Hello! Welcome to my stop on the Shattered Circle Book tour! My stop is a Guest Post, Interview, Book Preview, and Giveaway! I hope you enjoy the stop and leave comments for the author to answer!
Shattered Circle
Persephone Alcmedi
Linda Robertson
Mass Market Paperback:
384 pages
Publisher: Pocket Books
ISBN-10: 1451648936
ISBN-13: 978-1451648935
JUST YOUR AVERAGE
MEGA-WITCH. . .
It’s tough being a
modern woman, but Persephone Alcmedi has it worse than most. Being the
prophesied Lustrata has kicked her career as a witch into high gear, and
juggling a wærewolf boyfriend who is about to become king of his kind and a
seductive vampire who bears her magical Mark isn’t easy either.
Still, Seph’s beloved
foster daughter, Beverley, is causing more trouble than these two men put
together. The young girl’s been playing with a magical artifact that’s far more
dangerous than she realizes. Now Seph must summon help from a mystical being so
potent that even vampires fear him . . . and the cost of his aid may be more
than she’s willing to pay. Seph, Johnny, and Menessos face threats from all
sides—and a few from within. Will the forces of destiny cement their tenuous
supernatural union, or shatter it forever?
About
the Author
Linda Robertson is the mother of four wonderful
boys, owns three electric guitars, and is followed around by a big dog named
after Bela Lugosi. Once upon a time she was a lead guitarist in a heavy metal
cover band and has worked as a graphic artist. She still composes and creates
art, when time permits. Linda currently writes and rocks in northeast Ohio.
Visit her at AuthorLindaRobertson.com and @authorLinda
INTERVIEW with PERSEPHONE ALCMEDI
(*star of Linda Robertson’s Persephone Alcmedi series)
My guest is at ease
across of me, sipping a cup of coffee with flavored creamer. She’s wearing a
gray jersey knit tee-shirt under an open black over-shirt along with
medium-blue jeans, and hiking boots. She’s slender and her no-frills appearance
is as refreshing as it is attractive. Her long dark hair is straight, her gaze
steady and unafraid. She smiles at me and it seems genuine
.
LR: So, Seph. Tell us a little about yourself.
Seph: Well, I write a newspaper column meant to help
integrate wærewolves into society and reduce the fear most people have of them.
I’m a modern witch, descended from a long, long line of witches traceable back
to the earliest records from Greece, but I keep my pagan-ness on the down-low
for the most part. Letting people know you’re a witch can be as troublesome as
letting them know you’re a wære. On a
more personal note, my grandmother, who I call Nana, raised me. My mother
dumped me with her and took off. I bought a farmhouse not too long ago, and
then Nana moved in with me when she got kicked out of the retirement community
she was living in—she’s a chain smoker. I now have a foster daughter, too. Her
name is Beverley. Her mother was turned wærewolf in an attack that left her
father dead. Her mother kenneled in my basement for a while and I babysat the
kiddo on full moons. She got me up to speed on Disney movies. When her mother
was murdered, Bev came to live with me.
LR: You work on a social cause you believe in and you have
let your grandmother move in and taken on the responsibility of a child. Sounds
like you’re pretty giving.
Seph: Aw, thanks. I don’t think of it as giving. It’s just
that I see something that needs done and if I have the means to do it, then I
figure it’s the right thing for me to do.
LR: You aren’t a wærewolf. Why are you so interested in
their social cause?
Seph: I had this boyfriend in college. We were pretty
serious. I helped him start a business, helping local wærewolves learn to
protect themselves without actually hurting people. There was a lot of bullying
going on in that area, a lot of hatred for wæres. His brother had been turned,
and he used his knowledge of self-defense to help his brother and they realized
it could be a real asset to lots of wæres, especially newer ones. Then he got
secretive. He started keeping things from me and that led to our eventual break
up.
LR: Hmmm, on that topic…since you’ve told us about the women
in your life, what about the men?
Seph: (groans) I used to think that relationships happened
when they were supposed to. Naturally. Slowly.
