Book Tour: Chamaleon Assassin + Interview with the author

Book Title: Chameleon Assassin

Author Name: B.R. Kingslover

Genre: Urban Fantasy, science fiction, post-apocalyptic dystopian

Hosted by: Ultimate Fantasy Book Tours

Blurb:
Libby is a mutant, one of the top burglars and assassins in the world. For a price, she caters to executives’ secret desires. Eliminate your corporate rival? Deliver a priceless art masterpiece or necklace? Hack into another corporation’s network? Libby’s your girl.Climate change met nuclear war, and humanity lost. The corporations stepped in, stripping governments of power. Civilization didn’t end, but it became less civilized.There are few rules as corporations jockey for position and control of assets and markets. The corporate elite live in their walled estates and skyscraper apartments while the majority of humanity supplies their luxuries. On the bottom level, the mutants, the poor, and the criminals scramble every day just to survive.

Goodreads / Amazon

Author Bio:

I made silver and turquoise jewelry for almost a decade, ended up in nursing school, then took a master’s in business. Along the way I worked in construction, as a newspaper editor, a teacher, and somehow found a career working with computers.As to my other interests, I love the outdoors, especially the Rocky Mountains. I’ve skied since high school, with one broken leg and one torn ACL to show for it. I’ve hiked and camped all my life. I love to travel, though I haven’t done enough of it. I’ve seen a lot of Russia and Mexico, not enough of England. Amsterdam is amazing, and the Romanian Alps are breathtaking. Lake Tahoe is a favorite, and someday I’d like to see Banff.For special deals and news about new books, sign up for my newsletter.
Visit her at:Website, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon

 INTERVIEW*

Are you a full time author or do you have another job as well and if so how do either of these fit in with writing time?

I have a full time job which limits my writing time. I do most of my writing in the evenings and especially on weekends. I know some authors who work 40-50 hours a week writing, but I don’t think I could do that. I hope that someday I’ll be able to make a living from my writing, but my ideal schedule would be to write four hours a day, four to five days a week.

Do you write on your novel daily or do you try to have days off?

I try to write every day, but life interferes. Even when I’m not writing, the story continues to swirl around in my mind, so when I do sit down at the keyboard, I tend to be very productive.

Do you go back to published books and want to change them in any way?

Occasionally. I would love to have the time to rewrite my first series, but I’ll probably never do it. There are too many new books that I want to write.

Is there any romance in your story and if so can you tell us a little about this?

My main character, Libby Nelson, would like to have a romance. She meets men and hopes to have a romance, but she’s a tough woman, picky, and rather uncompromising. She also tends to have questionable taste in men and a lack of self-confidence about romantic relationships.

If you have to write any fighting scenes, what are your best tips of how you create them?

In real life, fights tend to be very fast and violent. Too many authors try to draw them out and make them dramatic. The drama needs to be created before and after the fight. The fight itself should be very straight forward. Someone told me once that love scenes are more about the emotions than the actions. I think fight scenes are the same.

Do you ever write sad scenes and do you feel the sadness as you write it?

Yes, and I’m a sucker for the emotions. I don’t feel the sadness so much when I write the scene, but if I’ve done a good job of it, I feel it when I read it. I think in most of my books there’s at least one scene that chokes me up when I read it.

Did you write as a child or did you come into your talent as an adult?

I tried to write a novel when I was fifteen. It was terrible and I was so sure I was a poor writer that I never tried again until five years ago. Now, in my professional life, I’ve worked as a business and technical writer and editor for a long time, but I didn’t try to write fiction. Then five years ago, my partner and I were discussing self-publishing and I mentioned that I had a story I thought would sell. She pushed me to write it, so I did.

Can you give us a little insight into any fantasy characters in your latest book?

There isn’t any magic in the world I created. There are humans who are radically mutated. Libby is a chameleon, and she thinks she does her thing using psychic influence, but she isn’t sure exactly how it works. Other mutants include people with vampirism, telepathy, and a sort of wolfman mutation. Some of the mutations are enhanced using genetic engineering.

Is your the world in your book like earth or is it a fantasy world? What is the time period setting of your latest book?

The book is set 200 years in the future. Environmental pollution and climate change have drastically altered the world, and several nuclear wars have damaged the environment further. The book is set in Toronto, but the climate is like south Florida is today. Major parts of the world are so hot and dry that they’re uninhabitable. As a result of all this, large businesses have taken charge and governments are basically organs of the corporations. There are four main tiers in society, the corporate bosses, those who work for the corporations, a small set of independent business people, and the desperately poor. Many of the poor are mutants.

