The Boy by Madhuri Blaylock Giveaway, Excerpt & Interview

The Boy (The Sanctum Trilogy, #2)

by Madhuri Blaylock

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BLURB:

“Every now and again an excellent novel will come forth dealing with fantasy and magic that will just grab and hold my attention from beginning to end. That is exactly what THE GIRL did.” -- OOSA Online Book Club

In THE GIRL, Madhuri Blaylock introduced readers to the world of The Sanctum, one corrupted by greed and savagery and hellbent on achieving a single goal: destroying the prophesied hybrid. When one of its most celebrated warriors questioned his allegiances, age-old secrets were unveiled and violence erupted. The journey becomes more perilous and intense as the trilogy surges forward with

THE BOY

Can you cross the plains of death, collect every piece of your soul and make it back to the land of the living?

And if you complete the journey, will your loved ones welcome your return?

The Ramyan have been answering such questions since the creation of The Sanctum. A mysterious sect of Magicals, haunting the blank spaces of time and memory, they serve no one but themselves and their higher purpose. They exist on a plane removed from earthly matters, shifting easily between the living and the dead, moving in time to the beat of their own drummer.

At least they did. Dev and Wyatt change all of that when the prophesied hybrid lands on the steps of Rinshun Palace, seeking help for the wounded Class A Warrior. That decision alters lives and sets old agendas back on course. But at what cost to Dev and Wyatt? And does that really even matter?

“The characters in Madhuri Blaylock's novel...are well written and unique, and the story is just fantastic...I just loved every page of the story!” - Readers' Favorite

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Excerpt

Jasmine.

The first sense awakened was smell; the first familiar scent was jasmine. It was not overpowering, as it tended to be at times, but rather just a hint in the air, enough to arouse a memory.

Shopping in the market and the vendor giving her a string of flowers for her hair. She wanted to weave them into her braid but there was no time. They were simply wrapped around her neck, a sweet-smelling chain, but not half as pretty as they would have looked in her hair.

The green grass.

Her sight returned next and she thrilled at the vision before her, the tall grass of her home, so lush and brilliant. So soft to her touch which followed and soon she could feel her body returning to itself, feel the ground below her and hear the life around her.

Sound.

The water of the channels, lazily rolling along, the birds calling to one another in an endless conversation of nonsense and the branches of trees, swaying in the wind, scratching against each other.

And finally taste.

Metallic.

Iron.

She wiped her mouth and the back of her hand came away red.

Blood.

She sat up and spit. Bright red against the brown of the dirt. She didn't care. The blood was insignificant; the boy was of much more importance.

The fact that Dev could sit up at all was amazing, a testament to her minute learning curve. Only her second time toying with portal travel and she had no broken bones, not even a scratch she realized as she studied her arms and legs. She stood up slowly, her legs feeling a bit shaky, and wobbled around like a newly-birthed colt. She stretched her arms above her head and shook them out, needing to get the blood flowing through her limbs properly. All the while, she scanned the area for his dark hair, his fair skin.

Wyatt.

  

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Madhuri is a Jersey City Heights girl via Snellville, Georgia, who writes paranormal fiction and is slightly infatuated with tattoos, four-inch heels, ice cream, Matt Damon, scotch, Doc Martens, Laini Taylor, photo booths and dancing like a fool.

She's currently working on The Sanctum trilogy and hopes one day soon, everyone is walking around with copies of The Girl and The Boy in their pocket or on their Kindle.

She wants to get a goat and a burro, but since she lives in the city, will settle for some chickens.

To learn more about her, you can follow her blog at madhuriblaylock.wordpress.com, follow her on Twitter at @madhuriblaylock or like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thesanctumtr...

She's totally chatty so drop her a line any time.

Interview

  

Where are you from?

I was born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in what was at the time a small town called Snellville, Georgia. I came to New York to go to college and never left the area. I’ve lived in the NYC area longer than anywhere else, but I’ve still got a little southern in me. What’s the saying? You can take the girl out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the girl. It’s pretty much true.

