I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Ann Gimpel, author of the Earth Reclaimed series. Ann was kind enough to join us and answer some questions regarding her new series.
Thank you so much for inviting me to your blog. One
of the best parts of these virtual tours is all the amazing blogs I discover
along the way.
Tell
us about the main character in the Earth
Reclaimed series. Who is Aislinn?
Aislinn Lenear was a nineteen year old college
student when her world turned on its axis. Three years later, not much is left
in her world—or her soul. She’s been conscripted into a mercenary role and has
discovered the safest course is to not trust anyone. Over the course of the
three Earth Reclaimed books (300,000+ words) the scabs over her heart are torn
off again and again. She’s courageous, feisty, bitchy, and willing to go to the
wall for those she loves. Because she’s such a strong character, she goes head
to head with anyone or anything standing in her way. In a rare moment of
introspection, she tells Fionn that she goes balls out because if she stopped
to think things through, she’d be immobilized by fear.
In many ways, Aislinn is my hero. She’s been handed
a rotten hand, but she can’t trade her cards for something better. Instead of
giving up, she plants both feet firmly and says, “Bring it on.”
What
inspired the series? Did you do any special research while prepping and writing?
What inspires any author? My muse can be an
overbearing witch. At the front end of things, I knew I wanted to include the
Lemurians. I’d read a lot about them and their mythical city, Taltos, beneath
Mount Shasta. Actually, I had no intention of having Celtic gods in the first
book. No one was more surprised than me when Fionn strode out of that forest
with Bella on his shoulder. Not only that, he brought Gwydion, Bran, Dewi, and
Arawn along before the first book ended. At that point, I just kept at it and
let the story flow.
I didn’t need to do much research into the Celtic
deities because I know that pantheon fairly well. However I did boatloads of
research on the early Irish kings and queens as I wove them into the story. In
fact, a research paper titled, Genealogy of the MacLochlainn Families of
Inishowen is still on my desk.
I
love your covers! Did you have any input in the design?
Oh yes. One of the huge benefits I’ve found in
self-publishing is being able to work hand in glove with Fiona Jayde, my cover
artist. It’s so much better than getting an email with a cover and a short note
that says, “Here it is.” I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I’ve hated some
of my covers. Arguing with a publisher about covers is a waste of breath
because they all tell you that the author isn’t a good judge of such things.
I
love Celtic and Norse mythology. What role does it play in the Earth Reclaimed series?
I touched on this some in one of my earlier answers.
Norse mythology comes into play with Nidhogg, the Norse dragon in book two, and
is expanded in book three with Thor, Odin, and the full complement at Asgard.
Until then, the Norse deities had taken the same tack as their Celtic brethren,
sitting out the carnage as the dark gods rampaged through Earth.
The Celts play a more central role because of Fionn
and Aislinn. I don’t want to include plot spoilers, but let me just say there
are good reasons for their intense attraction. Once Fionn decides all bets are
off and he’s in with both feet, the other Celts join him.
And then there’s the dragon angle. Both the Celtic
and the Norse deities include dragons, and they’re featured in this series. Not
as shifters, but as themselves.
The
series looks like an interesting mesh of urban fantasy and dystopian. Tell us a
bit about how they blend together in the story.
I’m smiling. I’m the queen of crossed-genre fiction.
I blame it on my muse. If you look at traditional descriptions, urban fantasy
takes place in an urban setting in the real world, but with fantasy elements
added in. There are indeed urban settings in the Earth Reclaimed books, but the
buildings stand empty. Most humans are dead. That leads to the dystopian label,
but it’s not entirely accurate. Actually a dystopia is government gone bad.
Think utopia, with dystopia as it’s opposite.
There’s no evidence of government in this series
unless you count how the Lemurians are organized. Since pigeonholing books is
critical to their placement in the vendor search engines, I picked what I felt
the series fell closest to and what readers searching for something specific
could latch onto and feel satisfied after reading the books. No one’s
complained—yet, so I’m thinking I got close.
Fun
Question—If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would you
entertain? What would you serve?
Any fictional character, huh? Gosh, there are so
many yummy leading men out there, but lots of strong, dynamic women too. I
think maybe I’d want to have dinner with Kate Daniels. She’s one of my favorite
heroines. Since I’d rather spent my time talking than cooking, we’d eat simply.
Maybe a large green salad with goat cheese and smoked salmon and a freshly made
balsamic vinaigrette. Nuts too. Macadamias chopped fine and sprinkled over the
salad. We’d have bread fresh from the oven, one of my paleo recipes with plenty
of grass-fed butter. Wine, whiskey, and a sinful dessert (paleo style) would
finish things off.
