Good Morning, Booklovers!
Are you ready for this week's book talk? Our guest author is Amanda Fleet, bringing us her featured urban fantasy series, Guardians of the Realm.
Welcome, Amanda! What may I get you to drink?
AF: I don’t drink coffee… I’m a tea woman. I like it strong, with a little milk. No sugar. And by the gallon.
Ally: No problem. My magic pot can meet any request. While I pour, please introduce yourself to readers.
Are you ready for this week's book talk? Our guest author is Amanda Fleet, bringing us her featured urban fantasy series, Guardians of the Realm.
Welcome, Amanda! What may I get you to drink?
AF: I don’t drink coffee… I’m a tea woman. I like it strong, with a little milk. No sugar. And by the gallon.
Ally: No problem. My magic pot can meet any request. While I pour, please introduce yourself to readers.
Bio:
Amanda Fleet is a physiologist by training and a writer at heart. She spent 18 years teaching science and medicine undergraduates at St Andrews University, but now uses her knowledge to work out how to kill people (in her books!). She completed her first degree at St Andrews University and her doctorate at University College, London.
She has been an inveterate stationery addict since a child, amassing a considerable stash of fountain pens, ink and notebooks during her lifetime. These have thankfully come in useful, as she tends to write rather than type, at least in the early stages of writing a book.
She is the author of the urban fantasy series: The Guardians of The Realm, the psychological thriller, Lies That Poison, and the crime novel, The Wrong Kind of Clouds.
Amanda lives in Scotland with her husband, where she can be found writing, walking and running.
Something unique/unusual that isn't in your regular bio: “Our garden won an award for “Best Landscaped Garden” in our local area, principally by being the only entrant in the competition. We won a certificate. I have it framed and proudly on display!”
Author Links:
Website: https://www.amandafleet.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaFleetWriter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amanda_fleet1
Book Bub: @AmandaFleet
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/amandafleet
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/amandafleet
Newsletter Sign Up Link: http://eepurl.com/bPRByj
Amanda Fleet is a physiologist by training and a writer at heart. She spent 18 years teaching science and medicine undergraduates at St Andrews University, but now uses her knowledge to work out how to kill people (in her books!). She completed her first degree at St Andrews University and her doctorate at University College, London.
She has been an inveterate stationery addict since a child, amassing a considerable stash of fountain pens, ink and notebooks during her lifetime. These have thankfully come in useful, as she tends to write rather than type, at least in the early stages of writing a book.
She is the author of the urban fantasy series: The Guardians of The Realm, the psychological thriller, Lies That Poison, and the crime novel, The Wrong Kind of Clouds.
Amanda lives in Scotland with her husband, where she can be found writing, walking and running.
Something unique/unusual that isn't in your regular bio: “Our garden won an award for “Best Landscaped Garden” in our local area, principally by being the only entrant in the competition. We won a certificate. I have it framed and proudly on display!”
Author Links:
Website: https://www.amandafleet.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaFleetWriter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amanda_fleet1
Book Bub: @AmandaFleet
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/amandafleet
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/amandafleet
Newsletter Sign Up Link: http://eepurl.com/bPRByj
INTERVIEW:
Ally: What is the hardest part of writing?
AF: Finding an editor you trust and who you connect with. Unless you feel comfortable with your editor, it can be hard to work on the changes they suggest. I am so pleased to have found my current editor (Fiona McLaren) – we work brilliantly together and she is just amazing. When I was traditionally published, I had an absolutely awful copy-editor once (who had no idea what she was doing, to be honest). I have no desire to repeat that experience if I can avoid it!
Ally: Do you write with an audience in mind or to a publisher’s required theme?
AF: Neither in many ways, though more towards the former than the latter. I write the kind of books I would like to read (and hope I’m not so individual that I’m the only one who wants to read them!). That said, I do have an eye on what else is out there.
Ally: Are you a plotter, a pantser or a little of both?
AF: Mostly a plotter, but I don’t like to plot so much that I don’t discover things in the first draft. The first draft also tends to change from my original plan, as a result of characters being difficult! I have (a few times) written with no plan… they have always been a disaster and taken far longer to whip into shape in the editing stage. I also planned one book so much, that I then didn’t want to write it as I knew everything that happened, so writing it would have been hard. My best option is to work out the key scenes or ‘beats’ of the book, but leave some of the bits in-between quite fluid.
Ally: How many drafts (revision passes) do you do on a typical book before submission to your editor/publisher?