LR: Not anymore?
Seph: No way. I bought that farmhouse for me. I knew the
cellar could be made into kennels that would help my friends out and we all
worked together to put in the kennels. I wasn’t worried about having a man in
my life. Wasn’t looking for one. But soon after the kennels went in, my friends
started inviting other friends. It was convenient for them, meaning they didn’t
have to travel all the way to Cleveland to kennel with the pack. Johnny was
invited to kennel there by Erik, the husband of my best friend Celia. Johnny
and Erik are in a band together, called Lycanthropia.
LR: And you two started going out?
Seph: It’s way more complicated than that, but yeah.
LR: Complicated? Elaborate?
Seph: Dating a wærewolf is not like dating a normal guy.
LR: Is dating a witch anything like dating a normal girl for
a normal guy?
Seph: Touché. (laughs) I guess what I’m trying to say is,
you have dreams when you find yourself falling for someone. Dreams that life
will be easy, sweet, and happy. You live for their touch, their kiss, and when
life has you down you seek comfort in their arms. You believe that person will
be there for you no matter what. The circumstances of our destinies, both our
individual fates and the combined one, creates situations that test us.
(frowning hard) I mean, I am tested and I
learn things about myself that, while not changing who I am, it impacts
me. A person can’t help growing, expanding when things like that happen. He’s not
immune to any of this either. He gets tested, too. And then there are times
when he tests me, or I test him, or life tests us as a couple. It’s hard to
keep making forward progress with a nascent relationship in the best of conditions,
let alone when the politics and prophesies of supernatural groups usually at
odds with each other are converging in your living own room.
LR: That does sound tough. Thanks for chatting with me
today.
Seph: My pleasure. Blessed Be.
Excerpt from SHATTERED CIRCLE
Liyliy, a vampire-harpy, had tried to kill me a few hours
ago, and the struggle left me exhausted and sore. That was the reason I was
still abed at nearly two in the afternoon. When my satellite phone blared the
opening riffs of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark at the Moon,” it startled me, instantly
reminding me about all the sore muscles I had.
Mid-reach, I stopped. That was Johnny’s ringtone.
He had tried to kill me, too.
My hand shook as my finger jabbed the Answer button.
“Hello?”
“Red . . . I’m so sorry.” Johnny’s voice was barely
audible.
I sat up and deliberated whether to play deaf and repeat
my “hello” as if I hadn’t heard him. I considered being a jerk and hanging up.
I even contemplated ripping him a new one.
Instead, I remained silent.
Two days before, minutes after I’d performed the
forced-change spell on him and his loyal pack mates, Johnny had attacked me.
He’d always retained his manmind while transformed, but that last time he
didn’t—he’d been pure animal. The only reason I was still among the living was
because I’d pumped ley line energy into him like a human Taser.
“Red?”
He’d frightened me to my core. The unshakeable faith I’d
had in him had been shattered by an emotional earthquake. Damage was done. My
fear felt like betrayal.
But . . .
Could going through the
forced-change spell repeatedly have an undesired effect?
No. I was sure the whole terrible incident could be
pinned on the fact that my mother, Eris, had revoked the tattooed bindings
she’d placed upon Johnny eight years ago. He suddenly had access to all the
power and potential she’d locked away from him. That was surely a disorienting,
difficult situation.
I’d helped him dig up the clues, helped him achieve that
goal. Hell, I’d even been a part of the reversal spell. So some responsibility
for the consequences was mine to bear.
“Persephone?”
He rarely used my full given name; he usually called me
Red, as in Little Red Riding Hood to his Big Bad Wolf. Or Seph like nearly everyone
else. I had to respond.
“I’m here.”
“Then say something.”
Pushing back the covers, I stood and began to pace. “I
don’t know what to say.”
He paused. “Can you forgive me?”
I wasn’t sure.
Part of me said I couldn’t allow his attack to be a
personal issue because of the fateful trio that Johnny, Menessos, and I forged
by binding ourselves magically. The other part argued that no matter the
circumstances, attempted murder was very damn personal.
