Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Copper Veins, a New Adult Urban Fantasy by Jennifer Allis Provost (first published 3 May 2016; this edition 26 July 2016, Spence City, 264 pages). This is the third book in the Copper Legacy series.
PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first two chapters with Amazon Look Inside.
Author Jennifer Allis Provost will be awarding a $10 Amazon gift card and swag to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops
Synopsis
Sara’s pretty sure her life is perfect.Not only are she and Micah finally married, her father, who’d been missing since the Magic Wars, has been found. Actually, he just strode up to the manor’s front door, but whatever. Sara knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.
But Baudoin Corbeau isn’t content to return to family life. He’s decided that he will be the force of change in the Mundane world, and lead the Elemental resistance to victory with his children at his side. What’s worse, Baudoin doesn’t approve of Sara’s marriage, and makes every attempt to separate her from Micah.
After a visit to the Mundane realm leaves Sara, Max and Sadie imprisoned by the Peacekeepers, Sara’s doubts creep to the surface. Is her father right? Does she belong in the Mundane realm, not the Otherworld? Is Micah really the right man--make that elf--for her?
Was marrying him a mistake?
Teasers
Excerpt | Guest Post: Making Magic From Scratch |Excerpt
Prologue
It’s been an interesting few months.
It all started when I cut out during my lunch break and took a nap in my car. I had the best dream of my life, starring a sexy man with silver hair. That man turned out to be Micah Silverstrand, and elf from the Otherworld. Even though I’d hidden who and what I was for most of my life, Micah had instantly known that I was an Elemental like him. Let me explain what a big deal that is. When I was a kid, Elementals and Mundane humans existed side by side, not quite in harmony but we got along well enough. Then there was a war, and the Mundane army won; ironically, they called themselves Peacekeepers. No matter what they called themselves, the Elementals still lost, and magic was declared illegal.
For me the wars were much more personal, since my father, Baudoin Corbeau, went missing and was presumed dead. A few years later my older brother, Max, was arrested for using magic and shipped off to some detention facility where we couldn’t even visit him. My dream man, Micah, helped me rescue Max. Along the way we learned that my younger sister, Sadie, was the Inheritor of Metal, as in the most powerful metal Elemental in existence. That was a shocker. We also discovered that the Elemental ruler, the Iron Queen, was in with the Peacekeepers. Together, Micah, my family, and I defeated the queen, and put a serious dent in the Peacekeepers operation, so that was good.
I also learned that my best friend, Juliana, was a Peacekeeper. That was not so good.
After the Iron Queen’s defeat, the Gold Queen was restored to power. Since the Corbeau’s were fugitives, my family and I moved into Micah’s home in the Otherworld full time—which meant that poor Micah went from living by himself to having a house full of in-laws in the blink of an eye. In addition to having more faces around the breakfast table, Max was hell bent on finding out what had happened to Dad. While Max was traipsing all over the Otherworld causing trouble, the Gold Queen held a grand event where everyone pledged a blood oath to her… Except Sadie, the Inheritor of Metal. It wasn’t Sadie’s fault. She just thought the blood was gross.
While Micah tried convincing the Gold Queen that the Inheritor wasn’t plotting against her, Max’s schemes to find Dad led us to the Goblin Market. We didn’t find Dad, but we did have a near fatal run-in with one of the Gold Queen’s henchmen. Micah almost died. I have never been so scared in my entire life as when I thought I’d lose him.
But Micah did live, and after a few weeks he was fully recovered. We celebrated by getting married, with Max walking me down the aisle instead of Dad. Then, in the strangest turn of events yet, Dad walked right up to our front door.
And here’s what happened next.
Guest Post: Making Magic From Scratch
Where do story ideas come from? Well, everywhere. The short answer is that I get ideas from random places and events, which has led to me writing about everything from fairy warriors to zombie romances, Scottish assassins, and the mythical Medusa. However, a pretty specific chain of events led to my first urban fantasy novel.
Back in 2011, Neil Gaiman was touring for the tenth anniversary edition of his novel American Gods. Being a huge fan of all things Neil, I had to go to at least one of his appearances. The closest stop to me was in Portsmouth, NH, which was a two hour drive for me. I didn’t think that was too far, especially not for Neil, but I didn’t want to travel that distance alone. What I needed was a co-conspirator.
Enter Trisha Wooldridge, my always-willing partner in crime. We worked together in publishing, and had embarked on many literary-themed adventures together. On a sunny afternoon in July we met up and began our day with lunch; since Trisha is a food writer, she’s always trying out new restaurants. During the drive, I fished a bracelet out of the center console and gave it to Trisha, as a thank you for my meal. It was green marble with a copper clasp, and I mentioned that copper was my favorite metal.
