Jennifer Allis Provost on Copper Girl

Welcome Jennifer Allis Provost who has a new urban fantasy out called Copper Girl. Be sure to enter the raffle to win a free copy (link at the end of the interview.)

Please tell us a little about yourself.

You could say that I wear many hats.  By day, I hang out in a cubicle. By night, I’m a writer of fantasy and horror. All the time, I’m a mother to three year old twins. You guessed it – my biggest obstacle is balancing all of my obligations.

Please tell us about your latest book.

Copper Girl, which releases June 25, 2013 from Spence City, is about a world that’s full of magic – until the government outlaws it. This is a problem for our heroine, Sara Corbeau, since she just happens to be an Elemental, born with the ability to make metal do her bidding. What’s worse, her family is on a government watch list, and both her father and brother have gone missing.

Sara adopts a ‘hide in plain sight’ policy, living in a dingy apartment and working at a boring, go-nowhere job.  Her plan of moving through life unnoticed works pretty well, until she takes a nap during her lunch break and has a vivid dream about a man named Micah. It turns out that he’s no figment of her imagination, but an elf from the Otherworld. And, he just might be the key to finding Sara’s missing father and brother.

CopperGirlsFRONTcoverFINALhirezDoes this book fit into a series? What is the focus of that series?

Copper Girl is the first book of the Copper Legacy, a four book series that follows Sara as she struggles to piece her family back together, and bring magic back to her world.

How did you prepare to write about the book’s specific area or field of study?

Since Copper Girl is an urban fantasy, I made sure to read extensively in the genre; some of my favorites are Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series, Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, War for the Oaks by Emma Bull, and Charles de Lint’s Newford series (especially Onion Girl).

How does this book fit into your real-life interests?

Sara makes a significant piece of jewelry for Micah, and I have been known to string a bead or two. She also has an unhealthy addiction to caffeine. (Being a caffeine addict is totally an interest. I am very interested in obtaining my next shot of espresso!)

What are you working on right now?

I’m finishing up the Copper Legacy (and possibly a spinoff duology), and working on another urban fantasy set in Scotland. I’m also gearing up to re-release my fantasy series in 2014. Lots of work ahead for me, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Thanks for having me, Theresa!

Click here to enter the free giveaway of Copper Girl!

Jennifer Allis Provost is a native New Englander who lives in a sprawling colonial along with her beautiful and precocious twins, a dog, a parrot (maroon bellied conure, to be exact), two cats, and a wonderful husband who never forgets to buy ice cream. As a child, she read anything and everything she could get her hands on, including a set of encyclopedias, but fantasy was always her favorite. She spends her days drinking vast amounts of coffee, arguing with her computer, and avoiding any and all domestic behavior.

Friend me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jennallis

Follow me on Twitter: @parthalan

http://jenniferallisprovost.com/

http://jenniferallisprovost.blogspot.com/

 

The Serapeum

On our tour to Egypt in April, I was finally able to visit the Serapeum, and Oh My God!

We walked down steps into the ground, then down some more. We turned left next to a large box and walked down to a corridor filled with niches. I turned left and went to the first one. That’s when the visions began.

I wish I could go through it niche by niche and describe every world and every operator, but I can’t remember it that clearly. But I saw the attendants in mostly every niche and images, colors and feelings of the worlds that niche connected to. The attendants reached out and touched me with their scepters. Some on the third eye, some on the shoulder. Others nodded an acknowledgement of me. Others made hand gestures or motioned for me to come inside.

The boxes were filled with liquid light. They were transport devices to other worlds. I asked how they worked, and the third or so guardian told me, “They work much like the crystal you described in your book.” The person lays in them and is transported to the place this niche connects to. Just sort of dissolved into energy. In others, I saw people turning into Neters. In some, people were healed.

Some were solar worlds, filled with light and gold and sun. Others had many colors. Some were night worlds. These began toward the end of the corridor and mostly on the other side. Some were very green and filled with plants. Some desert and sand. Some were water worlds. In one of the night worlds, the guardian came forward to greet me and a big black Jaguar came out and licked my face.

