Author Interviews: Holly Evans

If I could, I’d be standing here with a trumpet to announce the next author on my blog for interviews! This will be Holly Evans’s second time on my blog, and I’m thrilled to have her back. She’s recently had a book release, and is such a wonderful human being. If you aren’t following her, you’re missing out.

I’m also thrilled to have her interview sharing a space on my blog during the release of Lovers and Liars Book 3!

Questions:

Tell me a little about your upcoming release.

Infernal Bonds is book 2 in my Infernal Hunt series. Readers can start the series there though. It follows the Hawke twins Evie and Quin as they try to keep the supernal community of Prague in line. Unfortunately, the stars have quite literally aligned and the veil between our plane and the infernal plane is thin enough that some infernal creatures have slipped through. Among those creatures are two hellhounds, both sinfully sexy, one just wants freedom, the other wants to bring about hell on Earth. Evie and Quin must work with the supernal community of Prague to stop the hellhound and his allies before he succeeds.

What was the first scene you plotted for it? Feel free to be vague so we don’t ruin the surprise, but why did that particular scene turn your plot bunny into a full-blown novel?

That was the opening scene, most of my projects tend to start with the opening scene. It has Evie and Quin fighting a small group of redcaps in Old Town Square, with the blood moon hanging low in the sky. They work as an incredible pair together watching each other’s backs and dispatching the redcaps in short order. It had so much going on, so many question and details kept popping out at me. What significance did the blood moon have? That then led to the veils being thinner, so that led into the infernal creatures. If Infernal creatures got onto our plane, what would they want? And it spiraled from there.

What are your biggest fears about this release?

This is a pretty big deal for me, this series is my make or break moment, so there’s a lot of fear! I’m worried that people won’t like it, I’m fretting about how they’ll respond to Lysander, and all these other silly niggly little writerly worries. It all really comes down to ‘oh my god what if they hate it?’

Do you see some of yourself in your main character? What traits have passed from you to them?

I tried really hard to remove all of myself that I could from Evie, but we can’t help but have some of ourselves in our writing. She has some of my pig-headed stubbornness, and my deep protective streak. I think nothing of squaring up to guys twice my size if it means protecting someone I care about, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the people I love safe. I’d say that her attitude towards the romance side, which I can’t say much about, is at least a little from me too.

If your two main characters had a “ship name”, what would it be? (Example: Brangelina, Clintasha, Bellamort etc.)

Well the main characters are twins, so that’d be a little weird lol. Evie and her love interest would be Evander or Lysie though, I quite like Evander, I hope that one sticks!

Here’s a spot to pimp one of your writer friends… GO! (Or to gush about a recent fave read)

This has to go to my redheaded twin Mollie! She’s not a published writer yet, but she has a fantastic contemporary romance serial on her blog that I love! I’m not normally a romance reader but this pulled me in and I can’t wait until she’s made it into a full novel! It’s a great balance of vulnerability and humour, the characters are so relatable and so fantastically fun. I love it!

molliewallace.wordpress.com/nerves

Infernal Bonds

Amazon

Not only is it a blood moon, but there’s a rare celestial alignment that means the veils between the worlds are much more fragile than usual. That allows chaos to reign over the city for one night. Shades play pranks on tourists, redcaps take advantage and run wild, and two sinfully sexy hellhounds slip through.

The redcaps are easily wrangled, the shades are mildly amusing, but the hellhounds are another thing entirely. They evade capture and remain in the city once the moon sets. Two hounds, with two entirely different agendas. One wants freedom. The other wants to bring about Hell on Earth. And he has help.

Excerpt:

We headed over to the tram stop in high spirits despite the lack of sleep; it had been a difficult month and we could finally justify having a few nights to just relax. I almost envied the humans that milled around us, with their normal jobs and easy lives. Ignorance was bliss. We’d wrapped the glassware in old towels to stop them from clinking too much; we didn’t want to draw attention, not that Quin could help it. A pretty brunette in high heels was fawning over him as the tram pulled up. She ‘accidentally’ tripped and fell against him, causing him to put his strong arm around her. I tried not to roll my eyes; he always did have the pick of the city.

The journey to the alchemists was relatively peaceful. I allowed my mind to wander as I gazed out the window and admired the architecture. We’d moved to Prague in our early teens, we’d been there for a decade, and yet I always found something new to draw my eye and make me smile. There was so much detail, you couldn’t stop looking up. The architecture changed from more elaborate fare with angels holding up the upper half of the building and guarding spires to simpler plain white walls and tall red rooves. The tram turned the corner and stopped outside of the prettiest Starbucks in Europe.

As much as coffee would have been a wonder, we walked around the back of the coffee shop and headed up the increasingly narrow road with the more colourful buildings to the alchemist’s. It sat next to a duck-egg blue building with elegant mosaics adorning its upper walls. Its front was an old-fashioned lékárna, a pharmacist in English terms. It played up the old world feel with large glass jars along the back walls, and a broad wooden counter between the customers and the medicines they came in for. We walked around the end of the counter and smiled politely to the quiet guy who kept it running, to slip through the wooden door into the alchemist’s.

The air almost vibrated with the elf’s old magic; it made my skin crawl for the first couple of steps down the short hallway. It always felt as though the white stone walls were closing in on me before we stepped out into the work area. Every surface was covered with something alchemical. Herbs hung from every inch of the high ceiling; ladders leaned against the shelves that filled all of the walls. Every shelf was bursting with bottles, bowls, vials, and other brightly coloured glassware. The five wooden lab tables were equally crammed with burners, bowls, and beakers. Books were piled up below each table leaving narrow walkways and paths between the chaos. The elf was at the far end of the room with a pair of brass goggles on as he poked at a ceramic bowl that spat and hissed at him.

Quin strode up to him, completely at home in the mayhem. “Kadrix, we brought you lots of redcap and lycan parts, we even managed to bring you some nymph vocal chords.”

The elf raised his head slowly, his pretty mouth with the perfect cupid bow lips spread into a smile that he only shared with Quin. A tinge of jealousy formed, but I shrugged it aside; I had no interest in a relationship, especially with a supernal. I walked up behind Quin, staying a safe distance from the popping and bubbling concoction in the small black ceramic bowl before Kadrix. A small plume of green smoke erupted from the bowl, causing me to take a step back. Kadrix laughed softly at me as he pulled his goggles off to reveal bright blue-green eyes that practically shone against his pale skin.

“Don’t worry, Evelyn, it won’t bite.”

I glared at him as Quin laughed. I looked around for a space to put the backpack down so the deal would be done and I could go to bed.

“I played with the healing paste recipe,” Quin said as he lifted his shirt to show where the lycan scratch had been. I cleared my throat and looked at them both pointedly; I had no intentions of standing around all day.

Kadrix gave me a dark look, but pointed at a small clear space behind him. “Put the items for sale there. We’ll tally them up and you can go home. I see you haven’t come very far in your lessons on manners, Evelyn.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, remembering all too clearly the lecture he’d given me when I demanded he help me find Quin. He had been right on some counts, but I didn’t like his tone. I emptied out my backpack, trying to arrange the varying jars and vials in some organised manner. The redcap nails looked even more revolting sitting by themselves under the bright blue light the elf had floating above us. Quin put his own bits down with mine. Kadrix stood a little closer to Quin and looked over the large selection.

He said with a small purr, “You two had fun last night, then. I’ll give you sixty thousand crowns for the whole lot.”

I crossed my arms and looked at him; the redcap blood and bits were worth that alone.

He extended his hands, palm up and gave me a smirk as he held my eye-contact. “You can’t blame me for trying.”

I felt the liquid charm of his words and glared at him before I spat, “Don’t pull your elven tricks on me. One hundred thousand or we walk.”

He pursed his lips and said mockingly, “You wound me, Evelyn. As it’s you and your delightful brother, I’ll make it ninety thousand.”

Quin licked his lips and smiled sweetly at Kadrix. The elf sighed melodramatically. “Fine. One hundred thousand. For Quin. You could learn a lot from your twin, Evelyn.”

I ignored him and waited for him to hand over the cash.

Author Bio:

Holly Evans is an urban fantasy author with an unhealthy fascination with blades, a deep love of hellhounds, and would love one day to wake up as a fae. When she isn’t wrangling rogue characters and trying to tame her muse, she’s researching shiny new ninja moves. During her spare time she fights crime and rights wrongs on the streets of Prague.