Tell us your latest news?

I published Book II: THE BOY this past May and am now hard at work on the finale in the trilogy. I’m about a quarter of the way finished and still have much to cover! I feel like it’s going to be quite a lot of writing, but it’s loads of fun and I don’t mind one bit. I just wonder how much the paperback will cost - it’s going to weigh a ton.

When and why did you begin writing?

I’ve always loved to write and have had a fantastic imagination since I was a kid, creating stories in my head, filling notebooks with dreams. But I think I first seriously considered fiction writing when I was in law school. My legal writing professor pulled me aside and told me that one day I would write a great novel, but not in her class, as her job was to teach me to write like a lawyer. I think her voice was in my head when I wrote my first novel during a period of post-law school unemployment.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I’ve always thought one of my personas is writer, but it wasn’t my dominant one until last year, when I started creating The Sanctum Trilogy. Now, if I don’t do some sort of writing on a daily basis, be it interviews, my blog or working on book III, I feel a little crazy. I don’t think I’ve taken off a full day since I started this project and seriously, it’s been one of the happiest, most fulfilling years of my life.

What inspired you to write your first book?

The dearth in the book shelves of my local book store. I was unemployed at the time and living in Atlanta and remember being amazed that in 1998 it was still difficult to find books for middle readers and young adults of color that were just fun to read.

I’m a firm believer that if you give a kid an interesting book, even the most stubborn reader will get lost in its pages. The Harry Potter phenomena at the time proved this. So why couldn’t something similarly fun be created with kids of color as the central protagonists? And not to make some huge point about race and literature or race and larger society, but simply to provide some books where kids of color could see themselves in the characters.

And so was born the Coco Butta Kids, examining the growing pains of a set of classmates from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Intended to provide young adults of color with characters they can relate to on a personal level, the series and its protagonists also aim to prove that no matter what you look like, where your parents are from or what clothes you wear, being a teenager is tough.

As Walter Dean Myers said, "With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about."

What would you like my readers to know?

Just a little more about my trilogy, The Sanctum.

The Sanctum, an all-powerful governing body founded by ten families, entrusted to maintain the peace amongst Magicals and ensure the ignorance of humans, has been corrupted by greed and savagery for generations, but is all Wyatt Clayworth has ever known.

A descendant of one of the Founding Families and Class A Warrior, Wyatt has always believed in the ways of The Sanctum, having grown up in the system and thrived under their leadership. A golden boy, renowned for his prowess and skill in battle, Wyatt has never questioned a mission or kill order until the night he crosses paths with a brutally injured and mysterious girl.

Scouring Central Park with his best friend and fellow Class A Warrior, Ryker Morrison, for the hybrid demon prophesied to bring an end to The Sanctum and destroy the world for Magicals and humans alike, Wyatt instead finds Dev and his whole life turns upside down. Told he was hunting a killing machine, hellbent on wreaking havoc and destruction upon all it encounters, Wyatt instead sees nothing more than a broken girl with haunted eyes and a bit of a death wish.

All Dev wants is for Wyatt to either kill her or leave her alone. When he refuses to do either, she finds herself being pulled into his life while being hunted by warriors everywhere she turns. Drawn to one another for reasons they cannot begin to explain to themselves, much less anyone else, Wyatt is determined to protect Dev and help her realize her mission to avenge the deaths of her family at the hands of The Sanctum.

Set against the backdrop of New York City, THE GIRL is “outstanding, original, complex, deep and intoxicating”, a “well written, unique…fast-paced read” that  begins as one girl’s simple quest for revenge and evolves into a complicated tale of trust, friendship, honor and love.

And the journey only becomes more perilous and intense as the trilogy surges forward with THE BOY, “another masterpiece in The Sanctum trilogy”, certain to “keep you up all night reading.” Can you cross the plains of death, collect every piece of your soul and make it back to the land of the living? And if you complete the journey, will your loved ones welcome your return?

Giveaway
$25 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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