Saturday 11 March 2017

Masquerade Blog Tour

As part of the Masquerade Blog Tour, I'm pleased to host an excerpt from the beginning of one of the chapters. Author  Laura Lam spent a long time, researching the extracts needed for the  each chapter and this blog tour, goes into detail about some of the chosen pieces, explaining why they were used. 
The Hospital – 11 march
When a child under twelve is injured, it’s common practice for any child present to “call upon the fairies” to help heal them. The other child or children will circle the injured child thrice, chanting “sprites, take flight, we need your might to spite the blight!” Sometimes the child will kiss the other on the forehead; a target for the fairy to know where to sprinkle their magic dust. 
— A History of Ellada and its Colonies, Professor Caed Cedar, Royal Snakewood University

Every chapter in the Micah Grey series has a short found document at the start, ranging from a variety of sources: history books, diaries, songs, poetry, and more. It’s basically a sneaky way to add in more worldbuilding and detail about Ellada & the Archipelago. 
As in another excerpt shared on the blog tour, Masquerade has more folklore type remedies in the third book. Ellada is rich with mythology and magical creatures, and the Chimaera are very common and tend to function a lot like fairies in stories. Every now and again, Chimaera are sometimes called fairies or sprites, as above. I used to play games like this as a child, where one of us would pretend to be ill and the others would use magic to heal them. It’s a little bit of whimsy in a section of the book where things are growing more dangerous . . . 


If you buy Pantomime or Masquerade and send your receipt to Laura, you can claim a free 10k short story, “The Mechanical Minotaur,” set in the same world. If you buy all three, you can claim 60k of free fiction as well. More details here.
Summary
The gifted hide their talents, but dare they step into the light?
Micah's Chimaera powers are growing, until his dark visions overwhelm him. Drystan is forced to take him to Dr Pozzi, to save his life. But can they really trust the doctor, especially when a close friend is revealed to be his spy?
Meanwhile, violent unrest is sweeping the country, as anti-royalist factions fight to be heard. Then three chimaera are attacked, after revealing their existence with the monarchy's blessing - and the struggle becomes personal. A small sect decimated the chimaera in ancient times and nearly destroyed the world. Now they've re-emerged to spread terror once more. Micah will discover a royal secret, which draws him into the heart of the conflict. And he and his friends must risk everything to finally bring peace to their land. 

To find out more about Laura Lam:
Make sure you check out all the stops on the blog tour. 

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