Tuesday, April 2, 2019

SPOTLIGHT w/INTERVIEW - FANTASY - Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics and Foul Play


Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics and Foul Play
Marjorie Diaz Series, #2
by Desdemona Wren
Date of Publication: April 2nd 2019
Publisher: AntlerDoe Media
Cover Artist: Ariel LeAnn Cat’s Paw Media
Genre: Urban Fantasy


Tagline: Marjorie Diaz is being hunted by a powerful magical family
that will stop at nothing to kill her.


 BLURB
Marjorie Diaz has been marked for death.

After her relationship with Patrick Watkins ends, Marjorie discovers that everyone in her life has been lying to her. Even her best friend, Lucian Maravalle.

Now, Marjorie is being hunted by a powerful magical family who will stop at nothing to kill her.

Lucian and her family have sworn to protect Marjorie from these nightmarish beasts, but Marjorie isn’t sure she can trust them. They keep secret after secret and, even after Marjorie has begged for them to tell her everything, they continue to keep her in the dark.

Marjorie struggles with her own mortality as she embarks on a futile journey to remain alive and reason with the beings that are hunting her.

She finds out the hard way that humans don't matter on the other side of the veil. Unless Marjorie has something of use to offer, she's better off dead.

Book 2 in the Marjorie Diaz Series.

CONTENT WARNING: Gore, Body Horror, Major Character Death
Amazon
Excerpt:

Marjorie sucked in a breath, sitting up so quickly her head spun.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, clawing at her throat and chest. “Oh, my God.”
The room around her was pitch black. She couldn’t see anything beyond her face, which was disorienting. She raised her hands, waving them around to try and focus on something in the inky blackness. She could just barely see them moving in the dark. So she wasn’t blind, at least. That was good to know.
She looked around the room; the sigils no longer shone around her. There was no eerie green glow to light her way through the room. She turned on the bed, nearly teetering over the edge when the mattress was no longer as large as she remembered.
“Wha?!” she exclaimed, catching herself and straightening up. Her back hit the edge of something soft and she turned around, blinking at it. She pressed her hands against what she thought were large pillows, only to realize she wasn’t in a bed at all. This was a couch.
She stood up immediately.
“Marjorie?” a familiar voice asked, a light flipping on overhead.
Marjorie whirled around, finding Angeli in the doorway to his bedroom. He was shirtless and dressed in loose sleep sweats. He scratched his head and yawned.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he said with a lopsided grin.
Marjorie narrowed her eyes.
“I’m still here?” she asked.
“You’re still here, darlin’” he responded, flashing her a grin. “You passed out for a few days. I was actually worried you were dead for a little while there.”
“I...never left?” Marjorie asked, confused. “I’ve been here? Passed out? For days?”
Angeli gave her a weird look. “That’s what I said,” he informed her, speaking slowly. “You okay there, baby girl?”
Marjorie had no idea if she was okay. The pain she’d felt in those dreams...returning to her apartment to find Lucian and Emmanuel there...how had that all been the same dream?
She groaned. It was too early in the morning for her to even be worried about this. Or late at night? She didn’t know. Her head throbbed.
“Marjorie?” Angeli asked, drawing her attention back to him. “You okay?”
“I have no idea,” Marjorie said honestly. “I...just...I feel weird. Like, weirder than usual. I think it’s safe to say that I am definitely not into whatever the hell that was.”
Angeli laughed. “That’s probably normal,” he said, shrugging.
Marjorie glowered at him. “I don’t have time for this,” she griped. “I need to go home.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I need to sleep in my own bed and I definitely need to shower.”
“Why not just shower here?” Angeli asked, tense. “Before you wander out into the streets of New York? You’ve been passed out for two days.”
Marjorie shot him a look. “I would rather shower in my own apartment, thanks,” she snapped. “Who in their right mind would shower before braving the streets anyway? I’d much rather rinse the filth of the city off and change into some nice pajamas, then never leave again. Ever.”
“I’m not sure it’s safe for you to wander around Brooklyn at 3am,” Angeli said. “That’s all.”
Marjorie checked the clock on the wall. “That clock says 5am,” Marjorie countered. “I think I’ll be fine with the morning commuter crowd.”
“That clock is wrong,” Angeli said quickly, edging toward the door.
He was acting weird. All his normal nicknames and sickly charm were gone. It was like there was something he wasn’t telling her.
Alarm bells went off in her head.
“I need you to let me go,” Marjorie said, watching him warily.
“I’m not keeping you here,” he responded as he moved himself between her and the door and squared his shoulders. He looked like he was getting ready for a fight.
“What do you mean you’re not keeping me here?” Marjorie asked, jaw clenched.
“Exactly like I said, I’m not keeping you here,” Angeli repeated, crossing his arms.
“If not you, then who is?” Marjorie pressed, eyes narrowed.
Angeli’s lips cracked open in a slow, sinister smile.
A shiver ran down Marjorie’s spine. That couldn’t be good.
“I thought you’d never ask,” another voice said from behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and it took all the strength in her body to keep her knees from buckling.
The source of the voice moved forward, his footfalls soft on the rough gray carpeting of Angeli’s apartment. When he stood behind her, Marjorie could feel the heat coming from his body and her stomach flipped and gurgled.
“Hello, Marjorie Diaz,” he said. “I believe we have a lot to talk about.”
Marjorie turned her head slowly, her skin erupting in goosebumps and frightened tears prickling in her eyes.
“Patrick,” she gasped.