Once we reached Portsmouth we met up with another writer friend, Justine Graykin. After dinner, we trekked over to the Music Hall, listened to Neil speak, read from American Gods, and be interviewed by the local NPR affiliate. We also scored some signed hardbacks.
After the presentation at the Music Hall was over, Trisha, Justine and I went to a local restaurant for drinks and dessert. We hit the bathroom before we left, and let me tell you, that was one of the nicest ladies’ rooms I have ever seen. It had granite counters, a terra cotta tile floor, and the most gorgeous copper sinks and faucets. While washing my hands, I remarked again that copper was my favorite metal.
“You keep saying that,” said Trisha. “Maybe you should write a story about copper.”
“You should,” Justine said. “Even Neil Gaiman hasn’t done that.”
Well that was a great idea, but how did they expect me to write about metal? I couldn’t just whip up a story from scratch, like magic.
The next day found me at work, sitting in my cubicle, wondering how I’d made so many wrong turns in my career. Spending the day with two friends who actually made a living from their writing had simultaneously reinvigorated my own desire to be a working writer, and shone a light on just how disenchanted I was with my day job. Since I couldn’t up and quit, and I also couldn’t expect to make money writing until I wrote something, I took my friends’ advice and did some surreptitious Googling of copper and copper-related things.
I learned that humans have been utilizing copper ore since approximately 8000 BC, that it’s in the same elemental group as silver and gold, and that its alchemical symbol is also the symbol for the planet Venus. Fascinating information, all of it, but none of it was a suitable foundation for a story.
When lunch time rolled around I went out to the parking lot to warm up in my car; that office building’s air conditioning system was permanently set to Arctic, and I frequently went outside to thaw my frozen extremities. I was parked in the rear lot, next to a wooded area. Right next to the asphalt were two pine trees whose trunks had wound around each other, as if a giant had attempted to braid them like a ponytail. While I stared at the unusual tree, I wondered if the tree was a portal to the Otherworld.
When I realized what I was wondering, I assumed the air conditioning had won and my brain had succumbed to frostbite. Then I remembered my earlier Googling, and that copper had been a significant element for the past ten thousand years.
And I wondered if that portal to the Otherworld was filled with Elementals, magical beings who could wield air, earth, water, fire…and metal.
I wondered what it would take for a human on this side to cross over to the Otherworld, be it via a tree, an old wardrobe, or even a stone circle.
I decided that the human in question’s name was Sara Corbeau, that she was a copper girl, and wrote the outline for her story later that day.
That novel, Copper Girl, was made possible by copper sinks, a strange looking tree, and an overworked office air conditioning system. I really had made magic from scratch.
Jennifer Allis Provost
Copper Veins
Available NOW!
The Series: Copper Legacy
|| [0.5] | || [1] || [2] ||Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.
A Raven in Queen Maeve’s Court [0.5]
**FREE Read**Ever wonder how Sara’s parent’s, Maeve and Beau, met?
Read this prequel to Copper Girl to find out.
Copper Girl [1]
She never spoke of magic, never associated with those suspected of handling magic, never thought of magic, and never, ever, let anyone see her mark. After all, the last thing she wanted was to end up missing, like her father and brother.
Then, a silver elf pushed his way into Sara's dream, and her life became anything but ordinary.
[Published 25 June 2013, 248 pages]
Copper Ravens [2]
Sara should be happy.She has what every girl wants: a man who loves her, a beautiful home, and wealth beyond imagining. She rescued her brother from the Peacekeepers, destroyed the Iron Queen, and doesn't have to go to her boring job any more. And yet Sara still doesn't know if her father is alive or dead. Her mother hides in the garden, brooding about her missing husband. Her sister, the Inheritor of Metal, is scared of her own shadow, and her brother spends his days fighting and gambling. To add to Sara's misery, the new queen (gold, of course) is more than a bit crazy, she misses her life in the Mundane world, and, worst of all, Micah wants to have children. A lot of them.
As Sara wavers between happiness and homesickness, a conspiracy emerges against the Raven clan, implicating them in a plot to dethrone the Gold Queen. How can Sara prove her family's innocence, and become the consort Micah needs her to be, without losing herself in the process?
[Published 17 June 2014, 320 pages]
About the Author
Jennifer Allis Provost writes books about faeries, orcs and elves. Zombies too.She grew up in the wilds of Western Massachusetts and had read every book in the local library by age twelve. (It was a small library).
An early love of mythology and folklore led to her epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Parthalan, and her day job as a cubicle monkey helped shape her urban fantasy, Copper Girl.
When she’s not writing about things that go bump in the night (and sometimes during the day) she’s working on her MFA in Creative Nonfiction.
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