Finding Perdita by April Grey Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Finding
Perdita
by
April Grey
Genre:
Dark Urban Fantasy
Fairy
Tales can come true, it can happen to you...Run!
Down
on her luck and out-of-work, actress Cindy White's life changes for
the worse when her roommate kicks her out. Landing in new digs in an
old Chelsea tenement Cindy discovers a tunnel to the land of Perdita,
a place she'd thought her father had made up in the fairy tales he'd
once told her.
A
dangerous, ruined place of fairies, demons and captives, like her
father who she thought was dead.
In
this dark fantasy, a young woman discovers her true self and must
align it with the old in leaving the world she knows behind in an
effort to free her father.
She
stripped out of her wet clothes and ran a bath. In the note Sadie
said to use up whatever was in the apartment. So be it. One of the
old style cabinets revealed a collection of booze and there was soda
in the fridge. With a medicinal rum and coke in hand, Cindy eased
into the steaming tub. A
furious thumping on the front door roused her from her peace. Knocking? More like the men in blue had decided on an unannounced
raid. "Hold your horses." Cindy, wrapped in a
towel, headed through the kitchen to find out who was making such a
noise. "Sadie,
hurry up I got news," came a bass voice from the other side of
the door. "She's
not here. What do you want?" Silence
for a long minute. "Who
in blazing hell are you?" Well,
with that attitude Mister Voice could stay where he was in the
hallway. "I’m
the sub-lessee. Now go away. You can ask the Weird Sisters what’s
going on." "You
let me in this moment. You’re in danger and you’ve got to get
out." "Nice
try, buster. I’m not buying it." She heard footsteps leaving. It was
getting dark out, yet the kitchen clock said it was only 4:10 in the
afternoon. After getting dressed in a semi-dry tee and shorts, Cindy
searched through Sadie's store of snack foods. The nacho-flavored
Doritos looked good. Bag in
hand, she froze when she heard a key in the lock. Too late, she ran
to put the chain on the door. He was in. Oh my, he was a big one. He
looked like an escapee from the World Wrestling Federation. She took
a frying pan from the stovetop and held it over her head with the bag
of Doritos clutched to her breast. "What
are you planning to do? Poison me?" He nodded at the Doritos. He
was taller than Josh's six feet one. He had about 20 pounds on Josh,
all in muscle. His black tee displayed rippled biceps. His
reddish-gold hair, mustache and sideburns made him look like a cross
between a Confederate Rebel and a 70’s rock musician. She held the
frying pan higher. He slid past her. "I don’t know what you’re
planning, but I like my eggs over easy." A comedian. "Get
out." Cindy waved the pan. "We
need to talk. I don’t know what Sadie told you, but this place
isn’t safe and she shouldn’t have involved you." Cindy
stayed near the open door still holding her weapon. "Go
ahead, talk." Cindy lay the bag of Doritos on the kitchen
counter only to have them snatched up by the stranger. He ripped them
open. With a wink he held half the nachos from the bag in his
bear-like paw. In the living room he plopped down, taking up the
entire couch. "How
much did Sadie tell you?" he said with a mouthful of neon
orange-colored crunchy corn triangles. "Thor,
she doesn’t know anything." Cindy whipped around to see her
neighbor, Leo, standing in the hallway. "Tor?
Like a granite outcropping?" Cindy asked. "No,
Thor like the god." The intruder smirked. “The “h” is
silent―It’s the Scandinavian pronunciation, unlike the Marvel
movies.”
April Grey's short stories are collected in The Fairy Cake Bakeshop and in I'll Love You Forever. She is also the author of two urban fantasy novels: Chasing the Trickster and it's sequel, St. Nick's Favor.
She
edited the anthologies: Hell's Bells: Wicked Tunes, Mad Musicians and
Cursed Instruments; Hell's Garden: Mad, Bad and Ghostly Gardeners,
Hell's Grannies: Kickass Tales of the Crone and last year's, Hell's
Kitties and Other Beastly Beasts.
She
and her family live in Hell's Kitchen, NYC in a building next to a
bedeviled garden. Gremlins, sprites or pixies, something mischievous,
lurks therein. Someday she'll find out. Please visit
www.aprilgrey.blogspot for her latest news.
How long have you been writing?
All my life I’ve made up stories in
my head. I wrote them down a few times in grade school and then when
finishing up my MFA in theatre and working at Hearst Magazines, I
decided I’d like to take a few writing courses at the New School.
That was in the late 80’s and I made my first sale before getting
sidetracked by a Ph.D., marriage and the birth of my son. In 2003, a
friend of mine encouraged me to get back to writing after a 12 year
hiatus. So I’ve either been writing for 30 years or 16 depending on
where you start.
Do you see writing as a career?
Define career. Many, if not most,
writers keep their day job. Is it about money or feeding the soul?
It’s a calling. You can follow the call, but don’t give up if it
isn’t paying the bills. Some people don’t become famous until
after they die. We can’t all be Rowling or King, and really, that’s
not what it’s about. It’s about scratching an itch, you don’t
scratch just because you are getting money for it.
What do you think about the current
publishing market?
I just had a publisher who I love sell
her company to a publisher who then ran it into the ground. It’s
sad, tragic. Small publishing houses die every day. And the corporate
giants? Even more tragic. I don’t like Amazon, it’s the 800 lb.
gorilla in the room, but it’s the best game in town.
Pen or type writer or computer?
I don’t have a typewriter, but I do
use a laptop-- and pen and notebook for when I’m stuck.
Describe your writing style.
Humous, sexy, and dark fantasy.
What makes a good story?
Anything that grabs your interest and
keeps you turning the pages.
What are you currently reading?
I’m reading books by Jonathan L.
Howard. I love his style for both his steampunk Johannes Cabal
series, and his Carter and Lovecraft books.
What is your writing Kryptonite?
Description. It gets in the way of
character and stops the action of the story. Still it’s necessary
and it’s the last thing I add. I think of it like a finishing
touch, like adding watercolor paint to a sketch.
If you could tell your younger writing
self anything, what would it be?
Don’t go for that Ph.D.--Keep writing
stories and let that shit go.
What is your writing process? For
instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
What are common traps for aspiring writers?
My process is listening to the voices
in my heads and then seeing the characters do their thing. A
character has a problem which needs to be solved. I then see the
ending where the problem is solved. The middle, getting from problem
origin to solution, comes last.
I don’t outline not unless I’m
close to the end and get stuck.
I might do the first and last chapters.
A common trap is giving up. All writing
stinks at first, just when you are feeling like “wow, I could do
this.” I took off 12 years between taking a couple of classes and
being in my first writing group to taking up the pen again. Don’t
be discouraged. Practice, practice, practice your craft.
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