It’s that time of year again, when bloggers embark upon the challenging task of coming up with one post a day for every day in April (except Sundays). That actually sounds easier than it is, as each day is assigned one letter of the alphabet, and you have to figure out how to craft a post around a word or theme beginning with that letter.
I have done it in the past on some old blogs from long ago. Every year, I think I am going to do it again and then I forget, or just don’t feel inspired. This year, I am kicking myself in the butt to get it done.
The year that I was most active in the #AtoZChallenge was back in 2011. I had signed up a bunch of my old blogs, had the entire alphabet planned out, and started cranking out posts. But then life got in the way. My father had fallen and hit his head and was suffering from a brain bleed. He had brain surgery on April 19th, but eventually succumbed to complications on June 2. I did eventually finish that year, but it took me most of the summer to complete the posts on the one blog. I did revisit the challenge in 2012, this time fully honoring my father.
My mother joined my father this past August 2018. While I am doing okay, it’s still weird to be an adult orphan, especially when most of your friends’ parents are still alive and active. (My parents were older when they had us.) I have 23141982634 thoughts about them both every day and need to get them out of my head. And yet I stop myself from doing so.
That’s why this year, I am determined to revisit my father and his legacy, by honoring him again on this blog. I am writing about my mother on my other site, which you can find over at Andi Explains It All. I think this will be cathartic for me. And if my story can help even one other person in their journey, it will be worth it.
So join me as I share our story. I’ll update this post as I get each letter published. Thank you for joining me in this endeavor.
Calling all science fiction fans! Check out this new science fiction book from Michelle Diener. I’m sharing an excerpt from the book today for you to enjoy before you download your own copy. Make sure you leave the author comments and questions and then follow the tour for extra chances to win the giveaway!
Thank you for stopping by this stop on the tour for Where Sleeping Lies Lie by M. Naidoo! I have an excerpt for you to enjoy as you check out and download the book. Please leave comments and questions for the author here and as you follow the tour. And of course check out the giveaway!
Greetings and salutations! Today I am bringing you another author interview, but am also including my review of the book. If you’re looking for a different kind of celebrity romance, this is one you absolutely have to check out. There’s also an excerpt to enjoy, plus a great giveaway. Please leave the author more questions and comments here and as you follow the tour. We all love that!
Today we are welcoming Cristelle Comby back to Candrel’s Crafts, Cooks, and Characters as part of her promotion of her latest book Evil Embers. She answered a few more questions about who she is as a person and as a writer. Please enjoy her conversation and an excerpt from the book. Leave her more questions and comments and then follow the tour to learn more and to have more chances to enter the fantastic giveaway.
Do you have any tattoos? Where? When did you get it/them? Where are they on your body?
Yes, I do. Each one is very meaningful to me—they relate to who I am at my core.
The first one is a red rose on my right bicep. I got it when I was thirteen. Just a single rose, with a bit of a stem. In time, I realized it felt lonely on my arm, so I had my tattoo artist add some tribal swirls around it a few years ago to give it more substance.
I also have the words “Never Forget” tattooed around my left wrist. This one I got maybe two or three years after the rose.
Is your life anything like it was two years ago?
Yes, it hasn’t changed much. Same day-job, same passion for writing.
How long have you been writing?
As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved writing. I always had good grades when we had to write stories or essays for school. Then I dabbled into fanfiction when I was a teen and published my first novel back in 2013.
What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?
Being a writer is a though, difficult, lonely job and you have to do it for the right reasons. If you’re only in it for the fame, or the money—you’re going to be disappointed real fast. Writing has to mean something to you deep down, it has to bring you something. That’s the only way you’ll get the strength to carry on, through the years. Also, you have to believe in yourself. Know your worth, and don’t give too much credit to other people’s opinion.
Tell us something about your newest release that is NOT in the blurb.
Well “Evil Embers” is the second book in my Vale Investigation series. It chronicles the exploits of Bellamy Vale, Death’s PI on a retainer. It’s a mix of classic noir detective and urban fantasy, and is set in a universe where mythologies exists, and every story that you thought was just folklore is actually true.
I try to focus on a new mythology with each book, and “Evil Embers” draws a lot from old Middle Eastern tales (think “1,001 Nights” and the likes). There’s also a dab of Greek Mythology in it too, because some of the main characters are from that side of the border.
Evil Embers
After narrowly preventing the destruction of Cold City, PI Bellamy Vale needs a rest. Or rather, he needs a plain and simple vanilla case—no monsters or otherworldly creatures involved!
When foreign businessman Eli Smith shows up at his doorstep with a thick wallet and a request to find his missing sister, Vale doesn’t think twice before agreeing.
If he’d known body-hopping demons and smoke monsters came attached to this job, however, he might have.
Read an excerpt:
The door slammed shut as something grabbed at me. And by “grabbed”, I mean “lifted me off the ground and rammed me into the nearest wall”.
The structure bent under the impact while a nightmare that would have fit in an old-school John Carpenter movie screamed at me. With my gas mask on, I never heard it coming.
Dazed, I glanced up and faced sharp, yellow-tainted teeth. They formed a circular pit of canines, ready to swallow my head whole. I pulled a knife from my boot and slashed the creep at the center of its mass. The fiend’s scream rose an octave as the cold steel struck home.
The creature dumped me back on the floor before dissipating into nothingness.
The attack sucked the air out of my lungs, and I spent the next few minutes coughing through the mask. I felt like kicking myself. I spent my first week here carving wards around the entire six-block area before going in for the first time. I should have known better than to cut one on this house’s front door and move on. I forgot the back door. That mistake left that damned poltergeist way too much room to attack.
The monster du jour was a ghost, an escapee from the realm of death—the Underworld, Hell, or whatever else you call the place people go to once they’re done with life. From what I knew, not everyone turns Casper in their afterlife. However, those who do become near-mindless creatures stuck in their own plane of existence. When they make it to our side of the border, they turn into full ectoplasmic savages.
The dead guy I stepped over near the open back doorway was proof enough of that. What was once an engineer working for the city now had his chest cavity cut down to the bone and his head severed from his body. Blood splatters all but drowned out the muted yellow of his shredded biohazard suit. Judging from the angle of what remained of his corpse, he was trying to flee the house when the poltergeist got him.
“Dammit,” I muttered as I tightened the straps on my gas mask. Whoever this engineer was, I was pretty sure he didn’t come in here alone, which meant I may have to explain what a six-foot PI in a surplus army jacket, a gas mask right out of the First World War and second-to-thirdhand leather gloves was doing in an area strictly reserved for city workers and engineers.
Cristelle Comby was born and raised in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, where she still resides.
She attributes to her origins her ever-peaceful nature and her undying love for chocolate. She has a passion for art, which also includes an interest in drawing and acting.
She is the author of the Neve & Egan Cases series, which features an unlikely duo of private detectives in London: Ashford Egan, a blind History professor, and Alexandra Neve, one of his students.
Currently, she is hard at work on her Urban Fantasy series Vale Investigation which chronicles the exploits of Death’s only envoy on Earth, PI Bellamy Vale, in the fictitious town of Cold City, USA.
