This week I am happy to welcome Rebecca Chastain to Fantasy Fun Reads.
Blurb:
To help a baby gargoyle, Mika will
risk everything.
Mika Stillwater is a midlevel earth
elemental with ambitions of becoming a quartz artisan, and her hard
work is starting to get noticed. But when a panicked baby gargoyle
bursts into her studio, insisting Mika is the only person she’ll
trust with her desperate mission, Mika’s carefully constructed
five-year plan is shattered.
Swept into the gritty criminal
underworld of Terra Haven, Mika jeopardizes everything she’s work
so hard for as she attempts to save the baby gargoyle from the
machinations of a monster—and to stay alive…
From the imaginative mind of
international bestselling fantasy author Rebecca Chastain, Magic
of the Gargoyles is a spellbinding adventure set in a world full
of elemental magic and adorable gargoyles that is sure to enchant
young adult and adult readers alike.
Excerpt from Magic of the Gargoyles:
With one last twist of a filament of earth magic, I fused together
the delicate seams of the quartz tube. Slumping forward, I braced my
elbows on the table and rested my cheekbones on my palms, cupping my
weary eyes in darkness. Six down, six finicky tubes to go. The
specifications of this project taxed my substantial skills with
quartz magic, which was the point. This project would launch my
business and prove that even though I was only a midlevel earth
elemental, my quartz skills were equal to or better than more
powerful full-spectrum elementals. These fussy tubes would fund the
down payment on the lease for the shop I coveted in the Pinnacle
Pentagon Center. I could finally quit my demeaning job at Jones and
Sons Quarry, be my own boss, and begin a career creating
one-of-a-kind quartz masterpieces I could take pride in.
My entire future rested on these
fragile vials, and they were due tomorrow at four.
Dull pain pounded my back muscles.
Night had crept over the city while I worked, and my jerky movements
as I stood and stretched were reflected in the semicircle of bay
windows in front of my worktable. Purple smears of exhaustion beneath
my green eyes were exaggerated in the dark windows, and my pale face
floated above a dirt-smeared navy shirt. I checked the clock: almost
midnight. Sixteen hours until my deadline, and eight of those would
be taken up by my Jones and Sons workday. There was no time for a
break. If anything, I needed to work faster.
Groaning, I redid my ponytail, tucking
shorter wisps of strawberry-blond hair behind my ears before giving
my hard wooden chair the stink eye. Mentally chanting, Pinnacle
Pentagon, to motivate myself, I reached for another seed crystal.
Frantic tapping shook the glass in the
balcony door. I pulled the door open, knowing it was Kylie, my best
friend and the tenant who shared my second-floor apartment balcony.
“I really can’t talk. I need to finish—”
“Help! Help! They’ve got—”
Something small and hard slammed into
my stomach. I staggered backward into my chair and crashed to the
floor. A small boulder skipped across the wooden floor and smashed
into the wall.
“You’re a human!”
I shrieked. The voice came from inside
my room. I twisted, scrambling onto my bed.
Against the wall, the rock moved.
Beautiful blue dumortierite quartz
veined with green aventurine twisted into a winged panther no bigger
than a house cat. A pissed-off, solid-stone, magical, winged house
cat. A gargoyle—no, a baby gargoyle. A hatchling.
Her eyes glowed feverishly. Long
polished blue claws gouged into the floor when she launched into the
air. Her agile stone wings unfolded with a soft gritty sound.
I lurched backward across the bed
until I was pressed against the wall. The mattress shook when the
hatchling pounced on the space I’d just vacated. Sharp claws
bunched in my yellow bedspread. She raised her muzzle, mouth open,
and sniffed the air.
I eased toward the foot of the bed,
readying my escape into the hallway.
“It’s you! Your magic smells so
good. I thought—”
My magic has a smell?
The gargoyle’s eyes darted to the
open door, then back to me. She arched her stone back and hissed at
me, the sound dying to a hair-raising growl. The tip of her stone
tail slashed back and forth, gouging my wooden headboard.
“I need help.”
“My help?” Gargoyles—even baby
gargoyles—didn’t interact with midlevel elementals like me, and
they certainly didn’t ask for our help. “There’s a
full-spectrum elemental just—” I started to point up the street
but froze when she snarled at me.
“No other humans! Before it’s too
late.” The gargoyle’s words were smooth coming out of her rock
throat, with just a hint of a lisp from her tongue working around
enormous teeth.
I stared into her glowing blue eyes,
seeing past the bared fangs and agitated movements, reading her fear
for the first time. I reached for her, then pulled my hand back when
she shied from me.