AF: I normally do a lot of planning, then write my first draft. After that, I do a structural edit, then usually two more (one focusing on trying to get the words right and another where I polish it more) before it goes off to my editor. There’s then another edit following her feedback, plus a final polish.
Ally: What is your next writing project? Anticipated release date?
AF: I’ve just published Invasion: Guardians of The Realm Book 4. This is set five years after War and The Realm is facing a new threat – one it can’t see and that can bend everyone’s mind to their whim.
Once the dust has settled from that being launched, I’ll be back to editing a time-travel romance that moves between the 1760s and 2022 that’s due out later this year.
Ally: Which of the trivia questions did you choose to answer?
Ally: What is the hardest part of writing?
AF: Finding an editor you trust and who you connect with. Unless you feel comfortable with your editor, it can be hard to work on the changes they suggest. I am so pleased to have found my current editor (Fiona McLaren) – we work brilliantly together and she is just amazing. When I was traditionally published, I had an absolutely awful copy-editor once (who had no idea what she was doing, to be honest). I have no desire to repeat that experience if I can avoid it!
Ally: Do you write with an audience in mind or to a publisher’s required theme?
AF: Neither in many ways, though more towards the former than the latter. I write the kind of books I would like to read (and hope I’m not so individual that I’m the only one who wants to read them!). That said, I do have an eye on what else is out there.
Ally: Are you a plotter, a pantser or a little of both?
AF: Mostly a plotter, but I don’t like to plot so much that I don’t discover things in the first draft. The first draft also tends to change from my original plan, as a result of characters being difficult! I have (a few times) written with no plan… they have always been a disaster and taken far longer to whip into shape in the editing stage. I also planned one book so much, that I then didn’t want to write it as I knew everything that happened, so writing it would have been hard. My best option is to work out the key scenes or ‘beats’ of the book, but leave some of the bits in-between quite fluid.
Ally: How many drafts (revision passes) do you do on a typical book before submission to your editor/publisher?
AF: I normally do a lot of planning, then write my first draft. After that, I do a structural edit, then usually two more (one focusing on trying to get the words right and another where I polish it more) before it goes off to my editor. There’s then another edit following her feedback, plus a final polish.
Ally: What is your next writing project? Anticipated release date?
AF: I’ve just published Invasion: Guardians of The Realm Book 4. This is set five years after War and The Realm is facing a new threat – one it can’t see and that can bend everyone’s mind to their whim.
Once the dust has settled from that being launched, I’ll be back to editing a time-travel romance that moves between the 1760s and 2022 that’s due out later this year.
Ally: Which of the trivia questions did you choose to answer?
- most watched tv show: Farscape
- a movie you’ll always remember: La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful)
- favorite accessory (jewelry, scarves, shoes, etc.): shawls/wraps
- favorite quote: “Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.”
- Your hobbies? Knitting, running, gardening, cross-stitch, walking, reading (not necessarily in that order!)
Aegyir Rises (Guardians of The Realm 1):
Genre: Urban fantasy/Portal fantasy
Rating: Mild sexual content
People are dying all around Reagan Bennett. They’re dead because someone--something—has ripped all of their energy out.
Meanwhile, Reagan is being plagued by dreams of a different world. Ones where she’s a warrior called Aeron. Ones where a woman keeps urging her to come home because it’s the demon Aegyir who is killing everyone.
Aegyir is no dream. He is very real. And he believes Reagan is his old enemy Aeron. The woman he’d sworn to destroy.
Reagan needs to figure out who Aegyir is, before he slaughters everyone she loves. And to do that, she needs to figure out who she really is.
Reader praise for Aegyir Rises:
“There’s nothing out there as intriguing, tense and unputdownable in the urban fantasy genre that I’ve came across in a very long time.”
Buy links:
The Guardians of The Realm series:
Aegyir Rises – Guardians of The Realm 1: http://mybook.to/AegyirRises
Aeron Returns – Guardians of The Realm 2: http://mybook.to/AeronReturns
War – Guardians of The Realm 3: http://mybook.to/WarGoTR3
Invasion – Guardians of The Realm 4: http://mybook.to/GoTR-Invasion
Box set books 1-3: http://mybook.to/GoTRboxset
Other books by the author:
Lies That Poison (psychological thriller): http://mybook.to/LiesThatPoison
The Wrong Kind of Clouds (crime): http://mybook.to/TheWrongKindofClouds
Lies That Poison (psychological thriller): http://mybook.to/LiesThatPoison
The Wrong Kind of Clouds (crime): http://mybook.to/TheWrongKindofClouds
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