Historical Fantasy and Why I Could Eat it Like Cake
Alyxandra Harvey
Stepping back into 1814 for A Breath of Frost was just like eating the most delicious, decadent dessert.
I adore the language, the complicated social etiquette I would never be able to follow, the candlelight and corsets. And having loved both Pride & Prejudice, and the fantasy genre for as long as I can remember, combining them gives me the best of both worlds. I can have my cake and eat it too. Because frankly, that saying is just cruel. If I have cake, I am eating it.
With historical fantasy, I can take a landmark like London Bridge and fill it with goblin-men and witch-girls. I can add magic and strange creatures and secret powers. It’s especially satisfying to give my girls an edge in an historical setting that strove to blunt them down.
Not to mention that there is instant romance to bowing gentlemen and curtsying ladies and kisses stolen in ballrooms. Just as there is instant danger to magic gone awry, restless spirits, and the threat of deadly curses. One without the other is like that cake without frosting.
And at the end of the day, people are people, whether they’re in 1814 or 2014, whether they’re wearing bonnets, cravats, or ripped jeans.
And cravats are just way more fun.
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www.alyxandraharvey.com
The Lovegrove Legacy
Book Two
Alyxandra Harvey
Genre: YA, YA historical paranormal, witches
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Date of Publication: Oct 7,2014
Word Count: 100 000
Book Description:
Gretchen is struggling with her newfound gift as a Whisperer; the constant buzzing in her ears from detecting spells is more frustrating than fun, especially when she is spending time with one of the Order of Iron Nail’s Keepers, the icy but strikingly handsome Tobias Lawless.
But while Gretchen tries to hide the truth and resolve her feelings for him, London fades from beautiful and bustling to deathly silent …Something evil is once again menacing Mayfair, and Gretchen and her cousins must use their powers to prevent a horrible sacrifice
Available at Amazon
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Excerpt:
The contrast between fighting off the Rovers and pasting a polite smile on her face for the single sons of earls was too stark. Residual magic burned through her. She was surprised the air around her didn’t crackle. Her mother shouldn’t begrudge her a stolen moment in the library, not if the alternative involved magic shooting off the ends of her hair. Hardly subtle.
Not to mention hardly marriageable material.
On second thought….
Better not. She’d already pushed her luck by going off with Godric.
Egyptian onion farming it was then. She walked along the book shelves, reading titles and glancing into the glass-fronted cabinets that held Lord Worthing’s collection of painted globes. It was dull and dusty and soothing. Her witch knot stopped aching.
Until someone grabbed her arm, yanking it behind her back and spinning her around. Her check pressed to the cold glass of a curio cabinet. Pain shot up to her elbow when she tried to move. “Who are you?” a man’s asked, his voice quiet and cold in her ear.
“Who am I?” she barked back. “Who the hell are you?” He evaded the kick she aimed at his most sensitive parts. Her skirts wrapped around her knees, hobbling and infuriating her. He turned her roughly around.
Tobias Lawless.
She wasn’t sure which of the two of them was more surprised.
Someone so chilly and perfect and wearing such a flawless cravat shouldn’t be mauling ladies in dark libraries. He also shouldn’t have several short iron daggers tucked inside his cutaway coat. It probably said something unsavory about her character that the sight of those daggers made her like him a bit more. But only a little bit.
“Let me go,” she yanked savagely down, breaking his hold. He didn’t move back, and his body continued to block her against the cabinets. The glass rattled.
“What are you doing?” he stepped closer still. She had to tilt her chin up.
“I am currently being accosted,” she snapped, driving the heel of her shoe into the top of his foot. He fell back a step, growling in his throat. Growling. He really didn’t seem the type.
She made a proper fist, not like the ones girls made when they hadn’t practiced before. She’d already punched a Rover tonight. She was very comfortable punching Tobias, Lord Killingsworth. Eager, in fact.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked finally. “Are you drunk?”
“Certainly not.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m the one being mauled and yet you take offense?”
“I can smell it on you,” he answered which was no answer at all. “There’s no use prevaricating.”
“I don’t usually bother lying about perfume,” she replied, now more bewildered than concerned.
“Not perfume,” he ground out, as if she was the frustrating one. “Dark magic.”
Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. “I beg your pardon.”
“As you should.”
She aimed for his head. It was big and fat and so perfectly groomed, how could she miss? He caught her wrist and squeezed. Hard. He shouldn’t have been fast enough.
An iron-nail pendant in the shape of a wheel slipped out from under his collar. Gretchen stared at it, then transferred her glare to his haughty, unkindly beautiful face. “I knew it.” She gave him a smile better suited to one of the animals in the zoological gardens. “You’re a bloody Keeper.”
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Alyxandra Harvey lives in a stone Victorian house in Ontario, Canada with a few resident ghosts who are allowed to stay as long as they keep company manners. She loves medieval dresses, used to be able to recite all of The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson, and has been accused, more than once, of being born in the wrong century. She believes this to be mostly true except for the fact that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice cream.
www.alyxandraharvey.com
www.twitter.com/AlyxandraH
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