Harbingers by Ellis Morning - Guest Blog and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Ellis Morning will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Ellis Morning

Hi, and thanks for having me over again! It’s great to be here. Let’s see, what 5 things can I share with you this time? :)

1. I’m naturally anxious and shy, and I hate making phone calls—but if my sense of justice is wronged, all that goes out the window. I’ll gladly track down whomever I have to and get the problem resolved! But I’m not a jerk about it. I worked retail and customer service for most of my corporate tenure, so I’m well aware that being patient and considerate makes all the difference in the world.

2. I got my first smartphone last year, and I still barely use it. Phone calls and texts, photos, occasionally driving directions, and that’s all. If my carrier hadn’t made my old brick phone obsolete, I’d probably still be using it!

3. I accidentally gave myself a graphite tattoo in high school when I knelt to pick up a pencil, only to have said pencil stab into my leg. The mark is still on my shin, close to my ankle.

4. My bachelor’s degree is in Computer Science and Business Administration. I can program computers and fill out balance sheets. ;)

5. Along with German, I know small amounts of Farsi, Spanish, and Japanese. I can also pick out some names and words within Egyptian hieroglyphs. Currently, I’m tempted to pick up some Latin (for studying ancient Rome) and Dutch (which should be easy since I already have German and English!).

Thanks for reading! Feel free to post a comment or question, or read more at my blog.

The Quest Continues To Stop A Killer "Curse!"

Dame Jessamine is a knight errant with a spaceship for a steed, a woman of science in a galaxy rife with superstition. Follow along as she continues her mission for truth within the barony of Nidaros!

A mysterious crop-withering blight spreads through the barony's soil. The court magicians have blamed two siblings of spawning the crisis through witchcraft. Convinced of their innocence, Jessamine has rescued and now secretly harbors Verahl Naustvik aboard her spaceship. Meanwhile, his sister Thordia flees to the Harbinger, a crashed space station from the distant and more enlightened past.

Approaching the Harbinger is an act punishable by death, but Jessamine won't let that stand in the way of a second rescue. Thordia, and the Harbinger's surviving technological secrets, may be Nidaros' only hope against the blight. Jessamine prepares to embark—only to be betrayed and set upon by vengeful court magicians.

Now, one wrong word or gesture will lead to deadly charges of witchcraft. Jessamine must protect the Naustviks and brave the Harbinger, all while striking a balance between ritual and reason. If she can't maintain the peace long enough to discover a cure for the blight, the entire barony will starve—unless its far-off masters decide to "restore order" with military action first!

Harbingers is Book Two of the Sword and Starship series of science fiction/fantasy adventure.

Read an Excerpt:

Minutes after I’d fallen asleep—or so it seemed—distant, unsettling noises nagged me from the fringe of consciousness. Crashes of wood on wood, doors opening and closing, agitated voices.

“We have a right to our prisoner!”

“‘Prisoner’ now? Whose word is that, yours or Ormyr’s?”

“Adept Knorr’s blood is on her hands!”

“Then mayhap he shouldn’t have tried to kill her. What do ye want from us, anyway? She’s not here.”

“Impossible! We’re not leaving until we’ve searched everywhere.”

“Captain? Captain!”

The voices became louder and more spiteful with each volley. Then came a series of sharp, desperate taps that were louder still, practically in my ear.

“Sister? Sister!” a hushed voice pleaded.

Sigrid?

I flew up to a seated position and opened my eyes. My hair, loose from its braid, fell around my shoulders. This was still my room in the barracks. Ahead, the door stood closed. Behind, early sunlight peeked through the slats of the shuttered window beside my pallet.

The tapping returned, followed by rattling. Someone outside the window was testing the shutter. “Sister, come out here. Hurry!”

A large object, like a table or chest, crashed to the floor just outside my room.

I gasped. Someone, probably an adept, was tossing the barracks in search of me. And Sigrid was—wait, how the hell had Sigrid broken out of her room? Hadn’t Ingvar locked her in? My own window’s shutter looked sturdy, but not indestructible. She must’ve busted out that way—just like I’d have to if I wanted to escape.

About the Author:

Ellis has always loved staging adventures in her head before going to sleep each night. When she was twelve, she started putting these adventures on paper.

For the next twenty years, she wrote with varying degrees of seriousness, but always as a hobby. In that time, she fell in love with Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut, the original Star Trek series, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Science fiction became her favorite domain to work in, but she also enjoyed reading fantasy, horror, Western, and detective stories, and incorporating their elements into her work. One of her favorite things to do was make people laugh.

Ellis denied being a writer for decades. But then she sold articles to The Daily WTF, and a short story to Analog Science Fiction and Fact. After quitting her full-time job to finish her first novel, it was time to own up to writing as her calling. She's currently an editor at The Daily WTF, and having the time of her life penning novels and short stories.

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+EllisMorning
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/EllisMorning
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7871892.Ellis_Morning

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