The Next Big Thing Blog Hop and a Giveaway!

Welcome back, everyone!
It's late January, time for the Christmas decorations to come down, and time for a new blog post!

This month, the amazing Robin Lee Hatcher volunteered me for a blog hop. My mission is to answer ten questions about my latest WIP (work-in-progress) which is The Next Big Thing, and then I will tag three new fantasy authors with links to their blogs!

To add to the fun, I will give three different readers their choice of one book: Prophet, Judge, or (when it's published) King. The winners will be chosen by RaffleCopter on January 30th, and announced on the 31st.

Ready? Here goes:

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

What is the working title of your book? 

King. This was the working title and it’s now set in stone. Or, rather, in the book’s just-released cover image. 

Where did the idea come from for the book?

King portrays difficult situations faced by several Old Testament kings and prophets. King isn’t so much a retelling of the scriptures as a variation of OT spiritual themes, and adventures.

What genre does your book fall under?

Fantasy fiction, teens and up!

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I have a terrible time trying to match actors with my characters—each one is unique. However, Ioan Gruffud, as he looked in Arthur,  might portray Akabe, the Siphran King:
And Anne Hathaway as Caitria, his vulnerable, embattled queen:

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

King Akabe of Siphra’s lifelong dream—to rebuild the Infinite’s temple in Siphra—is threatened by powerful enemies who have vowed to kill Akabe and his mysterious new queen.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

King is scheduled for publication by Bethany House on July 1, 2013. I’ve heard other authors compare publication timeframes to pregnancies, and it’s so true. But like a baby, books are worth the wait.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Usually, I can write a first draft in six months on my two days off per week, if I resist Facebook and Pinterest, and seriously focus on the task. Chocolate helps!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Though I haven’t yet read this one, Kingdom’s Dawn, by Chuck Black, seems to reflect King’s sense of other-world adventure.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

As strange as it sounds, the entire Books of the Infinite series, including King was inspired by a dream fragment. In 2010, I woke up one morning, still seeing a brief, stark dream of a young woman in a dim chamber. She was struggling to make a life-changing choice, and there was a glowing branch in that same dream, so I knew that if I wrote the story behind the dream it must be a fantasy. It was odd. Usually my dreams are bright and colorful. However, this dark fragment became Prophet, which was published two years later.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

King’s plotline, like Prophet and Judge, is written to appeal to men and women, young and old. Parents are reading these books with their teens!


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Now, readers, it's time for some fun!
Hope over to the following pages to visit these three fantasy authors, who will be posting their Next Big Thing answers within the next seven days:
Patrick W. Carr
Carla Laureano
and 
Pauline Creeden

And enter to win a copy of Prophet, or Judge, or (soon) King, in the Rafflecopter entry form below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway