All That We See or Seem by Kristina Mahr -- Every night, seventeen-year-old Reeve Lennox finds herself under a noose. ***Guest Blog -- Giveaway***
All That We See or Seem
by Kristina Mahr
Genre: YA Dark Fairy Tale
Release Date: May 2018
Uncommon Universes Press LLC
Every night, seventeen-year-old Reeve Lennox finds herself under a noose.
By day she is a lady of Acarsaid's royal house, daydreaming of adventure and love. But every night in sleep she wanders through a nightmarish city, an invisible witness to the screeches of monsters and the screams of their victims. Her only consolation is Bran, a battle-torn young man with a selfless heart and eyes that reflect the stars.
Yet while Reeve falls deeper into her dreams, in truth she is engaged to Arden, a mercurial nobleman who has long been cured of his belief in love and breathes fire and flattery like other people breathe air.
Torn between two lives, Reeve struggles to remember what's real, until night and day collide, with a revelation that threatens all of Acarsaid.
Guest Post
How Kristina Mahr, Built her worlds
I had to build two worlds for the Dreamworld Duology — the kingdom of Acarsaid and that of Tenebris — and I built each of them as a different challenge for my main character Reeve.
Acarsaid is, at first glance, positively idyllic. (Which is where the name comes from - it means “harbour” in Gaelic!) The palace and grounds are beautiful and light and open. Reeve gets to spend long hours wandering the forest, dangling her feet off the pier, reading. I say “gets to”, but imagine doing it all day, every day. Imagine that you almost never leave it. At least, not while you’re awake.
Cue: Tenebris.
Tenebris (Latin for “dark”) is the world Reeve visits every night in her dreams. It is the polar opposite of Acarsaid — dark and sinister and dangerous. Reeve wanders this world, too, but it isn’t until she becomes visible in it that she starts to experience a kind of freedom she’s never had in Acarsaid.
I modeled the timeframe after Victorian England specifically because I wanted to restrict Reeve as much as possible in her waking world. Women had little independence or rights then, little say in their own futures. To have that be the backdrop of her waking world gave a good contrast to who she gets to be in Tenebris.
Typically when I write books, I get an idea first, and the main character follows immediately, which is why I usually end up building the world in reaction to the character instead of the other way around. In the Dreamworld Duology, it was really fun to see how the two different worlds challenge her in different ways and really cause her to come into her own.
A Dream Within a Dream
by Kristina Mahr
Genre: YA Dark Fairy Tale
Release Date: March 2019
Uncommon Universes Press LLC
Invisible to the man she loves, Reeve Lennox fights to reclaim him from a dark world.
As her wedding day nears in Acarsaid, her betrothed Arden offers only his wayward soul and saucy tongue. At night she desperately tries to reach Bran, the young soldier of nightmarish Tenebris who holds her heart. However, her king insists that the realms of Tenebris and Acarsaid must remain separate, lest the evil wizard Rancore brutally conquer all.
But the dark magic of Tenebris defies mere distance. A war is coming, one only Reeve may be able to prevent, if she can reunite her family on opposing sides.
With two kingdoms at stake, Reeve must discover her strength and her family’s legacy before all is lost. Yet righting the wrongs of the past may require the sacrifice of her truest love.
About the Author
Kristina Mahr devotes her days to numbers and her nights to words. She works full-time as an accountant in the suburbs of Chicago, where she lives with her two dogs and two cats, but her true passion is writing. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, and waking up at the crack of dawn every weekend to watch the Premier League.
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the plot sounds interesting
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