It all happened because Johnny had surrendered to his
destiny. His unique ability to transform at will made him the Domn Lup—king of
the wærewolves. It was a position with power, prestige, and perks such as a
Maserati Quattroporte. Johnny knew his royal place was unavoidable, but he’d
fought it and hid from it a long time. He’d finally pushed forward because it
was beneficial to our triple union, but kinghood was costing him his dream of
being a rock star.
It had been my fear that he’d lose who he was in the
course of this alliance of ours. More than ever, it seemed this fear was being
borne out.
On the other corner of our triangle was Menessos. He now
bore two witches marks—mine, of course. That made him my servant. When
Heldridge, his former right-hand man, learned of my authority over Menessos, he
tattled to the highest vampire authority, the Excelsior. To protect us against
the personal grudge of the truthseeing vampire-harpies sent by VEIN to make
formal inquiry, Menessos had allied himself at great personal expense with
someone dangerous—a “nameless” guy I had aptly dubbed Creepy.
The secrets he’d wanted to hide from VEIN—secrets even I
didn’t know—were apparently safe, but our little who-marked-whom secret was
out. Menessos lost his haven and his status as Northeastern Quarterlord. Johnny
had accepted great power and lost a lifelong dream. Menessos had lost great
power and accepted serious personal risk. It didn’t seem fair.
And what about me?
In the last several weeks I’d learned that I was the
longprophesied Lustrata, the Witches’ Messiah, She Who Walks Between Worlds,
She Who Will Bring Balance, blah blah blah. As this news spread throughout the
nonhuman communities, some scoffed and some believed. I was fine with the
scoffers; it was the believers who were dangerous. They wanted to know if I
truly possessed the power that accompanied those titles. Yeah, I was a magnet
for nasties who either a) wanted me dead to be sure I didn’t have that power, or
b) wanted to try to force me to wield power for their gain.
I guess I’d accepted the endless complications of my
status and was well on my way to losing all scraps of naïveté.
At that thought, I stopped pacing. As I stared into the
nothingness of a darkened corner, it felt like my innocence had slipped from my
grasp and I was watching it skitter across the floor, waiting for it to come to
a stop so I could reclaim it.
I wasn’t sure it was worth the effort to look for it. Or
perhaps it would be impossible to find if I made the effort. Maybe it had
rolled into some crack, never to be seen again.
I heard Johnny breathing through the phone.
It wasn’t Johnny who had rescued me last night.
When I defeated Liyliy, Menessos had been there to bring
me to the haven. Sure, Menessos had a hand in creating the monster she now was.
And it was he who had imprisoned her, creating her need for revenge. But it was
me and my marks upon him that had brought her to Cleveland. When she pursued me
from the haven—according to the Offerling I’d spoken to—Menessos had sent
everyone out to search for me.
Had Johnny even known I was
missing?
It was shitty of me to compare the two men in my life,
but I couldn’t help myself. Though Menessos had drunk my blood numerous times,
he hadn’t tried to kill me.
Yes he did! He nearly killed you
not long after you first met.
We were strangers then, I argued with myself. Now, we know each other well.
Better, perhaps, than you should. .
. .
Defiantly, I ignored my conscience’s scolding. I will not regret what I did last
night. During the predawn
hours, reeling from my encounter, I’d kissed Menessos.
Fine, but clearly you were able to
forgive him.
That was true. Considering this, I felt hope. I sighed
heavily into the phone. My whispered answer was, “In time.”
“There’s so much I need to tell you.” Johnny’s voice was
raw, and the rev of an engine punctuated his words. I wondered where he was
going. And I wondered if I should tell him about kissing the vampire.
It hadn’t been a peck.
When our lips had touched, I felt the promise and power
of a more intimate union. He’d definitely felt it. It wasn’t only the power of
the marks between us that had been kindled.
“I don’t know where to begin,” Johnny said.
His voice drew me out from my memory of a passionate
moment with another man. Guilt swelled around my heart . . . but not remorse. What am I going to do?
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