Dy Loveday...Illusion!

Hello!
Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Dy Loveday, another of my Liquid Silver Books pub buddies. When I read Dy's post for the first time, I related instantly. I think every writer has the need to write and it was fascinating to hear about her journey. I hope you'll welcome Dy today and don't forget to take a boo at her awesome book Illusion!

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Hi Rosanna and thanks for hosting me on your blog today.

 

I’d like to chat about my writing journey: how it started, some of the barriers and what helped me on the path to publication.

 

Around 10 years ago, I was buying books from the LSB website and secretly fantasizing about being one of their authors.  The memory lurked in my subconscious and after having kids and settling into full time work, I decided that it was either now or never. 

 

Once I packed in the day job, I realized that writing decent prose and dialogue wasn’t going to be easy.  Firstly, writing a novel is nothing like writing policy for government (I can hear readers scoffing from here, but believe me I was that naive).  And then there was all the research required in making the story as realistic and believable as possible. 

 

The backstory of my fantasy romance, Illusion, is based in Mesopotamia.  Digging up records of Carthage and sorting Roman propaganda from fact was a long, drawn out affair.  At times I wanted to toss the computer out the window and go back to my regular day job (much better paid by the way).  I spent hundreds of hours researching child sacrifice and questioning the accuracy of the source.  Most of the scholars ended up disagreeing with one another, and I’ll happily let the reader decide whether the Carthaginians sacrificed their children to their god, Molokh.  You might conclude the ancients had the terrible misfortune of losing hundreds of aristocratic kids of a specific age and the Romans were just nasty rumourmongers.  Hell, stranger things have happened, right? 

 

Illusion was written in free form or as many authors say, by the ‘seat of my pants.’  It took 9 months to write and 18 months to revise.  Nowadays I tend to plot my stories so I have a handle on where they are going, because there is nothing worse in my mind than endless revisions after a story is finished. 

 

For anyone wanting to write or anyone who has a dream, I encourage you to push through the barriers.  Ignore the naysayers who tell you that you’ll never make it: because if you’re persistent enough, stubborn enough, you can turn your dream into a reality.  Someone once told me to write from the heart and I find if I’m doing that, I’m truly happy.

 

Illusion is a near-future story of a girl addicted to spells in a post-apocalyptic setting of mages and warlocks.  She falls in love with an off-world warlock and must discover the truth of her past in order to find love and redemption.  There are several dark themes running through the narrative.  Although I love romance I do enjoy writing and reading about the darker side of life and Illusion is no exception. 

 

Feel free to visit my website www.dyloveday.com,

Twitter https:/twitter.com/DyLoveday or

Facebook www.facebook.com/dylovedayauthor to catch up on current projects.

 

Excerpt:

 

Trembling inside, she moved to the window and watched lightning split the sky. Thunder boomed overhead, echoing down the river and bouncing off the cliffs. It was time to make a decision. Maya wavered for a moment. She understood what Resh wanted. But did she want the same thing?

Hearing a hiss, she turned to see Resh dump a handful of St John’s wort and apple seeds into the crucible. Magic vibrated in the room, pooling low in her stomach. A crack appeared in the crucible, but he didn't appear concerned. If possible, his hands moved faster.

Resh drew three concentric circles and corresponding lines on the floor in black charcoal. It looked like a wheel with broken spokes. He marked twisting serpent creatures in the second circle, and astrological symbols in the outer ring. The serpents began to move, just slightly, but enough to make her step back.

"Can I help?" she asked, hoping he wouldn’t say ‘yes’.

He glanced up. "Given your artistic skills? No, I think I'll rely on my meager slashing."

His hands quivered slightly as he placed the cinnabar on dolomite in the middle of the formula. Chanting in a low, deep tone he used tongs to pick up the crucible and placed it on the crystal. As soon as the two surfaces met, splashes of olive and scarlet liquid pooled onto the wooden floor.

He stared at her, eyes intent. His lips were slightly open and full and she wondered what they would taste like. Heat coiled and spread through her body, and she resisted the impulse to squirm. He had a beautiful body. He definitely wanted her, she could tell by his eyes and the way he avoided touching her. But he also wanted something else, and she couldn't quite work out if he protected her, or just used her for his own benefit.

"When do we leave?" she asked, instead of doing something else; something she’d regret. His lips were gorgeous. The veins in his arms bulged in a darkening web, the magical roadmap of life.

“Within the hour.”

“An hour.  I had no idea it would be so soon.”

He stared at her with incomprehension and then his face cleared.  “The tincture is near completion and when Jupiter reaches mid-sky, we leave.  The Khereb are on our heels.”

Sweat dripped from his face and his hands shook with strain.  The ritual wore on him, but any sympathy she might have felt disappeared with his abrupt words.  He sounded exactly like the creepy mage from the House of Horus. 

He wiped the perspiration off with a piece of linen, tossing it and a bloody eyeball into the circle.  At the center of the formula an obsidian cloud coalesced and reached out as if attracted to him.  It whirled and revolved upon itself, and in the middle of the dark mass, an eye appeared.  The eyelid opened and the pupil focused on Resh and then swivelled to Maya.

 

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You can find a copy of Illusion at:

Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/cg2ccfz

Barnes & Noble:  http://tinyurl.com/bol75tm

Liquid Silver Books:  http://tinyurl.com/d467eya

OmniLit:  https://www.omnilit.com/product-illusion-986100-140.html