Hi everyone! I'm back at you with another YA author interview. Without further ado, let's meet our guest... Victoria J. Price!
Victoria: Hey! I’m Victoria J. Price, and I write YA fantasy about magical worlds alongside our own, angels, witches, shapeshifters and a touch of romance.
I’m from the UK, and I live just outside of London with my husband and our two border collies, Jessie and Blue.
Evelina: Let's start with an obvious question. Why YA?
Victoria: YA is my go-to when I’m looking for something new to read! I’m a reader first and foremost, so I write the stories that I want to read!
Evelina: What are you reading right now?
Victoria: I’m just about to dive into ShadowMarked, book three in the EverMarked series by AJ Eversley – it’s YA sci-fi and it is an awesome series.
Evelina: Yay! I love YA sci-fi. I think the genre is really growing right now. Speaking of, as a tech geek, I always like to know if authors are completely digital, old school (ink pens, stationary, etc.), or somewhere in between?
Victoria: This question would make my husband laugh hysterically—we run an IT business, and I am… not very techy. Well not by my own standards, anyway. I write on my laptop and have everything backed up in a million ways, but I have a tendency to write notes everywhere and anywhere. On my phone, on a post-it, on my hand, on a receipt, in a thousand different notepads—every book always has a hundred scraps of paper to accompany it, but no matter what different organisational tools I use, just holding a pen in my hand and scribbling down the notes is an irreplaceable feeling for me!
Evelina: How many books have you written?
Victoria: I’ve written one novelette, two complete novels, and I’m almost finished the third, all in the Daughter of the Phoenix series.
Evelina: How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
Victoria: Oh, wow. Let’s do a quick count… I have various amounts of notes for another five series, although technically none of those would count as half-finished… can we say, half-started?! The First Dawn is soon to be complete, and due to be published in Spring 2021.
Evelina: So, I want to come back to your upcoming projects! But while we're talking about unfinished work, I'd be remiss to ask a question for our teen writers reading this. If you could do something differently as a teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would it be?
Victoria: I would keep writing! I stopped writing for a while from the age of fifteen, and before that I always had a story or two on the go. It was about six years before I started writing again, and I wish I’d never stopped. Daily practice, even if it’s just two sentences, can make such an enormous difference. Creativity is a muscle that atrophies without use, so I apply that to writing now, too.
Evelina: I love that answer. If you could have a cover by any artist, living or dead, who would it be?
Victoria: I absolutely loooovee illustrated covers!!! Natalia Sorokina illustrates mine, and she is an absolute superstar. Check out her Instagram here: @jwitless_art
I also love @alrun.art , @sandrawintherart and @dominiquewesson and if I had the £££, I would commission all of them and more because I love character art.
Evelina: Out of all your characters, which is your favorite?
Victoria: It’s got to be the Lady Noor. She’s a kick-ass witch and an excellent spy. She flies a glider, can create very believable illusions, and she’s good to keep close to in a fight. Plus she’s on team save the world, so she always gets my vote!
Evelina: Okay! Now upcoming projects...what do you have in the works for readers?
Victoria: My upcoming book, The First Dawn, is the third and final installment in the Daughter of the Phoenix series. It’s difficult to say much about it without dropping too many spoilers – so instead I’ll share the blurb for the first book, The Third Sun:
The sun is dying, the windows to Earth are closing. Time is running out.
After the death of her sister, eighteen-year-old Fia Aldridge knows one thing for certain: she doesn’t belong anywhere. But then she tumbles into the parallel world of Ohinyan—a world where angels and witches walk amongst mankind.
An ancient darkness is taking advantage of the dying sun, and Ohinyan needs Fia’s help. She soon learns that her arrival is not entirely by accident and that Alexander, leader of angels, is not the guardian she thought he was.
Torn between their feelings and their duties, together they must find a way to return Fia to London before the darkness consumes her and she is trapped in Ohinyan forever.
Evelina: That sounds so good! If you're ready to get your feet wet, you can grab a free copy of The Angel’s Calling (Daughter of the Phoenix Prequel) here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/kk08lsshrb
You can also check her excerpt for The Third Sun (Daughter of the Phoenix Book One) below!
The Lady Noor had made her way south to join a group of witches gathered around a fire in the depths of night. She rested her weapons against a splintered tree stump and took a seat beside the fire. The scent of moss and charred wood filled her nostrils, and a soft orange glow lit up seven faces in the shadows.
“Kharsee.” Noor bowed to the leader of her coven, if she could still call them her coven.
“You are all here because you have felt it,” the old witch began, her violet eyes glistening like polished amethysts. She reached into the folds of her cloak and pulled out a leaf, lustrous and onyx black in the firelight.
“Darkness is creeping into Ohinyan,” she announced. “A seam is slowly tearing apart—one that holds the very essence of our world together.” Kharsee held the gaze of the other witches as she spoke.
Noor listened whilst the others muttered amongst themselves. Kharsee turned the leaf in her hands, ignoring the murmurs from the group until silence fell over them. Nothing but the crackling of flames broke the stillness of the dark forest beyond.
“Above the seam hangs a small village, suspended from great trees and endless, twisting vines. The broad leaves that cradle the morning dew are wilting, the vines crumbling and decaying. Like most of the people of Ohinyan, the villagers do not yet know of the tear in the ground below, or that from it escapes a darkness that has been hiding, deep and low beneath the earth like a foul breath. After lifetimes of waiting, the darkness has begun to seep into our world, rotting and ruining everything it touches,” Kharsee added.
The flames turned black, and one of the younger witches shot to her feet.
“Perhaps you ignored it for a while, cast aside your worries, and blamed it on the coming of the third sun. But I think you have all heard its whispers.” Kharsee ushered the young witch to sit down. Fine lines framed her eyes and mouth, but Kharsee was not frail, far from it. “The darkness tried to take hold of our world when the first sun died. We do not know why it failed. Now, the second sun is dying, and the darkness is trying to break free.”
She turned to each of the faces in the firelight, her expression calm. “What do the angels know of this, Noor? You have Alexander’s ear.”
“Some have heard the whispers.” Noor sharpened her blade on a stone, flicking her braid over her shoulder as the wind picked up.
“But what do they intend to do? What is Alexander’s plan?” a young witch asked.
Noor considered her response, inspecting her blade in the firelight. Alexander was exactly where he’d agreed to be, where she’d asked him to be, searching for the girl on Earth. She caught the gaze of each of the coven members around the fire, their expectant stares waiting for answers. The girl.
Thank you Victoria for coming on the blog today and sharing with us! You can learn more about Victoria and her work here:
Website: https://victoriajprice.com/
Social Links:
Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3kA9n6W
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Until Next Time!
Evelina
