Interview with Alayna Williams & Giveaway!

DARK ORACLE by Alayna Williams

TARA SHERIDAN HAS A GIFT . . . AND IT ALMOST KILLED HER.

As a criminal profiler, Tara used science and her intuitive skill at Tarot card divination to track down the dangerous and depraved, including the serial killer who left her scarred from head to toe. Since that savage attack, Tara has been a recluse. But now an ancient secret society known as Delphi's Daughters has asked for her help in locating missing scientist Lowell Magnusson. And Tara, armed with her Tarot deck, her .38, and a stack of misgivings, agrees to try.

Tara immediately senses there is far more at stake than one man's life. At his government lab in the New Mexico desert, Magnusson had developed groundbreaking technology with terrifying potential. Working alongside the brusque but charismatic agent Harry Li, Tara discovers that Magnusson's daughter, Cassie, has knowledge that makes her a target too. The more Tara sees into the future, the more there is to fear. She knows she has to protect Cassie. But there may be no way to protect herself - from the enemies circling around her, or from the long-buried powers stirring to life within. . . .

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My Interview:

Hi Everyone, please join me in welcoming Alayna Williams to Lovin' Me Some Romance!

Thanks so much for having me!

First Alayna, I'd like to congratulate you with your recent debut release of DARK ORACLE. In fact, you've had quite a debut this year with two brand new Urban Fantasy series releasing, both with different pseudonyms. While it's common for an author to have different pseudonyms, its interesting to see this occurring for you within the same genre as opposed to two different ones. What was the reason for this? Also what, if anything, inspired the names Alayna Williams and Laura Bickle?

Thanks very much! I'm really excited about the releases. My first book, EMBERS (written by Laura Bickle), was released in April, and is the start of a series. In EMBERS, Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya—who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern—suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon an ancient entity that will burn the city to cinders. By Devil’s Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya—with the help of the ghost hunters and her fire salamander familiar, Sparky—can stop it.

DARK ORACLE (written by Alayna Williams) was released in June as the start of another series. In DARK ORACLE, Tara Sheridan swore off criminal profiling after narrowly escaping a serial killer who left her scarred for life. By combining Tarot card divination with her own intuition, she must help an intense federal agent find a missing scientist who has unlocked the destructive secrets of dark energy. The agent, Harry Li, draws her out of her self-imposed exile and back into the world.

With the release dates so close together, my publisher thought that it would make more sense to use two names. We thought it would be less confusing for readers. I've written under the Laura Bickle name for a few years, and have continued to use it for the novels. “Alayna Williams” was hatched as a combination of my middle name and my husband's middle name.

While DARK ORACLE is labeled Urban Fantasy, I was surprised by the multiple POV's you visit. Not that I'm any expert in genre categorization, but for me, the novel read more as a Paranormal. What, for you, designates a novel Urban Fantasy vs. Paranormal?

While both urban fantasy and paranormal romance include otherworldly aspects, a paranormal romance traditionally puts the romantic elements at the forefront. While DARK ORACLE does have some romantic elements, they're secondary to the primary plot, and that's what makes the story urban fantasy.

Dealing with some pretty heavy scientific subject matters, DARK ORACLE sheds intriguing light on particle accelerators, dark matter and black holes. Obviously not the run of the mill Urban Fantasy, your book takes place closer to reality than most while simultaneously exploring the unknown. What prompted you to explore these scientific avenues? Did you labor extensively while converting these complex theories, experiments, and facts into reader friendly material?

I love doing research, and was fascinated by what I'd read about the possibility of particle accelerators opening black holes for a fractional period of time in out world. It's also intriguing to think that most of the matter and energy that we can experience - “light matter” - is a vanishingly small percentage of what really exists in the universe. I followed that research down a rabbit hole of nerdy goodness.

I want the ORACLE books to balance science and the paranormal. In that sense, those books should appeal to fans of the X-Files and Fringe (two of my all-time favorites).

Our heroine, Tara Sheridan, has lived through a dramatically gruesome experience that nearly broke her. In fact, when we first meet Tara, she is broken. What is it about the broken heroine that appeals to you as an author?

Tara survived an attack from a serial killer that left her scarred for life. She's withdrawn from her professional life as a criminal profiler into a self-imposed exile that's both physical and emotional. I like working with broken heroines because people are flawed in real life. Everyone has issues...there are no perfect people. And my heroines have their own challenges to work out.