Is
there anything else you’d like your readers to know about you or your novel?
I love connecting with readers. If you read any of
the Earth Reclaimed books—or any of my other books—please connect with me and
tell me what you think.
Where
can readers find you online?
@AnnGimpel
(for Twitter)
I’m
also on Goodreads, Pinterest, Wattpad, and Tsu.
Earth's Requiem
Earth Reclaimed Book One
Ann Gimpel
Dystopian/Urban Fantasy
Dream Shadow Press
March 1, 2015
Amazon
Resilient,
kickass, and determined, Aislinn's walled herself off from anything that might
make her feel again. Until a wolf picks her for a bondmate, and a Celtic god
rises out of legend to claim her for his own.
Aislinn Lenear lost her
anthropologist father high in the Bolivian Andes. Her mother, crazy with grief
that muted her magic, was marched into a radioactive vortex by dark creatures
and killed. Three years later, stripped of every illusion that ever comforted
her, twenty-two year old Aislinn is one resilient, kickass woman with a take no
prisoners attitude. In a world turned upside down, where virtually nothing
familiar is left, she’s conscripted to fight the dark gods responsible for her
father’s death. Battling evil on her own terms, Aislinn walls herself off from
anything that might make her feel again in this compelling dystopian urban fantasy.
Fionn MacCumhaill, Celtic god of
wisdom, protection, and divination has been laying low since the dark gods
stormed Earth. He and his fellow Celts decided to wait them out. After all,
three years is nothing compared to their long lives. On a clear winter day,
Aislinn walks into his life and suddenly all bets are off. Awed by her courage,
he stakes his claim to her and to an Earth he's willing to fight for.
Aislinn’s not so easily
convinced. Fionn’s one gorgeous man, but she has a world to save. Emotional
entanglements will only get in her way. Letting a wolf into her life was hard.
Letting love in may well prove impossible.
Earth's Blood
Earth Reclaimed Book Two
Clinging
to their courage in a crumbling world, Aislinn and Fionn vow to save Earth, no
matter what it takes.
In a post-apocalyptic world where
most people have been slaughtered, the Celtic gods and a few humans with magic
are all that stand between survival and Earth falling into chaos. The
combination of dark sorcery leveraged by the enemy is daunting. Destruction is
all but certain if the small enclaves of humans who are left can’t get past
their distrust of the Celts.
Captured by the enemy, Aislinn
Lenear wonders if she’ll ever see her bond wolf or Fionn, a Celtic god, again.
She’s had nothing but her wits to rely on for years. They haven’t failed her
yet, but escape from her current predicament seems remote.
An enticing blend of dystopian
urban fantasy and romance, this second volume of the Earth Reclaimed Series
provides fertile ground for Aislinn and Fionn’s relationship to deepen. Headstrong
and independent, the pair run up against each other’s demands time and time
again. Fireworks spark. In the end, they learn to savor every moment in a
bittersweet world where each day may well be the last.
Earth's Hope
Earth Reclaimed Book Three
Power
so old, deep, and chilling it hurts to think about it will overrun Earth if
nothing changes. Targeted, furious, and fighting back, Aislinn runs wide open,
gathering allies and putting her life on the line.
Aislinn Lenear has traveled a
long road since the dark gods invaded Earth better than three years ago. After
seeing her father slaughtered in front of her, and her mother sink into
madness, Aislinn built strong walls around her heart. First her bond wolf, and
then Fionn MacCumhaill, changed all that, but she and Fionn are far from home
free.
Four of the six dark gods are
still sowing destruction, and they’ve joined forces with Lemurians, a desperate
lot, running just ahead of the tide of their own mortality. In a bold move,
they try to coopt a group of young dragons, and very nearly succeed. Dewi, the
Celtic dragon god, and Nidhogg, the Norse dragon god, banish their brood to the
dragons’ home world, but they refuse to stay put.
In a fast-paced, tension-riddled
closure to this dystopian, urban fantasy series, Earth's Hope sweeps from
Ireland to the Greek Islands to the Pacific Northwest to borderworlds where the
dark gods live. Fionn’s and Aislinn’s relationship is strained to the breaking
point as they struggle to work together without tearing one another to bits.
Fionn is used to being obeyed without question, but Aislinn won’t dance to his
tune. If they can find their way, there may be hope for a ravaged Earth.
Excerpt from Earth's Hope
…One of the red
dragons leaped from the water, wings flapping, and dive-bombed her, showering
her with slimy moat water.
“Ewww.” Aislinn
sputtered the dank water away from her lips.
