Indie Author Spotlight – Brooke Morris and “The Pull”
Us indie and self-published authors have to help each other out, and I’m always glad to do just that. So I’ve got another fantastic writer to introduce to you today. She’s Brooke Morris…
What do you get when you combine an introverted kid with an overactive imagination, with a mom who preferred to read Tolkien and Pearl S. Buck, instead of Goodnight Moon? Apparently an avid fantasy reader and writer!
I can’t think of a better way to spend a few hours (who am I kidding?- a few days) than getting lost in a good story. With just the right plot twists and character development, an author can pull you out of one world and into another.
Living in the PNW for the better half of a decade has greatly influenced my writing. The lush beauty of the natural world often provides the backdrop for my fantasy novels. I enjoy examining what it means to be human and playing with the wide array of possibilities this opens up in my writing.
While I would love to eat, drink, and breathe writing I have a little beagle who reminds me about the important things in life…mainly throwing his squeaky tennis ball until my arm falls off. That, and of course the all important food- for anyone who has ever had a four-legged friend of the beagle variety, you know full well how high food ranks in their world. Truthfully, I am pretty sure he would sell me down the river for a mere whiff of peanut butter. But hey, at least I would have a good story of how I came to be homeless and panhandling (my beagle made me do it, I swear!).
You can find Brooke at her website, and also at Goodreads.
Her brand new book is “The Pull”
Raised in the World of Men, 18 year old Maggie has just discovered that she is a forbidden half-breed, a cross between fairies and demons that should have been annihilated before she was even born, before her mother could escape with her into the New World, the World of Men. She soon learns why her kind are so feared as she races to save a world she has never known yet feels intimately connected to. Will Maggie be able to save the Old World from a long dormant evil that will turn everything to ash and dust?
You can buy it lots of places…Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, the Apple iBookstore and Library Thing.
And you can read a brief excerpt right here!
I felt a chill shudder through me but his words reminded me of a question I had never had the chance to ask him in the coffee shop. “How old are you? To have as many degrees as you do and yet still look as young as you do, you are either a boy genius or there’s something to this time difference thing.”
He gave an exasperated chuckle, noticing that his warning hadn’t been as terrifying as he wanted it too; “I’m around 1000 years old, my years.”
I have a crush on grandpa, leave it to me. Wait, make that great-great-great-great- great- well you get the picture.
“Huh, wow, that’s, ah, wow.” Articulate. I tried again, “So, how does that work exactly? I mean, are demons immortal?” I should have looked that up; were demi-gods immortal?
“Hardly, we just have exceptionally long life spans. Plus, for those of us who live in the new world for any length of time we age even more slowly.”
“Ok…” I was going to need a lot more information than that if I was gonna wrap my mind around this one.
“The ratio is about one-to-seven; seven years in your realm is equal to one year here. So even if I lived a normal human life span of 80 years here, I would still be about 560 years old back in your world.”
Making you 7000 years old my time. I suddenly got the image of me dating a caveman but quickly dismissed it; if I lingered too long on this thought I might lose my nerve.
The heat of the sun beat through the shadowed sky, making the air so humid it felt like a sauna, and I slumped to the ground in a perspiring mess. I guess that made sense, it explained why eight hours of sleep back home seemed like such a short time here.
“So what constitutes an ‘exceptionally long life span’?”
“Over here, we live tens of thousands of years, I don’t think anyone knows exactly how long, with so much time you don’t keep track.”
I did the conversion in my head and refused to say my answer out loud, but the term old as dirt came to mind.
“But, most of us don’t live that long now-a-days.” He gestured indifferently at the wastelands, “You could say it’s an occupational hazard of living here. All of the ancient ones were killed when this happened, they were the strongest resistance, so they were crushed first.”
I stood up and faced the horizon, trying to keep the shock I felt from playing on my face. My body was still and all I could hear was my breathing and the hot wind that blew around me; a distinctive fragrance teased past my nose and all thoughts flew from my mind. Goosebumps pulled up at my arms and I closed my eyes in concentration, trying to catch the elusive smell. The dry, hot breeze whirled around me and I found it, the fleshy smell of a new seedling. My eyes shot open and I broke into a run, bolting past Andrew, ignoring his instant pursuit.
My bare feet pounded against the unforgiving, cracked ground; the soft dust flew around me. I could hear Andrew gaining behind me but I refused to slow down- anticipation and hope pushing me forward. The trees, now nearly completely vanished, flew closer to me with amazing speed and I slammed to a stop just before reaching the border.
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