, even as her feelings become strong enough
that they begin to scare her.
Vance, the second
assassin and Devin’s best friend, is the opposite of Devin; blonde, charming,
seductive. But his heart holds a kernel of darkness, one that makes him
dangerously unstable, especially after he realizes that he has feelings for
Ellie, feelings he knows Ellie doesn’t share.
Ellie can’t let her
emotions for the two men cloud her focus, her quest to remove Morfan from
power. When Ellie discovers that the children of Alladon have been
imprisoned in a secret factory, Ellie knows she can’t fight her destiny any
longer. She must claim her rightful place as princess and fight Morfan, or
surrender and be slaughtered. Will she be able to survive long enough to save
her people from the Darkness?
How did you come up with the concept of your book?
Every
one of my story ideas starts with what I call a spark; a character, a small bit
of plot or dialogue, a situation, something that intrigues me. In this case I
had a dream about a girl who was taken from her home and forced to fight for
something she wasn’t entirely sure she believed in. The dream was actually a
nightmare. I’ve had horrible, vivid nightmares since I was very small. At least
now I’m able to do something with all that scariness! About two thirds of my
stories start with something I dreamed.
What is your ideal writing environment?
My ideal writing environment would be me, not tired
at all, with a nice steaming cup of tea or coffee, and silence for a few hours.
That hardly ever happens, though!
Do you write while you listen to music?
No. I actually can’t. I can tune out screaming
toddlers, people talking, and loud TVs, but for some reason, I can’t tune out
music. The words from the song end up typed into my manuscript! I used to
listen to classical music while I wrote, but now I find even that distracting.
If you could collaborate with any author who would it be and
why?
While there are tons of authors I love and admire, I
actually wouldn’t want to collaborate with anyone. I find it hard enough to
work with my agent and editors! I’m kind of a solitary person by nature, and I
work best alone.
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
I actually have two pieces of advice:
1. Don’t ever give up. I firmly believe that if you
are tenacious enough, if you are willing to learn, and if you just keep
writing, you will eventually be published. This book is the third manuscript I
wrote; the first two will probably never see the light of day. Before them, I
started and stopped another three manuscripts, probably about 60,000 words
total. These weren’t a waste of time though; I learned the lessons I needed to
learn to be published. The fourth manuscript that I wrote is the one that
landed me my agent, Michele Rubin of Writers House.
2. Read, read, read. Read everything; books in your
genre, books not in your genre, non-fiction and fiction, literary classics,
writing references and manuals. Read anything and everything that interests
you. Read what repulses you. Read, dissect, and analyze the novels that move
you the most.
I honestly
feel that this is the only way to truly become a writer. Sure it helps to be
born with talent. Yeah, it’s great if you have an MFA. But the only way you’ll
ever really learn to write, is to read.
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