“Too late for what?”
“You can save him. Hurry!”
*****
Magic of the Gargoyles is currently free on Amazon. Get it here...
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NYISFXY
Amazon Everywhere: http://smarturl.it/MagicGargoyles
The box set, featuring three full novels is also on sale...
Get it here...
Bio:
Rebecca Chastain is the
internationally bestselling author of the Madison Fox, Illuminant
Enforcer series and the Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles, among others
works. Inside her novels, you’ll find spellbinding
adventures packed with supernatural creatures, thrilling action,
heartwarming characters (human and otherwise), and more than a little
humor. She lives in Northern California with her wonderful
husband and three bossy cats.
Links where you can find Rebecca:
Website:
http://www.rebeccachastain.com/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Author_Rebecca
Amazon author page:
http://www.amazon.com/Rebecca-Chastain/e/B00MW89XB0/
Interview:
1. Gargoyles! I thought I had included
just about every supernatural creature in my books but I left those
out. Tell me what I need to know about gargoyles and how they feature
in your books.
The Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles are
set in a world saturated by magic—mythic creatures live
side-by-side with humans, and all humans possess varying levels of
elemental magic. Gargoyles are special in that they have the ability
to enhance magic in others…which makes them vulnerable to the
machinations of evil individuals.
My gargoyles are intelligent,
breathing, moving, non-violent creatures. I made only two rules for
them: (1) no matter what hodgepodge shape their bodies took, they had
to have wings, and (2) they had to be made of some form of living
quartz. Somewhere along the way, a third rule snuck in: they had to
be adorable.
The series is told from the perspective
of Mika, a midlevel earth elemental, and all three books revolve
around gargoyles in need, starting with the baby gargoyle who bursts
into Mika’s home and insists Mika’s the only person who can help
with the gargoyle’s desperate mission.
Would you be able to say no to a
helpless baby gargoyle?
2. Tell me about your publishing
experience, how you found a publisher or decided to self-publish.
I spent five or ten years trying to
entice an agent with my writing, researching the art of query
letters, and taking classes on writing. Not being picked up by an
agent turned out to be the one of the best things that ever happened
to me. I spent those years honing my craft. I wrote six or so novels,
many of which will not see the light of day because they were rubbish
and deserved to be rejected. But in writing them, I learned so much!
When I started getting very nice rejection letters, like, “I love
your writing style and this book, but it feels like something that we
would have published last year” (aggh! What was I supposed to do
with that?!), I decided to self-publish. Turns out that A Fistful
of Evil—that “outdated” fantasy novel—was destined to
become an international bestseller.
3. What have you learned since your
first book was published that you wish you knew when you first
started out?
Momentum is key! When I first
published, I had various manuscripts laying around (all those I was
trying to entice agents with), and so I focused on getting the best
of them publishing ready. I started with A Fistful of Evil,
and about two months later, its sales took off, but I didn’t grasp
how important it was to keep going with the same series. Instead I
bounced over to Magic of the Gargoyles, then back to the
sequel to A Fistful of Evil, then I published my
suspense-romance-magical-realism mutt of a standalone novel (Tiny
Glitches) before finally realizing I needed to finish a series
already! That’s when I wrote and published books 2 and 3 in the
Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles, and the response from fans has assured
me concentrating on a single series at a time is the way for me to
go!
4. What books/authors influenced you
growing up that led to you writing in the paranormal & fantasy
genres?
As far back as I can remember, I been
hooked on fantasy. I devoured the complete works of Piers Anthony,
David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Jordan, Raymond E. Feist, Robin
McKinley, and so many others. I could not get enough of magical
worlds of all kinds. I was so wrapped up in fantasy that I didn’t
even know romance novels existed until a time-travel romance by Jude
Deveraux pulled me into that genre when I was 17. I hopscotched to
Diana Gabaldon, Karen Marie Moning, and Katie MacAlister, and along
the way found and fell in love with the urban fantasy genre through
Kim Harrison, Ilona Andrews, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Gail Carriger.
It’s hard to pinpoint any one author that influenced me; it was
more of a group hypnosis, under which I realized the only way I could
get any closer to these magical worlds was to create some of my own.
5. What are you currently writing and
when is your next book coming out?
I’m starting the outlining process of
the third Madison Fox urban fantasy novel, which is scheduled to come
out this fall. I’m all nerves about it because when I set that
deadline, I thought I’d be starting the book in April. It’s time
to put on my blinders and focus!
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