{"id":1118,"date":"2016-05-09T01:05:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T05:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kate-hill.com\/compellingbeastsblog\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2016-05-09T07:21:30","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:21:30","slug":"character-interview-with-flora-pennyworth-from-a-midsummer-nights-mechanical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kate-hill.com\/compellingbeastsblog\/2016\/05\/09\/character-interview-with-flora-pennyworth-from-a-midsummer-nights-mechanical\/","title":{"rendered":"Character Interview with Flora Pennyworth from A Midsummer Night\u2019s Mechanical"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"kwAWhat is your main purpose in life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all gotten rather muddled. At first, all I wanted was vengeance for my father\u2019s murder. But my enemy knows how to reach the true source of aether, and I must have that information before I kill her.<\/p>\n

Who is your greatest enemy and why? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Sensibility Grey. She calls herself an inventor, but she\u2019s really a thief and a copyist. I know<\/em> she had something to do with my father\u2019s murder last year. How else could the mechanicals stolen from his lab have turned up in her workshop?<\/p>\n

Do you think you can ever reconcile with this enemy? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Never!<\/p>\n

Do you have a love interest? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Love? I vaguely remember love.<\/p>\n

What is your weapon of choice? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Knives. They are silent and efficient, and require close contact.<\/p>\n

What makes you happy? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I can never be happy again. Not since my father\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n

What makes you angry? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Thieves and copyists like Sensibility Grey! How dare she hold herself out as an inventor. She is not an originalist!<\/p>\n

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything used to be so clear. I was decisive, direct, deadly. Now I find myself hesitating, and I do not like it.<\/p>\n

What do you think is your enemy’s greatest weakness? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Her friends. If I can isolate her, take her friends away, I will be able to break her.<\/p>\n

Blurb: A Midsummer Night\u2019s Mechanical<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Midsummer Murder<\/p>\n

The California Territory, 1849<\/em> \u2013 Blamed for burning down the San Francisco wharf, clockwork inventor, Sensibility Grey has spent the last three months in hiding. Now all she wants is to depart the gold-crazy boomtown for a new life in the East. So when the owner of a traveling theater offers her work embellishing his mechanical stage, she turns him down. Then he turns up dead on her doorstep along with his enigmatic stage.<\/p>\n

An explorer of the mysteries of aether, Sensibility has her own secrets to keep, and adversaries who\u2019ll stop at nothing to learn them. Is the mechanical stage a part of a bigger game? Or the key to unlocking her true, magical potential?<\/p>\n

A Midsummer Night\u2019s Mechanical<\/a><\/em> is book three in the Sensibility Grey series of steampunk suspense.<\/p>\n

Excerpt: A Midsummer Night\u2019s Mechanical<\/strong><\/p>\n

Flora\u2019s ebony skirt pooled along the dirt floor. Sunlight heated the tent, setting the canvas walls aglow. She brushed her damp temple in the jungle-like humidity.<\/p>\n

Hands trembling, she fumbled for her skirt strings, and knocked the plague doctor\u2019s mask to the ground. Cursing, she adjusting her skirt\u2019s length.<\/p>\n

So it had happened, and Miss Grey had come. Though Flora had not given herself away, her heart had threatened to fight its way through her ribcage at the sight of the monster.<\/p>\n

She worked to steady her breathing. Think rationally. This was what she\u2019d wanted, what she\u2019d planned for. Why, then was she reacting this way?<\/p>\n

A bolt of searing pain shot through her limbs. She sat hard on the cot and clasped her hands to stop their shaking. This, too, was Miss Grey\u2019s fault. Every step Flora took was an agony, and her injury lay at the so-called inventor\u2019s door. Someday, Miss Grey would feel that pain.<\/p>\n

Her trap with the stage had failed \u2014 a failure that had sent her blood thrumming with helpless rage. But watching Miss Grey tinkering with the stage \u2013 her stage \u2013 was worse. Flora\u2019s skull throbbed, and she drew deep breaths to calm herself.<\/p>\n

She had once been calm, cool, deadly. Revenge was a dish best served cold. She\u2019d taken that adage to heart, dispatching the scientists who\u2019d profited off her father\u2019s death. And then she\u2019d found hope, the thrill of discovery, the adventure of possibility.<\/p>\n

Miss Grey was the last. Miss Grey, who\u2019d kept mechanicals built by Flora\u2019s father hanging on a wall like clockwork marionettes. Miss Grey, who\u2019d grown wealthy setting up her own workshop while she suffered and\u2026<\/p>\n

Flora squeezed her eyelids shut.<\/p>\n

She needed Miss Grey alive. For now.<\/p>\n

But her trap had not been a complete failure. She\u2019d drawn Miss Grey in and isolated the lady inventor. Crushing her limbs would have been perfect justice, but she would settle for imperfect. Miss Grey would know true loss.<\/p>\n

One of her friends would die.<\/p>\n

\"\"Author Bio<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kirsten Weiss<\/a> worked overseas for nearly fourteen years, in the fringes of the former USSR and in South-east Asia.\u00a0 Her experiences abroad sparked an interest in the effects of mysticism and mythology, and how both are woven into our daily lives.<\/p>\n

Now based in San Mateo, CA, she writes steampunk suspense and paranormal mysteries, blending her experiences and imagination to create a vivid world of magic and mayhem. Kirsten has never met a dessert she didn\u2019t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer<\/em> re-runs and drinking red wine. Sign up for her newsletter to get free updates on her latest work at: http:\/\/kirstenweiss.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a>
\n