Guest – Sydney Whyte

Hello Dirk,  I’d just like to take this opportunity first to thank you for including your blog on this book tour of my first in series ‘Gift of the Blood God – Drawn’, a fantasy, paranormal, erotic fusion.

The Dreaded Cliff-hanger

There it is, the final episode of a series you’re watching, the final page of a book you’re engrossed in and yet you know it’s going to happen – the dreaded cliff-hanger.  You have to wait, anxious, anticipating its return – the new season, the next instalment.  What’s taking them so long… almost sleepless… your life is on hold?  Well okay, nothing quite so drastic, but a cliff-hanger is not really a much loved approach to the conclusion of anything.  Viewers and readers alike don’t relish it and sometimes they don’t suffer it in silence.  They want to know what’s going to happen – RIGHT. THIS. MINUTE!!!

Honestly, whatever happened to patience?

Previous generations were not so vocal in their disapproval of a ‘come back next week… year… season… whatever’.  It happened all the time.  At the matinee on a Saturday, on the telly each week; you couldn’t rush it, you had to wait.  There was just no other option.

When I was a kid, an episode of Disney played religiously every week on a Sunday.  One story, two episodes and it was done – not a problem, except of course when you consider that those episodes travelled down the country in what appeared to be a four week progression.  Top of the North Island got it first, then the bottom, then the top/middle of the South Island was graced with its presence and then the poor, old, deep-south running in last place.  Move, and you were done for – that second, oh so important, conclusion would never, ever be witnessed and you’d never, ever find out what happened to those precious people whose story you were bound up in.  Happened to me!  And I still remember it to this day.

Makes me sound old, I know, but I’m not, not really, it’s just that the progression of technology has moved in leaps and bounds… and that really is the reason for our problems.

Modern technology grants us instant gratification… and now we insist it mustn’t be any other way.  Video’s, DVD’s, SKY, internet, streaming…all tools that allow us, spoil us with the ability to watch a series from beginning to end almost in one continuous session.

So why should books be any different.  In the past episodes of stories were published with either cliff-hanger endings or a partial conclusion with a continuous running thread that wound through the story until the grand finale was reached in the final book.  I’ve read both types in my youth, gosh even Harry Potter got that same treatment; and I can honestly say I just accepted it.  It was just how those things were.  You had to wait.  Now however, the norm is that the characters who are the focus of that particular episode must reach a happy conclusion within its pages even though there is still a continuous underlying story that flows through the series.

Of course I understand it.  No one likes to be anxious, wondering what is going to happen to those we have invested so much time into.  Case in point.  A little while ago I came across a series written by Nicholas Bella.  Written in seasons, and containing episodes, four to seven novelettes depending on the season in question, the books made up what I guess was one completed book per season and still each season ending with a cliff-hanger… or nothing, just the feeling you would get more soon if you came back for the new season.  Lucky me, I came in when season three was all but finishing and I got the instant gratification card… however season four, well for that one I had to wait.  Oh my God!  I worried, pondered, questioned what was going to happen.  Each day that went by it sat like a niggle of anxiety and anticipation at the back of my brain.  First time ever in my life, I found myself checking the author website to see when the next episode was going to arrive… and when it did, somehow the wait made it just that little bit better, surprising, relieving, all those scenarios and questions running through my head answered, put to rest… well until the end of that episode was reached too and then it started all over again… Frustrating!

So why then would I go and do it for my own first series ‘Gift of the Blood God’?  Only one answer, the story called for it.  Fantasy quests take a long time, things must be learned, accepted, utilised.  Not only the characters but the readers must be educated in the magical world’s mysteries, their loyalty gained and hopefully their feelings involved.  After all these characters are opening themselves up for a reader’s scrutiny, and not alone in the bedroom but elsewhere, their emotions bared, their love lives on display.  This is, after all, the story of four – and more – people and their lives, ambitions, and loves which cannot be contained within just one episode each, for what they do impacts irrevocably upon each other.  Therefore, dear readers, I beg your patience.

 

Gift of the Blood God: Drawn

The world of Abod le A’nor stood waiting…

From the near new city of the civilised Oremen, to the wild untamed clans of the warrior nations of the Ancients, to the primitive quiet villages of a long lived and isolated people; their Dreamers dreamed and sensed the streams of time eddying and calling.  The Gift was coming, and all eyes turned to the rugged climes of the southlands.

Two women struggled through the new day, through vast tracts of dark and ominous wilderness.  Shocked and confused in the aftermath of what should have been a near fatal accident, twins Lorrie and Melory found themselves stumbling into a fate nothing in their previously sheltered lives had prepared them for.  Nothing was familiar and even the comfort they found in each other’s company could not keep the fear or panic at bay.

Where were they?

In a world imbued with strange powers and lingering passions, the past machinations of the doomed Faeling will irrevocably change forever the Neilson sisters’ future.

Thus begins the journey of the sisters’ awakening.

Please note: – this series contains swearing, sexual content and adult themes – suitable for persons over the age of 18 years

Find the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, or on Goodreads.

 

Author Bio

 

Sydney Whyte is a ground breaking new talent to arise in New Zealand erotic literature.  A vivacious reader and passionate creative writer since early childhood, she began writing paranormal and fantasy stories as early as ten years old. As a shy and reserved child, she immersed herself in writing complex, fantastical worlds full of magic, mystery and intrigue as a means of escapism. When she reached her teenage years, thoughts of love and romance entered her life with an obsession known only to the hormonal and young, her writing took a significantly saucier (although highly naive) turn. Her increasingly shy demeanour and strict upbringing allowed her few opportunities to openly explore her youthful sexuality; writing became an important means for shaping her philosophies on love, men and romance. As she set out on her own into the world she never ceased to write, but her life, prose and perspective changed drastically. Widowed at twenty-three, re married by twenty-seven, and a single mother of two before thirty five, her untainted youthful outlook on love, life and sex gave way to the exploration of the interconnectedness between beauty and pain, sensuality and shame, and love and despair, that shapes the unique human experience.

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