“Play with us,”
the female dragon demanded.
“It’s almost
time for bed.” Aislinn tried to sound stern, but she had the same problem with
the younglings that plagued Dewi. They were so damned cute, it wasn’t easy to
pull rank.
“Bed?” echoed
from six other dragonlings. They vaulted from the water and converged on her,
nearly crushing her beneath their bulk.
“Get off me,”
Aislinn cried. “You’re heavy.”
“Yes,” the one
black dragon announced proudly and nudged Rune with his scaled snout. “Once I
rode you. Soon you’ll fit atop my back.”
“Don’t count on
it,” Rune snarled.
Aislinn
snickered. Flying atop a dragon wasn’t the wolf’s favorite activity. He
tolerated it when he had to, but avoided it when he could.
“How’s it going,
leannán?” Fionn strode down the greenway separating the moat from his castle.
Aislinn
scrambled to her feet and shook water out of her hair. Her beige trousers were
thick, boiled wool and fairly resistant to moisture. A cloak woven from the
same wool wrapped around her body. She’d found the clothes in one of many
trunks in Fionn’s attic. He couldn’t recall who they’d belonged to, but she
assumed it was an earlier wife or girlfriend since he’d been born in 1048.
“Good, you’re
here.” She squinted through the gloom. When he got close enough for her to see
his face, the welcoming smile died on her lips.
“Aye, well at
least someone is glad of my presence.”
“Didn’t go well,
huh?” She held out her arms. He walked into them and wrapped his around her.
“Nay. Mostly the
humans want to wait until we’re attacked. Bran wants to annihilate the
Lemurians first.” He tightened his arms around her shoulders. “I want to bash
our way through the dark gods until they get fed up enough to retreat, but I
canna do it by myself.”
“We’ll help.”
The black dragonling tried to wriggle between Fionn’s and Aislinn’s bodies. His
scales caught on Aislinn’s pants.
“We will, we
will,” other young voices chimed in.
“The dark ones
killed our sister,” the black dragon went on, his piping voice serious. “We
want revenge.”
“Mother won’t
let us fight,” a green dragon spoke up. “She already said so.”
“Father
disagreed,” the red dragon who’d invaded Aislinn’s lap said.
She’d gotten
better at telling them apart, but it would be a relief once they named
themselves. In all, there were two red females, three green males, the black
male, and a copper male.
“I fear all of
us will get our chance in battle afore this is over.” Gwydion, flanked by Bran,
walked into their midst. “Come with me. Time to give Aislinn a break.”
“Will you tell
us a story?” the copper dragon demanded.
“Yes,” a red
dragon clapped her clawed forelegs together. “You tell the best stories.”
“I’ll be your
bard tonight.” Bran made a sweeping bow. “Mayhap you’d care to hear about how
dragons came to be.”
“Yes!” the red
female shrieked.
“Follow Bran,”
Gwydion urged. Once the dragons were in motion, some flying, some walking, he
rolled his eyes and brought up the rear.
“Thanks,”
Aislinn shouted after him.
“Ye owe me,
lass,” he called over one shoulder.
Aislinn leaned
her head into the nook between Fionn’s neck and shoulder. “Would you like to
walk a bit before we go inside?”
“Aye, lass. Now
ye mention it, I’d like that verra much.”
“Do you suppose
we could go as far as the sea?”
“I thought we’d
remain within my wards—”
Bella flapped
out of the darkness and landed on Rune’s back. “We’re coming,” she announced.
“Of course we
are,” Rune seconded. “My bonded one would never consider leaving me behind.”
Aislinn stifled
a snort. The bond animals had their own network and frequently shared things
among themselves that they’d never tell their humans. Apparently Bella had
complained about Fionn ditching her, and the wolf was reminding her of that in
a less-than-subtle manner.
“Since we’re all
going,” Aislinn cut in before Fionn got into another argument with the
cantankerous raven, “let’s do this. I sat for so long, I’m cold.” She wriggled
out of Fionn’s embrace, reluctant to leave the warmth of his body.
“Would ye like
me to find you a warmer wrap?” Fionn asked.
She shook her head.
“I don’t want this to be a big production number. Mostly, I want to work the
kinks out of my legs before we go to bed. Thank Christ Dewi will be back by the
middle of tomorrow.”
Fionn hooked a
hand beneath her arm and guided her toward the wall that rose all around his
manor. He’d had the mansion built in the fifteen hundreds to exacting
specifications. Flat, gray stones comprised the outer wall; they fit together
so precisely it was nearly impossible to detect their edges. The house itself
was built from huge wooden beams and river rock. Five stories, with turrets and
a tower and leaded glass windows, it looked like something out of a movie set.
