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Tuesday, August 29, 2023

BLOG TOUR- NETHER AFTER by @JodiLynneCox With A Guest Post & #Giveaway!

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the NETHER AFTER by Jodi L. Cox Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: NETHER AFTER

Author: Jodi L. Cox

Pub. Date: August 19, 2023

Publisher: Spirit Gate Studio

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook

Pages: 216

Find it: Goodreadshttps://books2read.com/NETHER-AFTER

In a world of darkness and danger, where secrets lurk in every shadow, one young necromancer is determined to uncover the truth and rescue his lost mother. Meet Faust Thaed, a courageous 15-year-old trapped in the treacherous realm of the Nether After. Haunted by the memory of his beloved mother, taken captive by the enigmatic Leiche Guard, Faust's journey becomes a relentless quest for answers. As he navigates the eerie landscapes, he finds solace in the company of ghosts, drawing upon their arcane powers to fuel his necromantic abilities.

 

Faust's path is fraught with unimaginable perils. From harrowing encounters with ravenous poltergeists to facing off against bloodthirsty monsters and cannibalistic predators, every step brings him closer to the truth and the menacing soldiers of the secret police.

Thrills abound as Faust's clandestine adventure unfolds, his fate hanging in the balance as he battles not only for his mother's life but also for his own. Every choice he makes, every spell he casts, could tip the scales toward triumph or catastrophe.

 

Will he rescue his mother from the clutches of the Leiche Guard? Or will his magical powers consume him, leaving him forever trapped in a realm of despair?

The Nether After awaits-will you dare to enter?

 

Top 5 favorite scenes and why.

 

There is a fight in the Zeppelin that happens between Faust and a spy over a carpet bag full of photos.

 That scene I felt was when my story started defining itself in its actual genre.  I imagined this elaborate battle where airplanes were being dropped from the Zeppelin, and the hangar is opened. People are being sucked out of hangar bay and Faust ends up falling out of Zeppelin on a falling airplane and needs to cast a split-second spell to teleport himself back aboard the ship.   I see that scene like a movie in my head. It felt this moment Faust took on the role of Indiana Jones and became that larger-than-life hero I wanted him to be.

 

My next favorite scene is when the Zeppelin goes berserk when they try to teleport the dirigible from Ris Norsing to Xeno.  This was based on the Philadelphia Experiment, also known as “Project Rainbow.”

So, the following is a mix of quotes from Military.com and Navy.mil. 

“The Philadelphia Experiment is one of the most grotesque military urban legends ever — and it has endured as an infamous World War II conspiracy theory. According to legend, on Oct. 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer escort, was conducting top-secret experiments designed to win command of the oceans against the Axis powers. The rumor was that the government was creating technology that would render naval ships invisible to enemy radar, and there in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, it was time to test it out. Witnesses claim an eerie green-blue glow surrounded the hull of the ship as her generators spun up, and then, suddenly, the Eldridge disappeared. The ship was then seen in Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.

The legend states that classified military documents reported that the Eldridge crew were affected by the events in disturbing ways. Some went insane. Others developed mysterious illnesses. Some disappeared, never to be heard from again. Others still were said to have been fused together with the ship, still alive but with limbs sealed in the metal. “

So, the military says yes, there was a piece of secret technology that they were using to mask radar, but none of this happened.  It was just some radio frequency stuff. To me, what makes this interesting is that you can go to Military.com or Navy.mil, and they still feel the need to address the “hoax”.   Even though multiple witnesses did come forward claiming they were a part of or even seen the events happen.  It stays as one of the big black marker redacted documents in the military.

 

When Faust is looking at the Pagoda with the vultures flying around it.

 One of the things almost every literary agent will tell you is to never put any abuse that will happen to the main character.  It can happen to your side characters but never the main ones.  If it does happen it needs to be off-page or insinuated.  

I’m sorry I don’t agree with sugar coating this because when you lose a family member, like Faust has a lot of times, people resort to substance abuse.  Living with those individuals who have substance abuse is extremely hard.  Because they don’t know what they are doing most of the time, and as a teenager in this situation, you must become an adult fast.

