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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Guest Post and Giveaway for Cherished by Christina Bauer


Cherished
Christina Bauer
(Beholder #3)
Published by: Monster House Books
Publication date: May 30th 2017
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult

For Elea, there’s never been a better time to turn away from witch life. The Tsar is in exile. The Vicomte is dead. And Rowan? Falling for him only broke her heart. Instead of casting spells, Elea spends her days running Braddock Farm and enjoying the flirtations of the very handsome and non-magical Philippe. Everything is going perfectly, except for one problem.
Someone’s trying to kill her.
Shujaa is a Changed One, a Creation Caster mage whose mutated form makes him invincible in battle. Now that the Tsar and Vicomte are gone, Shujaa wants to rise and rule. To do so, he must eliminate all those powerful enough to oppose him, and Elea is top on his list. Anyone who offers her aid quickly ends up dead.
In the end, there’s only one person who can keep Elea safe while helping her defeat Shujaa: Rowan. Like it or not, Elea must team up with her old love. With Philippe along for the ride, Elea plans to team with Rowan without losing her heart this time. But that’s when all her plans fall apart…
Monster House Books is celebrating the launch of the ebook version of CHERISHED! As a result, the first two books in the series are specially priced for a limited time! To find out more, visit: http://monsterhousebooks.com/blog/cherishedpromo
Guest Post

The Inspiration For My Book CHERISHED
By Christina Bauer

My book, CHERISHED, tells the story of a woman who wants to be a farm girl but ends up as the most powerful Necromancer in the realm. It’s book three in my Beholder series (if you aren’t familiar with the series, there’s a quick trailer right here.) In any case, I’m now doing an author tour to celebrate the launch of CHERISHED, and I’ve been asked to share my inspiration for Beholder series by the awesome folks at ANGELS WITH ATTITUDES. 
Beholder started with a saying I made up (if you know me, you’re aware that I create new words and sayings all the time!) Here it is: There are four kinds of beauty—heart, mind, soul and body. Of these, only the body gets worse as we age, no matter what we do, so invest your time accordingly.
How The Hell I Came Up With This
I grew up Roman Catholic, which means that I spent my formative years inside one of the last surviving entities of the Middle Ages. There’s a lot good and bad about that, but that’s a post for another day. In the Middle Ages, your life was not about your physical body. Like, at all. If anything, your body kept getting in the way of what was really important—your soul. I grew up thinking of my soul as a living thing that needed to be kept lovely and strong.
Now, this isn’t an easy concept to live by, especially while you’re living in a culture that’s laser-focused on physical beauty. Still, I had the advantage of knowing that our modern focus was a choice, nothing more. I knew that there were other options out there, and I got curious as to what different cultures valued. Over the years, I started categorizing the values I came across. In the end, I came up with the quote above. Anytime I wanted to invest energy in my body, I reminded myself that I needed to give equal time to my heart, mind, and soul. I started to wonder what it would be like if there were a realm where people got equally obsessed with all four. I decided that the people in it would probably hate each other.
The world of Beholder was born.
In this universe, Necromancers value the pathway of the soul. They can summon ghosts and skeletons by carefully controlling energy of the past. They aren’t into raising the dead. Meanwhile, Creation Casters focus on emotion and heart. Their magick enables them to create new animals to do their bidding. The realm’s Royals have no magick; they follow the beauty of the mind, which is why they’re obsessed with machines. The Commoners don’t have any mage powers, either. Instead, they focus on the body, but only in the sense that they are farmers and must work hard to keep body and soul together. Soul and heart have magick; the body and mind don’t. That was a conscious choice based on the nature of their energy and how ‘quantifiable’ they are, if that makes sense.
Our main character, Elea, starts off as a farmer and then trains to be a Necromancer. By the time the series is over, she’ll have experienced—and been changed by—each world. She’ll also have to make some big choices on how to balance these four opposing energies. If all goes as planned, she’ll be a new kind of Odysseus, on a journey that’s both modern and ancient. And because it’s my series and I love this kind of stuff, she’ll also have lots of fun, battles, and romance along the way. Huzzah!
Thank you so much for the opportunity to answer this thoughtful question; I certainly enjoyed the journey of writing my response. If you think of more queries, please know that I’m always up for reader interaction, and more information on how to contact me is listed below.

Author Bio:
Christina Bauer knows how to tell stories about kick-ass women. In her best selling Angelbound series, the heroine is a part-demon girl who loves to fight in Purgatory’s Arena and falls in love with a part-angel prince. This young adult best seller has driven more than 500,000 ebook downloads and 9,000 reviews on Goodreads and retailers.
Bauer has also told the story of the Women’s March on Washington by leading PR efforts for the Massachusetts Chapter. Her pre-event press release—the only one sent out on a major wire service—resulted in more than 19,000 global impressions and redistribution by over 350 different media entities including the Associated Press.
Christina graduated from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School with BA’s in English along with Television, Radio, and Film Production. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband, son, and semi-insane golden retriever, Ruby.
Be the first to know about new releases from Christina by signing up for her newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/CBupdates

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1 comments:

Giselle said...

Thanks for being on the tour! :)