I'm
excited to announce that my favorite indie author's young adult action and adventure novel, The
Gladiator and the Guard, is now available for purchase! This is the
second book in the Krillonian Chronicles, sequel to The Collar and
the Cavvarach.
If you haven't read the first book yet, I gave it 5 stars:
Bensin, a teenage slave and martial
artist, is desperate to see his little sister freed. But only victory in the
Krillonian Empire's most prestigious tournament will allow him to secretly
arrange for Ellie's escape. Dangerous people are closing in on her, however,
and Bensin is running out of time. With his one hope fading quickly away,
how can Bensin save Ellie from a life of slavery and abuse?
What is the Collar for, and
What is a Cavvarach?
The story is set in a world very much
like our own, with just a few major differences. One is that slavery is
legal there. Slaves must wear metal collars that lock around their neck,
making their enslaved status obvious to everyone. Any slave attempting to
escape faces the dilemma of how and where to illegally get their collar removed
(a crime punishable by enslavement for the remover).
Another difference is the popularity of a martial art called cavvara shil. It is fought with a cavvarach (rhymes with "have a rack"), a weapon similar to a sword but with a steel hook protruding from partway down its top edge. Competitors can strike at each other with their feet as well as with the blades. You win in one of two ways: disarming your opponent (hooking or knocking their cavvarach out of their hands) or pinning their shoulders to the mat for five seconds.
for $2.99 a
discounted price of just 99 cents through May 30th!
Bensin, a
teenage slave and martial artist, is just one victory away from freedom. But
after he is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he is condemned to the violent
life and early death of a gladiator. While his loved ones seek desperately for
a way to rescue him, Bensin struggles to stay alive and forge an identity in an
environment designed to strip it from him. When he infuriates the authorities
with his choices, he knows he is running out of time. Can he stand against the
cruelty of the arena system and seize his freedom before that system crushes
him?
Click here to order The Gladiator and the Guard in
Kindle format from
Amazon for $2.99 a
discounted price of just 99 cents through May 30th!
Click here to order The Gladiator and the Guard from Smashwords (for Nook or in other digital formats) for $2.99 a
discounted price of just 99 cents through May 30th!
About
the author: Annie Douglass Lima spent most of her childhood in Kenya and later
graduated from Biola University in Southern California. She and her husband
Floyd currently live in Taiwan, where she teaches fifth grade at Morrison
Academy. She has been writing poetry, short stories, and novels since her
childhood, and to date has published twelve books (two YA action and adventure
novels, four fantasies, a puppet script, and five anthologies of her students’
poetry). Besides writing, her hobbies include reading (especially fantasy and
science fiction), scrapbooking, and international travel.
I was able to ask Annie a few questions about her new release:
1.
I'm excited about the release of The Gladiator and the Guard. When I read The Collar and the Cavvarach, I was hoping there would be a sequel.
Does this story begin right after the first book, or has some time passed?
Bensin is the protagonist again, but do we see some of the other characters,
too?
This story takes place four years after the end of The Collar and the Cavvarach. Yes,
Bensin is the protagonist, but his coach and owner Steene is once again an
important character. Ellis (now nine years old) is there too, along with other
old friends such as Watch Officer Kalgan Shigo and Bensin’s rival Jayce Torro.
Bensin’s enslaved friend Ricky returns with a slightly bigger role than he had
in the first book. We will meet a number of new characters, too.
2.
This was your NaNoWriMo project last November, wasn't it? How difficult was it
for you to write this book in the middle of the school year?
I actually drafted The Gladiator and the Guard during NaNoWriMo 2014 (last November I
drafted an unrelated sci-fi novel that is currently waiting in line for editing
and polishing). It’s definitely not an easy task to
complete a novel in a month while working as a fulltime teacher! I love my day job and would never want to
quit, but I often wish it left me with more time for writing. One of the secrets to my winning NaNo was
getting up early and putting in an hour or two of writing before school
started. Sometimes I set my alarm for as
early as 4:30 a.m. Fortunately, I am a
morning person, but it was still hard to get up that early! I pulled some
late nights, too, and that was even harder for me. On Saturdays and Sundays I would often spend
most of the afternoon writing. Another of my secrets was that I spent October
getting ahead on everything I could at school, such as lesson planning,
entering assignment titles into my gradebook, and writing my weekly letters to
parents. And on the home front, my husband took over all the cooking and most
of the cleaning and other household chores for the month. I could never have
managed without his help and support!
3.
In the Realm Explorers series on your blog, you have a brief mention of the
Krillonian Empire's gladiator and arena system, stating that gladiators fight
with sharpened cavvarachs and no protective padding! Is this the only place
sharpened cavvarachs are allowed? Are the fights similar to the cavvara shil
matches you showed in book one?
Yes, outside of the arenas, no one is crazy enough
to use sharpened weapons. Besides that and the lack of padding, the fights are
almost exactly like the cavvara shil matches described in the first book. Oh,
and gladiators wear boots instead of fighting barefoot. To learn more about the
life of a gladiator and how things work in the arena, click
here to read my most recent Realm Explorers post!
4.
What is your next project?
There will be at least one more book in this series,
though I’m tossing around ideas that may eventually lead to other stories set
in the same world. In the meantime, I’m working on a final book in my Annals of
Alasia fantasy series, called King
of Malorn, which should be ready to publish in the next few months. I’m
also eager to get back to Heartsong,
the science fiction novel that I drafted for last year’s NaNoWriMo. I hope to
have that one polished and ready for publication in another year or so. Lots of
irons in the fire!
Connect with the Author Online:
Email: AnnieDouglassLima@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/princeofalasia
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/ADLimaOnGoodreads
Amazon
Author Page: http://bit.ly/AnnieDouglassLimaOnAmazon
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/ADLimaOnLinkedIn
Google
Plus: http://bit.ly/ADLimaOnGooglePlus
Now, enter a Rafflecopter giveaway to win an Amazon gift card or a free digital copy of
The Collar and the Cavvarach!