Tara, a criminal profiler, utilizes her affinity with Tarot cards to divine the motivations of those she seeks. Interestingly enough, the "About The Author" page at the back of the book mentions that you yourself read Tarot cards. Care to elaborate on that? Also, what inspired you to equip your heroine with this particular skill?

I've been reading and collecting Tarot cards since I was a teenager. I love the art...and they make excellent story prompts!

I'd been wanting to write a story about a heroine who uses Tarot cards for years. For DARK ORACLE, the inspiration for Tara was the Queen of Swords card from the Tarot deck. It shows a resolute woman staring off into the distance, holding her sword as if she's cut herself. I've always loved that card, and wanted to build a heroine from that archetype.

The Tarot cards are almost a character all themselves in DARK ORACLE. Showing past, present, and future, the cards seem to guide the novel. What came first when you sat down to write? The Tarot cards with the story unfolding from their readings? Or did the plot inspire the Tarot cards and their divination?

I wrote the book with a deck of cards in hand as story prompts, which was a lot of fun. Whenever I needed information about a character, or when I got stuck, or wondered what Tara should do next...I drew some cards. Some of those readings actually show up in the story as Tara's readings of the situations she encounters.

Delphi's Daughters, a matriarchal society comprised of the descendants of the Oracle of Delphi including Tara, is a group of very talented woman that can harness what could only be described as magic. Tarot card divination, pyromancy, geomancy, scrying - and the list goes on. Why this correlation between oracles, more specifically the Oracle of Delphi, and these elementally talented women?

The Delphic Oracle is probably the most famous oracle of the ancient world. The priestess of the Temple of Apollo, the Pythia, wielded a great deal of political influence over leaders who sought her advice and the priestesses who served the temple.

I was intrigued by the idea of an order of women exerting subtle and powerful influence over the ancient world. I wondered what would happen if that order of priestesses went underground and survived to the modern day. What would their role in world events be? In DARK ORACLE, the title of Pythia is handed down through generations of women, all oracles with their own unique talent for foreseeing the future. Delphi’s Daughters are a secret organization, nudging world events and gathering information through vast networks of helpers. Their behavior is sometimes sinister, sometimes pure, but always secretive. No one but the Pythia herself knows how the puzzle of world events fits together, and her priestesses are often left in the dark, guessing at her motives.

In the DARK ORACLE world, the current Pythia is a pyromancer. She sees the future in dancing flames. The heroine of the story, Tara Sheridan, is a cartomancer who uses Tarot cards to create criminal profiles. Other characters have abilities with scrying, astronomy, and geomancy. Delphi’s Daughters come from all walks of life: they are physicists, soccer moms, artists, farmers, and dancers. They are women just like women you know and walk past on the street. But they are women with a secret.

Well Alayna, you've got a lot going on with DARK ORACLE. Back holes, oracles, Tarot reading heroine - I have to admit my awe that everything flowed seamlessly despite the collision of all these opposing forces. Almost like a particle accelerator, you slam all these dramatic elements together but instead of creating a black hole, an entertaining masterpiece occurs. How did you know that this eclectic mixture of fantasy and science could work?

Thank you so much – I'm so thrilled that you enjoyed it! The book was very much an experiment. I think that there's something special about mixing science and magic, the rational and the unbelievable. Both science and magic create a sense of wonder in me, and I wanted to explore the possibilities of bringing them together.

And finally, what's next for Alayna Williams?

The sequel to DARK ORACLE, ROGUE ORACLE, will be out in February 2011. In ROGUE, Tara Sheridan and Harry Li are chasing a Chernobyl survivor who's selling nuclear secrets on the international black market. Tara is coming to terms with her destiny as an oracle and rebelling against an ancient society of oracles of which her mother was a part.

For my alias as Laura Bickle, I have the sequel to EMBERS coming out at the end of this month. It's called SPARKS. In SPARKS, Anya’s investigating a rash of spontaneous human combustion cases. With the help of the ghost hunters and a soul collector from the Underworld, she must track down the supernatural source of the fires and keep Sparky’s newly-hatched newts safe from a malicious psychic.

Thank you so much for having me! I really enjoyed talking with you.

Giveaway Details:

Thanks to Alayna Williams, I have ten copies of DARK ORACLE to giveaway!! Here's how to enter:

*Leave a Comment with a Valid Email Address (Entrants that do not leave an email address will be disqualified)*

**Contest Open to USA Only**

***Must be 18 or Older to Enter***

****Contest Closes Thursday, August 5th at Midnight U.S. Pacific Standard Time and Winners will be Chosen Randomly and Announced Friday, August 6th****