 By: Rita Herron
This was a well put together book: storyline, plots, characters are all well developed. I enjoyed the story and this writer has some great phrases that really bring the scenes together and bring the very rfealistic characters to life. The characters are genuinely unique and not cookie cutter like too many books these days.
I picked it up off an exchange shelf and it sat on the corner of my desk for a while before I finally got to it. Wish I'd picked it up sooner and very glad I didn’t look at any of the questionable reviews for this one. Either it wasn’t their preferred genre or they weren’t reading the same version.
Definitely a good read, though the main character could have been a little less needy with her own protection and rescue. And a side note, as someone who lives in the Appalachian Mountains in just such a place, the setting is very well defined and just the way these small places we live in are, all the way down to the trashy trailer park (though not all trailer parks are trashy ones) and weed ridden junk yards.
 December 12, 2012
It's FINALLY here!
Throughout history, myths and legends of extraordinary creatures have been told and retold. Fantastic tales of demons and banshees, gryphons and dragons, and of course, magic. Stories that every child grows to learn are nothing more than fantasy…or are they?
Beyond the world you see lies a hidden realm, the Mythrian Realm, inhabited by all of the creatures you’ve been told are mere fiction. Only one thing lies between humans and the truth: the Nexus. A magical barrier erected millennia ago to separate the two realms, it has stood the test of time. Until now...
Lindsay, Tell us a little bit about the story behind "Breaking the Nexus."
~For Mythrian Sha Phoenix, magic is nothing new. But when she stumbles upon a portal on the verge of collapse, her fate will forever change. Pulled through the portal into the Human Realm, she lands in the middle of Detective Connor Flynn’s brutal murder scene. Soon it is obvious someone is using blood magic to try to bring down the Nexus. Together, Connor and Sha must work to unravel the secrets before the barrier falls and the realms collide.
Hmm... Sounds like there's some chemical magic in there too... and knowing Lindsey ~ lots of it!
~ Well, I love reading romance because no matter what may be happening in my life, I can always count on my books to end happily ever after.
So, it's only natural to write what you know?
~ The day I met my husband was the day I truly began believing in happily ever after.
So why did you start writing?
~ After hearing me complain a few too many times that I had “nothing” to read despite the hundreds of paperbacks scattered around the house, my husband began suggesting I write my own stories.
And now?
~ When I finally took his advice I discovered that although I enjoy my day job as a software engineer, my true calling is to be an author.
So why do you write what you write?
~ My sister drilled into me an appreciation for fantasy and mythology, something I try to bring to my books.
And how did "Breaking the Nexus" come about?
~My debut novel, Breaking the Nexus started as a book written for NaNoWriMo and has grown to so much more. It was the conduit that introduced me to a fantastic group of independent authors who have changed my life in unimaginable ways.
When you're not writing, what other things do you like to do?
~ When I’m not writing, I’ve found a passion for blogging and interviewing fellow authors. I also love reading (of course!), baking, crochet, sewing sock monkeys, playing video games, and all sorts of random crafts. I have an incurable love of rubber duckies and stuffed animals, and I believe nobody should have to grow up if they don’t want.
Spoken like the true heart of a writer!
Check out Lindsey's wonderful blog: http://lindsayavalon.blogspot.com/p/breaking-nexus-blog-tour.html
And the Blog Tour and Release Day Party at Facebook Events:
http://www.facebook.com/events/174143076057719/
Lindsey always has lots of fun and giveaways, so stop by, say hi and lend your support to her debut novel:
Breaking the Nexus
After my week camping trip, well – camper camping, which maybe isn’t real camping – I have to wonder with great seriousness if I couldn’t live like this. There is an undeniable freedom in not being tied down to one place, in the knowledge that I could simply move because the mood hit me.
To be surrounded by the wilderness, where ever that wilderness may be, to be removed from society and civilization in the peace and quiet that comes with nature as a more permanent way of life. It has a tremendous lure. I suppose growing up the mountains contributed to the ability to be flexible to this type of life. In a place where electrical outages were common, we were not up on technology beyond electric lights and three TV channels and it was not unusual to go without running water for weeks at a time.
I sit listening to the birds, the creek running nearby, the breeze rustling the trees and I don’t want to leave. A cool breeze wraps around my shoulders and I wonder if I haven’t been gravitating toward this for a very long time. As I have moved further and further into the backcountry, strived to be away from civilization, become less and less apt to be in any way social. I have spent too much time giving to others to the detriment of my own soul, let too much be taken from me by others who had no right to what they took. I have spent too much time under the crush of other’s heals, tethered to whipping posts for things far beyond my own control and paying for unearned dislike from people who have no right to judge.
I stood in the woods just a little while ago, feeling the late day sun on my shoulders, a breeze in my face and fluttering the skirt that reaches to my ankles. A ball cap held my hair out of my face and my sandals are the barest insulation at my feet. No obligations, nowhere in particular to be, nothing to hold me to anywhere and little to hold me to anyone.
Between my silver rings and the silver hoops in my ears it struck me that in that moment I could pass for a stereotypical gypsy. Indeed I felt what it must feel to be that kind of free.
Could I chuck this life for the life of a real honest to goodness wanderer? Could I leave the tethers of civilization behind? The hardest part would be figuring out how to make a living that would support that life. It would take only a fraction of what it takes with all the weights of an anchored existence. It’s doable, it’s an actual feasible option, especially for a writer.
We do not have to be anchored to do what we do and in fact it helps to have new surroundings and experience new people and places regularly. It keeps the writing fresh and crisp.
I have long suspected that somewhere in my heritage there was a line of gypsies. And I have heard the stories of ancestral wanderers. Our extensively mixed bloodlines would indicate, in and of themselves that we came from such driven explorers. It is not exploration I seek, so much as peace from a world in which I don’t belong. A place where I have never really found a nitch into which I fit.
Perhaps this is my answer. Some people, as I believe I have said before, were born to wander. Maybe the answer has been there all along, I just wasn’t listening, instead seeking what society told me I should want rather than what my heart whispered to my soul. All I know for sure is that there is a level of peace here I find nowhere else. It is becoming ever harder to return to the structured urban landscape rather than stay in the wilderness where I don’t have to be anything but who and what I am.
_ The forest to my left looks like a winter landscape. No undergrowth, no foliage, the trees visible further through the forest than ever I can remember. The small pine needles are the sickening color of death as the heat left them brittle and dead. The ground beneath is bare, but for rocks. Fallen trees lay charred, warriors lost to battle with the quick moving flames. The rest are scared, but if you look to the canopy a sparse layer of green is reaching for the sun. Most of them will survive but will bear the scars of their battle for life. They stood tall, held what they could out of reach and did not give to the fire. Its short attention span carried it past them after a short mauling and they will live to see many more springs.
On the other side of the grey ribbon of hardtop the forest is lush and green, the undergrowth thick, small seedling pines visible springing from the ground in small clearings where there is enough light. This forest has a green florescence to it during the day, no matter the weather. Even sunny days can be dark in places. It is a forest that bears some age. One can’t help but feel the wisdom in the trees, in the rushing water of the creek I listen to as I write this. There are trees in this forest that can boast centuries of knowledge and history if you know where to find them. The younger trees almost seem to crowd around, keeping them hidden in the forest folds.
It is a place I am at home, a place where I find peace. I have considered more than once not leaving, just disappearing into those woods and never coming back. It is such an intense feeling that it has even spurred a novel about a gifted woman who does just that. Those are my desires laid on the page, she is doing what I only long to do, a fantasy by all measures, but if only it were possible. Here I would find peace like I can find nowhere else. The kind of peace that has eluded me for forty years.
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