Eterna Character Insights and Signed Book Giveaways!

Hello Dear Readers!

We’ve a month to go until the mass-market edition of THE ETERNA FILES, book 1 in my current Gaslamp Fantasy trilogy with Tor Books, releases into the wild, seen here, replete with new parasol and spiffy review quote:

I am an extremely character-driven storyteller and none so much as in THE ETERNA FILES, a large cast novel that posits two “X-Files-ish” departments in London and New York in 1882 on a perilous crash-course while each office seeks immortality on behalf of their respective governments. What these departments get instead is a ghostly, ghastly window into hell while demons stalk their cities.

Because my work is so character-driven, I wanted to further invest in my characters in this series by allowing you, dear readers, to have some questions answered. I’ve collected a few questions via my online platforms and my ETERNA characters will be answering them all month, here and on various guest posts as my characters haunt the net. AND you see I’ll be hosting several giveaways for signed copies of this new- and very affordable I might add-mass-market edition. I hope that those who are already fans of THE ETERNA FILES will re-engage with my characters and those who are new to my series will find themselves intrigued and we’ll all be eagerly on board for book two, ETERNA AND OMEGA, when it releases this August!

We’re starting off these character insights with a question from one of my most thoughtful and considered readers, Gemma L, who asks this stunning question of my character Louis:

“In death, or at least the ghost state you are in, do you find there is the same propulsion toward purpose and growth that one feels in life?”

Louis Dupris is a young man who came to The Eterna Commission in 1880, up from New Orleans, with a vision of mixing scientific discovery with what he finds sacred in his Vodoun belief system. THE ETERNA FILES opens its first chapters with a great tragedy, and Louis finds himself addressing his work from the other side of the veil… He answers the question thusly:

Louis:

“I appreciate the gravity and weight of this important query. I was always driven in life, I find myself no different in death, however much like laws of physics, I find myself unable to gain as much traction. I mean this both literally and figuratively, as my ghostly feet do not touch the earth anymore, I float along like a feather in swirling wind. I do not have the same ability to keep a razor-sharp focus as I once did. But I yearn for the truth, to find out what happened to me, why our work brought out demonic presences who seemed threatened by what our commission created in that dim, isolated lab.

The thirst for answers is as vital to me as my love my darling Clara Templeton, muse of my work, the mind behind The Eterna Commision, fraught as it may have been. I love her perhaps more keenly in death. Ghosts who remain tethered to their work, to earth, to life, to love, I suppose by nature are pining beings. I am certainly hungry. Empty. Starving for details, action and resolution. And yet because of this quest I am not a husk, I am not without life, it’s just that life has changed so much.

I am growing accustomed to a thought taking longer to complete, death causing a prolonged state of pensive meditation. I have to force myself to appear to my brother, to Clara, to any colleague I might have spiritual access to, with the full awareness that their clock is in minutes and hours while my presence here in this grey between could be eternal. Time here is different. Temperature, weight and all physical properties are different. But my heart is unchanged and if there is one thing to celebrate about this change of state and status, is that I have access to a new knowledge, there are things I can discern in this space between life and death I could not see, nor hear nor grasp in corporeal life. This is what will keep my feet as close to the ground as possible as I run towards my destiny.”

Thank you, my dear Louis, thank you Gemma for the question, and thank you, dear readers, for coming to play with us. Have more questions for my characters, Louis or any of my 19^th century characters? All my worlds are parallel worlds, so characters from my Strangely Beautiful as well as Magic Most Foul novels appear in THE ETERNA FILES series!  If you’ve a question, please leave a comment below and my characters will get back to you!

Want to keep posted on my books right from the source? Tor Books has created an email list for my readers, it just takes one second to sign up so please do, you'll get first look at new content, first access to announcements, first chance at sales on my books and more!

This month I'll also be answering questions for:

Scandalous Women
The Gothic Library
Historical Non-Fiction Author Michelle L. Hamilton
So stay tuned for those links!

And now... Giveaways! Via Rafflecopter below, win one of three signed copies of the mass-market edition of THE ETERNA FILES and a signed book plate for the upcoming sequel ETERNA & OMEGA! US only please, thanks!


 

a Rafflecopter giveaway