City of Hope and Ruin by Kit Campbell and Siri Paulson Interview, Excerpt & Giveaway

City of Hope and Ruin

by Kit Campbell and Siri Paulson

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GENRE: Fantasy (with LGBTQ romance)

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BLURB:

Every night the monsters hunt.

A city that is the whole world: Theosophy and her companions in the City militia do their best to protect the civilians from the monsters, but they keep crawling from the Rift and there’s nowhere to run. Theosophy knows she’ll die fighting. It’s the best kind of death she’s seen, and at least she can save lives in the meantime.

They say the Scarred carve you up while you’re still alive.

A village in the shadow of a forest: Refugees from the border whisper about the oncoming Scarred, but Briony can’t convince her brother to relocate his children to safety. Briony will do anything to protect them. She owes them that much, even if it means turning to forbidden magic.

When Theosophy and Briony accidentally make contact across the boundaries of their worlds, they realize that solutions might finally be within reach. A world beyond the City would give Theosophy’s people an escape, and the City’s warriors could help Briony protect her family from the Scarred. Each woman sees in the other a strength she lacks—and maybe something more.

All they need to do is find a way across the dimensions to each other before their enemies close in.

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Excerpt One:

Dean Prosody was pacing in her cramped office when Theosophy arrived. Her bayonet and whetstone lay forgotten on her desk.

Theosophy stopped just inside the door. "Sir?"

"He's not in his quarters, and he took his spear," said the dean, not looking at her.

Theosophy reached into her belt pouch and pulled out her double crystal, tuned to her partners. One side had gone dark, of course, but the other pulsed weakly. She could feel the direction of the pull—toward the ruins—but that meant nothing, surely he wouldn't be such a complete...

"What did you say to him?" Dean Prosody demanded.

Theosophy shrugged.

"Nothing about avenging Rhetoric?"

"I should hope not," she said. "I was a little busy fighting for my life. With one partner gone and the other just standing there..."

The dean gave her a look, blue eyes snapping.

"What? I let him mourn after. But he still let the third one get away, and almost got me killed. I had to say something."

The dean sighed.

"There's a reason I'm the longest-serving fighter. And it's not because I'm nice."

"About that, Theosophy...maybe you should consider stepping down."

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"I know you're the reason a lot of these kids are still alive. But you're turning sour. It's not healthy."

Theosophy grimaced. The thing was, staying alive the longest wasn't any kind of mercy. It just meant everyone you used to know was dead.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

It is a little known fact that Kit was raised in the wild by a marauding gang of octopuses. It wasn't until she was 25 that she was discovered by a traveling National Geographic scientist and brought back to civilization. This is sometimes apparent in the way that she attempts to escape through tubes when startled.

Her transition to normalcy has been slow, but scientists predict that she will have mastered basics such as fork use sometime in the next year. More complex skills, such as proper grocery store etiquette, may be forever outside her reach.

Kit can be found cavorting about the web at her blog (http://landsquidattack.wordpress.com) or website (http://kitcampbellbooks.com), on Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/campbell1091/), and even occasionally on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/KitCampbell).

Siri Paulson writes all over the fantasy and science fiction spectrum, including (so far) secondary-world fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, Gothic, historical paranormal, and YA with spaceships. She is also the chief editor at Turtleduck Press (http://turtleduckpress.com/). Siri grew up in Alberta, Canada, but now lives in an old house in Toronto. By day, she edits non-fiction for the government. Her other current passion is contra dance, a social/folk dance done to live Celtic and roots music. Her favourite places in the world are the Canadian Rocky Mountains and a little valley in Norway.

Siri's short fiction and the anthologies she has edited can be found on Turtleduck Press, at  http://turtleduckpress.com/wordpress/2010/11/30/who-is-siri-paulson/ . She blogs at https://siripaulson.wordpress.com/ and tweets at http://twitter.com/Siri_Paulson.

Multi-region buy link for ebook: http://authl.it/B01DYSR7QE

Interview:

Filled out by Kit Campbell for City of Hope and Ruin tour

Where are you from?

I hail from beautiful Colorado in the US of A, while Siri is from Canada. We’ve never actually met in person. We wrote City of Hope and Ruin through many video chats in Google hangouts and dozens upon dozens of emails.

Tell us your latest news?

If you liked City of Hope and Ruin (or haven’t read it and would like a taste), we’ve got two related short stories up at Turtleduck Press! (link to here, if you’d like: http://turtleduckpress.com/wordpress/category/freebies/) They’re free to read, as are all the short stories up on TDP. Also, Siri and I are both finalizing stories that will be included in a space princess anthology that will be published in November. It’s been fun working on scifi for a change!

When and why did you begin writing?

I’ve been writing since about 8 or so. My mother was a writer, and it was the most natural thing in the world to sit next to her and work on my own stories while she worked on hers. My early stuff included The Seven Special Princesses who had “special” skills like hair braiding. And painting. I also wrote a lot of what I now know to be fanfiction, about things like Sonic the Hedgehog (though I was infinitely more interested in Tails) and the animated version of the Mighty Ducks (which was about alien hockey-playing ducks. I loved that show).

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

It kind of went on and off. In high school I wrote a ton of short stories, and I think I considered myself a writer at that point. I studied engineering in college, so for the first few years I didn’t write anything, but then I discovered Nanowrimo. But I think it wasn’t until I graduated from college and had a few novel drafts under my belt that I really considered myself a writer. That was 2006, or somewhere thereabouts.

What inspired you to write your first book?

It’s kind of hard to pick what exactly my first book was. Is it the first novel I started writing ever? The first one I made it more than a few pages into? The first one that I worked on as an adult? The first one that I finished? There were a lot of false starts in there. As a teenager, I’d start any premise that caught my fancy, but rarely made it very far. The farthest I ever made it at that point was 16 pages, and that story was supposed to be a present to my best friend at the time. The first book I ever finished was the first draft of the first book of a high fantasy trilogy, and it was based on some role-playing characters (originally Star Trek based) that I’d spent a lot of time developing a backstory for. I didn’t want to let the characters go when the roleplay was over. I’m actually still working on that story—except now I’m on, like, the fifth draft. I’m hoping this one is the last.

what would you like my readers to know?

I would recommend you give City of Hope and Ruin a try if you like any of the following: jointly written novels, high fantasy, family secrets, monsters, magic, female-driven stories, animal companions, the occasional bit of snark, romance, mystery, or impending doom. City of Hope and Ruin is the first book in a shared world, and there should be many more Fractured World stories on the horizon, both about the characters in CoHaR and others that we’ve not yet met.

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GIVEAWAY

The authors will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway