Interview with Candace Blevins Author of Slave-A Dark(ish) Faerie Tale Series
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Candace and her A Dark(ish) Faerie Tale Series
Lets start with what inspired this particular story?
I’ve written Queen Mab as a secondary character in other books, and she’s The Evil Queen, The Dark Queen, and The Winter Queen. She legitimately fills all those roles. However, we’ve also seen tiny little glimpses of a human side, and I wanted to explore the dichotomy of who she has to be versus who she truly is.
What do you want your readers to take away from your books?
My first goal is entertainment – reading is my escape, and I want to offer readers a way to dive into an adventure. However, it’s also my hope that they come away from my books understanding something they might not have when they started it, or perhaps even learning something. Food for thought.
Where do your story ideas come from? If they come to you in the middle of the night, do you get up and write them all down?
They occasionally come to me in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning, but most of the time they come to me while driving. I have a way to quickly turn my phone on to record my thoughts, transcribe them, and email them to me so they’re in my inbox when I get home. It’s all voice commands so I can be safe while I drive.
Why do you write what you write? Contemporary, paranormal, suspense, etc.
Tolkien drew me into his world when I was in middle school. I knew trees sometimes moved their roots at the last second to trip me, and it was like Tolkien and I shared this secret. His ability to draw our real world into the fantasy world and make the reader suspend belief has stuck with me throughout my life. Now, I have readers telling me about the man they saw in the grocery store they’re sure is one of my werewolves, and I’m thrilled I’ve been able to do the same for readers.
Isn’t that fun, I feel the same way.
A sneak peek between the pages of Slave.
Chapter One – Queen Mab
For every season, there are positives and negatives. Today is the summer solstice, and I’m miserable in the heat. Plus, my sister is Queen of Faerie during the summer.
From here on out, the days will grow shorter, and the time of my reign draws nearer. Come the fall equinox, I’ll be the ruling Queen once more, and my days will be filled with the duties of running the queendom.
However, for the time being, I had the luxury of spending all the time I wanted in my dungeons, and I was fully taking advantage of the long days — there are so many people to torture and play with in the bowels of my castle.
I’d acquired the former Eagle King as a result of a horse trade a while back, and was still having great fun with him, but I’d been informed we had a new pleasure slave — paid to me in tribute by a wealthy businessman — and she’d been put into a holding room so I could personally handle her intake process.
Prisoners are fun to punish, but the rare pleasure slave who’s been trained to enjoy torture is a special treat. I’d seen the paperwork on this girl, and based on her previous owners and trainers, I had hopes she might prove a nice diversion.
I was informed she seemed a nervous wreck, so I went to the holding room instead of having her brought to the throne room. I brought another slave with me, one who’d record the new slave’s answers and any notes I wanted put into the girl’s file.
Contrary to what most probably think of the Wicked Winter Queen, I don’t make a habit of abusing my slaves just because I can. I’d whipped this particular stenographer slave once when she was rude to a business associate, and I’d assigned her to dishwashing duty in the kitchens for a month when she zoned off while on the job, but the girl’s been with me nearly fifteen years and those are the only two times she’s been punished.
My first view of the new little pleasure slave sent tingles through my magic. She was a little slip of a thing and strikingly beautiful. Someone had put her into my preferred inspection pose — feet a little wider than shoulder width, perfect posture, eyes straight ahead, fingers laced at the back of her head. She still held it beautifully, and her arms didn’t appear to be shaking.
Some slaves hold their position when I enter, but most prostrate themselves. Neither choice earns reprimand or punishment at this stage, but I was intrigued she’d chosen to follow orders over protocol.
Whether she’d been naked when she arrived or had been stripped to nothing by my guards, I didn’t know. I wasn’t certain of her most recent owner’s slave protocols for travel, but the Master he purchased her from wouldn’t have permitted clothing at any time, nor would her original owner, where she was raised and trained.
I walked in a circle around her, observing. She didn’t break posture. Didn’t move a millimeter, other than to breathe. Her nails were swirled purple and green, her red hair had streaks of gold, and her eyes practically glowed green. I circled her a few more times, and noted her toenails matched her fingernails. I’d need to double-check to be sure the familial searches had been done.