There were 27 in the hallway. Later I realized that’s how many letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. Then I went down the hallway that intersected them, sort of like an H, but not even. The boxes were being made or repaired on that side. Stephen went further and said there was a workshop back there. He says there’s a door blocking another tunnel and there are more—who knows how many.

I went back and that’s when I counted them. At first, I counted the box without a lid next to the door. If there are more, I’m curious how they are grouped. In certain numbers or what?

I’d like to go there with a master toner and see what happens, or do what my friend Jeanne suggested and each of us sit in one and tone. Holy cow. I can feel the place turning on just thinking about that.

When we left, the vendors were waiting just outside the door. A Neter-like being, at least seven feet tall if not more, walked out with me. The vendor said to us, “Five dollars American” and I completely cracked up, imagining if this Neter were really there fully in our dimension, him looking at some chronometer on his wrist and thinking, “Blast, I’m in the wrong year.”

When I was in the Serapeum, I thought I was seeing other worlds, other planets that make up our stellar family. But later I thought perhaps they were dimensions. Perhaps it’s not a matter of time—that in the distant past we used this place in this way, but a matter of layers—that in some higher frequency we still use this place as a transportation and healing nexus.

In either case, I want to visit the Serapeum again.

Me in Serapeum

 

 

New Short Story

The Judgment of Osiris — A modern retelling of an ancient myth. The ancient gods of Egypt reach through time and claim Owen as their next sacrifice. On the last day of the tour he leads, Owen accepts a gift from a rival tour guide Simon. The miniature sarcophagus contains a mysterious white powder  that takes Owen into the mythic Egyptian underworld. Will resurrection come for him as it did for his namesake Osiris?

 

Sekhmet, Coming to Balance

On this trip, seeing Sekhmet was the day I shed the world. She is one of my reliable spiritual connections. She always sets me straight.

When Stephen and I first got into a relationship, he used to give me Sekhmet presents. A wall hanging, a picture—that kind of thing. I used to think it was sweet because he loved Sekhmet. That was until I met her. Then I understood.

We were walking to her shrine in Karnak in silence. Hakim kept shushing the guard. Then it happened. The vision began with me walking out from the shrine, but a different me. A me from the way past. This me said, “Welcome home.” And the whole temple burst into color and bloom. Fountains played in the recesses. Birds sang and splashed. A line of priestesses carried platters of fruit and flowers to her, chanting beautiful weaves of harmony. I wept the whole way there. Hakim protected me from intrusion. When I went in to see her, she was not stone. She was a living, breathing presence. She looked down through several dimensions at us. Pure compassion. She knew what it was like to live in this time. She whispered encouragement, healing, pure love. There was more.

On my next trip to Sekhmet, I wondered what I would experience. The first time is often the most powerful. She looked down at me again, and this time she had a simple message. “You need to play more.” She took me to a cave with a spring, a green bank outside. My sister priestesses and I swam and rested, enjoying her comforting presence. I can’t remember what she said on my third visit, but I always leave in peace, my consciousness cleansed, my frequency vibrating high.  

This time on the boat my little crystal skull I’d brought along yelled at me that it wanted to come too. I almost missed the bus tearing through my luggage to find it. After all, it hadn’t said a word to me in a year in a half. When we arrived at Karnack, we split into two groups. We went to the open air museum, toned with Gary Evans in a granite room, looked at hieroglyphs and inscribed Neters with Stephen and Patricia. The guard indulged us.

Then we walked toward her shrine. The other group met us on their way out. My friend Jeanne had been weeping. Someone approached her to see what was wrong, but she caught my eye. I nodded my head. She nodded hers. And we hugged, sister priestesses celebrating our return to Mother Sekhmet.

