I’m happy to be a part of the Sourcebooks Casablanca virtual
book tour for debut author Amanda Bouchet’s PROMISE OF FIRE, the
first installment in her Kingmaker
Chronicles series.
This is Sourcebooks Casablanca’s very first fantasy romance! To
celebrate the recent release, Sourcebooks Casablanca and Amanda are sharing an
excerpt from her book. In addition, you have the chance to win one of ten (10)
print copies of A PROMISE OF FIRE being given away tour-wide. Please see the
end of the post for more details on this giveaway.
◊Title: A
Promise of Fire
◊Series:
Kingmaker Chronicles, #1
◊Author: Amanda
Bouchet
◊Pub date: August 2nd,
2016
◊ISBN:
9781492621898
KINGDOMS WILL RISE AND FALL FOR HER…
BUT NOT IF SHE CAN HELP IT
Catalia "Cat" Fisa
lives disguised as a soothsayer in a traveling circus. She is perfectly content
avoiding the danger and destiny the Gods—and her homicidal mother—have saddled
her with. That is, until Griffin, an ambitious warlord from the magic-deprived
south, fixes her with his steely gaze and upsets her illusion of safety
forever.
Griffin
knows Cat is the Kingmaker, the woman who divines the truth through lies. He
wants her as a powerful weapon for his newly conquered realm—until he realizes
he wants her for much more than her magic. Cat fights him at every turn, but
Griffin's fairness, loyalty, and smoldering advances make him increasingly hard
to resist and leave her wondering if life really does have to be short, and
lived alone.
PROMISE
OF FIRE is available at the following sites: Amazon, Apple, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, Chapters, and Indiebound.
Now in celebration of this release, Sourcebooks
Casablanca is giving you the first FIVE chapters to read FOR
FREE! You can download the first five chapters here.
To get you started, they’ve included the first few pages
below.
Chapter 1
I pluck at my crimson tunic,
tenting the lightweight linen away from my sticky skin. The southern Sintan
climate isn’t my worst nightmare, but it sometimes ranks pretty high, right
along with the stifling layers of cosmetics masking my face, my leather pants,
and my knee-high boots.
Heat and leather and heels don’t
mix, but at least looking like a brigand means blending into the circus. Here,
discreet only gets you noticed.
Craning my neck for a breath of
fresh air, I navigate my way through the beehive of tables already set up for
the circus fair. The performers on the center stage are the main attraction.
The rest of us surround them, carving out places for ourselves amid the crowd.
Tonight, hemmed in on all sides in an amphitheater lit by hundreds of torches
and filled to capacity, I feel like a Cyclops is sitting on my
chest—suffocated.
Damp curls cling to my neck. I
peel them off and tuck them back into my braid, scanning the crowd as I walk. I
recognize some of the regulars. Others I don’t know. My eyes trip over a man
and get stuck. He’s looking at me, and it’s hard not to look back. He’s
striking in a dark, magnetic way, his size, weapons, and bearing all telling me
he’s a tribal warlord. His build is strong and masculine, his gait perfectly
balanced and fluid. He walks with predatory confidence, unhurried, and yet
there’s no mistaking his potential for swift, explosive violence. It’s not
latent or hidden, just leashed.
Watchful, alert, he’s aware of
everything in his vicinity. Especially me.
Our gazes collide, and something in me freezes. His eyes
remind me of Poseidon’s wrath—stormy, gray, intense—the kind of eyes that draw
you in, hold you there, and might not let you go.
Adrenaline surges through me,
ratcheting up my pulse. My heart thumping, I blink and take in the rest of him.
Intelligent brow. Strong jaw. Wide mouth. Hawkish nose. Black hair brushes a
corded neck atop broad shoulders that have no doubt been swinging a sword since
before he could walk. Body toned to perfection, skin darkened by a lifetime in
the sun, he’s battle-chiseled and hard, the type of man who can cleave an enemy
in two with little effort and even less consequence to his conscience.
He keeps staring at me, and a
shiver prickles my spine. Is this man my enemy?
There’s no reason to think so,
but I didn’t stay alive this long without the help of a healthy dose of
paranoia.
