Today we have author Jamie Marchant visiting. Welcome!

What would you like to tell readers about yourself?

* Jamie Marchant is the author of the epic fantasy series, The Kronicles of Korthlundia. Her novels include The Goddess’s Choice, The Soul Stone, and The Ghost in Exile. Her short fiction has been published in the anthologies–Urban Fantasy and Of Dragons & Magic: Tales of the Lost Worlds—and in Bards & Sages, The World of Myth, A Writer’s Haven, and Short-story.me. She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband and four cats, which (or so she’s been told) officially makes her a cat lady. She teaches writing and literature at Auburn University. She is the mother of a grown son.

Today Jamie Marchant will be talking about the first book she read that had a big impact on her.
* I learned to read at four years old and have been a traveler through books ever since, so when Casey asked about the first book I read that had a big impact on me, the question took me on a journey “through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year” to a strange land where I once ruled as a girl king (yes, king; being a queen didn’t appeal to me at the time) with a boy named Max. Although Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is a children’s book, it taught me lessons that have influenced me far into my adult life.
* Although I couldn’t have articulated it at such a young age, the book taught me to indulge my imagination. Max is sent to his room, but rather than pouting or being bored, he has a forest grow around him until it completely overtakes the space. He gets on a boat and voyages to land of beasts with scaly legs, horns on their noses, and rooster beaks. With these creatures, he instigates a “wild rumpus” that begins with stomping and chanting under the moonlight and continues with swinging from trees in the light of day. To me, Max and the Wild Things’ wild rumpus seemed the pinnacle of excitement. Sendak’s book showed me that the imagination is a wonderful place where the strangest and most delightful things can happen at any moment and in any place.
* The book also nurtured the belief that this flight into the unknown is nothing for a girl to fear because she can return to normality whenever she pleases. When Max tires of the wild rumpus, he gets on his boat and sail back to his own room where his supper, a symbol of his mother’s love, is waiting for him. I learned that we can travel to the farthest reaches of the world and back again before our supper gets cold.
* Beginning with Where the Wild Things Are, stories, both reading and writing them, became both my playground and my school room. I followed Max’s example and began creating my own fantasies. For my older sister, I wrote tales of the Man from Mars journeying to earth and indulging in all sorts of adventures, and with the exception of a few years where I lost my way I’ve been creating new escapes ever since. When a girl travels to some far off realm, she never knows what new adventure she will have or what new lesson she’ll learn.

A look into…

~ Blurb ~

* The Ghost is going to hell. Not even the goddess can forgive his sins: assassin, oath-breaker, traitor (an affair with the queen earned him that title). No one can ever learn the princess is his daughter. To keep this secret, he flees to the land that turned him from a simple stable groom into an infamous killer.
* His mission now? To find evildoers and take them to hell with him. But when an impulsive act of heroism saddles him with a damsel who refuses to be distressed, her resilience forces him to questions why he really ran from his daughter.

~ Excerpt ~

* The Ghost went for a walk after his supper at the Green Sandpiper, an inn that catered to mercenaries and other unsavory types. The falling of night deepened the cold, but he didn’t cut short his walk. He wandered the filthy streets of the poorer section of the city, thinking about past kills—those in the distant past, not those connected with his daughter. He couldn’t think of her ever again. The few short years he’d spent with her had been the best in his life, but he hadn’t deserved them. The only thing he deserved was to rot in the seven hells. He wondered how many had died at his hands. Two hundred? Three? More? He’d never kept count.
* Few of the street lights were lit in this part of town, but that was no hindrance to The Ghost. When he’d been the Saloynan king’s personal assassin, he’d had an enchantment performed on his eyes, giving him the ability to see in the dark, even the complete darkness of a cave.
* Passing an alley, he heard a commotion. He turned to see a young woman pleading with two men. “Don’t make me go with him,” she begged. “He hurts me.”
* The first man slapped her across the face, and The Ghost saw the iron slave collar around the woman’s neck. She wore a low-cut, red bodice trimmed with black lace and an extremely short red skirt. She had to be freezing in this weather. “You’ll do as you’re told and like it, or . . .” He drew a knife and ran it across her right breast, drawing a thin line of blood.
* He imagined his daughter being similarly assaulted. He stepped into the alley. “Let her go.”

Buy The Ghost in Exile here…
Amazon

Find Jamie Marchant here…
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Thank you for joining us here today, Jamie Marchant! It was a pleasure getting to know you and your story.

ANNOUNCEMENT! Jamie Marchant will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour! So be sure to leave a comment AND use this RAFFLECOPTER LINK to enter the drawing. Also, visit the other tour stops for a greater chance of winning!