Julia Phillips Smith
Cate: Woo hoo! Julia is here to help us Celebrate Amore. Julia,
please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Julia: Cate, this is fun to drop by and
celebrate this romantic season with you and your readers.
A special shout-out to my grandmother Viola
since today is her birthday!
I grew up in an arts-oriented family,
surrounded by musicians, painters, photographers, a filmmaker, a stained-glass
artisan and in my generation, writers. As a child I self-identified myself as a
writer and a poet, always writing ‘novels’, short stories and poetry. My
personal interest in acting and directing led to a film degree, but my
husband’s bipolar disorder with intense agoraphobia meant he could only work
part time jobs, so I pursued a fulltime day job with benefits and a pension. In
the meantime, could I stop myself from creating stories? Of course not. I
learned to write novels, which didn’t require a crew, who didn’t need to be
fed, and it didn’t matter what the weather was doing or not doing. Always a
silver lining!
Cate: Happy birthday to Viola! And it's my birthday too. :) What do you love most about Valentine’s Day?
Julia: I’m a total romantic, through and through. Even glancing at rows
of red and pink Valentine’s Day cards in stores makes me happy. I’m a complete
sucker for red roses, so the profusion of roses at this time of year just makes
my heart smile. I’m also a big fan of Victorian ephemera, so I can’t resist the
Victorian valentines that emerge from the 19th century to visit with
us in the 21st.
Cate: Do you have a favorite Valentine’s Day memory?
Julia: During my university days, I worked as an usher at a performing
arts theatre. For the February ballet season I immersed myself entirely into
whatever love story was unfolding onstage that season: Romeo and Juliet,
Florimund and Aurora from Sleeping Beauty,
Petruchio and Katherina from The Taming
of the Shrew, Basilio and Kitri from Don
Quixote, Colas and Lise from La Fille
Mal Gardee, Danilo and Hanna from The
Merry Widow—they usually scheduled the happily-ever-after ballets for the
Valentine’s season and left the more dramatic couples like Seigfried and Odette
from Swan Lake and Albrecht and
Giselle for the fall seasons. Romeo and Juliet are technically too tragic for
Valentine’s Day, but are so associated with the ultimate love-struck couple
that they made the February winter season by default.
Cate: Do you have any romantic Valentine’s Day traditions?
Julia: Not really. In the course of our twenty-year marriage, one or
both of us were often working an evening customer service job on Valentine’s
Day. Sometimes it was the fact that my husband’s agoraphobia made staying home
a much more appealing option. But sometimes we’ve gone out for a romantic
dinner out, and we have restaurant reservations for this year. He’s doing
pretty well these days.
Cate: Tell us about your latest release, and where readers can find it
online.
Julia: My latest release BOUND BY DRAGONSFYRE actually came out in May
of last year, but I’m currently working on book 2 in that series, so it’s a
great time to discover the Eighth Dominion.
This is a dark fantasy political intrigue with a strong coming-of-age
theme.
Raised among
the nobility, now a falconer's apprentice, Scorpius learns that a lord hides
his monstrous appetites beneath velvet and jewels, while the leathery-winged
dragon is honest about his own. His master shields Scorpius from the world
outside their cottage, yet court intrigue eventually sinks its talons into
everyone, especially those brought into the service of the House of Pruzhnino.
BOUND BY
DRAGONSFYRE can be found online at Amazon, B & N, Kobo and Smashwords.
Visit my blog where you’ll find the links in the sidebar:
Cate: Care to share a blurb or excerpt?
Julia: Sure!
~~
When Alegreza left, Scorpius stood as the obedient apprentice beside
Richolf, suddenly sick to death of suppressing his every desire in order to
serve, always serve. Scorpius spun on his heel and made to bolt away from this
hideous ache in his chest.
Richolf yanked him to
an awkward halt. For a split second, Scorpius nearly threw his master off.
“Oh no, you don’t,”
Richolf said, pulling him close.
