Dreams of Mariposa Book Tour

                 

                   Dreams of Mariposa
                         by L.T. Getty

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               GENRE:   Steampunk-Horror

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BLURB:

Every decade, Marie must leave her home and everything she loves to start anew. She can’t risk the locals learning the truth of her immortality, much less her vampiric need of feeding off fear. Fortunately for Marie, fear comes easily and she spends her endless days mourning the loss of her beloved. When she is summoned to the leaders of the masquerade, she is persuaded to assist them in uncovering a mystery of powers possibly more ancient then their own order. As a rare daywalker of exquisite beauty, there is no society Marie cannot infiltrate. Having spent the last few centuries growing into her abilities, she expects to learn of the old powers, and return to her lonely eternity of mourning. She doesn’t expect to fall in love.

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Excerpt:

“Where is this fool taking us?” one of Raoul’s men asked.

I realized then that they hadn’t been paying attention.

“Driver!” He reached his arm outside the open window to rap and get his attention, but I could smell the hiss of venom and knew it was intentional.

The horses ran quicker, and I could hear more coming up. They sought to isolate us and do their deed in the woods. Interesting choice, as there was no need to restrain ourselves without potential witnesses.

One of Raoul’s guards kicked open the door. He glided out. His gift included some manipulation of his form, and like a shadow he leapt onto the path, while his fellow went to climb up on the stagecoach.

Raoul glanced at me. “You’ll be safest in here.”

“Do not leave your men, guardian mine.”

His gaze darted from mine as I recognized the smell of flesh turning to ash, and light pierced the chest of the fellow on the roof of the coach. He exploded into dust before he could scream. The stench of sulphur was undeniable, even without our honed senses. The other fellow met a similar end a moment later.

Unfazed by the strange tool on a chain, Raoul unsheathed a rapier from his cane and struck the driver in the leg. The man was young. He met a knife at the rapier for the second strike, but the riders coming up were too late. Raoul knocked aside the gun and slashed the driver’s face before he pierced his heart. I bounced along uncomfortably as the driver was pushed forward and went under the back left wheel.

The horses squealed and ran faster. Raoul reached for the reins, but a rider came up from beside the carriage, then put her pistol in through the open window at me. I grabbed the weapon with such force I nearly knocked her off her horse and into the carriage’s paneling.



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Interview:


What inspired you to write this story?

When I signed Tower of Obsidian, my publisher requested more steampunk titles. I was familiar with the more gothic as opposed to Victorian literature at the time, so this was an easy choice for me to make. I was reading a lot of fiction in which the actions of the heroes were justified because they were the heroes, and I was kind of appauled, so I set out to write a villain-protagonist.

What was your favorite part to write?
The letters that follow each chapter give the reader a rare glimpse into what’s going on outside of Marie’s narration. Originally I just had the novel ending with Phyllis’s letter, and realized that more was needed so that it flowed.

The most fun for me was when I got to write action sequences. I make fun of high speed car chases, and wrote a high speed carriage chase. Go figure.

What was the hardest part to write?

It’s usually fun to write in the first person. Marie is so self-aggrandizing, it took longer to write this novel than usual. Typically what happens when you get into a novel is you start to ‘flow’ and suddenly a daily word count is easy to achieve most days. I’d hit my target and was like, “Yup, done.”

Marie inflicting psychological terror on Phyllis was hard. Part of me wonders why I went down that road, as I tend to gloss over torture or leave a certain amount of stuff vague, with the reader filling in the blanks.


How did you come up with your characters?

Bastian and Marie were originally going to co lead the novel with them essentially wasting eternity by messing up the normies’ personal lives in creative ways, but I realized early on that wouldn’t make sense if I wanted Marie to be a super power among her peers. The Council of Gevrona would have words. I thought at times Bastian and Raoul were very similar, but that was mostly because of Marie’s narration.  I solved this by making Bastian a daywalker and shmoozy, but effectively a fop when it came down to dirty work. I’m not as familiar with contemporary vampire fiction as I’d like to be, but basically I thought of tropes I enjoyed and how the character ‘types’ would play out in the story I set up. The character of Asphodel, for instance, was the idea of not quite an immortal child (someone turned into a vampire as a child, like Claudia in Rice’s Interview with the Vampire) but something like an eternal 14 year old might be full of rage and annoyance, and tries harder than other vampires to be taken seriously and rise ranks.

Do you have anything coming up and can you tell us about it?

I signed a Sword and Sorcery novel with Champagne Books entitled Witchslayer’s Scion, and I proposed a series of five books with my last submission. I’m still waiting to hear back from them on Book 2, but I’m working on Book 3 as we speak. It’s supposed to be out in April, but I am not committing to a date at this point.

The story follows a young man who’s brother is murdered by mages, and he sets out on a bloody path of revenge. He learns his dead uncle was also a witchslayer and that their people have a history with the mages, which gives them several gifts being able to break spells and in his case, heal minor wounds and injuries. In hunting the man who killed his brother, he learns that the world is much bigger than he expected, and that several mages are trying to gain influence on a southern crown.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

L.T. Getty is a science fiction and fantasy writer who hails from the Canadian Prairies. When she’s not writing, you can likely find her driving an ambulance and dreaming about travel.


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Blog:
 
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Buy Links:

Amazon
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Campaign Book Store
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Giveaway:

Giveaway - $50 Amazon/BN Gift card