Wary, I sit at my table, keeping
an eye on him as he weaves a bold path through an array of potions, trinkets,
and charms. He’s flanked by four similar men. Their coloring varies, but they
all have the same sure look about them, although they pale in comparison to the
warlord in both authority and allure. The man with the gray eyes is a born
leader, and only an idiot would mistake him for anything else.
He stares for so long that I
start to wonder if he can somehow bore through my layers of face paint and
unmask me, but I’ve never seen him before, and he can’t possibly know the
person underneath. I’m from the north of Fisa, where magic is might. He’s from
the south of Sinta, where muscle and cunning decide who lives or dies. Our
paths would never have crossed in the past, and warlords don’t usually frequent
the circus.
I look away, hoping he’ll do the
same. There are plenty of reasons a man stares at a woman. An exotic face and
generous figure attract as much attention as a good mystery, if not more, and
the warlord’s intense scrutiny feels more appreciative than alarming.
Ignoring the flush now creeping
into my cheeks, I smooth the wrinkles from the coarse wool blanket covering my
table and arrange my paraphernalia like usual. My glittering, gold-lettered
sign advertises Cat the Magnificent—Soothsayer Extraordinaire, even though
flashes of the future only come here and there, usually in dreams. Luckily, it
only takes a few questions for truths to reveal themselves like flowers opening
for the sun. I read people’s body language and glean who they are, what they
want, and maybe even what they’re capable of. It’s about knowledge and
illusion. I get a copper for it, which is more than a fair deal for me. I won’t
peddle futures. I have an idea of my own, and that’s more than enough.
My leg starts a nervous bounce.
Prophecies can be interpreted loosely, right?
The audience gasps, and I turn to
see what’s happening on the stage. Vasili is throwing knives at his wife. She’s
strapped to the flat side of a vertical, rotating wheel, and he’s blindfolded.
He’s never hit her, but my heart still comes to a complete standstill every
time they perform. Tonight is no exception, and I hold my breath, both riveted
and terrified, until he runs out of knives.
The crowd is too caught up in the
circus to take advantage of the fair, so I get up again and head to the
performers’ gate to watch the end of the show and put some distance between the
warlord and me. He’s still looking when he shouldn’t be.
The air coming through the gate
is fresher, bringing with it the sound of Cerberus’s chuffing breaths and the
scent of sweaty dog. He’s Hades’s pet, so I doubt the heat bothers him. I toss
him a wave, and two of his three upper lips curl in a snarl of acknowledgment.
One of these days, I’ll get all three, although in eight years I never have. I
think his middle head just doesn’t like me.
Finished with his performance,
Vasili unstraps his wife while Aetos launches himself onto the stage with a
triple flip and lands in a fighter’s crouch that shakes the platform. The solid
wood creaks under his colossal weight, and the rapt crowd murmurs in awe. Aetos
straightens, pounds his chest, tears the horse pelt off his giant back, and
catches fire. His roar shakes the amphitheater. No one can roar like Aetos.
I’ve seen him perform hundreds of times, and I still get chills.
Seven and a half feet tall,
muscle-bound, and tattooed blue from head to toe with Tarvan tribal swirls, he
moves his hands in an impossibly fast dance, weaving fire until he’s encased in
a sphere of living flame. He bursts through the crackling barrier with another
roar. The explosion blasts the hair away from my face and dries out the inside
of my nose. I’m forty feet away but feel like I’m in the furnaces of the
Underworld. Fanning myself is useless. I’ll never get used to the southern
heat, and with Aetos performing, it’s even worse.
The Sintan Hoi Polloi can barely
contain themselves. It’s like doing tricks for children—everything enchants.
For them, the circus is a whirlwind of power and impossible magical delights.
Everywhere from the hard-packed dirt floor surrounding the fair tables and
stage to the high, far reaches of the circular stone seating, people jump up
and down, hooting and stomping their feet.
