NBTM Virtual Tour + #Giveaway: The Starfolk Trilogy by Martha Dunlop @MarthaDunlop @GoddessFish

The Starfolk Trilogy

by Martha Dunlop

GENRE: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal

The Starfolk Arcana                     Starfolk Falling

   

BLURB:

Destiny calls. Soulmates draw closer. One woman stands in the way.

Beth trusts her psychic senses. So when her birthday visit to a daytime TV talk show takes a weird turn, she knows something is wrong. Amelia, the celebrity on stage, is oddly fixated on Beth and the man with the microphone is hauntingly familiar. Things become even stranger when she buys a tarot deck, and they are all pictured in the cards.  

Jonan has waited an eternity to be with the woman who haunts his dreams. When he finally sees her at the TV studio, he hopes life with his soulmate is within reach. But as Amelia refuses to let go of their past together, his hopes fade.

Amelia stands between Beth and Jonan. Spinning tales of supernatural threats to her adoring fan base, she builds a personality cult through fear of the paranormal. As her power grows, she does her best to scare Beth away from Jonan and plans to reclaim him for herself.

United by a destiny that spans lifetimes, Beth and Jonan are determined to stop Amelia’s fear-mongering. But Amelia has more than one card to play. Even though they are fated to be together, Amelia’s destructive nature may once again tear them apart.

The Starfolk Arcana and Starfolk Falling will be $0.99 in the US and 99p in the UK for the full week, from July 28 until August 3.  

Excerpt:

He heard Doriel walk down the narrow, wonky staircase that divided the storeroom from the shop’s reading and treatment room. The tiny bells stitched into the hem of her skirt tinkled as she swung her hips.

Jonan shook his head. He had no idea why she bothered with all this theatre. She was the real deal. She could have run a fabulous business in joggers and a T-shirt, but she insisted on playing to the audience. She wore flowing skirts, bells and long earrings. Her hennaed hair was braided into a loose French plait that reached her waist, sparkling with tiny crystals. She mimicked smoke and mirrors and delivered magic. She was a goddess hiding in plain sight as a walking cliché. The irony never failed to make her hoot with laughter.

The distant voice made Jonan freeze. ‘I’m looking for a reading. I was told you were good.’

He dropped back from his crouch to sit on the floor, heart pounding in his chest.

She had come.

He had told her to come to Doriel, but he had never expected it to be this easy. This was the woman he had incarnated for, the one he was here to wake up. He knew his goal, but somehow it didn’t feel anywhere near as important as just being in the same room as her. He had no idea how she would react to his world. She had been brought up with Earth amnesia and would probably think he was crazy. Everything he was, everything he said, was strange. Would she listen, or would she run? He had no way of knowing until he tried it.

A shiver ran down his spine.

Interview with Martha Dunlop

Hi and thank you so much for inviting me onto the Avid Reader!

How did you become involved with the subject or theme of your book?

I’ve been fascinated with using tarot in fiction for a while. I think it has so much potential for being a part of the story process! I learned tarot years ago, and loved travelling up to London for my classes near Euston station once a week. We learned what all the cards meant, how they interacted, and did lots of practise readings on each other. I read intuitively, and love reading for other people.

What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?

I wanted to write a book where different characters were represented by different tarot archetypes. Each card shows a different stage of the growth cycle. Some of the characters who have changing purposes in the story actually change card during the course of the book, for example my antagonist Amelia. She starts out representing The Fool, or Potential before the book opens, but as she shifts to a new path and starts instilling panic in people, she starts to become The Devil, or Fear. Potential can obviously go either way. Other characters have to change path because of exernal events, but her change is entirely down to her own choices.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Amelia works by instilling fear into people, and some of the characters go pretty deep into it with trauma based behaviours. That wasn’t an easy place to sit and write.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I love Beth and Jonan who are the main characters. I love the tension between them that stretches back lifetimes and draws them in, only to frighten them away and draw them in again. We see some of their past lives, and meet their soul group, some of whom have incarnated with them, and others who are guiding from the other side. I always love feeling into these mystical elements and bringing them to the page.

I also loved writing Amelia who is wonderfully unpredictable and likes to take people by surprise, which was great fun do create.

Whee there alternate endings you considered?

I tweaked the ending any number of times, but I didn’t have any full-on alternate endings. The Starfolk Arcana is the first book in my Starfolk Trilogy, and it had to lead us all on to Starfolk Falling!

Can you share some stories about people you met while researching this book?

We went on a ghost walk around St Albans, which is an old Roman City with lots of historic buildings. We went at Halloween, and it was predominantly around the centre of the city with it’s old, black-beamed Tudor buildings. The woman who took us was dressed up as a witch, obviously, and she had so much knowledge about the city’s history and about all the weird and wonderful stories of things people have seen and heard in the old buildings. It inspired more than one bit of backstory in the book.

What genre of books do you enjoy reading?

I love reading a wide range of genres. In fact, I tend to get a little bored if I read the same mood all the time and like to think of myself as a genre hopper, reading all kinds from thrillers to paranormal and romance! There are some books out there though, like mine, that I like to think of as mystic paranormal, books about psychics, wicca, the witch trials, ghosts, that kind of thing. I do love books like that and I’d love them to have their own genre. A couple that stand out for me are A Thin Slice of Heaven by P.M. Terrell and The Witch’s Tree by Elena Collins.




Thank you so much for inviting me onto The Avid Reader. It’s been lovely chatting to you!

No, thank you for visiting with us at The Avid Reader today! 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Martha is a dreamer and lover of stories who likes nothing better than spending her days getting to know the characters in her head.

She is a tarot card reader and reiki master, and loves to chat reading, writing and all things mystical on social media, as well as posting pictures of her fellow pack-member, Bertie the Cavalier.

A fiddle player, Martha fell in love with traditional music, particularly Irish, and is also teaching herself to play the Irish Bouzouki. She played her way through her English degree at York and remembers that time as much for the music as the books.

Martha is the author of three books: The Starfolk Arcana, Starfolk Falling, and standalone Wild Shadow. She is currently working on Book 3 of The Starfolk Trilogy, Starfolk Rising.

You can keep up with Martha’s news, book releases and extra content on her Website, or on her Amazon page.

You can also find her on social media on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Head shot by Gene Genie Photography

Giveaway:

$25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC

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