A warm welcome to author Heidi Cullinan joining us today here @ Love Bytes in honor of her newest release “Clockwork Heart”.
Welcome Heidi 🙂
WAR
In my undergraduate, I was eventually a British literature major, but I was very nearly a history major. The deciding factor for me was that what I wanted out of a history class was a look back at culture and people, but what I got instead was a litany of endless, aimless war. Over time through research for fiction I learned sadly any record of humanity will include more war than anything else because we do this more than anything else.
What I love about writing historical fiction is I can examine the people living during those times (with or without the war backdrop); in Clockwork Heart, however, I get to write the war itself. It was a strange experience, engineering a war when I hate war more than I hate about anything in human existence. I couldn’t simply park soldiers in a field and name a commander. I had to know why this army was here and why the other army was there and who had ordered their regiment formed in the first place. I had to knit politics behind each Army and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each.
The more time I spent with each side of the battles, of course, the more they looked the same. I feel this is true about so much of our real lives, wars fought with weapons and those only with ideas. Boiled down, the messages are oddly similar, the powers that be motivating the troops equally jaded and monstrous, the everyday soldiers identical except for the uniform stitched to their skin.
I admit I am at heart an idealist. I’m one of the eternally frustrated people thinking, knowing we could all just get along if we could simply stop fighting. I know fighting is part of being human and that it isn’t going to go away even if we’re allowed to evolve for another million years. I also know, though, there will always be romantics like me and free spirits like the pirates of The Brass Farthing, who shun taking sides and soar on their dreams into the clouds.
Come aboard in Clockwork Heart and join us.
* * *
Release Date: Feb 2, 2016
Format: Novel
Genre: Historical/Alternate History/Steampunk
Length: 80,000 words (estimated)
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Cover Artist: Kanaxa
Blurb:
Love, adventure and a steaming good time.
As the French army leader’s bastard son, Cornelius Stevens enjoys a great deal of latitude. But when he saves an enemy soldier using clockwork parts, he’s well aware he risks hanging for treason. That doesn’t worry him half as much, however, as the realization he’s falling for his patient.
Johann Berger never expected to survive his regiment’s suicide attack on Calais, much less wake up with mechanical parts. To avoid discovery, he’s forced to hide in plain sight as Cornelius’s lover—a role Johann finds himself taking to surprisingly well.
When a threat is made on Cornelius’s life, Johann learns the secret of the device implanted in his chest—a mythical weapon both warring countries would kill to obtain. Caught up in a political frenzy, in league with pirates, dodging rogue spies, mobsters and princesses with deadly parasols, Cornelius and Johann have no time to contemplate how they ended up in this mess. All they know is, the only way out is together—or not at all.
Warning: Contains tinkers, excessive clockwork appendages, and a cloud-sweeping tour of Europe. A little absinthe, a little theft, a little exhibitionism. Men who love men, women who love women, and some who aren’t particular.
* * *
Heidi Cullinan has always enjoyed a good love story, provided it has a happy ending. Proud to be from the first Midwestern state with full marriage equality, Heidi is a vocal advocate for LGBT rights. She writes positive-outcome romances for LGBT characters struggling against insurmountable odds because she believes there’s no such thing as too much happy ever after. When Heidi isn’t writing, she enjoys cooking, reading, playing with her cats, and watching television with her family. Find out more about Heidi at heidicullinan.com.
I need to think about that question…hmm.