She had already come to me with a vision while we toned. When I came in she whispered to me about what she’d shown me, then released me to watch her come to the others in the group. Some cried or closed their eyes and listened or came up to touch her and had a hard time letting go. We toned. One woman slipped behind her and wept healing tears. Nothing was wrong. Everything is right when we visit Sekhmet.

 

Coming Home from Egypt

Monday morning about 1:00 a.m. I opened the door to my home after spending two glorious weeks in Egypt. The cats greeted me with yawns and stretches, then purrs. My husband, Stephen, stayed behind for one more week.

Before I acclimate to being home and am no longer surprised by things I had grown accustomed to before I left, I want to say a few words about what the U.S. feels like these days. I actually started noticing it in Egypt when I’d check Facebook. I had to be on the web to teach my online courses, so I posted some pictures of our trip and read a few posts.

When the Boston bombing happened, I noticed that everybody seemed to have to take a stand on it. Why is that? Terrorist bombings happen in lots of countries. People don’t get up on soap boxes and make speeches about them. They don’t apologize to the world or make public pronouncements about praying or rail on about catching the culprits. They do wish them to be caught, but they don’t obsess and feel self-righteous about it. Or like special victims.

When I got home, people were still talking about it. Salman Rushdie commented on this phenomenon when he was on the Bill Maher Show last week. When the IRA bombed London during the 1970-80s, people were irritated, yes. Some people died. Very sad. But your average citizen, after being sad and annoyed, simply replanned their route to work. They moved on.

I got a newsletter from a writers’ organization and the president felt the need to say something about it in her monthly column. Just to acknowledge that it had happened. Like we could have missed it? It had nothing whatsoever to do with the organization or content of the newsletter.

On the other hand, everyone wondered if Egypt was safe. Yes, in fact it was very safe. Our group was welcomed everywhere we went with only one exception, and there people just didn’t smile or catch our eye. How violent is that?  Once our bus was rerouted because of protests. A slight inconvenience. Otherwise, everyone was happy and polite and making the best of life. We saw long gas lines. Prices are going up. I’m confident the people of Egypt will rise up and make some changes in their government soon. I was only encouraged not to feel safe when I returned home.

We don’t have to participate in this. It does take some refocusing of one’s attention. And we are all affected by the general atmosphere we live in. Let’s ask ourselves why this atmosphere of paranoia and fear and victimhood is being perpetrated. Let’s just say no to it.

Picture by Carmen Miller

Interview with Jonna Turner

I’ve been a writer since my teenage years in Memphis and have found that meeting new people and visiting new places has always stirred and fueled my imagination. My favorite books are mysteries. Growing up, I read Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, and Phyllis A. Whitney novels, which helped me to find my own voice and writing style. I’ve set my female sleuth novels in Memphis, Boston, Cape Cod, World War II Germany, Seattle, Victoria, BC, and Colorado, my home now.

Although I still love the mystery genre, for the past few years I’ve felt God nudging me to write an inspirational book. Thus was born, Angel Encounters.

Angel Encounters is a collection of real-life experiences with angels, spirits, demons, or Jesus himself. I gathered the stories from across the United States and several foreign countries. They are stories of near-death experiences, angel warfare, unexplained rescues, messages from the other side, appearances of departed loved ones, help from unlikely earth angels, and visits from God and Jesus in a time of need.

The book is designed to give readers hope and assurance of God’s love for them.

Jonna Turner

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002W7HIPE

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jonna-Turner/211333342228949?ref=hl

 

Article in New Book

I have an article in Jonna Turner’s book, Angel Encounters, now available on Amazon. I wrote about an experience I had in Vittel, France, while on a meditation teacher’s course. It’s a book about encounters with angels and other spiritual beings.

Jonna Turner is an award-winning author of mystery novels, short stories, motivational radio scripts, and feature articles for newspapers and magazines. She lives on the northern edge of the Palmer Divide in Colorado with her husband and Golden Retrievers. She welcomes reader e-mail on her Facebook page and at her website: www.jonnaturner.com.