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Monday, October 9, 2017

Blog Tour- TRAITOR'S HOPE by Virginia McClain An Interview & Giveaway!


Hey everyone! I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the blog tour for TRAITOR'S HOPE by Virginia McClain! 

I have an interview with Virginia to share with you today! And make sure to enter the giveaway below!


Haven't heard of TRAITOR'S HOPE? Check it out!



Title: TRAITOR'S HOPE (Blade's Edge #2)
Author: Virginia McClain 
Pub. Date: October 14, 2017
Publisher: Artemis Dingo Productions
Pages: 284
Formats: Paperback eBook
Traitors lurk around every bend. Mishi’s mind is betraying her, and she fears her kisō and katana will betray her next. Taka’s heart abandons her for a person she cannot possibly trust. Now that the two friends are obliged to help re-establish peace in the land of Gensokai, the only question is where the next betrayal will come from and if Mishi and Taka will have the strength to survive it. 
Now on to the interview!

Hi Virginia! First, I want to say welcome to Two Chicks on Books I’m so happy you stopped by for a visit! TRAITOR’S HOPE sounds fantastic and I can’t wait for everyone to read it!

For the readers: can you give us a little recap about BLADE’S EDGE and the characters?

The Rōjū Council’s dark secret is one that it has spent centuries killing to keep, and Mishi and Taka know too much. The two young women have overcome desperate odds in a society where their very existence is a crime, but now that they know the Rōjūs secret they find themselves fighting for much more than their own survival.

Spoiler alert: don’t read the next paragraph if you haven’t read Blade’s Edge and don’t want to know any major plot points.

At the end of the book the two friends have helped to overthrow the corrupt Rōjū Council, but at great personal cost. Traitors Hope follows both Mishi and Taka once more, but also follows a secondary character from the first book. Fun fact: both books only follow female POVs.


So is this the end? Is there more to come?

Ah, yes Good question. Well, to be honest, when I first wrote Blades Edge I thought I was writing a standalone novel. I mean, of course, I left a bit of room for a sequel, but its not as though Blades Edge ends on a cliff hanger, its a complete story. However, after giving it a lot of thought, and also having a number of readers ask for more of these characters, I realized that there was indeed more to tell. And now, of course, we run into the same question. Is this the last one? Well, I can say for sure that there are more stories in this world sitting in my head. Indeed, there are a lot of stories from Gensokai’s distant past that I would like to bring to life. Also, the more I think about Gensokai’s future, the more I think there is room for exploration there too. So the answer, I think is, yes, there will definitely be more from this world. Although I can’t guarantee that there will be more with these exact characters (but it’s a possibility). It all comes down to which stories intrigue me the most.  

Were any of the characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?

Ha! That’s a dangerous question. The honest answer is both no and yes. No, in that I can’t think of a particular character that was inspired by a specific person, but yes in that all my characters are inspired by real life people. I snatch personality traits, quirks, and expressions from the people around me constantly. If you’ve spent five minutes in my company and you are in any way interesting there’s a good chance some part of you will wind up in a story of mine some day. But, due to how often I borrow  from those around me, by the time I’m done writing a book it’s almost impossible for me to remember where any given character’s traits came from. Meanwhile, for this series in particular, I definitely stole names from people in my real life. A number of my friends from Japan made it into this book in name only. However, the characters that are named for them are nothing like the people whose names I borrowed. So the name and the person have been separated from each other thoroughly.

Who was your favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?

I think my favorite character to write in this series has been Kusuko. She’s been a delightful surprise every step of the way. Each rewrite saw her becoming more and more complex. Also, her psyche is perhaps the least similar to my own of any of the POV characters in Traitor’s Hope, so it was very interesting to get inside of her head.
My least favoritethats tough. I enjoy all of my characters, but I often find Mishi difficult to write for a couple of reasons. The first is that she was the hardest for me to get to know. The first time that I wrote her I felt like she was just an empty shell. I didn’t feel like I had gotten to know her until the end of the second draft of Blade’s Edge. By the end of the third draft (the one that went to print) I finally felt comfortable about who she was. In Traitor’s Hope she was difficult to write at first simply because she’s gone through so much. Her head was a pretty dark place to inhabit for big chunks of this book and that was uncomfortable. Also, I struggled to keep the balance between letting everyone know just how damaged she is, and keeping the rest of the story moving forward at a reasonable pace. This is what editors are for though, and I think mine helped me come to a solid balance in this regard in the end.

What is your favorite passage/scene in TRAITOR’S HOPE?

