Welcome to my tour stop! This is a book I've been really looking forward to, so I'm excited
to be sharing an interview with the author! Check that and the tour giveaway out below...
to be sharing an interview with the author! Check that and the tour giveaway out below...
Elysium GirlsYA Fantasy
Hardcover, Audiobook & ebook, 400 Pages
April 14th 2020 by Disney-Hyperion
Summary
In this sweeping Dust Bowl-inspired fantasy, a ten-year game between Life and Death pits the walled Oklahoma city of Elysium-including a girl gang of witches and a demon who longs for humanity-against the supernatural in order to judge mankind.
When Sal is named Successor to Mother Morevna, a powerful witch and leader of Elysium, she jumps at the chance to prove herself to the town. Ever since she was a kid, Sal has been plagued by false visions of rain, and though people think she's a liar, she knows she's a leader. Even the arrival of enigmatic outsider Asa-a human-obsessed demon in disguise-doesn't shake her confidence in her ability. Until a terrible mistake results in both Sal and Asa's exile into the Desert of Dust and Steel.
Face-to-face with a brutal, unforgiving landscape, Sal and Asa join a gang of girls headed by another Elysium exile-and young witch herself-Olivia Rosales. In order to atone for their mistake, they create a cavalry of magic powered, scrap metal horses to save Elysium from the coming apocalypse. But Sal, Asa, and Olivia must do more than simply tip the scales in Elysium's favor-only by reinventing the rules can they beat the Life and Death at their own game.
Interview
What inspired you to write ELYSIUM GIRLS?
Music and cinema. In this case it was a song by Sleigh Bells combined with the fact that I’d just seen Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai for the first time and had been thinking about Weird West as a subgenre of Steampunk. The story just sort of happened all at once for me.
Would you tell us a little more about the main characters?
Sal is an insecure girl growing into her own after being shunned for most of her life. She’s finding her value through magic and through a group of supportive, if strange, friends. She’s also discovering her feelings for one of the other characters in the story, her closest friend, Lucy.
Asa is a daemon who has been given human form by the goddess of Life to help try and turn the tables in her favor. Unfortunately, he’s discovering freedom of will, and he’s a little zany in the first place, so he ends up going rogue. He’s ultimately a good…whatever he is.
Olivia Rosales is a girl who murdered her stepfather in the early days of Elysium and who has been living in the desert outside the walls ever since. She’s the leader of the girl gang that Sal gets adopted into and she’s as tough as a boot, but not without her own insecurities about whether or not she’s doing the right thing and being the best leader she can be.
What one piece of advice would Sal and Asa each give about surviving the Desert of Dust and Steel?
Sal would probably constantly be keeping track of Asa, saying things like, “Don’t touch that. Don’t look at that. Don’t LICK that, good god! Stop singing. What are you doing??”
Asa, meanwhile, would probably be (and is!) completely useless as far as survival is concerned, never having really been alive before.
What part or aspect of this story do you love the most?
I really enjoyed describing the setting—I hope that’s not boring!—and creating the world. I loved working with a pre-existing setting and then getting to say basically, “Well, you know what? Magic! Anything is possible!” and then getting to MAKE anything possible. I also really loved discovering each of the characters more as I wrote them, particularly Susanah, Lucy, and Mr. Jameson.
Did you find anything especially challenging while writing ELYSIUM GIRLS?
History! There was SO much going on during the Dust Bowl era that it was really difficult at times not to get bogged down adding TOO MUCH detail. It really is a fascinating time period.
What’s one of your hobbies or something we might not know about you?
I’m in the act of learning Welsh just because I think it’s a really cool language. I also go down a lot of weird historical rabbit holes. I’m obsessed with the studies of John Dee and Edward Kelley and their stuff will appear in a book one day, I’m sure.
What book are you currently reading or what three books are on your tbr?
I’m on a Dark Academia kick right now, so I’m working on The Goldfinch, The Lake of Dead Languages, and If We Were Villains.
What are you working on next?
A musical, classic rock-themed time travel story and a dark fantasy/slow-burn romance. One of the two will probably be my next book, so stay tuned!
About the Author
Kate Pentecost was born and raised on the Texas/Louisiana border, where ghosts and rural legends lurk in the pines and nothing is completely as it seems.She holds an MFA in Writing for Children &Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She was recently nominated for a Rhysling award for her poem "Small Town Witches."
Her debut novel, Elysium Girls, is forthcoming from Disney Hyperion in 2020 in print and audio formats.
She is obsessed with the Romantic Poets and can be identified by the enormous tattoo of Percy Bysshe Shelley on her arm. She lives in Houston (H-Town, Space City, etc.)
Tour Schedule
Tour-Wide Giveaway
Win a copy of ELYSIUM GIRLS by Kate Pentecost (US Only)
Ends April 22, 2020
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