Scorpius stiffened,
looking at the empty bend in the road.
“You are not going to
ruin her chance for a good life,” his master said, shaking him slightly.
“Please stop saying
that.”
“There are too many
things you don’t understand.”
“Are there?” Scorpius
dared not look at Richolf now. The fury that built inside him was too wild.
Richolf loosened his grip slightly. “Believe me, Scorpius. If there is
anyone who knows how you feel…”
Scorpius couldn’t bear
it. He wrenched free, thrusting his arms forward with all of his considerable
strength, pinning his master against the cottage.
“Why? Did your master
sign Ingerith up? Is that how it’s done?” Scorpius’ anger didn’t soften the
stab of regret coiling through his gut.
He shouldn’t treat his
master this way. He let Richolf go and took a step back.
Before he could blink,
Richolf grabbed hold of him, switching places to slam Scorpius face-first into
the stone cottage wall.
“Of all people,
Ingerith deserves better than what she’s endured,” Richolf said in the most
chilling voice, shoving Scorpius painfully against the cottage.
Scorpius pressed his
forehead against the cool stone, breathing deeply to bear the pain.
“I understand how
you’re feeling, Scorpius. I have wrestled with those feelings every day, since
before I brought you here from the nursery.”
“Just because you’re
used to it doesn’t mean it should be this way.”
His master let him go.
Turning as quickly as he could, Scorpius kept Richolf squarely in his sights.
“No,” his master said,
eyes dark with warning. “It shouldn’t be this way. No one should have left an
embarrassing reminder of an unseemly affair at the nursery, either. Why raise
you to be a noble if they were going to hand you over to someone like me?”
Darting a glance at
the empty bend in the road, Scorpius felt Alegreza’s absence like a severed
limb.
“Get inside before I lose what’s left of my temper,” Richolf said.
With heavy steps, Scorpius turned and made his way through the door of
the cottage. Everything felt like a nightmare. Nothing made sense anymore.
According to Richolf,
he should be grateful that his sweetheart headed for the arms of a noble. Why
not? That’s how his master’s lover made her way through life, through this
unfair life full of cruelly-used slave girls and abandoned market girls. To the
nobles, they were all game hens, anyway, weren’t they? Flapping madly in a
doomed bid for life, while the hawks calmly climbed to that sweet spot in
midair before diving in for the kill.
~~
Cate: What inspired you to write about the theme?
Julia: A writing exercise at my yearly writers’ retreat almost five
years ago gave me the adult character of Scorpius. Then in April of 2010 I
stumbled upon an online serialized fiction hub, which I joined. Because I’d
already met Scorpius through the writing retreat exercise, and had begun work
on his adult storyline, I decided to turn to him in order to begin my
serialized tale.
It seemed easiest to go back to Scorpius’ boyhood, as I figured it
would help me get to know the adult character even better. I launched the tale,
little knowing that by its conclusion, this back story would gather a
passionate following who wanted the younger Scorpius to have his own book.
Cate: Very cool! Anything else you’d like to share?
Julia: It’s been fun chatting with you and meeting up with your
readers. Hope everyone has a lovely Valentine’s Day!
BIO:
Award-winning filmmaker and
author Julia Phillips Smith lives on Canada’s east coast with her husband and her
mom, where the rugged sea and misty forests feed her thirst for gothic
tales.
A graduate of Ryerson
University’s film program, Julia’s previous writing credits include scripts for
radio and television, along with Book 1 of her Dark Ages vampire series.
A longtime blogger, she
invites you to visit A Piece of My Mind (http://julia-mindovermatter.blogspot.com/).
Cate: Woot! Julia has a Valentine’s treat for you guys!
Julia: I’m giving away a copy of the winner’s choice—e-format or
paperback—of BOUND BY DRAGONSFYRE to one of your commenters, winner to be drawn
randomly by the still-popular paper-entries-in-a-basket technique. Good luck!
Cate: Thanks for joining the party, Julia! Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!