I have more than one, but the one that most of my early readers pointed out as their favorite, and also happens to be one of mine, is the scene where Taka goes into the infirmary she’s been charged with and takes over. It’s well, lets just say she shows up to kick ass and chew bubble gum, but shes all out of bubble gum. It was extra fun to write because Taka isn’t a fighter, so all of her ass kicking has to be more subtle.

What kind of research did you have to do for the story?

I did all manner of research for this series (weapons, armor, fighting styles, red-tailed hawks, how much distance a horse and rider can cover in a day without harming the horse), but for this second book in particular the thing that I researched most were the symptoms, causes, and treatments for PTSD. The end of Blade’s Edge isn’t exactly happily ever after, I’m afraid, and it leaves Mishi in a pretty scary place. Despite the fact that this is a fantasy world filled with magic, tree spirits, and the occasional dragon, violence and death are still traumatic events. It was really important to me to address this in my writing, as I think it is often glossed over in any action story. Mishi is an excellent fighter, and she has trained to fight all of her life, but that doesn’t mean the violence done to her and by her doesn’t affect her.

Who is your ultimate book boyfriend?

Drizzt Do’urden from RA Salvatore books.

What inspired you to write YA?

You know, it kind of happened by accident. This story started with MCs who were children, and grew to be young adults. That’s who they were, so that’s how I wrote them. It wasn’t until later when I was ticking boxes for genres that my husband looked over my shoulder and said, “It’s YA right?” And I thought about it and realized he was right. Nevertheless, I have always been drawn to YA, both as a reader and writer, because I think stories of self-discovery are some of the most important stories we can tell, and those go hand in hand with young adulthood.

Lightning Round Questions

What are you reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?

I just finished reading Jane Unlimited by Krisin Cashore, which I thoroughly enjoyed despite how different it is from all of her other work to date, and I just started reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (which I’m apparently very late to the party on, but I’m glad to be catching up).

What Hogwarts House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

According to the Pottermore website, Ravenclaw.

Twitter or Facebook?

Instagram!

Favorite Superhero?

Storm from X-Men

Favorite TV show?

Firefly

Sweet or Salty?

It depends on my mood, but generally salty.

Any Phobias?

No. But I do have an irrational hatred of jello.

Song you can’t get enough of right now?

I don’t tend to listen to many songs on repeat, but my husband and I have been working on the duet You and Me by You+Me (Pink & City and Colour) so I’ve been listening to that a lot, and I still enjoy it even after hearing it a hundred times.

Winter Movie you’re most looking forward to?

The Last Jedi (female Jedi for the win!)



Thanks so much Virginia for answering my questions! I can’t wait for everyone to read TRAITOR’S HOPE!



About Virginia:
Virginia thinks dangling from the tops of hundred foot cliffs is a good time. She also enjoys hauling a fifty pound backpack all over the Grand Canyon and sleeping under the stars. Sometimes she likes running for miles through the desert, mountains, or wooded flatlands, and she always loves getting lost in new places where she may or may not speak the language.

From surviving earthquakes in Japan, to putting out a small forest fire in Montana, Virginia has been collecting stories from a very young age. She works hard to make her fiction as adventurous as her life and her life as adventurous as her fiction. Both take a lot of imagination.

She recently moved to Winnipeg with her husband (a Manitoba native) and their dog.



Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a signed paperback set of BLADE’S EDGE & TRAITOR’S HOPE, US Only.


3 winners will receive eBook sets of BLADE’S EDGE & TRAITOR’S HOPE, International.
a Rafflecopter giveaway




Tour Schedule:
Week One:
10/9/2017- Two Chicks on Books- Interview
10/9/2017- Blushing BibliophileReview

10/10/2017- Arvenig.itGuest Post
10/10/2017- BibliobakesReview

10/11/2017- Kati's Bookaholic Rambling ReviewsExcerpt
10/11/2017- Ashley M. DelgadoReview

10/12/2017- A Dream Within A DreamExcerpt
10/12/2017- Don't Judge, ReadSpotlight

10/13/2017- BookHounds YAGuest Post
10/13/2017- Adventures Thru WonderlandReview

Week Two:
10/16/2017- Novel NoviceExcerpt
10/16/2017- Nick Bryan Dot ComReview

10/17/2017- Books at DawnGuest Post
10/17/2017- YA and WineExcerpt

10/18/2017- Fire and IceSpotlight
10/18/2017- A Gingerly ReviewReview

10/19/2017- My Nook, Books & MoreExcerpt
10/19/2017- Jena Brown WritesReview

10/20/2017- Seeing Double In NeverlandInterview
10/20/2017- Ramblings From An Alternate RealityReview

Grab book 1 now!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the chance to win this exciting series. This is a new author to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This series sounds amazing. Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete

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