Interview with Charity Tahmaseb and giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Charity Tahmaseb who is visiting with us today to celebrate the recent release of her newest book THE PANSY PARADOX, the first book in her SFF The Chronicles of King’s End series. Charity will be awarding a $25 bookstore gift card to a randomly drawn commenter on today’s post. EDITED TO ADD: Congratulations to winner Deb B.

A woman with nothing to hide—except the truth—meets a man with nothing to lose—except his heart. And he’s just arrived in town to fire her.

Meet Pansy Little

Since her mother vanished, Apprentice Field Agent Pansy Little is the sole guardian of King’s End, protecting it from a supernatural force only a select few can see. The arrival of an agent from Enclave headquarters doesn’t bring relief. Instead, it means Pansy’s well-crafted charade is about to collapse.

Meet Henry Darnelle

Principal Field Agent Henry Darnelle doesn’t want to be in King’s End, but he’s been blackmailed into performing Pansy’s field agent evaluation—with explicit instructions to fail her.

Distractedly handsome and unfailingly correct, he surprises Pansy—and himself—by defying orders to fire her. Instead, his curiosity is piqued by both Pansy and King’s End.

Together, they investigate, unearthing intricate ties that bind their families. Together, they might even be falling in love.

But someone with a decades-old obsession is watching, maneuvering behind the scenes, someone won’t rest until blood is spilled.

Welcome to King’s End, where discord falls from the sky and an eccentric twenty-something patrols the streets with her pink polka-dotted umbrella. Where one misstep won’t merely bring disaster—it might spark the end of the world.

The main character, Pansy Little, lives by some explicit, if cryptic rules set down by her mother. They are:

1. Never go into the housing development after dark.
2. Never go to the silo alone.
3. Never go to the covered bridge, period.
4. If the Enclave makes an offer, remember they always require something in return.
5. Trust no one from the Enclave.
6. When someone tells you they’re not betrothed, don’t believe them.
7. The Screamers don’t fight fair; you shouldn’t, either.

During the course of the story, Pansy, along with Henry, end up breaking several of these rules. That first rule in particular has some startling and far-reaching consequences. Although rule six will continue to have repercussions throughout the series.

Charity wants to complete and publish the second book in the series, The Marigold Miracle, next year.

“I’m pretty sure I can do that. However, this is my first year of full-time fiction writing. I quit my tech job in January of this year, and I’m still finding my way when it comes to pacing myself and my publishing schedule,” she said.

Charity grew up in Mankato, Minnesota, the home of Maud Hart Lovelace, author of the Betsy-Tacy series.

“My house was on the other side of the ‘big hill’ of the series,” Charity told me. “For a time in junior high, I had a paper route where I delivered papers to Betsy’s, Tacy’s, and Tib’s house.

“When I wasn’t reading mysteries or the Chronicles of Narnia, I was most likely reading (or re-reading) the Betsy-Tacy series. In her books, Maud called Mankato Deep Valley, and you can feel her deep love of the town. “

This influenced her own work, she said, as she’s done something similar with her own fiction, using elements of places she’s lived to create her own fictional small towns.

We asked Charity, “Could you ever co-author a book with someone?”

“I actually have co-authored two books with one of my best friends, Darcy Vance. We wrote two young adult novels together, The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading and Dating on the Dork Side. (Do I need to mention they were YA novels? I feel like the titles give that away.)

“Sadly, Darcy passed away in 2018. I still miss her so deeply. The odd thing about losing Darcy is I’ve lost all desire to write young adult stories as well. Even when we wrote our own stories, we were such a big part of the other’s writing process. I still think of Darcy as my ideal reader. She loved the Coffee & Ghosts series, and I wish she could have read book four. I would also love to know what she would have made of The Pansy Paradox.

“After losing Darcy, I had to reinvent myself as a writer. But I know this: she would never want me to stop writing. So I haven’t. “

When she’s not writing, she loves reading, gardening, researching (some topics might never end up in her writing, and researching her family tree.

“I don’t do this too often because it’s such a rabbit hole that I’ll glance up and realize that I’ve been at it for eight hours straight,” she admitted.

This past year, she created a cottage garden and plans to expand that next year and create pockets of pollinator friendly, native plants in other spaces in her yard.

“What did you want to be when you grew up,” I wondered.

“A lot of authors talk about how they always wanted to write. And while I’ve always had stories in my head, I so wanted to be a girl detective when I grew up. Or rather, I wanted to be a girl detective from the moment I started reading mysteries.

“My favorite mysteries were the Trixie Belden ones. In fact, somewhere, I still have my Trixie Belden fan club membership card. I also read Nancy Drew, The Secret Seven, Encyclopedia Brown, and I wandered into the adult mystery section in the library about the time I was ten. I read a lot of Agatha Christie as well.

“I never did find a mystery I could solve. But the mystery genre has had a huge influence on my writing. Most (if not all) of my stories contain a mystery element. For my recent series, both my main characters have mysterious goings-on in their hometown. I suspect this is a form of childhood wish fulfillment on my part.”

“If you could keep a mythical/paranormal creature as a pet, what would you have?”

“I love the magical helper trope, love it. I had so much fun writing the ghosts in my Coffee & Ghosts series. Granted, some of those ghosts were helpful, and some not so much. Then, for The Pansy Paradox, I came up with the notion of sentient umbrellas. (No, don’t ask me how; I have no idea.)

“My first inclination is I’d love a magical cat. Then again, I’m not sure I’d want to be constantly judged. A dragon would be cool. Or a magical fox! I wouldn’t keep them as a pet. But as a friend in the woods outside my house? Absolutely.“

Buy THE PANSY PARADOX at Amazon.