My new slave had enough muscle I knew she’d be able to handle what I doled out, but was soft enough she’d still be fun to play with. I couldn’t wait to see her flawless white ass with streaks of red from a strap, and then dotted with smaller streaks from a flogger. However, she was too thin for my tastes, and I made a mental note to check later to see if this was her natural size, or whether her food intake had been severely restricted.
“What’s your name?”
A deeper breath, so she’d have enough air to speak, but she answered quickly, her eyes still straight ahead without looking at me. “My original owner called me seven-sixty-three, Ma’am. The Master I just came from called me little one.”
Before I slapped the shit out of the girl for her impertinence, I asked, “Do you know who I am?”
“No, Ma’am?”
Her voice wavered and her arms finally shook a little. The poor thing was scared shitless, and I was about to terrify her even more, whether I wanted to or not. I softened my voice and said, “You address me as my Queen or Your Majesty, Little One.”
Lady
Queen Book Four
INSTAFREEBIE ➔ https://instafreebie.com/author/candaceblevins
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Candace Blevins, Consort, Dark Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Lady, Queen, Romance, Slave by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
Welcome Margo Bond Collins Author of Immortal Winter!
Happy holidays to all! Give a big welcome to Margo Bond Collins, author of Immortal Winter. Have a seat and grab an insulated mug. I’ve got hot chocolate, hot cider and coffee. Choose your pot, they’re labeled. Pick a Snicker-doodle and Gingerbread cookie from the plate. Yep, I baked them myself. Lets see what Immortal Winter is all about. Thanks for joining us!
A princess locked away in an ice tower.
A handsome kidnapper who insists her savior-queen is a liar.
And a chance to break the curse that binds them all.
Jayla Storm woke up today next to a dead body, with no memory of how it got there. Then Kip Stanton blew up her ice tower—the only home she’s ever known—and kidnapped her, insisting it was for her own good.
Now she’s stuck with a group of rebels hell-bent on usurping the queen who saved Jayla’s life. As her memories resurface, she’s afraid to trust anyone, even while her feelings for Kip grow stronger.
But wherever Jayla goes, the monstrous ravagers follow. If she’s going to survive, and perhaps save Kip and the others, she’ll have to learn to trust someone—maybe especially herself.
Immortal Winter, a stand-alone dystopian paranormal romance
by New York Times bestselling authors N.R. Larry and Margo Bond Collins
A peek into Immortal Winter:
I woke in my ice tower, covered in a coating of sweat, lying next to a dead body.
With a gasp, I scrambled back against the headboard of my own bed. Other than the motionless figure beside me, nothing around me had changed, though it was tinted yellow from the flickering lanterns.
Arina’s dead body?
I’d never seen a corpse. Not a real one. I eyed the spike sticking out of her forehead and the odd snarl twisting her open mouth. My head swam and I swallowed convulsively.
I knew I needed to act, but all I could manage to do was let Arina continue to bleed out—onto the sheets and onto me. I should have been screaming. I should have been throwing myself off the bed and toward the window. But I didn’t, anchored in place by fire and sweat and blood.
I tried to connect the scene in front of me to some memory, something that swam barely out of reach. I stretched after it, catching a fragment: yesterday was Arina’s day. The day I wouldn’t be alone.
A pain day.
I looked forward to those. That much I knew.
Forcing myself to sit up, I scooted away from her still form, my jaw clenched with the memory of pain. I would have laughed at what lingered but there was a body to attend to. Stumbling out of bed, I stepped out of my clothes and limped toward my ivory dresser. On the way, my feet grazed against something rough. Some imperfection in the ice. Something that wasn’t there before.
I backed up and stared down at the message scratched into the ice, blood swiped across it to highlight the letters, like ink rubbed on a seal impression to darken the image.
She found me. She knows. Went to warn them. Don’t take the infusions. Watch out for Kip.
My body began to tremble, even before my mind caught up.
Yesterday.
Available from Amazon.com
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Thanks for stopping by Margo. It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Immortal Winter! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Dystopian, Murder, Paranormal, Queen, Romance by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
