Uncaged: Can you tell readers more about your Rise series?
The Rise series has been in my head for a long, long time in one form or another. I wrote as a teenager, completing my first ‘novel’ at around twelve or thirteen. Predictably, it was horrible. However, the seeds of my heroine, Sydney, are in that book. Like Syd, my first heroine was psychic and asked to take on way more responsibility than she’s ready for. If I’ve done my job right (write?) the Rise series is quick-paced, dark and gritty, sexy and keeps the reader guessing.
Uncaged: The third book in the series releases in 2020, how many books are planned for the series? Do people need to read them in order?
For myself, I’m a bit militaristic about reading a series in order, even if the books are standalone. So I’m going to say the best opportunity for maximum enjoyment comes from reading the books in order. There is a sequence of events in the series, building up as the story goes along. There are some bits of information that have been written into book one that haven’t fully come to fruition yet. But if you happened to pick up Curse of Ashes (book two) before Pledge of Ashes, it wouldn’t be the end of the world and you should be able to understand what’s happening.
As far as how many books are planned, I do have an idea how the series ends, but I’m not 100% on how many books it will take to get there.
Uncaged: What are you working on now that you can tell us about?
I’m editing Fallen From Ashes right now, book three in the Rise series. And if things go according to my master plan, I’ll be editing a fantasy romance which will go out on submission through my agency later in the year. I’d also love to draft book four of the Rise series this year. But the creative process can be less than linear sometimes, so we’ll see!
Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?
I love J.R. Ward. I’ve gone to several of her signings and she’d be a riot to talk with and learn from. I’m a big advocate for women and what we’re capable of, so I’d like to have time with some of the first and most significant women authors like Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austin, or Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Amy Sevan has been writing about angels, demons and other super natural stuff for a very long time. In the meantime, she’s bartended, taught piano lessons, earned her stockbroker’s license, and built a dog training business. The spirit of Detroit holds a certain forbidden magic she’s drawn to, so, she usually writes about those two things. Magic and Detroit.
She’s a member of Detroit Working Writers and Greater Detroit Romance Writers. Sarah Younger of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency represents her.
Amy has a supportive husband and a home with enough creatures shedding at any given moment to knit a blanket. If she knitted. Which she doesn’t.
Amysevan.com
Pledge of Ashes
Amy Sevan
Urban Fantasy
There’s no twelve-step program for recovering psychics, but Detroit mechanic Sydney Hoven has been working hard on her supernatural sobriety.
Too bad Hell didn’t get the memo.
When Syd meets Devon on her first night back out, she doesn’t have to be psychic to see ‘really bad idea’ written all over his stunningly gorgeous face. He says an Archangel wants her protected. But why?
When one of Lucifer’s lieutenants is sent to kill Sydney, the demon might be too strong for even Devon and the angelic forces he represents. With no true allies, Syd must stand on her own, destroy the demon, and claim her power. Otherwise, staying supernaturally sober might just kill her.
~~
Pledge of Ashes is the first book in the Rise romantic urban fantasy series that features angels and demons, men who have no business looking that good, and a heroine who is learning to wield incredible power.
Excerpt
Detroit came alive under the cover of darkness. Noisy clubbers laughed raucously, ear-deadening bass pounded from cars with twenty-four-inch rims, and thick steam billowed from the sewer grates.
Syd slammed the door of her cab and glanced around. Damn straight she took someone else’s ride. Like she’d risk door dings on the GTO? That’s a firm no. The Dive, looking exactly as the name would imply, leered at her with its crumbling concrete and prison-style windows, the electronic music reverbing through her chest even as she stood outside. Her booted feet seemed content to plant themselves on the broken pavement, but she couldn’t stay out here forever. In seconds, the October chill had already worked through her cropped leather jacket.
Feeling the buzz in her back pocket, Syd pulled out her phone. Nina’s text was pleading. Still coming, right? I’m @ the bar. Syd stared a moment more and put the phone away.
So here she was. Attempting the friend thing. Syd rolled her shoulders.
She closed her eyes and drew her mental wall around her, thick like a shield. If she were the praying type, now would be the time. Instead, she shook out her hands and willed her feet forward. The club’s scarred oak door was cold in her grip. She pulled and was assaulted by the beating sounds, alcoholic vapor, and the sensual movement of sex-about-to-happen on the dance floor.
Syd pushed forward, jostling as little as possible, but making slow progress nonetheless. A waitress with a skimpy outfit and bored expression split the crowd, and Syd made use of the trail she left.
A shiver of apprehension traveled through her, and she stalled, losing her path. People brushed at her from all sides, and her breath hitched.
She double-checked the lock on her mind, defied the warning bells in her head. Syd wouldn’t stand up Nina for some weird psychic social anxiety. She’d said she’d go out, and she would. Step by step, inch by inch, her intuition, the part of herself she understood least, fought her.
She glanced down at her deep-red polished nails with a bit of grease around the edges that wouldn’t come out for anything. Man, she wished she had stayed in the garage with her GTO. The car was a puzzle. Parts had specific places, and when you put them back just right, wonderful things happened. You went fast. Sometimes fast enough to forget.
Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below
