Blog Tour

​I was invited to join a Blog Tour, which is basically a running chain of blog posts and character introductions. I was invited by Renee Meland, the author of the Extraction Series, a dystopian YA series (on my to-read list, Renee!).

What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Lyssa Peate is her real name, but when she's in the "pirate" world, she goes by Razia. Since the book is written from her 3rd person POV, she will address herself as "Razia" when she's doing pirate stuff, and "Lyssa" when she's doing science stuff. The question is: what does she call herself when she's just...herself?

On a deeper level, she sees Razia and Lyssa as two separate people - even though they are the same person (herself). She idolizes Razia, and sees her as this infallible, unflappable force of power. Lyssa, she sees as damaged goods, a scarred and battered girl who nobody wants. She wants nothing more than to never again be called Lyssa Peate, to completely bury that other half of herself, in order to forget all of that baggage.

Names are important in this book, because, legally, every person is allowed 1 name/identity, which is linked to their bank account - meaning that if someone (like a bounty hunter) were to have access to all of your transactions, they'd be able to figure out where you were. Pirates break this rule by having multiple aliases and bank accounts, allowing them to "hide" from bounty hunters. Bounty hunters then have to piece together a set of transactions from multiple different aliases, trying to find out a pattern of behavior or guess where their bounty is going next.

When and where is the story set?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

No, but seriously, I never actually sat down and figured out when/where. Future, maybe. Parallel universe, sure, why not. It takes place in a universe where faster than light (FTL) travel is possible, where there's a hell of a lot of people.

What should we know about him/her?

The events in the prologue set off a chain reaction that are discussed/unraveled during the course of the series - and leave an emotional scar on Lyssa that is pretty apparent from the get-go. She walks away from the prologue thinking that she inherently has a bad soul - even though she's never done anything wrong. Her family and her father seem to hate her as well, so she's convinced at a very early age that Lyssa Peate is a worthless piece of garbage.

After the prologue, she somehow falls into league with a pretty awesome pirate, who takes her under his wing (mainly because he's the first person in her life to seemingly give a crap about her). During her time with him, she creates an entirely new persona - a new identity and a fresh start as a bounty hunter - Razia. For Lyssa, this is a chance to escape that inevitability that she's "going to hell."

The problem is girls aren't pirates, and now, twenty one years old and on her own, she's only barely allowed to play with the boys. Pirates belong to syndicates (called "webs" in the book) that are tightly controlled by bosses ("runners"). Her runner keeps her on a short leash - only allowing her to hunt and capture the lowest pirates on the most wanted list. Even though he's just terrible to her, she still continues to come back, believing in her heart that she will make it as a published author a respected bounty hunter if she just keeps going at it.

Because she can't support herself on piracy alone, she's forced to continue living a "double life" as Lyssa - which is where we find her at the beginning of Double Life.

What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

When we meet Lyssa, she's barely making it as a bounty hunter, having to crisscross the universe to sell planets in order to make enough money to cover the cost of capturing low-level thieves. It's kind of like working a day job while you're waiting for people to buy your new book.

It's a tenuous balance that becomes completely upended when her boss assigns her an intern, one of her younger brothers, in an attempt to spy on her. See, as a cover story for her extended absences, she's been allowing everyone to believe that she's been continuing her father's work on Leveman's Vortex - a black hole said to be where souls are created and then judged by the Great Creator. Unfortunately, this makes people (like her supervisor) want to figure out what she's discovering. 

The intern turns out not to be so bad when he is accidentally mistaken for Razia's hostage. Suddenly, Razia is one of the most wanted pirates in the universe. She thinks her life is finally turning out the way she wants, until her little brother shows up and demands that she fulfill the obligations of the internship, or else he's going to spill the beans about her double life.

What is the personal goal of the character?

If you ask her, all Lyssa wants to do is be a respected bounty hunter. Then she'll tell you to "get sucked into Leveman's Vortex" for asking her.

What she is really looking for is for acceptance, but she's looking in all the wrong places. This story is more than just a girl hunting pirates - it's a story about self-discovery, self-acceptance, and recognizing that the first person we have to please is ourselves. I'm playing with this tag-line: "To find our heaven, we have to accept ourselves first."

Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

You're on my blog!

It was published last week (!!!!!!). You can check it out here.

When can we expect the book to be published?

Last week! Buy it now! On all kinds of formats!

Book 2 comes out in Spring 2015. :)

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I'm supposed to have a set of other authors to tag, but I was stooopid and waited too long to ask anyone. If I do get any responses, I'll edit this post and add them here.

I suck.