Blurb:
Liana has lost much to Herka's manipulations, though nothing so precious as her sanity. Emerging from her madness, she finds the world changed - her body wasted, her son gone, and her kingdom still beyond her reach. Only the fires of vengeance remain, and she will build the flames high.
DAUGHTER OF MADNESS tells the story of a princess and her twin, a soldier and his king, and an oracle who is more than she seems.
Excerpt:
He remembered the moment that the curse had claimed him.
The king sat in the garden, and the moon shone down. There was a phantom caress on his skin, an ice cold hand.
Darkness bloomed in his blood.
He remembered the moment, over and over, the darkness rising, rising, swamping him.
There was terror there, but for the king it was an old terror. He had lived with the darkness now for a timeless time, and in the darkness he was sheltered. He remembered nothing. He was nothing. That was good, for the man that had been a king sensed that he had failed, that he had hurt. The world beyond the darkness was made of nothing that he wanted to see again.
But no night could last forever.
The man who had been Alexander came back to himself in blood.
Amanda, thanks so much for stopping by. Tell us a little about yourself.
Hi! Thanks for having me! Let’s see...I am a writer, obviously, and so far all of my published books are fantasy, one contemporary standalone and two epic fantasy novels within the same series. When I’m not writing I like to go hiking, biking, or kayaking. I also do aerial silks, which is an odd thing I haven’t mentioned before in my interviews on this tour. I like to try to stay active. Of course I read a whole lot, and I garden, and I love to cook when I get the time and energy.
How did you get started writing?
I’ve pretty much always been writing. I think it got into my blood early. My earliest pieces were poems, which I started scribbling down in elementary school. I always wanted to write fiction but I don’t think I had the real push to finish anything until I hit college.
What was the inspiration for your book?
Daughter of Madness is the sequel to my previous release, Mother of Creation. I wrote the first book around the time I graduated from undergrad. It was a bit of a shock - I graduated into the recession so I had a hard time for a year or two figuring out who I was and what compromises I could make given the economy. I wanted to explore that with my characters in this series, but in a very different way. In the first book, the path that Liana and Liander are on falls out from under them and they have to try to rebuild their identities with varying levels of success. Everyone goes through that at some point in their life, I think. My experience was obviously far less traumatic.
What’s a genre you haven’t written in yet that you’d like to?
I am heavily dabbling in science fiction right now. I’ve finished a few short stories set in space, and I hope to be working in a near future dystopia once I finish drafting the last book of the Creation Saga. We’ll see. I’m also considering a horror story that I’ve been outlining and I’m pretty partial to - more on the gothic side of things than on the slasher side of things. Basically my appetites are varied.
Are there any genres you won’t read or write in? Why?
I don’t read a lot of horror with graphic violence in it, though I will read it if the hook catches me. I appreciate it, but I get too caught up in it and it disturbs me too much. I do enjoy comedy that subverts horror tropes, and I like fantasy and science fiction with an element of the horrific in it, obviously. So it really is dependent on the individual work, but as a general rule the deeper into the horror genre something is the less likely I am to read it.
What are you up to now? Do you have any releases planned, or are you still writing?
I am still writing at this juncture. I’m always writing. I did finish a novella recently that I’m shopping around, but we’ll see on that. In terms of current projects, I am working on the sequel to this book, of course, and as mentioned I’m also outlining a couple of other ideas I plan to jump into very soon. I usually end up writing one big project and a couple of smaller projects at the same time as a way to take a break and let my ideas on the bigger project recharge.
Alright, now for some random, fun questions. Favorite color?
This is actually really hard! It depends, but usually it’s either green or blue, depending on my mood. I do tend to like golds and greys though.
Favorite movie?
Also really hard! I love so many movies for so many different reasons but my favorite movie is probably Practical Magic. I’d follow that with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind or Castle in the Sky - basically I love anything Miyazaki. And as for recent movies, I’m really partial to Blade Runner 2049, Villanueve as a director is absolutely inspiring. I loved Arrival, also. Really I could go on about movies forever.
Book that inspired you to become an author?
I don’t know if there’s any one book that inspired me. Probably the earliest fantasy book that I read - or more accurately, that was read to me - was The Hobbit, followed by The Chronicles of Narnia. Really there were a lot of formative reads, this is another one I could go on forever about. A lot of amazing female authors, too - Tamora Pierce, Mercedes Lackey, Martha Wells, to list a few.
You have one superpower. What is it?
I would like to be able to pause time but not age. So like I could pause time, read a bunch of books, and then start time up again but not get any older. I love to read but I also hate to miss things. A time-turner or similar technology has never answered the aging question for me though - by my understanding, Hermione should be a year older than Harry and Ron by the end of Prisoner of Azkaban. That disturbs me fundamentally. You would out-age your family and friends and that seems very not cool.
You can have dinner with any 3 people, dead, alive, fictitious, etc. Who are they?
I’m going to go with the Dali Lama, Walt Whitman, and Ursula Vernon, since she’s one of my favorite authors I haven’t met yet and I’m sure we could have a great conversation about native plants.
Last question: Which of your characters are you most like and how/why?
Eek! I feel like I’m tattling on myself with this. I actually don’t know if I write characters I would consider “like” me in some ways. I mean I definitely commiserate with all of them, that’s the author’s job, but I don’t know that any of us have similar interests really, or even similar moral codes always. I guess in terms of the last one the closest would be Syria, or at least I like to think so. I may be giving myself too much credit, though.
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Author Bio and Links:
Amanda J. McGee is fantasy author living in Southwest Virginia with the love of her life and two cats. She likes baking, gardening, and flights of fancy. You can find out more about her books and her blog at www.amandajmcgee.com.
THE FORGOTTEN CHILD IN PIPER
ROBBIN, for the first time that day in the coffee shop, understood the meaning
of true panic. Crushing a stone to powder or throwing a javelin half a mile
wouldn’t fix anything (and neither would anyone in New York care) like in the
old days of Ulysses. Muttering spells that made deserts bloom or oceans boil
meant less than cooking a burger on the grill. Mortality for all, even the gods
and greatest sorcerers, might be just around the corner. People think just
because you’re a great magical being of some kind you have it made. Nothing
could be more wrong. Your hopes and dreams are often spit on, your happiness
ruined, your friends killed, and you lose sleep at night, worrying about shit
just like everyone else. And besides obligations you really don’t want, you
face mega-dangerous freaks way too often because you’re expected to, you know,
cause you’re the official bad ass superwoman. By the gods! Really? You crawl in
pain and heave up your insides for starters, die in lots of ways, and after all
that trouble, sometimes you don’t come back.
