Book pitch:
It's 2067.
It's been 3 years since the Gatecrash, the cataclysmic event that mutated a quarter of the human population.
Magic - known as Ether - returned to the world, and monsters roam again in the wilderness, crossing the portals opening to unknown worlds that appear throughout the globe.
As a constant reminder of this event stands the azure sphere of chaotic energy, glowing in the hills northeast of ex-Colorado Springs, now rebaptized Cerulean Springs due to that unending glimmer: a city that changed its face just as quickly as its name, becoming an enormous metropolis with its own dark sides in the span of a few decades.
These sudden, worldwide changes caused chaos at first - but, with the 'humanitarian' support of the corporations, the flash-fire riots were quelled, and the population settled - the rise in power and standing of the corps being just a side effect, of course.
Society evolved, assimilated the new and adapted: from fear to unease, from unease to new business venues and research fields, just as it did in the last decades with the blindingly fast development of technology and the discovery of the almost mystical Essences. After all, what's a new weirdness in a world where mechanical implants are common and the body is nothing but a canvas to change and adapt to one's wishes?
Despite all this, certain things never change: there's still the need for shadowy figures able to do things that others wouldn't.
Zoe is one of them: a mutated human - a Gatecrasher - and a combat mage by trade, introduced into the life of an underground mercenary after the Gatecrash riots.
She's minding her own business between jobs, when the disappearance of a woman working in her favorite Pleasure House pushes her to go on the hunt to uncover the dancer's fate - free of charge.
Once on the trail, though, she will quickly realize she might have bitten more than she can chew: what started as a simple investigation will bring her to uncover darker and more dangerous secrets, forcing the Irish mage to use all her tricks and delve into the dirtiest parts of Cerulean Springs to keep her word, while trying to keep sane indulging in the pleasure of the flesh.
One of the ways she keeps her mind busy from the painful memories of a past she's still trying to cope with.
It's been 3 years since the Gatecrash, the cataclysmic event that mutated a quarter of the human population.
Magic - known as Ether - returned to the world, and monsters roam again in the wilderness, crossing the portals opening to unknown worlds that appear throughout the globe.
As a constant reminder of this event stands the azure sphere of chaotic energy, glowing in the hills northeast of ex-Colorado Springs, now rebaptized Cerulean Springs due to that unending glimmer: a city that changed its face just as quickly as its name, becoming an enormous metropolis with its own dark sides in the span of a few decades.
These sudden, worldwide changes caused chaos at first - but, with the 'humanitarian' support of the corporations, the flash-fire riots were quelled, and the population settled - the rise in power and standing of the corps being just a side effect, of course.
Society evolved, assimilated the new and adapted: from fear to unease, from unease to new business venues and research fields, just as it did in the last decades with the blindingly fast development of technology and the discovery of the almost mystical Essences. After all, what's a new weirdness in a world where mechanical implants are common and the body is nothing but a canvas to change and adapt to one's wishes?
Despite all this, certain things never change: there's still the need for shadowy figures able to do things that others wouldn't.
Zoe is one of them: a mutated human - a Gatecrasher - and a combat mage by trade, introduced into the life of an underground mercenary after the Gatecrash riots.
She's minding her own business between jobs, when the disappearance of a woman working in her favorite Pleasure House pushes her to go on the hunt to uncover the dancer's fate - free of charge.
Once on the trail, though, she will quickly realize she might have bitten more than she can chew: what started as a simple investigation will bring her to uncover darker and more dangerous secrets, forcing the Irish mage to use all her tricks and delve into the dirtiest parts of Cerulean Springs to keep her word, while trying to keep sane indulging in the pleasure of the flesh.
One of the ways she keeps her mind busy from the painful memories of a past she's still trying to cope with.
My experience writing it
This is my second novel!
And...it's been quite a surprise, really. Last year I was working on Elemental 2 and I was starting to get a tad burned out (I was coming out of translating, formatting, etc Elemental 1, and the whole publishing thing, which can be somewhat stressful), so I decided to write a short just for the heck of it.
Just for kicks, I decided to make it an erotic short.
In the meantime I was continuing to promote Elemental on Twitter, where I've seen some erotic books being promoted.
And that was pretty much the moment I decided I wanted to try my hand writing something that still had erotic contents, but had a serious story and well rounded characters into it.
I had the Cerulean Springs setting in mind for quite a long time now, and I always had an intention to write in that universe. And I thought to myself "Why not now?"
Soooo... I did!
I wrote the first draft in about a month or so. I was completely engrossed in the story, and in the end I got this missing person thriller going, with some spicy elements to it - elements being the keyword since in the end the erotic parts are more tied to character fleshing out and development than the story itself. It's a story about someone who's extremely sexual, but the driving plot is actually something much darker and 'detached' from sex, to the point that in one specific pitch (which I still hold dear to this day!) I've been told the naughty bits took too much of a backseat to the story for that house. And that was the most brilliant and helpful rejection letter I received, one that I still am thankful for.
This experience helped me cement my views on sexuality in fiction, which I talked about in detail in this blog post.
And in the end, Tiogair had its big launch party during #MCchat on Twitter last week!
There are a lot of projects I'm tying to this universe as well - one that I'm currently working on a Tabletop Roleplaying Game based in it, still in the works - and I do intend to write more stories in this setting, along with Elemental 2.
Where can you find it?
First, a warning: Tiogair contains mature themes that place it in the 'adult only' category (graphic sex and violence, use of substances, foul language). With that out of the way you can find it through these links:
English Versions:
Italian Versions:
Goodreads:
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