It struck me that you guys have had to read about me yammering on for a while now, without a Break for Sanity or at least a book giveaway to make it worth your while. So I asked the lovely Saundra Mitchell, whose the Vespertine reminds me of a YA Sarah Waters’s Affinity (tragic, romantic, magical, historical) to come make a post. And she brought unto us a post which shows off all the fancy American historical details with lovely pictures! (The pictures are important to the contest, so I decided not to put anything under a cut – hence for those who don’t want a lovely free book, scroll my pretties scroll! And now without further ado, Ms Mitchell takes the stage…)
One of the things I love best about THE DEMON’S LEXICON series is that you can walk where the characters walk. You can see the characters’ sights. And in Sarah’s case, you can almost fall off the Millennium Bridge exactly where Nick jumps up to wield his sword.
So when Sarah invited me to talk about THE VESPERTINE, I thought it would be fun to talk about the reality I borrowed, to make my universe come to life.
When you’re creating a world where some people are born imbued with elemental gifts, it’s important to make sure everything else is solidly grounded in reality.
Coming from a filmmaking background, I made contact sheets to organize the elements of my Baltimore, 1889. In filmmaking, you have contact sheets for EVERYTHING—pictures of the type of actor you want to play a role, pictures of the kinds of clothes you want the characters to wear, pictures of neighborhoods, pictures of random moody objects that evoke the atmosphere, and on and on.
Of course, the first contact sheet has to be of the cast. I actually have actors in mind for most of the characters in the book, but let me introduce you to the four main characters:
(I added this last picture myself so you could see the picture that covers these fine pages. Isn’t it an amazing cover? I would cheerfully eat a kitten’s head to get one like it.
But how to get the pages into your hands? There is Option A, instantly buy the Vespertine! And also Option B, which is to comment to this post with a picture – or a link to a picture – that makes you think of a book you love. I will choose the winner at random and send them a copy of the Vespertine!)
I hope you enjoyed this lovely post, for it is the last sanity you will get for a while. Next up an account of my writers’ retreat, including actual staking and acted out love scenes, and Monday 7th stay tuned for a chance to win another book: an advance copy of the Demon’s Surrender.
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