Hello all!!
I’m so excited about today’s post. Kira Brady is a debut author who’s first full length novel HEARTS OF DARKNESS will be out August 7th, with a prequel novella, HEARTS OF FIRE, releasing in July. Full of action, intreague, and sexy shifters… this is one new series you should ALL be keeping an eye out for!! *Check below for a cool way to do just that!!*
Here’s a little bit about what makes this new voice in UF/PNR tick.
TEA makes me happy
In the dreary Pacific Northwest, nothing chases away the chill from one’s bones quite like a mug of steaming assam. I start every morning with the ceremony of boiling water, spooning loose tea leaves into a strainer, pouring the water over the leaves into a cup just the right size to wrap my hands around, and steeping my brew to a perfect, caramel brown. At the first sip, the tension leaves my shoulders. By the fifth, I’ve woken. I am one step closer to calm, an apprentice Jedi ready to take on the Empire…or at least the piles of dirty laundry, legos underfoot, and blank pages waiting to be written.
Celebrations are also never complete without a full afternoon tea, and since tea makes me happy, there are always reasons to celebrate. Finished books, successful pitch sessions, rejections, requests, contest finals, contest wins, more rejections, more requests, writing retreats…until at last…First Sale! The Call! And then more novels written, starred Publisher Weekly reviews, future novels written. And those are only the celebrations related to writing! You can see how tea is now, through practice, associated with happiness in my mind, so that every morning when I sip my first cup, I think to myself, “This could be a day to celebrate.”
I couldn’t write a book without tea in it, even set in Seattle, coffee snob of a city that it is. One of the settings in The Deadglass Trilogy that the mercenaries and dragon shifters frequent is a historic, haunted mortuary in Pike Place Market called Butterworth’s. The building in real life has been host to many failed restaurants over the years (all rumored to be sabotaged by ghosts). The building in my alternate Seattle is the site of Butterworth’s Opium Parlour and Tea House, which the villain owns. The hero likes to hang out there and listen to dead Seattle musicians play beneath the glittering gaslights. He drinks Darjeeling.
What’s your tea of choice? Favorite Tea Room? I’ve had tea all over the world, but my favorite still is the Queen Mary Tea Room here in Seattle. Throw out your favorite teas and tea places, and I’ll give away a signed ARC of HEARTS OF DARKNESS, book 1 in the Deadglass Trilogy to one random commenter. (US only, print.)
- Kira’s website: www.kirabrady.com
- Twitter: twitter.com/kirabrady
- Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/kirabrady
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/kira.brady
So… I KNOW there are a lot of you tea drinkers out there… I’m not one, but I’ve been told all about the wonderful flavors and aromas. Let’s talk tea, and you can win HEART OF DARKNESS straight from Kira!! Contest will be open until midnight pacific on Friday, May 18th. Winner will be chosen at random and notified by email on Saturday, May 19th. GOOD LUCK!!