Wednesday, 9 December 2015

Guest post: Aurora Springer and the Grandmaster

I'm delighted to welcome Aurora Springer to Dragons and Triplanes to celebrate the launch of her latest novel, Grand Master's Mate, the final book in the Grand Master trilogy.

Tell us about the book.





The Grand Master’s Trilogy

Grand Master’s Mate, Book 3 in this trilogy, releases this month, about ten months after the publication of Book 1, Grand Master’s Pawn. I am thrilled, and a little saddened, after completing my longest series to date. In many ways, I’ll miss the protagonists, Violet and Athanor, and their adventures on planets with bizarre lifeforms.

The Grand Master’s Trilogy is a science fiction adventure set on several planets with distinctive lifeforms. The protagonists have supernormal powers of empathy and telekinesis. Other supernatural elements and mythological references creep into the story, including dragons, living crystals, and the twelve contentious Grand Masters.

The original concept for this trilogy dates back some thirty years ago when I had an abundance of short stories. My initial idea was to combine several short stories into a full-length novel. The organizing theme pays homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. The Pawn, Violet Hunter, travels on missions to different planets under the command of a mysterious Grand Master. Two of my short stories and skimpy notes about a dragon morphed into Violet’s first three missions. In her fourth mission, she meets her Grand Master and her challenges escalate. So did my challenges as the author because I realized their story continued over two additional books. After a rollercoaster of adventures on different planets, I leave them at a happy point by the end of Book 3. 






 
Grand Master’s Mate
Young empath, Violet Hunter, and her crafty Grand Master, Athanor Griffin, tackle the villains threatening civilization.
Their worst enemy, the Red Queen, rampages across the galaxy evading capture, while blocked portals restrict normal commerce among planets. Compounding their problems, half the Grand Masters on the Council fear Violet is the agent of their doom as her father foretold, and vow to eliminate her. To restore peace, Violet and Athanor embark on a dangerous quest for a weapon hidden by the ancient psychic masters on one of four planets. But, the weapon proves elusive, the ancient sites harbor hazards, and new alliances forged with bizarre entities may not be sufficient to foil their enemies and save the galaxy. 


Buy Links:













 

The Grand Master’s Trilogy:
Book 1 is only 99c for December
Grand Master’s Pawn: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TP1N5PM
Grand Master’s Game: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0104OFJJ8
Grand Master’s Mate: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018EHAA7S




What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I enjoy being outdoors, traveling to different places and watching wildlife. When we visit my family in England, we go hiking in the Welsh mountains, along the coast, and the towpaths of canals. There are public footpaths everywhere and you can often plan to stop at a pub for lunch. We love walking around ancient monuments from Normal castles to the Avebury megaliths and the white horses carved on the chalk hills.












We visited Bletchley Park one summer, where I found an appropriate image for the Grand Master’s Trilogy.



 
Of course, I also have opportunities for traveling to special places in the US. In recent years, we have visited New Orleans and Albuquerque. We enjoy exploring the local parks as well as the city. We visited the swamps near New Orleans and saw turtles, frogs and an alligator (unfortunately too far away for a good picture).


Near Albuquerque, you can find a distinctive landscape with petroglyphs, pueblos and desert plants like this lovely cactus.














What are your current projects and plans for the future?
Currently, I am working on a short story and a novel starring a young female superhero with her animal companion, a winged horse with an attitude. These superhero stories may become the start of a new series. Also, I have a couple of science fiction stories at early stages of development. One is set in our solar system and the other moves between two galaxies. 


 Thank you, Aurora.

I'd add that I'm reading Grand Master's Mate at the moment, and thoroughly enjoying it.

As always, comments welcomed! 

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for posting about me and my stories!
    The black background works well.

    ReplyDelete