The Ashes and the Sparks
by Mary Victoria Johnson
Genre: YA Alt-History Fantasy
Release date: October 18th 2016
Fire and Ice Young Adult Books
Summary from Goodreads:
Welcome to the age of airships. It is a world powered by steam and innovation, ruled by an elusive empress at its heart.
Seventeen year-old Jorun is not part of this world. Hers is one of hidden tunnel networks and lights that dance across night skies, on that has remained separate from the rest of society for over a thousand years. This all changes when a boy appears from nowhere, raving about invaders from a faraway land. Purely by chance, Jorun soon finds herself in the middle of a struggle unlike anything she could have ever dreamed of, and must come to the realization that only she can stop an impending war.
by Mary Victoria Johnson
Genre: YA Alt-History Fantasy
Release date: October 18th 2016
Fire and Ice Young Adult Books
Summary from Goodreads:
Welcome to the age of airships. It is a world powered by steam and innovation, ruled by an elusive empress at its heart.
Seventeen year-old Jorun is not part of this world. Hers is one of hidden tunnel networks and lights that dance across night skies, on that has remained separate from the rest of society for over a thousand years. This all changes when a boy appears from nowhere, raving about invaders from a faraway land. Purely by chance, Jorun soon finds herself in the middle of a struggle unlike anything she could have ever dreamed of, and must come to the realization that only she can stop an impending war.
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Interview
with Mary Victoria Johnson
1.
What inspired
you to write The Ashes and the Sparks?
I couldn’t pinpoint it to one exact moment.
I’m a huge fan of fairy tales, and I’d stumbled across a book of Nordic folk
stories, which were absolutely fascinating. Jorun’s society ended up being a
mishmash of these and my own stories, and after bringing in alt-Victorian
Britain, I had my world!
2.
Can you tell
us a little bit about the next books or what you have planned for the future?
The next book being released is The Inventress, which takes place twenty
years after the end of The Ashes and the
Sparks. Both books are standalones, although The Inventress does give some insight into unanswered questions.
You can look for it around May/June of this year!
3.
Can you tell
us a little bit about the characters in The Ashes and the Sparks?
My main character is Jorun. Like a lot of
girls her age, she deals with lots of conflicts between her friends and her own
wants, and has a hard time embracing her full potential. She’s incredibly resilient,
though, and I enjoyed letting her grow as the story progresses. On the other
end of the scale we have Carrie, the main antagonist. She’s hard to pin down,
being both ruthlessly ambitious and yet still vulnerable, and she’s more
similar to Jorun than either would ever admit. And of course, there are many
others who fall between the two!
4.
You know I
think we all have a favorite author. Who is your favorite author and why?
You’re going to make me pick just one?
Impossible. No, seriously, I can’t pick just one! My recent obsessions include
books by Seanan McGuire, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Price, Erin Morgenstern, J Leigh
Bralick, and Eva Stachniak just to name a few, although I’m a stickler for the
likes of Dickens and the Bronte sisters too. I have a slight reading addiction.
5.
If you could
time-travel would you travel to the future or the past? Where would you like to
go and why would you like to visit this particular time period?
Definitely the past. The future is too scary
at the moment! I’d love to visit classical Greece or Renaissance Florence, just
because there were so many interesting things going on, it would be
fascinating. Honestly, I’m just waiting for time tourism to become a thing,
there are so many people and places I’d want to visit!
6.
Do you have any
little fuzzy friends? Like a dog or a cat? Or any pets?
Lulu, a three-year-old Italian Mastiff. She’s
practically a horse! She has enough spare skin to make another dog and a huge
attitude, but I love her dearly. It’s impossible to feel down when you’ve got a
135lb ‘lapdog’ to cuddle!
Thanks
for taking time out of your busy schedule to visit with us today.
About the Author
Hi! I'm Mary Victoria Johnson, author of fantastical Young Adult
fiction. I wrote my first novel when I was fourteen, and I haven't stopped
since! Now eighteen, my bibliography includes BOUNDARY, the first part of the
Other Horizons Trilogy (Lodestone Books, 2015) and THE ASHES AND THE SPARKS
(Fire and Ice YA, 2016). I was born in Cambridgeshire in the UK, and I now live
on Vancouver Island where I study Creative Writing at the University of
Victoria.
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