I believe if we don’t address this kind of thing in fiction and non-fiction and it stays taboo, how the heck are people going to learn to process the situation in a healthy manner? Or better yet realize they are not alone in their suffering?

So, after Faust has an argument with his dad, he runs out into the rock garden; mind racing in a panic attack. He takes a moment to center himself.  Unlike our world, the Nether After sky is in constant twilight.  Faust starts watching the souls of the dead entering a vortex in the sky.

The souls in the vortex have been gathered by the vultures who are swarming around a pagoda.  The birds keep on trying to enter the pagoda. The ones who don’t have souls or a purpose just ram into the pagoda's magical barrier and are left standing around, stunned, not knowing what to do.  This is the moment where Faust unconsciously realizes he needs a change in his life and that everything he’s doing up until now is not helping him resolve the feelings of loss and abandonment he’s experiencing.   This scene is also illustrated. 

 

I wasn’t sure I was going to talk about this. I debated on leaving this out, but I think maybe I should tell the truth about why some of the scenes in my book are as graphic as they are.  So, I think one of my most powerful scenes is not my favorite. It’s the one I hate the most.

So, there is a scene where an old woman named Flossie is on Faust’s soul-harvesting dossiers.  Faust goes to harvest her soul, but he is upset about the way she is being treated.  She’s strapped down to a bed, and she can’t breathe. She’s been left alone to basically die.

Well, I went through something similar, which truly scared the death out of me.

In 1997 I was in San Antonio, Texas, at Lackland Air Force Base. I had just turned 18 in April and was gun-ho to go out and save the world after High School.

Things did not go as I had planned. During my enlistment, I was repeatedly hazed, I was physically assaulted, and harassed.  During the peak of my boot camp, I came down with a bad case of tonsillitis from being forced to run in the rain in over 100-degree heat in Wool BDUs going from hot and wet to air conditioning and soaking wet.  (I was in the winter uniform because my sergeant took away my summer uniform.)

Well, anyway, I was running a fever and the Drill Sergeant decided to grab me and whip me around to face him. I guess he had said something; I didn’t respond.  I ended up puking on him.  I ended up in the hospital after that. 

Things took an even worse turn at the hospital.  While there, I was strapped down to a bed same as Flossie. I was drugged with morphine, which made me feel like I had spiders crawling up and down my arms.  Being strapped down, I could not release myself because my arms and legs were cuffed to the bed.  I ended up being sexually assaulted by an unnamed person I had never seen before.  I never felt so alone and abandoned in my life.

 I had no one.

I was threatened when I returned to active duty.  I was told that if I talked, I would end up in the desert in an unmarked grave, and no one would ever be able to find me.  As a reminder, I was told I had to carry a rock with me everywhere I went in my right hand. It had to sit on my tray when I ate, and it had to be under my pillow when I went to bed at night.  I was told the purpose of the rock was to remind me that “Rocks don’t fly in the air force; they get buried in the desert.”

So, the scene with Flossie is extremely important to me because it was me writing through my trauma. 

Most of the details, the rain, the buckets, and the hospital being in poor shape, were part of the exercises I had to write while going through Military Sexual Trauma therapy for PTSD with the VA.

So that whole scene pretty much was me dealing with shit that happened in real life.  Why it’s my favorite and most hated because it hurts me to read it, I used to cry all the time, and I couldn’t talk or deal with my feelings when I came home. I couldn’t return to normal, no matter how hard I tried.

Now I feel like I own my experience. I’m not afraid to tell people what happened to me. If anything, I want to warn people.  That the military I still love and respect has a lot of internal issues going on it, that they like to keep quiet.

I feel during that scene, Faust maybe freed Flossie and me at the same time.  I have walked away from the situation, learning something about myself. I can use all the horrible things that happened to me to make myself stronger.

 

My last favorite scene is when Faust is with Carol, and they are floating paper lanterns on the water. 

This is another one of those bittersweet moments.  It’s about saying goodbye and learning how to move on.  If you read the above, you realize I had a chapter in my life that desperately needed to end.  This moment gives Faust and Carol a chance to say goodbye and accept what has happened to them.  For Faust, he realizes he was never alone in his quest, and he could have relied on his family more. He only felt alone because of the choices he made to do things on his own.

 

When and Why, I Wrote the Book.

