Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: Lumina by Paddy Tyrrell @PaddyTy @GoddessFish

Lumina

by Paddy Tyrrell

GENRE: Epic Fantasy

BLURB:

A generation designed by sorcery to destroy your people. Two races mired in conflict. Can a pair of outcasts unite them against an enemy who would enslave them all?

The birth of ‘bronzite’ babies in Lumina heralds the onset of war. The people take fright at the golden children and banish them from the land. A dangerous move. King Zheldar, commander of the black dragon, is attacking Luman borders. If he wins bronzite support for his army of monsters, Lumina is lost.

Davron Berates cannot share his people’s hatred of the children and, on discovering he has a bronzite brother, sets out to find him. At his side travels Chrystala. A bronzite, she has twice his strength and three times his determination.

When the black dragon kidnaps Chrystala, Davron is faced with a terrible choice: save his friend or save his nation.

Excerpt:

Jaldeen strode towards an ancient font at the far side of the tower and opened wooden shutters in the wall behind it. Leaning out, he checked the platform outside for any decay. It looked solid enough and he stepped over the windowsill and walked to the center. He cupped his hands around his mouth and spelled a summons, his voice a rasp of vowels that floated on the damp air. He ducked back inside. There was a thrash of wings and the tower shuddered. Xeralith, black dragon of Kuhla, had answered his call.

Any fleeting sense of power deserted him in the terror of her presence. She was as old as the moss that ate the castle walls. Evil had putrefied her beauty, her once crimson scales stained black by Rach’s corruption. She thrust her head through the opening in the wall. Bony nodules covered her upper jaw and the dark armor plating of her head. Steam belched from her nostrils.

Jaldeen ran and hid behind the font, clinging to the carvings of the demons that served his god, as though they could protect him. He averted his face from the scalding droplets. Xeralith’s breath, heavy with malevolence, contaminated the air with the stench of burning metal and rotten meat. Stomach heaving, Jaldeen forgot to maintain his shield. Her eyes swirled and she locked her gaze on his. Trickles of flame erupted through teeth that could rip him in two. He lost control of his limbs and fell. She lunged at him and he scrambled back, his heels banging on the stone floor. The horns on her sinewy neck snagged against the outer wall and pulled her short. She screeched in frustration.

Interview with Paddy Tyrrell

What was the hardest scene from your book to write?

Seila Island. I edited this scene so many times. Davron goes there to find Chrystala, one of the race of golden children who are banished when they reach adulthood. He hopes she will help him find his bronzite brother. The challenge was to keep the pace of the story going. I needed to find a balance between describing the home the bronzites made for themselves on Seila Island and maintaining the pace of the action. After the two of them leave the island they are plunged into the adventure and life gets easier, or at least the writing does!

Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?

I was first attracted to fantasy writing when following a course on mediaeval French literature. Fantasy plays a large part and, since these were the first ever writers in the French language, all the ideas are so fresh and new. When I later read my first modern fantasy, The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake, I was entranced, and decided to write a fantasy myself one day. The richness of the writing and images in the book, as well as the sheer escapism involved in entering this fantasy world, were all part of the attraction.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I used to walk with my two Siberian huskies in the marshlands around our house and loved imagining new scenes or ways to solve plot challenges as I did so.

The part of writing I liked best was the second draft. No more empty page challenges in the morning but the joy of delving more deeply into characters, fleshing out parts I’d rushed through in the first draft, or editing and improving scenes I didn’t like so much.

What book that you have read has most influenced your life?

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer. I am not a fan of all Germaine Greer has said and done over the years but in the 1970s in the UK women couldn’t get a mortgage or buy a car without their husband or father’s signature. Germaine was a lecturer at my university when The Female Eunuch was published and the book hit the country like a storm. She challenged all the restrictions on women, tore down the stereotypes, exhorted us to aim for the stars and be what we wanted to be. In real life she wasn’t an easy person to get on with but feminism in those days needed someone tough like her to make people sit up and take notice, and to give other women the confidence to challenge all the inequalities they had to face. During my own life I went from not being paid as much as a man, and not being allowed to do the same job or have the same career path as a man, to becoming a Vice President of a 40,000 strong multinational company. Without a book like The Female Eunuch I suspect UK society would have taken longer to change.

Tell us a little about yourself? Perhaps something not many people know?

Not many of my friends know I’m a member of Mensa. I only joined because I was on my own in London and wanted to make friends. I’ve kept it quiet ever since!

A more painful secret is that I had undiagnosed peritonitis in my twenties. Fortunately, according to the surgeon who eventually operated, I had a body like an ox or I wouldn’t have been alive let alone going to work. On the not so good side, it had destroyed a lot of the important bits inside and so a future without children lay ahead of me.

Can you tell us something about your book that is not in the summary?

One of the main characters not mentioned in the summary is Salazai and I guess she is my favorite. She is plucked out of her life as a servant to become the unwilling consort of the Kuhlan King. If he finds out she can commune with animals he will kill her. The jealous queen is already plotting her murder, and if she doesn’t escape the castle she will be dead before the year is out. She presents an even greater threat to the Kuhlan king when she discovers how the bronzites are being created, befriends the kidnapped bronzite, Chrystala, and leads the snow-wolves to fight in the final battle. In Volume 2, Salazai will search out the good dragons to help in the fight against Kuhla.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I was raised in Kent, the garden of England, and lived in an Oast House whose round rooms were once used for drying hops. Must be why I’ve enjoyed a drink ever since!

At university, I fell in love with medieval French writing, discovered The Gormenghast Trilogy, and became hooked on fantasy.

I have sailed down the Yangste, survived an earthquake in Cairo, and picnicked in the Serengeti. My travels for work and pleasure have inspired my fantasy world. I now live in France with a naughty Australian Labradoodle, a jealous cat and a squash mad husband. Our two huskies, Ice and Sapphire, are sadly now gone but are transformed into wolves and immortalised in my book. Lumina is my debut novel and the first in a trilogy.

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Buy Links:

The book is $0.99.

Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon FR

Giveaway:

$20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC

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