Author Info
Desdemona Wren is an urban fantasy and science fiction author who writes gay fiction with monsters, witches, and fantastical plots. She's from Seattle, WA, but currently resides in the mystical land of Northern California. Where everybody wears coats all the time, nobody says 'brah', 'bruh', 'bro' or any variation of that word, and absolutely nobody surfs.

She has two cats named Oliver and Ophelia who have traveled the world. From The Great Smoky Mountains, to the tallest peaks of The Cascades, and even to the Grand Canyon; they've been everywhere.

She has written two full-length novels: Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Magical High Society and Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics & Foul Play; one novella: Bloom: A Monster Love Novella (Book 1); and one short story featured in a Cinderella Anthology: Call Me Eli.


The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with Desdemona Wren . . .


How would you describe you style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
The first things that come to mind are ‘fanfiction’ and ‘sarcasm’ because I’ve had people describe my writing like that recently. Not sure if it was a compliment or an insult, but I’m always looking on the bright side. Plus, I love both fanfiction and sarcasm so.
Anyways, I would describe my writing as meticulous. That sounds boring, but I’m one of those writers that plans everything out and there’ll be this one sentence on a page people think is inconsequential or maybe my editor said “Des, this is pointless, remove it.” But it’ll be foreshadowing for a huge plot point.
I’m one of those authors. The sneaky, foreshadowy, sarcastic ones.


What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project or just free writing)?
I need to be able to see my word count go up as I write. So, I’ll use Writing Sprints or 4thewords. If I do that, I can easily write 5-10,000 words a day. If not, I’m lucky to pull around 50 or so.
I also don’t listen to music pretty much every when I’m writing, but I always need to have my headphones on, or I’ll get too distracted to sit still and write. My headphones make me feel secure and kind of work as my ‘blinders’ to weird sounds in my apartment.


Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon your character during story creation?
How my characters come to life is really strange. Usually they just appear, fully formed in my head with a name and everything. Or, they start off as a joke where I’m just riffing with my friends about dumb stuff. Then it turns into a fully formed story with an outline accidentally.
My characters tend to grow with the story as I write it, but I also meticulously make them and their homes in the sims and give them whole lives before I even write a single page of their story. So, they’re real, fully-formed people by the time I start writing about them. The Sims is an excellent resource!
I have also written several stories with transgender and asexual characters and, considering I’m not own voices for those communities, I have done extensive research and interviews with transgender and asexual people to ensure I tell these stories in a respectful and correct way.


Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character? If so which one(s)?
This is a really difficult question to answer. I’m not buddy-buddy with any of my characters. The closest I’ve come to bonding with one of them is crying when I write a few of Marjorie’s scenes where she goes through emotional turmoil. She has borderline personality disorder like I do, so writing some of her scenes can be very difficult for me and her character has become stronger because of it.
So, yeah. I guess Marjorie and I have kinda bonded.


Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
Oh my gosh, yes! I’m writing a reverse harem book for a friend with a dimension-hopping space princess named Aurelia and I cannot wait to write her story! She has four arms!
Her and Suzie Q (Suzuka Chiba), a demon hunter from feudal Japan who gets a time traveling box from some mermaids and falls in love with a unicorn.


Have you ever felt that there was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what? If no what spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
This is a weird question because on the one hand, yeah. I’ve felt like this often because of mental illness (BPD is a heckin trip, add OCD to that and you’re in for a wild ride).

On the other hand, I feel like this about writing and wanting to write constantly and wanting to succeed at writing. It’s like this uncontrollable need to be good at the only profession I’ve ever loved.

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