Today I am so pleased to welcome Alex Powell to Joyfully Jay. Alex has come to talk to us about All the King’s Men. Alex has also brought along an excerpt and a giveaway. Please join me in giving Alex a big welcome!

 

Hello, and welcome to the mini blog hop! In order to celebrate the release of my book All the King’s Men on July 27th, I’m writing a series of posts and holding a giveaway on various review sites, including Joyfully Jay. Thanks for hosting me here today, Jay!

Today, I want to start of the blog hop by introducing my main characters Fox and Seven, and also to take a look at King, who is one of the focal characters in this novel.

Fox is a hacker who works with a group of other hackers in order to uncover secrets that governments of the world are trying to keep under wraps. Lots of these governments would love to get a hold of him and his cohorts. Fox has trouble emotionally connecting with anyone, and also has trouble dealing with the aftermath. Throughout the novel, Fox has to deal with his emotional side as well as deal with what has happened to King.

Seven is an agent of one of these governments, and he’s trying to catch Fox and his companions. But there’s more to Seven than what appears on the surface. Seven and his fellow agents all look the same, but Seven wants to be different.

King is the leader of the small group of hackers, and he’s captured by the government that Seven is working for. In order to stop the government from capturing the others, King erases his own memories.

Thanks for tuning in everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading about the characters as much as I enjoyed writing about them. Don’t forget to stop in on June 26th for the next installment on my blog hop at my blog, The Quill & Ink Cafe!

Enter below for a chance to win a $20 gift certificate to the Less Than Three book market and a signed print copy of All the King’s Men! The draw will take place on July 31st. Please note that the draw includes all posts on the blog hop!

A short excerpt in which Fox first encounters Seven:


Excerpt

Fox smiled. They’d thought that the Wall would hold him, and that was a mistake.

He looked at the code in front of him and picked out bits of data, fitting it to a pattern that he knew in his head. He’d seen this one before, and while it wasn’t exactly a complicated code to unravel, it was time-consuming. He glanced over his shoulder. No one had noticed what he was doing, and he could see no agents from where he stood.

It would have to do. He sorted out the different strands, unwinding them from one another in their neat braids. The strands resisted him, trying to wind back together to keep the Wall whole. Fox struggled to keep them apart, trying desperately to make a gap large enough to fit through.

He hoped that whomever was holding up the MindWall was on the outside and not in here with him because if they were inside, they could warn their fellow agents that he was breaking through. It was doubtful, however, that these agents would be so thoughtless as to allow their communication link to be broken by their own Wall. One of the strands slipped, and, with a whispered curse, Fox tried to grab it and missed. He dropped another one as he did, and they both realigned. He had to wait for the right piece of code to show up again to get those strands back.

Fox painstakingly kept the strands he already had tightly in hand as he separated the ones he had lost again. They had to be parted in a certain order, or it wouldn’t work. He saw the data strand pass by that would have opened the next one up, but was forced to let it go by while he waited for the strand he’d dropped to loop back around.

One of the agents had found him. He couldn’t move, or he would drop all the strands that were already unbraided, but if he didn’t move, the agent would catch him. The agent grabbed his shoulder, digging his fingers in hard.

The last strand of data appeared.

Fox grabbed it and threw himself through the newly opened hole in the Mindwall, dragging the agent along with him. They both tumbled out, back into the endless links of the Cerebrum, falling without latching onto anything. Fox’s head whirled as he watched the data fly past in a blur of glowing blue.

The agent finally stopped their descent, and the two of them slammed to a halt, jarred together by the force of their momentum. Before Fox could say or do anything at all, the agent grabbed his head in both hands and pressed their foreheads together, forcing himself into Fox’s mind.


Blurb

All the King's Men coverFox is a mindnet hacker, and works for the mysterious man known only as King. He spends his time uncovering dangerous secrets and releasing them to the public.

But those who cause trouble are bound to attract it, and despite their precautions King is taken prisoner by an unknown government. And if Fox is going to save him, he’s going to need help—help that comes from the very last place he expected to find it.


Bio

Alex Powell is an avid writer and reader of sci-fi and fantasy, but on occasion branches into other genres to keep things interesting. Alex is a genderqueer writer from the wilds of northern Canada who loves exploring other peoples and cultures. Alex is a recent graduate of UNBC with a BA in English, and as a result has an unhealthy obsession with Victorian Gothic literature. Alex has been writing from an early age, but is happy to keep learning to improve on their writing skills. Feedback and comments as well as any questions are appreciated! You can reach Alex at aa.powell.author@gmail.com and at their website alexpowellauthor.com.


Giveaway

Alex has brought a giveaway for a $25 gift certificate to Less Than Three Press book market and signed copy of All the King’s Men to one lucky reader on the tour. Just follow the Rafflecopter below to enter. 

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