Aislinn fell
into step beside him, grateful for her long legs that let her keep pace easily.
They passed beneath one of four curved gateways set into the outer wall and out
onto open moorland. Humans who’d been assigned sentry duty nodded as they
passed. The salt tang of the sea deepened, tickling her nostrils. For a moment,
she felt homesick for the dry air of the American west where she was from. Rune
jumped to one side, jaws snapping, and came up with a small, wriggling
creature.
“I shall hunt
too,” Bella declared and launched herself off the wolf’s back. The black of her
wings melted into the shadows until Aislinn couldn’t see her anymore without
magic.
“Why’s she
unhappy this time?” Aislinn asked.
“What it comes
down to,” Fionn replied, “is she doesn’t enjoy sharing me. Aye, she likes you
well enough. Not like your mother, who she detested, but jealousy still gets
the better of her.”
“She’s good to
have by our side in battle, though.” Aislinn licked her lips and tasted salt
from perpetual mists that hung in the air. “Speaking of which, I assume there’s
another pow-wow with the humans.”
“Aye, that there
is. If nothing else, we must craft a defensive plan should we be attacked.”
“Not if, but
when,” she cut in. “I can’t put my finger on it, but time grows short. I feel
it here.” She laid a hand over her chest.
“Ye and Bran,
both. He says the Lemurians are closing, and I presume the dark gods are
masterminding whatever they’re up to.”
Rune growled
from around his impromptu meal. “I’m ready.” He shifted to mind speech because
his mouth was busy.
Aislinn waited
for the raven to jump in, but either Bella was out of earshot, or biding her
time. The roar of breakers on sand got louder as they closed the distance to
the beach. Fionn stopped walking and spun her in his arms until they faced one
another. He murmured a string of Gaelic endearments just before he closed his mouth
over hers.
Aislinn wove her
arms around Fionn’s muscled torso and opened her mouth to his insistent tongue.
Need flared, hot and urgent, but Fionn always had that effect on her. From the
moment their bodies had first slammed together, passion drove reason from her
mind.
She’d lost her
father to Perrikus and D’Chel the night they’d pierced the veil separating
Earth from their borderworlds. Lemurians had killed her mother a year later,
and Aislinn had vowed to never let another soul get close enough to hurt her if
something hideous happened to them. She’d held firm for two years, but first
Rune and then Fionn, had walked into her life and changed everything.
Too late. It’s
too late to worry about it now. Her breath quickened, and her nipples formed
hard peaks where they were squashed against his chest.
Fionn dropped
his hands lower and cupped the curves of her ass, pulling her hard against an
obvious erection. She tore her mouth from his. “So, do you just want to fall
into the wet grass and get it on?”
He made a
decidedly male sound deep in his throat. “Not a bad idea, leannán. I can make
us a dry place with magic.” He butted his hard-on against her pelvis. “At least
we’d have a shred of privacy. No telling who’ll burst into my rooms back in the
house.”
“No kidding. Do
you suppose the dragons have figured out how to work their way past the
deadbolt?”
“Och, lassie.
Now ye mention it, I caught the black one using magic to do just that earlier
today.” He tugged one of her arms from around him and pushed her hand over his
engorged flesh. “We willna be long. Think of the adventure aspect.” Muted humor
ran beneath his words…
About the Author
Ann Gimpel is a mountaineer at
heart. Recently retired from a long career as a psychologist, she remembers
many hours at her desk where her body may have been stuck inside four walls,
but her soul was planning yet one more trip to the backcountry. Around the turn
of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), she managed to finagle
moving to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. It
was during long backcountry treks that Ann’s writing evolved. Unlike some who
see the backcountry as an excuse to drag friends and relatives along, Ann
prefers solitude. Stories always ran around in her head on those journeys,
sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made her
fear for her life, sometimes for company. Eventually, she returned from a trip
and sat down at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged.
Oh, it wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. And, she learned a lot between
writing that novel and its sequel.
Around that time, a friend of
hers suggested she try her hand at short stories. It didn’t take long before
that first story found its way into print and they’ve been accepted pretty
regularly since then. One of Ann’s passions has always been ecology, so her
tales often have a green twist.
In addition to writing, Ann
enjoys wilderness photography. She lugs pounds of camera equipment in her
backpack to distant locales every year. A standing joke is that over ten
percent of her pack weight is camera gear which means someone else has to carry
the food! That someone is her husband. They’ve shared a life together for a
very long time. Children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out their
family.
@AnnGimpel