The concept of the book, which is Faust searching for his mother was another real point I drew from my own life.  During the time frame I was writing I was also searching from my own biological mother. I wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead. I didn’t know a thing about her. So, Faust questions and inner conflict was a lot of my own.  I think more importantly was When I wrote the book though versus Why?

So, I wrote most of this story while my husband was going through Chemotherapy. He would go in; they would hook him up to the IV and he’d fall asleep while they administer the medicine.  At the same time, I lost both my grandfather.

After that happened, I was worried I was going to lose my husband too.

If you have ever gone through cancer rehabilitation as a primary caregiver, you are always confronted with death while sitting in the chemo room. It makes you think constantly about the people around you, your family your own life everything.

The worse thing is you become so hyper-vigilant about death; you are waiting for something horrible to happen every second of the day.  So, every time my husband stopped breathing from snoring while he slept, I want to wake him up.  I wanted to be there every second, to get him water, to give him anything he needed. I was smothering him. Finally, the nurse told me I needed to find something to do and let the poor man rest.  So, I started to type away on my laptop in the chemo room, three days a week for length of the treatment and multiple hours a day. When my husband ended up on a feeding tube and couldn’t swallow, food anymore I thought this was it. I’m going to lose him.

Well, guess what? I was wrong. My husband is alive and well, defied all odds, and has been cancer-free for quite a few years now. 

I realized when writing you can’t sit around waiting for things to change on their own.

You also don’t have to do everything at once and shoulder all your burdens by yourself. I felt if I could write a story and bring those two messages to just one person that, my book would be a success.

 

 

About Jodi L. Cox:

Jodi Cox is an American dieselpunk author born on April 10, 1979 in Union City, Indiana. She graduated from Simon Kenton High School in 1997. Later she went on to graduate with a BFA from the College of Mount Saint Joseph, now known as the University of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio.

After college, Jodi started writing for Citybeat magazine. Later she went on to become a pioneer in internet graphics and website development. After spending nearly ten years writing for everything from tax websites to poetry, Jodi began developing the world of the Nether After, unbeknownst to her that steampunk and dieselpunk was turning into a literary genre.  

Jodi enjoys all things speculative fiction, but has a pension for the weird and unusual.  She describes herself as a comic book snob. She is often found with a stack of Japanese and American graphic novels in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.  She enjoys drawing and painting, as well as writing.  Her hours not spent on writing are devoted to geeking out over new computer hardware, or the latest video games. She loves ripping into electronics to see how they work, as well as cooking and developing new recipes.

As a writer Jodi has been writing steampunk, dieselpunk, and fantasy of all types. She has even dipped her toe into science fiction.

Sign up for Jodi’s newsletter! Scroll to the bottom of the page.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

 

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a $10 Amazon Gift Card courtesy of Rockstar Book Tours, International.

Ends September 12th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

8/28/2023

Writer of Wrongs

Guest Post

8/28/2023

YA Boks Central

Interview/IG Post

8/29/2023

#BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog

Excerpt/IG Post

8/29/2023

Two Chicks on Books

Guest Post/IG Post

8/30/2023

Rajiv's Reviews

Review/IG Post

8/30/2023

Gryffindorbookishnerd

IG Review

8/31/2023

Character Madness and Musings

Review

8/31/2023

Destiny's Path

Review/IG Post

9/1/2023

Paperwitches

Review/IG Post

9/1/2023

Country Mamas With Kids

Review/IG Post

9/1/2023

@allyluvsbooksalatte

IG Review

Week Two:

9/4/2023

Lifestyle of Me

Review

9/4/2023

Fyrekatz Blog

Review

9/4/2023

Review Thick And Thin

Review/IG Post

9/5/2023

@bookish_aly_cat

Review/IG Post

9/5/2023

evergirl200

IG Review

9/6/2023

A Blue Box Full of Books

IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post

9/6/2023

Kim's Book Reviews and Writing Aha's

Review/IG Post

9/7/2023

www.instagram.com/enjoyingbooksagain

IG Review

9/7/2023

The Momma Spot

Guest Post

9/8/2023

Breysreviews

IG Review

9/8/2023

More Books Please blog

Review/IG Post


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