This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
What are your favorite TV shows?
Honestly, none. Nothing compares to watching old movies late at night.
What is your favorite meal?
Fish and chips. The best fish to batter in that way would be either haddock or rock salmon. Also, all the great British writers and artists and musicians tend to love fish and chips. Two things to remember, too, if you want your battered fish to taste just right: tartar sauce and malt vinegar.
If you were to write a series of novels, what would it be about?
The series would be worthwhile only if a certain significant theme happened to be the thing that served to bind the individual works together. For example, it would be great to write a trilogy about the various aspects of academia. This is because virtually nothing in a person’s life could ever be more fundamental than the educational process itself.
Is there a writer you idolize? If so, who?
No writer really deserves to be idolized. On the other hand, a great writer can teach us something about some aspect of the phenomenological world. Also, just about any writer could hypothetically make the reader think and discover something or come to some understanding or epiphany. For example, it could be that Nietzsche or some other famous figure like that fulfills the purpose. Or, it could be that a well-written comic book or obscure graphic novel triggers a big breakthrough. That’s why there’s no good reason to be too judgmental with regard to books or anything else in the world.
How did you come up for the title of this book?
I pinched the title from the name of an obscure, nineteenth century poem by Amy Levy. In the poem, she describes a dream in which she envisioned the death of someone near and dear to her. Similarly, my novel tells of a chap with a dreamlike relationship to a deathly projection of energy originating in his very own unconscious. Somehow Amy Levy’s title just seemed right for my work. She was a nice person, too, and a good friend to Oscar Wilde.
Obsessed with learning the origins of the cosmos, the actual meaning of life, and the true purpose of civilization, a fine Scotsman named Fingal T. Smyth dedicates himself to the study of Plato’s most extraordinary ideas. Convinced of Plato’s belief that humankind possesses any and all innate knowledge deep within the collective unconscious mind, Fingal soon conducts a series of bold, pioneering occult-science experiments by which to resolve the riddle of the universe once and for all. However, Fingal forgets how violent and perilous the animal impulses that reside in the deepest recesses of the unconscious mind. And when Fingal unleashes a mysterious avatar of his innate knowledge, the entity appears as a burning man and immediately seeks to manipulate innocent and unsuspecting people everywhere into immolating themselves. Now, with little hope of returning the fiery figure into his being, Fingal must capture his nemesis before it destroys the world.
Enjoy an Excerpt
Autumn, 1907: late one morning, some kind of torrid, invisible beast seemed to wrap itself all around Fingal T. Smyth’s body. Each one of his toes twitching fiercely, he exited the castle and scanned the distant, Scottish Highlands. Go back where you came from. As the entity wrapped itself tighter all about his person, Fingal blinked back his tears. I’m melting, I am. Aye, it’s the heat of fusion.
Gradually, the beast’s heartbeat became audible—each pulsation. At the same time, too, the illusory heat of transformation emitted an odor as of oven-roasted peppercorns dissolving in a cup of burnt coffee.
Over by the gatehouse, Fräulein Wunderwaffe appeared—the little German girl wearing a plain-sewn robe and square-crown bowler. In that moment, she no longer seemed to be a sickly child of seven years: her inscrutable expression resembled that of a wise, indifferent cat.
Perhaps even some kind of lioness. Fingal cringed, and he recalled a fragment of conversation from three weeks earlier.
“She suffers from a most unnatural pathology, an anguished, maniacal obsession with cats,” Doktor Hubertus Pflug had explained. “Ever since the poor girl was a baby, she has always regarded it her fate to one day metamorphose into a glorious panther, for she believes herself to be ein Gestaltwandler. Do you know this word? It means shapeshifter and refers to someone who possesses the power to take the form of anything in nature.”
The heat radiated up and down Fingal’s spine now, and his thoughts turned back to the present. Aye, it’s a change of phase. I’m melting into a chemical compound. Despite all, he greeted the girl and willed himself to flash a grin.
About the Author:
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Buy the book at the publishers.
A mother defeated by anxiety. A daughter determined not to become her mother. Can one month in Europe reunite them?
Lisa Fellinger writes contemporary women’s fiction with lovably flawed, relatable characters. When she’s not writing her own stories, she’s helping others achieve their writing dreams as a book coach and developmental editor. She lives in Buffalo, New York with her husband, son, and fur babies.
You know Pablo Picasso. Now meet the women behind the masterpieces. The women of Picasso’s life are glamorous and elusive, existing in the shadow of his fame – until, in the 1950’s, aspiring journalist Alana Olsen determines to bring one into the light and discovers a past complicated by secrets and intrique.
The 19th century women’s rights movement and the rise of public education intertwine with one woman’s story of struggle, perseverance, and love.
Lisa Ard is the author of the new historical fiction novel Brighter Than Her Fears, which is based on her great-great-grandmother’s experience in 19th century western North Carolina. Her previously published children’s books include Fright Flight, Dream Team, and the Kay Snow award finalist Saving Halloween. When not writing, Lisa enjoys reading, hiking, golfing and sharing her love of history as a bike tour docent with the Palm Springs Historical Society. She and her husband live (and golf) in both Palm Springs and Portland, Oregon.
There is a thin line between the natural and the spiritual realm.
: Sixteen-year-old Geri Randall’s life is turned upside down when her late sister’s fiance, Dez Deacon, a washed-up rock star, is named her guardian. Whisked away from the only life she knew and taken on a rock and roll tour, Geri is initially desperate to win Dez’s approval. That desire hits a sour note when Dez’s treatment of her becomes too much to bear. What ensues is a battle of wills between her and her temperamental guardian, a collision course that will push Geri to do the unthinkable to get what she wants.
Is a painting worth dying for?
Kate Bristow was born in London. She fell in love with reading when she got her first library card at the age of four. Her first attempt at writing and publishing for a wide audience was a local newspaper typed laboriously at home on her mother’s typewriter while at primary (elementary) school in north London. It is surely a loss to cutting-edge journalism that only one issue was ever produced. Kate divides her time between her small-but-perfectly-formed modern home in Los Angeles and her five-hundred-year-old farmhouse just outside Sassocorvaro in Italy.
