Dark Dream and Dead Things
(Dead Things #2)
by Martina McAtee
Genre: YA Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Release date: July 15th 2016
Summary from Goodreads:
17-year-old November Lonergan spent her whole life feeling like an outsider. She was right. She’s a reaper like her mother; like her two cousins, Kai and Tristin. The supernatural world believes they are part of a prophecy to save them from an evil known as the Grove. Ember just wants to survive high school and fix the fallout from bringing back her friend.
Old enemies are lurking; waiting for their opportunity to strike but the pack has a new problem. A group of legendary hunters has resurfaced, threatening the reapers and anybody who stands with them. They are making good on their threats too; attacking those closest to the pack.
Their only hope of defeating the Legionaries involves trusting a stranger to perform a dangerous spell to advance Ember and her cousin’s powers. But Ember has a secret; a secret she can’t tell the pack. One that leaves the pack vulnerable.
An attack on pack allies, leaves one member of the group injured and another missing, along with a mysterious girl named Evangeline who may play a bigger part in this than any of them realize. As the Legionaries are closing in, the pack must trust their enemies, enter hostile territories, and play a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a psychopath. Their entire plan lynches on a dangerous bargain, but rescuing one member of the pack could mean losing another in their place…possibly forever.
by Martina McAtee
Genre: YA Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Release date: July 15th 2016
Summary from Goodreads:
17-year-old November Lonergan spent her whole life feeling like an outsider. She was right. She’s a reaper like her mother; like her two cousins, Kai and Tristin. The supernatural world believes they are part of a prophecy to save them from an evil known as the Grove. Ember just wants to survive high school and fix the fallout from bringing back her friend.
Old enemies are lurking; waiting for their opportunity to strike but the pack has a new problem. A group of legendary hunters has resurfaced, threatening the reapers and anybody who stands with them. They are making good on their threats too; attacking those closest to the pack.
Their only hope of defeating the Legionaries involves trusting a stranger to perform a dangerous spell to advance Ember and her cousin’s powers. But Ember has a secret; a secret she can’t tell the pack. One that leaves the pack vulnerable.
An attack on pack allies, leaves one member of the group injured and another missing, along with a mysterious girl named Evangeline who may play a bigger part in this than any of them realize. As the Legionaries are closing in, the pack must trust their enemies, enter hostile territories, and play a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a psychopath. Their entire plan lynches on a dangerous bargain, but rescuing one member of the pack could mean losing another in their place…possibly forever.
Buy Links (only $1.99):
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (Dead Things #1)
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Amazon
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Post:
The
Research behind Dark Dreams and Dead Things
Anybody who has read my Dead Things Series knows
that I subscribe to Joss Whedon’s no-supernatural-creature-is-off-limits dogma.
I hate limiting myself. I was raised on Monster of the Week shows like Scooby-Doo
and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and still very much watch shows like that today…I’m
looking at you, Supernatural. I feel like leaving my world open to numerous
possibilities allows me to plot more epic adventures for my characters.
That being said, leaving my world open to the
possibility of anything also means having to know how to research…well, anything.
I come from both an academic and medical background and I spent years doing
clinical research so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of how to find my
information when I need it. The problem with my world is I very rarely know
what I’m looking for until I find it.
If anybody was to look at my google search history
they’d be either fascinated or horrified. I’ve researched everything from ‘how
long does it take to burn a human body’ to ‘mythical creatures who eat their
victims while they are still alive’. There’s been searches like ‘celtic soul
eaters’ ‘ritual prostitution’ and ‘male prostitution in Victorian London’. When
I’m in writing mode, I don’t even turn my laptop off just in case I need to
research something at three in the morning.
Much of my research for my Dead Things Series, in
general, and Dark Dreams and Dead Things, in particular, revolve around
researching mythology. I research all types of mythology: African, Japanese, Greek;
really nothing is off limits…but my heart belongs to Celtic mythology and that
is reflected in my books.
Many of my readers mention the mythology and ask why
I don’t classify my books as such. I don’t classify my books as mythology
because I tend to take all of my research, highlight one or two really cool
things and then crumple it up in a metaphorical ball and re-write it to suit my
own selfish needs. Mythology buffs and college professors would clutch their
chests in horror at the way I’ve bastardized Celtic mythology in my stories.
Which leads me to the research specifically for Dark
Dreams and Dead Things. Much of this book involved one of my main characters
being forced to confront his past in some pretty gruesome ways. He grew up in
England and his story starts in Victorian London where rumors of Jack the
Ripper are still prevalent and the world is just beginning to witness the birth
of the industrial revolution. Trying to bridge the ‘real world’ problems of
orphaned children in Victorian London with the supernatural world involved
hours of research on London geography, the aristocracy and child exploitation
in the nineteenth century.
I also spent hours attempting to learn
conversational Latin, looking up proper phrasing in Gaelic and learning the
basics of alchemy, wizardry, advanced spell work, aura reading and the lore
behind Tibetan ink magic. Wikipedia and Superpower Wiki play a huge role in
helping me name some of my character’s magical abilities. For instance, did you
know the opposite of a necromancer was called an animancer? I didn’t but that
bit of knowledge proved most useful in Dark Dreams.
While much of my research might only have been
hinted at, implied or ignored entirely, I hope it helped enrich the world of my
characters and made the supernatural seem more natural. Hopefully, you will
read the series and find out.
About the Author:
Martina McAtee lives in Jupiter, Florida with
her teenage daughters, her best friend, two attack Chihuahua’s and two shady
looking cats. By day she is a registered nurse but by night she writes young
adult books about reapers, zombies, werewolves and other supernatural creatures.
She wrote her first story when she was five with an orange crayon on a legal
pad she stole from her mom’s office. She’s been writing ever since. Her
influences include Christopher Pike, R.L. Stine, Joss Whedon, L.J. Smith and
even J.K. Rowling. Living in South Florida provides her with plenty of material
for the weird worlds she writes about. When she isn’t working, teaching or
writing she’s reading or watching shows involving reapers, zombies, werewolves
and other supernatural creatures.
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