My feet tap along with the
crowd’s, my eyes following Aetos around the stage. What a relief to be back in
Sinta, even with all the dust and heat. I do whatever I can to stay on the west
side of Thalyria. Our recent sojourn in the middle realm of Tarva made my lungs
tight and my fingers itch for a knife. I’d probably start jumping at shadows if
the circus ever went all the way east to Fisa. Just the thought of my home
realm makes my sweat turn cold.
Sinta. Tarva. Fisa. West to east.
Here to… Nothing I’m going to think about.
The audience whoops in approval
of Aetos’s fiery moves. Hoi Polloi in the amphitheater are ecstatic—and not
only with the show. They’ve been celebrating ever since a warlord from the
tribal south hacked his way north to Castle Sinta to put his own sister on the
throne. You’d think Dionysus had dumped a three-month supply of wine over the
entire realm. Temples are overflowing with Sintans offering prayers of
gratitude, their holy men overcome with gifts to help clothe and feed the poor.
Statues of Athena, who is apparently well loved by the conquering warlord, have
been spontaneously erected in towns and villages from here to the Ice Plains in
Sinta’s north. Happiness and generosity abound, and I don’t even want to think
about how many sheep have been slaughtered for celebratory feasts.
For the first time ever, the
magicless majority is in charge, and Hoi Polloi are literally dancing in the
streets—but only when they’re not throwing themselves in abject loyalty at the
feet of the new royal family. Or so I’ve heard. I haven’t actually seen the new
royals, but news spreads fast when there’s something to say. After the warlord
and his southern army secured the Sintan throne last spring, his family took
weeks just to move north. Not because they’re slow, but because of the sheer
number of adoring people in their way.
It’s no secret the northern-born
Magoi royals here in Sinta were despots, just like everywhere else in Thalyria.
Hoi Polloi know they’re better off with one of their own in charge.
But royals without magic? My
cynical snort is lost in the boisterousness of the crowd. It’ll never last.
Amanda Bouchet grew up in New England
where she spent much of her time tromping around in the woods and making up
grand adventures in her head. It was inevitable that one day she would start
writing them down.
Drawing on her Greek heritage for the setting and on her love of all things daring and romantic for the rest, her debut trilogy, The Kingmaker Chronicles, took form. She writes what she loves to read: epic exploits, steamy romance, and characters that make you laugh and cry.
Drawing on her Greek heritage for the setting and on her love of all things daring and romantic for the rest, her debut trilogy, The Kingmaker Chronicles, took form. She writes what she loves to read: epic exploits, steamy romance, and characters that make you laugh and cry.
Her first novel, A Promise of Fire, won several
Romance Writers of America chapter contests, including the Orange Rose Contest
and the paranormal category of the prestigious Golden Pen.
A French master’s graduate and former English teacher, Amanda
lives in Paris, France. She met her husband while studying abroad, and the
family now includes two bilingual children who will soon be correcting her
French.
You can follow Amanda on Facebook and Twitter!
For updates and exclusives sign-up for Amanda Bouchet’s newsletter. Click here to learn more about A Promise of Fire.
This tour-wide giveaway is for ten (10) print copies of A
PROMISE OF FIRE by Amanda Bouchet. The giveaway runs until August 22.
To enter the giveaway, just click on the Rafflecopter widget
below and follow the instructions. The widget may take a few seconds to load so
please be patient.
Thank you so much for visiting here today as Amanda makes a
stop on her tour. Do you like books dealing with magic and soothsayers? Doesn’t
the book cover for A PROMISE OF FIRE just jump out at you?
Soothsayers, magic AND romance? Oooh.
ReplyDeleteThe book cover is really well done. Finally, a cover for the dudes!
ReplyDeletelooks really lovely!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous cover and I would love to read it.
ReplyDeleteI always give so much credit to authors who create entire new worlds, as fantasy authors do. Thanks for sharing, Mason.
ReplyDeleteI somehow didn't know that fantasy romance blends had gotten so popular. Great idea and I love that this indicates there are more women reading fantasy!
ReplyDeleteThe excerpt has great appeal. Very well written. Congratulations, Amanda!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I've ever read a fantasy romance, but this one sounds great! :)
ReplyDeleteWell now, this book sounds awesome. Thanks for the chapter. It really hooks. And the cover is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteTeresa