Interview with Speculative Fiction Writer Annie Douglass Lima + A Giveaway!

I’m excited to introduce you to a fellow writer I met through a wonderful Facebook writers group, Clean Indie Reads. Please welcome speculative fiction writer Annie Douglass Lima!

I was intrigued when I met Annie because she currently lives in my place of birth (Taiwan) and teaches at a school that one of my girlfriends taught at before. Plus, I always appreciate authors who can write genres I can’t write, and Annie definitely falls into that category. I haven’t read her books (yet), but this review from Publisher’s Weekly proves her writing is wow-worthy:

“What looks, at first blush, like a Hunger Games pastiche turns out to be anything but. First in the Krillonian Chronicles series, Lima’s novel is an uneven but gripping tale of loyalty, captivity, and redemption.”

So without further ado, let’s get to know Annie and her books better. Be sure to read to the bottom to enter the giveaway for an Amazon gift card or a digital copy of her book!

Hi Annie, thanks for joining us today! Please tell us a little about yourself and what a day in your life looks like. 

I was born in Southern California but raised mostly in Kenya.  After college (in Southern California), I spent a year teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Indonesia, which was an incredible experience.  Shortly after returning to the States, I married my husband Floyd, and the two of us lived in California for several years.  Eventually all the pieces fell into place for us to move overseas together, and now we’re serving at Morrison Academy, an international school in Taiwan.  I’ve been teaching fifth grade here for nearly nine years now, and I love it!

During the week, my day often starts when the alarm rings at 5:00 a.m. I like to begin by reading my Bible over breakfast, and then I often go out jogging around the track. (I read books on my Kindle as I jog – as soon as I discovered this ability, my motivation to exercise went up several thousand percent!)

I’m usually in my classroom by 6:30 or 7:00 a.m., at which point I squeeze in some writing if I’m ready for the school day. School goes from 7:50 to 3:15 on most days. After school, I plan lessons and get ready for the next day, and then if my brain isn’t too fried from a day of teaching, I work on my own writing again. In the evenings after dinner, I write some more or catch up with my author groups on Facebook. Most of my best writing happens on weekends or school holidays.

What started you on your writing career?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can recall.  When I was seven years old, I had a sudden inspiration for what I thought was an amazing story and decided then and there that I was going to write a book and be the world’s youngest author.  I ran to my room in great excitement, found an old notebook and a pencil, and started in.  Well, that first novel was never actually finished, let alone published, but it got me started.  After that, I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t working on at least one book.  Prince of Alasia, which I started in college, was the first one I finished that I thought was worth trying to get published.  I looked into traditional publishing and spent a long time trying to get an agent, but to no avail.  Finally I learned about Kindle publishing and did it myself the indie way, eleven years after I first started writing the book.  A few months later I added the paperback edition.  It was quite a thrill to me to finally fulfill my childhood dream! Now I’ve published a total of twelve books (two YA action and adventure novels, four fantasies, a puppet script, and five anthologies of my students’ poetry).

What do you like most about the genre(s) you write? What do you like the least?

Speculative fiction in some form (fantasy, sci-fi, alternate reality, etc.) is just plain fun to write. Reality simply doesn’t give me enough freedom! I don’t think there’s anything I dislike about writing in this genre.

Tell us about the inspiration behind your new book. Which character(s) do you relate to the most?

I’ve had the idea growing in my mind for the last few years.  It started as just a picture of the setting and its culture: a world almost exactly like ours, but with legalized slavery.  The main characters, Bensin (a teenage slave and martial artist) and Steene (his owner and coach) emerged gradually, along with the plot (in the first book, Bensin’s struggle to protect and free his younger sister, and in the second, his struggle to survive as a gladiator).

The Gladiator and the Guard is book 2 in the Krillonian Chronicles, book 1 being The Collar and the Cavvarach. The stories take place in a world almost exactly like our own.  Although most aspects of the culture are just about what they are currently on Earth, a few sports are different, such as the martial art known as cavvara shil.  The main difference, however, is that slavery is legal there.

The Krillonian Empire rules much of the world.  An emperor, who is never named, governs from the capital city, Krillonia, on the continent known as Imperia.  Eight separate provinces (originally independent nations before they were conquered) can be found on nearby continents.  Each province, plus Imperia, is allowed to elect its own legislature and decide on many of its own laws, but the emperor reserves the right to veto any of them and make changes as he sees fit.  This seldom happens, however, and to most people the emperor is merely a vague and distant ceremonial figure.

The prevalence of slavery is probably what would stand out the most to visitors from Earth.  There are nearly as many slaves in the city of Jarreon, where both books take place, as free people, and they are easily identified by the steel collars they are required to wear locked around their necks.  From each collar hangs a tag inscribed with the slave’s name, their owner’s name, and a copy of their owner’s signature.  On the back of the tag is their owner’s phone number and a bar code that can be scanned to access additional information.

Many families own one or more slaves who do their housework and yardwork.  Businesses often own a large number of slaves, usually for manual labor, though some are trained for more complex tasks. Those who don’t own their own slaves may “hire in” one belonging to someone else.  The accepted rate for an hourly wage is two-thirds the amount that a free person would earn for equivalent labor (the money goes to the slave’s owner, of course).

To read more about the culture of the Krillonian Empire, take a look at this post on my blog.

My favorite character in this book is definitely Bensin.  The struggles he is forced to go through make him stronger, and I admire him for his perseverance and determination to meet his goals no matter what.  He is willing to sacrifice himself for those he cares about, and while his choices aren’t always the wisest, he is committed to doing what he feels is right.  Society is against him, since he’s a slave and has few rights, but that doesn’t stop him.

What do you hope readers will learn/gain from reading this story?

I hope readers will realize, as Bensin eventually does, that we can all choose the type of person we want to be, no matter what our circumstances are. We might not have a say in what happens to us, but we can decide how we will respond and who we will be.

Thank you, Annie, for giving us a glimpse into your life and books! 

Annie’s young adult action and adventure novel, The Gladiator and the Guard, is now available for purchase! This is the second book in the Krillonian Chronicles, sequel to The Collar and the Cavvarach


First Things First: a Little Information about Book 1: 

Bensin, a teenage slave and martial artist, is desperate to see his little sister freed. But only victory in the Krillonian Empire’s most prestigious tournament will allow him to secretly arrange for Ellie’s escape. Dangerous people are closing in on her, however, and Bensin is running out of time.  With his one hope fading quickly away, how can Bensin save Ellie from a life of slavery and abuse?

What is the Collar for, and What is a Cavvarach?


The story is set in a world very much like our own, with just a few major differences.  One is that slavery is legal there.  Slaves must wear metal collars that lock around their neck, making their enslaved status obvious to everyone.  Any slave attempting to escape faces the dilemma of how and where to illegally get their collar removed (a crime punishable by enslavement for the remover).  

Another difference is the popularity of a martial art called cavvara shil.  It is fought with a cavvarach (rhymes with “have a rack”), a weapon similar to a sword but with a steel hook protruding from partway down its top edge.  Competitors can strike at each other with their feet as well as with the blades.  You win in one of two ways: disarming your opponent (hooking or knocking their cavvarach out of their hands) or pinning their shoulders to the mat for five seconds.

Click here to order The Collar and the Cavvarach from Amazon 
for $2.99 a discounted price of just 99 cents through May 30th!

 

And now, The Gladiator and the Guard, with another awesome cover by the talented Jack Lin!

Bensin, a teenage slave and martial artist, is just one victory away from freedom. But after he is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he is condemned to the violent life and early death of a gladiator. While his loved ones seek desperately for a way to rescue him, Bensin struggles to stay alive and forge an identity in an environment designed to strip it from him. When he infuriates the authorities with his choices, he knows he is running out of time. Can he stand against the cruelty of the arena system and seize his freedom before that system crushes him?

Click here to order The Gladiator and the Guard in Kindle format from Amazon 
for $2.99 a discounted price of just 99 cents through May 30th!

 

Click here to order The Gladiator and the Guard from Smashwords (for Nook or in other digital formats) 
for $2.99 a discounted price of just 99 cents through May 30th!

 

Annie Douglass Lima spent most of her childhood in Kenya and later graduated from Biola University in Southern California. She and her husband Floyd currently live in Taiwan, where she teaches fifth grade at Morrison Academy. She has been writing poetry, short stories, and novels since her childhood, and to date has published twelve books (two YA action and adventure novels, four fantasies, a puppet script, and five anthologies of her students’ poetry). Besides writing, her hobbies include reading (especially fantasy and science fiction), scrapbooking, and international travel.
Connect with the Author Online:
Email: AnnieDouglassLima@gmail.com
Blog: http://anniedouglasslima.blogspot.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnnieDouglassLimaAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/princeofalasia
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/ADLimaOnGoodreads
Amazon Author Page: http://bit.ly/AnnieDouglassLimaOnAmazon
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AnnieDouglassLima
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/ADLimaOnLinkedIn
Google Plus: http://bit.ly/ADLimaOnGooglePlus
Now, enter to win an Amazon gift card or a free digital copy of The Collar and the Cavvarach!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Or find the giveaway at this link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/ad2fd99a3/?

 

Interview with Teen/YA Romance Author Ines Bautista-Yao

Calling all warm-fuzzy romance lovers, have I got a treat for you! 🙂

I’m excited to introduce you to teen/young adult romance author Ines Bautista-Yao. I met Ines through a Facebook writers group, and I’ll admit I was thrilled to meet another Asian author (’cause there aren’t many of us out there – I wonder why, haha). 😉 I got hooked on her sweet and upbeat writing style after winning a copy of her book Only A Kiss (which I loved), and wanted to help her spread the word about her new release Just A Little Bit Of Love (which I also loved!).

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Here’s the blurb:

Three short stories about three young girls: Anita, Ina, and Carla. Each one finding their lives disrupted by a boy. Maybe it’s because he wanders into the coffee shop where she works after school every Tuesday. Maybe it’s because he won’t leave her alone even if she has made it clear that she is crushing on his football teammate. Or maybe it’s because she’s spent one unforgettable afternoon with him—despite being oh-so-forgetful. Three small doses of love that serve up a whole lot of feels.

Don’t you just love the cover? It’s definitely a “what you see is what you get” image that perfectly encapsulates the sweetness and innocence of the stories inside. Even though the three stories are short, they are each complete in their own way, and more importantly, super big on feelings. Ines does a superb job of writing teenage characters. She has a knack for giving the characters realistic and relatable dialogue, thoughts and behaviors that reflect the wonderful awkwardness and earnestness of youth. This book will certainly satisfy any teen reader, as well as the teen inside all of us. 😉

Now that you’ve gotten a preview of this sweet collection of stories, let’s go behind the scenes and get to know its author. So, pull up a bean bag chair, grab some chocolate, and say hello to Ines Bautista-Yao.

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Me: Please introduce yourself and tell us about your background and daily life.

Ines: Hi, Liwen! First of all, thank you for having me on your blog. This is so awesome!

My name is Ines Bautista-Yao. I live in the Philippines and I am a wife and mom of two girls, a shy seven-year-old and a tornado of a two-year-old—polar opposites. I used to teach English but was lured into publishing, so I edited a teen magazine called Candy and a kids’ magazine called K-Zone. It was a really fun stint. I met wonderful friends, I learned a lot, and I got loads of freebies haha! But I wanted to go back to teaching. The problem was, I got pregnant so I stopped teaching (although I did go back for a few months till pregnancy complications made me stop) and I decided to edit and write freelance so I could take care of my family.

It was while my eldest daughter (then an only child) was napping for three hours that I wrote my first book. Now, it’s harder to write because I have two girls, but I try to squeeze it in every chance I get. In fact, the second story I wrote in Just A Little Bit Of Love, I wrote on my smart phone because my toddler pushes the screen of my laptop closed when she sees me writing!

Me: How did you get started as a writer? What genre(s) do you enjoy writing and/or reading?

Ines: I’ve been writing ever since I was small. I had notebooks filled with stories and I would read them out loud to my classmates underneath a huge, leafy tree. I guess it started with a love for reading then a need to come up with my own tales as well. I think it’s that way for almost all writers. I’ve yet to meet a writer who doesn’t love to read.

The genre I love is romance. Sweet, young, with lots of feels. I love writing it and reading it. I also love reading fantasy and mystery but I have yet to write stories like that. I hope to one day.

Me: What was your inspiration for Just A Little Bit Of Love and the characters in the stories?

Ines: Because I wanted the stories to happen simultaneously with events in Only A Kiss, I entered the world I created and thought of scenes or characters I wanted to revisit. These were the stories that came about. I asked myself, who else could have been there when they were in the coffee shop talking about Chris’s love life? Or who else could have been obsessed with Ethan besides Katie? And then there was Carla. I thought she was so adorable, she just had to have a love story of her own.

(Side note: You do not have to have read Only A Kiss to appreciate the stories from Just A Little Bit Of Love, but do yourself a favor and read it, too!)

Me: Is there one character in the book that you relate to the most?

Ines: I think I can relate to all of them a little bit. But the one I can relate to the most at this point in my life is Carla. Ever since I became a mom, all of a sudden, I can’t seem to remember anything! My life is such a mess – I have to write down reminders all over the place: in notebooks, on my phone, on my computer. I don’t have sticky notes tacked everywhere but that’s something I used to do when I was in school and when I was employed. I wish I had a Jacob who had perfect memory—but my husband is just as forgetful as I am! Haha!

Me: What was the most difficult part of writing this book? The easiest?

Ines: It was really easy to write all three stories but I think what was hard for me was writing On the Sidelines in the present tense. I usually write using the past tense, so I wanted to try something new. Using the present tense intrigued and challenged me. I hope I was able to pull it off! The easiest part was writing about when boy meets girl. Maybe because I enjoy it so much.

Me: What theme(s) do you like to include in your love stories? (ie. opposites attract, love at first sight)

Ines: I’ve realized that I like using the best friends/good-friends-to-something-more trope. I’ve used it twice already in two different books. But when I look at all the stories I’ve written, I’ve noticed that my guy characters are usually so smitten with the girls and the girls need to wake up and realize how wonderful these boys are. Maybe my next story should be the other way around. I like to try different things but sometimes, what comes out isn’t what I planned!

Me: What are you working on next?

Ines: Right now, I’m writing a prequel of sorts to Only A Kiss. It’s the love story of Ben and Regina. I’ve been working on it since last year and I need to finish it already! I’m also writing three short stories for three different anthologies (the reason Ben and Regina’s story still isn’t finished!). I seem to have too many ideas but not enough time to write them all down! I just pray the inspiration doesn’t go away!

Me: Thank you Ines for taking the time to visit with us! I can’t wait to read the prequel!

You can connect with Ines and her books at the following links:

Amazon: https://goo.gl/7dEUUh

Instagram: https://instagram.com/inesbyao/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/inesbyao

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inesbautistayao/

In light of the teenage vibes coming off of this post (haha), I’ll sign off with One Direction’s teeny-bopper tune, “One Thing”. 🙂

What fun, emotional or regrettable memories do you have from your teenage years?

Interview with Sci-fi/Romance Author N. Ceves

I’m excited to share my first author interview with you today!

I recently met fellow author N. Ceves after she picked up my first book and found my blog. Through total divine intervention, we struck up a conversation via Facebook when she agreed to be my beta reader for my latest release. And recently, I became her beta reader for her new book, Even the Stars.

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Let me just say that I started reading Even the Stars, a Christian sci-fi/romance, with some doubt. Why? I thought I wouldn’t be able to feel for the male character … who just so happens to not be human. You read that right. The hero of the book is an android. (I can hear all the Star Wars fans cheering now, haha.) I honestly wondered if I would be disappointed by the story and if it would be believable or relatable.

Well, let me tell you how wrong I was! Not only was I drawn into the story from the first sentence, I couldn’t put it down until the very last page. I also teared up several times throughout the book. Even after I finished it, I had deep philosophical/theological questions going around in my head for days … all because of an android. 🙂

Even the Stars left such a big impression on me that I decided to interview its author and find out more about her and the inspiration behind her book. I hope you enjoy getting to know her as much as I did. So, please sit down, share a pot of tea with us and meet your new favorite author, N. Ceves. 🙂

Me: Please tell us about yourself (ie. your family, background, hobbies, etc).

N. Ceves: I am a wife, a mom, an indie author, a teacher of infants with special needs. I love reading and tea and learning. I am passionate about faith, social justice, equality, education, and peace. Did I mention tea? Total tea nerd.

Me: What prompted you to start writing? What genres do you like to read and write?

N. Ceves: NaNoWriMo changed everything. I began writing creatively as soon as I could write, but joining the wild ride that is NaNo made writing a bigger part of my life.

I love to read anything that draws me in until I’m lost in that fictive dream.

Me: Please tell us about your book Even the Stars. What was your inspiration for the story? 

N. CevesEven the Stars is about two people, one human and one synthetic: an android. Leaving Earth aboard a starcraft in hope of finding a habitable planet light years away, these two people find themselves falling in love.

The book is about faith and the power of unconditional love.

It is a sweet, faith-infused love story that happens to take place in space. Is there a genre for that!?

I imagined a glimpse of a scene: a woman aboard a spaceship of some kind, leaving Earth. The intense feeling of homesickness that I picked up on was heartbreaking. “No matter where I go,” she seemed to say, “it won’t be home. It won’t be Earth. No other place could ever be home.”

I began to write a story around this glimpse. After I completed it, I felt something was missing.

Later, I remembered a moment in the story where the android, Dev, asks Verity, the doctor aboard the starcraft, if she believes he has a soul. I began to wonder more in depth about Dev. What gave him courage, what gave him hope in his isolation? The answer came to me that he had faith. At a moment of loneliness and grief, he reached out and he believed.

Me: What challenges did you have in writing Even the Stars? What did you enjoy most about writing it? 

N. Ceves: There were a few scenes in Even the Stars that involved a great deal of sadness for me. To write those scenes as well as I could, feeling so much emotion, was challenging. The scene in the book that includes Dev’s journal hurt to write.

What I enjoyed most was that I felt as though I got to know two pretty wonderful people: Dev and Verity, and take part in their adventure. I know, logically, that I made them up… but it doesn’t feel that way.

Me: What do you hope readers will gain from the book?

Nobody should ever make you feel less than. You are infinitely precious.

Me: If Even the Stars was made into a movie, which actors/actresses would you cast in the film?

I was just thinking that I would love to see True To You as a movie! I feel as though I actually viewed the scenes in your novel; that’s how immersed I was. (Me: Aw, thanks!)

If Even the Stars was a film I would wish for completely unknown actors and actresses to be cast. There are so many amazingly gifted actors and actresses working very hard and we just never see them.

Me: One final question – if you had to leave earth for another planet, what would you take with you? What would you miss most about earth?

N. Ceves: I would have to take my dog and cat as I view them as part of my family.

I would miss the very essence of our planet: the earth itself, including everything that grows and lives; the air, and the light.

Me: Thank you, N. Ceves, for taking the time to chat with us!

If you want to take a trip aboard a starcraft and get lost in a sweet, timeless love story, you’ll want to read this book! And thanks to N. Ceves’ generosity, she has made Even the Stars FREE (you read that right – FREE!) today only! Get it now on Amazon.com (click here) and please help her spread the word by leaving a review once you’ve read the book.

And check out Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ song, “Stars”, which kept playing through my mind as I read Even the Stars.

If you had to leave earth for another planet, what would you take with you? What would you miss most about earth?

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