Author Guest Post L.J. McDonald and Giveaway!

Since I was apparently younger than even I remember, I’ve been writing stories of some kind or other. I’m pretty sure I started with bad fanfiction that I burned in self-defense, since otherwise my brother might have found it. I have vague recollections of giant robots and extradimensional energy beings who looked like green monkeys In plate armour. Fortunately, I’ve long since forgotten what I was thinking when I wrote it.

My first short stories were all Twilight Zone styled pieces with bizarre endings. My books, which I started to write in my teens, were science fiction. I still have those. I’m afraid to read them, but I have them.

At some point in my twenties, I wandered into the realm of fantasy and I was immediately hooked. Now I didn’t have to worry about writing a science fiction piece where the science turns out to be completely wrong. Nor did I have to be concerned about messing up some detail about the real world while trying to set a book in it. Instead, with fantasy, I control the world.

There’s a great deal of glee to be had in shaping a universe and throwing some poor, unsuspecting characters into it. More, in fantasy, I can create a world that lets me play more easily with whatever concept it is that I want to explore. When I wrote the first Sylph book, sI had, along with all the other stuff I tossed in there, a philosophical concept I wanted to explore. I had these wonderfully sensual, completely masculine beings with immense amounts of power, and I made them utterly submissive. It was a bit of me touching onto the idea of sub/dom relationships and also a nudge at the particular brand of feminism I learned in university. After all, it’s the women who have the power in any relationship with a battle sylph. I’m not really trying to say anything with it. I’m just going “hey, what happens if I do this?” Fantasy makes it easier for me to get away with things like that without having a story come across as unbelievable.

All of my books have something philosophical to them, though most of the time I think it’s buried so deeply only I know it’s there. Some are more obvious than others, however, and in a few, I explore some really nasty ideas. In QUEEN OF THE SYLPHS I wanted to show how utterly disastrous a human/sylph relationship could become with the wrong pair. Apparently I struck a cord with this, given how many people have told me that my lead villain made them want to scream. I actually held back with her. Makes me wonder about writing a piece with a villain who’s truly evil and if anyone would want to read it.

Either way, I’m sticking with fantasy. I won’t say I’ll never venture into science fiction again, or write something set in the modern world, but right now, I’m enjoying creating worlds where I make the rules.
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Thanks for coming on the blog today! I am currently in the middle of the series and my reviews will come shortly. I am really seeing your the idea of women power in a world of male dominance. 

So, does this make you curious? Well...

Giveaway!

It was a dream come true. Solie had her own battler, a creature of almost infinite magic who could vaporize legions in the blink of an eye and would willingly suffer a thousand bloody deaths to protect her. She was his love. More simply, she was his queen. 

Many others feel the same. The new-built settlement is a haven for all. Erected by sylphs of earth and fire, air and water, the Valley is Solie’s dominion. But, lovers without peer or killers without mercy, the very nature of their battler protectors means peril. It is not in any sylph’s nature to disobey, and while some are hers to command, others are the slaves of Solie’s enemies—the jealous, the cruel. Those who guard her must not fail. Their peasant-born ruler is not yet safe as…

The giveaway is LJ MacDonald's newest book, Queen of the Slyphs. The giveaway is open to anyone with a US or Can snail addy. All you have to do is enter below!

Good luck!