It's interview time again! Today, we welcome Laura Bickle, author of the Anya Kalinczyk series to the blog! I hope you enjoy the interview and more about her books below!
1. Tell us a little bit about your book.
By day, Anya Kalinczyk is an arson investigator for
the Detroit Fire Department. By night, she’s the rarest kind of spiritual
medium, a Lantern. While other mediums allow spirits to use their hands and
voices to communicate, Anya devours and incinerates them. With the help of her
fire salamander familiar, Sparky, and an eccentric group of ghost hunters, Anya
chases down unseen threats to her city.
2. What inspired you to write this story?
I’d established a theme centering around flame…and
decided to give Anya a fire salamander as a companion. Salamanders haven’t
gotten much press since Paracelsus’ time. They’re the elemental avatars of
fire. Our ancestors assumed that they were the spirits of fire, as they were
often seen crawling out of logs tossed into hearth blazes. The salamander was
probably annoyed to have his peaceful woodland home turned to tinder, and was
making a fleet-footed escape. But alchemists and sorcerers made the link
between salamanders and flames, and the association has endured. There’s not much to find about salamanders in the
literature, beyond their origins. They’re rumored to be capricious,
destructive, and unpredictable as fire itself. That made a salamander a perfect
sidekick for Anya. And Sparky hopped out onto the page, wiggling his tail and
looking for trouble. He takes the form of a five-foot speckled hellbender
salamander. He loves chewing electronics and sleeps at the foot of Anya’s bed,
cuddling his Glow Worm toy.
Wow, that was really interesting! A lesson on Salamanders :) lol @ cuddling his Glow Worm toy. I can just picture it now!
3. What
is the main lesson that your book is trying to teach?
I’m not sure that there’s as much a lesson as a
theme about being on the outside looking in. Anya is feared and distrusted by
the people around her, an outsider among outsiders. She’s got one foot in the
material world and one foot outside of it. She doesn’t feel like she really
belongs in either.
4. Moving
on to your writing career, how long have you been writing? Did you always dream
to become an author?
I’ve always been scribbling,
since I was old enough to hold a crayon. I didn’t believe, until recently, that
other people would want to read what I wrote. It’s incredibly exciting to hear
from folks who’ve enjoyed the stories I tell.
Writing as Laura Bickle and Alayna Williams, I wrote four urban
fantasies. Two are best summed up as “Ghostbusters in Detroit with dragons and
arson” (EMBERS and SPARKS). The other two, DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE, are
about a criminal profiler who uses Tarot cards to solve crimes.
5. I’m always curious whether or not authors read the same types of books that
they write. So tell us, what book genres
do you love to read? to write?
I love fantasy, urban fantasy, and YA. If there’s an
element of the fantastic, I’m hooked!
6. What
are you reading right now?
I’m reading Cat Winters’ IN THE SHADOW OF
BLACKBIRDS. It’s amazing!
7. Have any particular authors inspired you to write? If so, can you name one
and what you like about their style?
My all-time favorite is Robin McKinley’s HERO AND THE CROWN.
I read it when I was a pre-teen, and fell in love with fantasy ever after. It
was the first book I’d read that had a female protagonist who slew her own
dragons. I was hooked.
8. Do you have any upcoming projects?
My newest release is THE HALLOWED ONES, a YA thriller. Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers can get a taste
of the outside world. But the outside world comes to her when a helicopter
falls out of the sky near her house. Katie must confront not only a massive
disaster unfolding in the world outside her community, but also the threat of
darkness in her own increasingly fragile society. The sequel, THE OUTSIDE, will
be released in September.
Thanks so much for stopping by today Laura!! I enjoyed chatting with you!!
And now, more about Embers & Sparks!
EMBERS
Anya Kalinczyk #1
Pocket Juno Books
Mass Market Paperback,
$7.99
ISBN: 978-1439167656
April 2010
“One of the most
promising debut novels I’ve read in a great while… I’d highly recommend this
book to anybody who reads fantasy. It reminds me in many regards…of another
exceptional first novel…Emma Bull’s seminal War for the Oaks, and there’s not
much higher praise that I can give.”
“Bickle has something
great in Anya. Embers has everything: demons, ghosts, dragons, love, sex,
police, and murder.”
—M.L.N. Hanover, bestselling author of Darker Angels
“Gritty but never grim,
Embers is a truly urban fantasy, where the soul of a city haunts every page. I
can’t wait for more of Anya and the unforgettable Sparky!”
—Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Shade
Unemployment, despair,
anger--visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit's unease.
A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that
further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.
Anya Kalinczyk spends
her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights
pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya--who is
the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern--suspects a supernatural arsonist
is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in
cinders. By Devil's Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya--with the
help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team --can
stop it.
Anya's accustomed to
danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she's
risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for
everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she's
ever faced.
SPARKS
Anya Kalinczyk #2
Pocket Juno Books
Mass Market Paperback,
$7.99
ISBN 978-1439167687
September 2010
The second book in
Bickle’s series about Anya Kalinczyk is just as wonderful as the first—Anya is
a compelling and likable protagonist and Bickle does an outstanding job in her
portrayal of the city of Detroit; there are ruins, yes, but also hope in the
ashes. Anya never takes herself too seriously and there is a scene in a baby
supercenter that is absolutely not to be missed. (4 stars)
- RT Book Reviews
...a charming and
inventive read.
-Elizabeth Bear, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, December 2010
WITHOUT A TRACE...
Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern,
who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire
Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city
plagued by unemployment and despair. Along with her inseparable salamander
familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery
hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one
but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human
combustion.
After fire consumes the
home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or,
more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of
their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s
unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor,
promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting
spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil
adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved
Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.
About the Author :
Laura
Bickle has
an MA in sociology-criminology (research interests: fear of crime and
victimology) and a BA in criminology. She has worked in and around criminal
justice since 1997. Although she does read Tarot cards, she's never used them
in criminal profiling or to locate lost scientists. She recently took up
astronomy, but for the most part her primary role in studying constellations
and dark matter is to follow her amateur astronomer-husband around central Ohio
toting the telescope tripod and various lenses.
Writing
as Laura Bickle, she's the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket - Juno Books.
Writing as Alayna Williams, she's the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE.
Laura/
Alayna’s blogs
Winter's Magic
Owner of La Bella Vita, a five-star day spa nestled in the affluent suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee, Beth Sergeant knows her elite clientele first hand. She attended their private schools. She was even engaged, although briefly, to one of their most recognized bachelors. But she never fit in to their social-elite world.
After losing his parents to a car accident at a young age, Nick Chester was raised by his grandfather, the wealthiest man in Nashville. When he chooses to socialize, he has a never-ending list of exclusive events and beautiful women vying for his attention. Yet he never lets himself forget that everyone has an agenda.
Beth can’t resist Nick’s charm and accepts an invitation to dinner, despite her deep-seated insecurities. She proves she’s nothing like other women he’s dated and learns to trust him in return. But just as the last of their resistance crumbles and true love is within reach, challenges from Nick’s past threaten to destroy everything and force Beth to reveal her most guarded secret.
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