How do you think you would feel if you received a really bad review that seemed justified?

I’ve had reviews with constructive criticism. I try to use them to learn and make my writing better. Mostly, reviews reflect a particular person’s tastes. What one person likes, another one hates.

Do you think all readers should do reviews to help the writers improve?

Some new authors don’t understand the purpose of reviews. Reviews aren’t written for authors, they’re written for readers. Readers often make choices on what book to buy based on reviews, especially if the review is written by someone whose opinion they value.

When I consider buying a book, I read the lowest rated reviews. If the reviewer highlights issues that would also bother me, I tend to move on. In some cases, the things the reviewer hates are the types of content that attract me and I’ll buy the book.

 *Curtesy of Ultimante Fantasy Book Tours & B.R. Kingslover

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks (Night Angel #1)

Title: The Way of Shadows”
Author: Brent Weeks

Pages: 645

Price: 8.83£ (paperback)

Where to get it: Amazon.co.uk, BookDepository

Plot: For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.
For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.
But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

“To be a perfect killer, he has to wear the perfect skin for each kill”

 

 

Did I love this book? Oh-hell-yeah! 

I don’t know how I managed to not know this series, at least until now. Have I been living under a rock during these past years? Apparently so. 

Anyway, what made pick “The Way of Shadows” in the first place was the cover followed by the plot. I love Assassin’s, I’d take any book on Assassins any time. Too bad I always find difficult to find really good ones at that. 

At first I feared that this book was going to be a bit like Throne of Glass, lots of talk about Assassins (with lots of stuff taken from Assassin’s Creed *coughs*) but with almost no killings/assassinations (what a pity!).  Fortunately, I can say that this wasn’t the case.

“You know, Blint, you’d be a better wetboy if you didn’t know you were the best. You are—but you still take your orders from me.”

"The Way of Shadows" is rich of real badass Assassin’s (here called wetboys or stone killers—I guess the author played with word whetstone?) they’re so good that “comparing a wetboy to an assassin is like comparing a tiger to a kitten” (I really couldn’t explain it any better). There is stabbing, disembowelling, lots of blood, poisonings and lots of action. This is not all! The book is also full of intrigues and plot twists (some of them really left me stunned). 

Not only this book has Assassins (done right) but also elements of epic fantasy (some very peculiar), plus political plotting, treachery and intrigues. The whole ka’kari thing was interesting (and definitely cool), same thing for the flashbacks to the distant past and the story of the six guardians of the light and a guardian that stands watch in the night (The Night Angel).

The book is told in 3rd person, which I usually prefer due to the fact that you get to be in more than one character’s head and get to see an infinitely bigger picture. Truth to be told, with a book so full of intrigue and various threads and twists, a reader wouldn’t have understood half of it had it been told only in Kylar’s POV. The reader follow Kylar mostly, but Durzo too has a good page-time (His character was my favorite, bad, gritty, and smug but still with a grain of goodness under it all), followed by the prophet Dorian, Momma K and Roth. In fact, the author managed to intertwine about five POVs without getting the reader confused, which I see as a feat in itself. 

 

“The hall lantern behind Durzo swaddled darkness’s favorite child in shadow, casting his form over Kylar and making his face invisible. Silhouetted, black blood dripped from the tip of Retribution”.

I found the characters well defined but what I liked the most about them is that, the majority of them walk a fine line between good and bad. There aren’t either black or white but definitely on the grey side. Thing that made them feel more, realistic and  human. 

Another thing I really appreciated was how we start with eleven years old Kylar (named Azoth at the time) then gradually find him fourteen and on his first solo-kill, then sixteen, eighteen and - at last- twenty. I loved how it takes him years and lots of training (and some messy kills) before becoming a perfect wetboy and not days like it happens in other books.  

In weaving his twists and turns Brent Weeks does not spare anyone and he is not afraid to kill or maim his characters (which is fair, given the situation...). He doesn’t spare anyone. For example, you have two people loving each other in secrets, ending up betraying each other to protect a common friend---the result? One of them dies and the surviving one later discover – too late – that her love was reciprocated after all (Argh! I felt really sorry for them).

“Assassination is an art, milord, and I’m the city’s most accomplished artist”

I would have given the book five stars if not for some action scenes that I found great but a bit blurry/confusing a times. Luckily, my brain has a good array of action images and assassination’s scenes curtesy of Assassin’s Creed---so, it was fine...really.   

I'm now looking forward to read "Shadow's Edge" the second book in the series.

Rating:

4.5 blossoms