Today I am so pleased to welcome Katey Hawthorne back to Joyfully Jay. Katey has come to talk to us about her latest release, Blood and Clockwork. She has also brought along a great giveaway! Please join me in giving Katey a big welcome!

 

Hello, and thanks for having me back at Joyfully Jay! Today I’m going to talk a little about my newest book, Blood and Clockwork, which is different from my usual fare in some ways. It’s part of Less Than Three’s Solitary Travelers collection, all of which have ace spectrum protagonists. Mine is a fantasy-slash-mystery in which a boy from a clockpunk world with two suns–Alistair–and a boy from, well, New Jersey–Marco–have to work their way through a Mad Prince’s derelict clockwork tower. Each puzzle they solve reveals a new wonder of engineering… and occasionally magic. The kind that drives you mad. And of course, as they go they get closer and closer, personally speaking.

Crazy, right? Check out the excerpt below for an example, if you’re keen. And don’t forget the giveaway!


Excerpt

“What about this?” [Marco] halted suddenly.

I lifted my gaze from him to the wall. Several little jewels, torus-shaped, glinted weakly from within—and had been utterly invisible as we’d walked towards them at an angle. I moved backwards a few yards to prove it to myself, and indeed, they seemed to disappear. When I stepped up in front of them once more, beside Marco, they glittered—but just barely—from their recesses.

“They’re pivot-holes,” I explained, recalling Marco’s ignorance of horology. “The jewels are placed inside to cut down on friction and wear, so that the movement can maintain its precision.”

“The movement is, like, the whole thing that moves in the watch, right? The thing that keeps the time?”

I nodded, rifling through my utility belt.  “The jewels also help keep heat to a minimum.”

“Friction is a motherfucker,” he commented.

“Just so.” I looked at him, impressed enough to ignore yet another unfortunately graphic expletive, then returned my full attention to the jewels. They were no stone I’d ever seen, faintly pink and almost grainy inside… not unlike the gas or liquid in the magical ball back in the first room. “Damn. I think it’s magic again.”

“Well, how would you use a pivot hole without magic?”

I pulled out a small, spare metal arbor, and placed it into one of the holes. Then turned it.

Something crackled in the wall.

“Try the others,” he suggested, up on his toes with excitement of a sudden.

I did so, pivoting on each of the jewels in turn. And on the last one, the outline of a door appeared, and just as it had with the original relief, sank into the wall and then swung open.

Marco held the lantern aloft to shine it into this newly discovered room. We both caught our breath at the same moment, and he said, “Daaaaaaaaamn, son.”


Blurb

Cover by Natasha Snow DesignsAlistair Click set out to lay to rest the superstitious fears about the Mad Prince’s clockwork tower. If that meant he might bring the ghost city of Avalonia back to economic life, connecting the western kingdoms once again, so much the better. So what if no adventurer who’d entered the tower in the last century of desolation had ever re-emerged? They didn’t have his skill and wit. He could do better.

The tower turns out to be far more than Alistair expected, however. Not only are there clockwork puzzles to open every door, but one of them drops a boy from a strange world into his lap—figuratively speaking, if only just. Marco Murphy was just gaming in his New Jersey apartment, and now he’s stuck in what feels like a never ending LARP nightmare.

The deeper they delve into the Mad Prince’s tower, the darker the secrets they uncover. They’re not entirely sure they’ll ever be able to get out again, either. It’ll take all Marco’s charm and Alistair’s cleverness, plus the strange bond growing between them, to get them out together… and alive.


Bio

Katey Hawthorne is an avid reader and writer of superpowered romance, even though the only degree she holds is in the history of art. (Or, possibly, because the only degree she holds is in the history of art.) Originally from the Appalachian foothills of West Virginia, she currently lives in Ohio. In her spare time she enjoys comic books, B-movies, loud music, Epiphones, and Bushmills.


Giveaway

Katey has brought 3 $10 vouchers for the Less Than Three Market to give away to three lucky readers on her tour. Just leave a comment at the end of the post to enter. The contest ends on at 11:59 pm EST.

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