Emissary by EB Brooks – Q&A and Giveaway

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If you could apologize to someone in your past, who would it be?

That would be my childhood friend, Maria. We never went to school together, but we knew each other over the years from academic competitions. By high school, we’d become good friends and worked hard helping each other train to go to the Air Force Academy. In the end, I was accepted; she wasn’t. She went to a ROTC program instead, and ironically stayed in to become an officer where I switched gears midway and ended up going the civilian route after all. But in that first year, she wrote me every week…and I didn’t. Too busy, too stressed. Which I’m sure she was, too, but I didn’t return her kindness and effort. I saw her again once, years later, but then she disappeared. Maria, if you see this, I’m sorry. I failed you as a friend, but I haven’t forgotten the lesson from that failure.

If you could keep a mythical/ paranormal creature as a pet, what would you have?

Well, we already have a ton of cats, so no pumas (forgive the Red vs Blue joke), and my daemon (à la Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials) is an ocelot, though she wouldn’t tolerate being called a pet, haha. My wife probably has a better answer for this, since she manages the animals on the homestead. Something that can dig really well, or help plants grow quickly. A little water dragon would be great for gardens or for watering the ducks and geese. Are there mythical animals that eat CO2 and excrete calm?

How do you keep your writing different from all the others that write in this particular genre?

Honestly, I don’t worry about it too much, because writing authentically kind of takes care of it for me. For example, I remember reading Ready Player One before publishing Emissary. I’d been worried and stressed that people would see the latter as a knock-off of the former, but the two stories are wildly different, sometimes diametrically opposed in their themes and characters.

What are the best and worst pieces of writing advice you ever received?

Hmm…the best was probably to always keep the story as the first priority. Everything else follows that, not the other way around. The worst was any of the myriad fashion-chasing tips. Never use said! Always use said! Kill all adverbs! Pack every sentence! Easy to lose sight of what you’re writing, that way. If it sounds right to you, it probably is. Put it down, let it rest for half a year, and I guarantee it’ll all look terrible and you’ll redo it anyway.

Are the experiences in this book based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Not per se. The Emissary Quintet is ultimately a story about the human condition and the reunion of spirit with matter to bring the best of each to bear, because that’s the key to making the world better. Characters are facets of me, and some inherited physical traits or hobbies, but none are me. Nor are they anyone else: I remember reassuring my mom that no, Ewan and Tree’s rocky early relationship was not a retelling of my early days with my wife. There are moments taken from my life, like interactions with pets or kids, but always the essence is what comes in, not a play-by-play account.

Two Worlds. One Future.

Ewan O’Meara is no stranger to death: in recent months, he’s found his way to limbo at least once per week, much to his parents’ concern. It’s a necessary price for getting experience to become the greatest adventurer his homeland of Veridor has ever known, but the overbearing Veridian Church has him pinned down, soaking him for the penance gold to unlock his stats each time he respawns. And because the Church’s ancient war put an end to both the godlike Gems and the epic quests they once bestowed, Ewan has no better alternative.

That is, until he encounters a young woman fleeing arrest from the Church’s soldiers. At first glance, Treanna Rothchild needs it: she’s clueless about Veridian life. But she has other skills that defy Ewan’s understanding, and she knows things. Unsettling, seditious things the Church wants kept secret at any cost.

And she’s in Veridor to raise an army, to fight an enemy only she can see.

Risking both life and soul, Ewan follows Treanna where no Veridian has ever been and there is no respawning. But for him to have a chance at making a real difference in the strange, harsh world she reveals to him, he must first come to terms with it. Especially as he and Treanna discover how much it has in common with Veridor—and how much they depend on each other to survive.

New-adult science fiction, wrapped in gaming and fantasy around a hopepunk core, Emissary is an immersive, thought-provoking adventure with a little teen romance and a lot of heart.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Ewan didn’t know why he did it. He had plenty of reasons. He was angry about getting censured, annoyed with Paul’s warning to keep his head down, and embarrassed by how quickly he’d ignored it. No one took him seriously as an adventurer, much less understood when he asked the big questions.

But, more than anything, looking into those eyes, he simply knew this girl was in trouble, and that he wanted to help her.

She flew past as time resumed its normal flow; Ewan shouted and leaped in front of the Swords to draw their aggro. He called up his menu, winced when he remembered he’d given Kate his armor, then equipped his blades anyway.

An ominous tone sounded in his mind, and a warning flashed across his vision that he now had a bounty, along with a reminder that only Swords were permitted to equip weapons in the cathedral. As if to prove the point, the soldiers slowed as they saw the blades flash into being on his back, but with grim smiles they equipped their own and changed targets.

Ewan spared a quick glance behind him to see the girl vanish down the steps, then turned to face his opponents.

The crowd was whispering excitedly now, but he focused on the Swords, quickly calling on his own basic aura-reading skills to scan them. They were stronger than him, and bigger too, but neither had bothered to bolster their defense beyond their armor, clearly seeing him as an easy mark.

Time to see what agility’s all about, he thought with a nervous chuckle.

About the Author: E.B. Brooks lives in the southeastern USA, where he splits his time between writing, research, and homesteading. He enjoys building fictional worlds, real houses, and landscape models, but he’s most at home with his wife and children, and their many, many pets.

Check out the series on Amazon.

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