Spotlight and Giveaway: Blood’s Force by Ellis Morning

I decided to join this blog tour because this book seemed like something right up my alley. Science fiction, fantasy, adventure in space, and a female lead? Count me in! As usual, I wanted to do a review but I just wouldn’t be able to do it in time for this tour. Some other day, I hope. I’m talking about author Ellis Morning’s Blood’s Force, book one in the sci-fi and fantasy series Sword and Starship.

Read more about the book and get to know the author more by checking out the short Q&A below! Don’t forget to join the tour giveaway!

About the book

Where superstition is law, there is no order!

Dame Jessamine is a knight errant with a spaceship for a steed, a pupil of ancient science and technology who quests on behalf of the downtrodden. She’s accustomed to forging her own path through the galaxy—until she’s hijacked at sword-point and sent to investigate Nidaros, a remote barony known for bursts of rebellion.

In Nidaros, Jessamine finds a populace short on food and patience, innocents detained for torture, and a court trapped in a web of delusion. The Baron considers her a distraction. The magicians, convinced of a “curse,” dismiss her pleas for rational action. Even as Jessamine forges an alliance with the soldiers, an unknown foe seeks to frame her as an agitator.

Stuck amid murderous intrigue and cut off from her mentors, Jessamine must figure out how to save Nidaros from starvation. But the only people who understand the true “curse” have been accused of witchcraft—and if Jessamine’s not careful with her ancient knowledge, she’ll join them in the dungeon!

Blood’s Force is Book 1 of the Sword and Starship series of science fiction/fantasy adventure.

Add the book on Goodreads. Get the book: Amazon | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Q&A with Ellis Morning

1. How did you come by the idea for your book/series?

It started out as a random short story hook that came to me in 2006: a hard-nosed mercenary with a spaceship, but she’d be a knight errant. She’d take quests instead of jobs. She’d have a big bruiser of a mechanic who’d also be her squire. That was where Dame Jessamine and Verahl Naustvik first came about, but the characters who actually appear in Blood’s Force are wildly different from these early concepts.

It began as more of a premise than a short story, so I didn’t get very far with it at first. It needed a few more years of percolating and ironing-out until it was both cohesive and novel-length.


2. Describe your writing desk or nook or tell us about your ideal writing/working spot.

I have my own home office with a desk, a comfy chair, a bookshelf, and a window facing our tree and whatever weather we may be having. I do all my work on my laptop, but have notebooks lying around to capture the random brainstorm or line of dialogue. When it’s time to work, I like to shut my door and put in headphones. Instrumental music is best for my concentration; I’m a big fan of video game and movie soundtracks.


3. What is your favorite food to snack on while writing?

Not technically food, I know, but coffee. I’m sure I just blew your mind. A writer who likes caffeine? Impossible! But actually, if I’m in the groove, I’m not doing much drinking. Two hours of furious typing will go by, and I’ll find a cold, half-full mug sitting next to me.

4. What are your top 5 favorite books?


Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Demon-Haunted World: A Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

5. What are you working on now?

I’m in the middle of edits and rewrites on the second book of the Sword and Starship series, entitled Harbingers, which will pick up right where Blood’s Force leaves off. In addition to that, I’m always working on articles for The Daily WTF, an IT humor site. I also write the occasional short story for my website or mailing list.

Read an Excerpt

Adrenaline allowed me to ignore pain and push myself up to my knees. Whatever was going on, I had to reach my feet, take measures to defend myself. They’d left me with my weapons, after all. I’d also take stock of my surroundings. Maybe there was still some way out.

My confines remained plunged in darkness. Straining my ears brought me no closer to abandoning the heavy silence. I retrieved my stick lighter from my pocket; the tiny bead of light revealed dungeon floor and nothing else. No immediate danger, at least. I resolved to scout the room, or cell, more likely.

Something flashed in my peripherals: the glow of lantern light, newly revealed by a door sliding open about ten feet away. Soon after, a burgundy-robed arm lobbed a hand-sized ceramic pot with a lit fuse into the cell.

Grenade!

Without another thought, I threw myself in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the cell’s dimensions were stingy. I hit a wall well before I wanted to.

A boom like thunder rattled my eardrums. Tongues of fire splattered around my feet. Turning, I found knee-high flames covering the floor behind me, surviving on the fuel from the grenade. Some version of Greek fire, it looked like. Radiant heat seared my exposed skin, while a thick smoke stung my eyes and clawed at my throat.

Forget questioning or detaining. Someone was trying to kill me. Either fire or smoke would finish the job in minutes. Ironically, my pockets held plenty of fire-making implements and things to burn, but nothing for smothering flames. Escape was my only hope. I knew of only one option: the door on the other side of the room, the one the grenade had been launched from.

About the Author

Ellis has always loved staging adventures in her head before going to sleep each night. When she was twelve, she started putting these adventures on paper.

For the next twenty years, she wrote with varying degrees of seriousness, but always as a hobby. In that time, she fell in love with Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut, the original Star Trek series, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Science fiction became her favorite domain to work in, but she also enjoyed reading fantasy, horror, Western, and detective stories, and incorporating their elements into her work. One of her favorite things to do was make people laugh.

Ellis denied being a writer for decades. But then she sold articles to The Daily WTF, and a short story to Analog Science Fiction and Fact. After quitting her full-time job to finish her first novel, it was time to own up to writing as her calling. She’s currently an editor at The Daily WTF, and having the time of her life penning novels and short stories.

Connect with Ellis on Google+, Twitter and Goodreads.

Add the book on Goodreads. Get the book: Amazon | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Giveaway

Ellis Morning will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway