Tuesday, May 30, 2017

BLOG TOUR: Cherished by Christina Bauer


Welcome to the Official Blog Tour for Christina Bauer's Cherished, the third book in the Beholder series! This tour will consist of various excerpts, reviews, guest posts, etc. On our tour stop today, we have a cool guest post, "The Real People Who Inspired Cherished." to share with you! We even have a cool tour-wide giveaway!!! Check it out and grab your copy today!
Follow the tour, HERE!

Genre:
Young Adult
Paranormal Romance
Series:
Beholder, #3
Pubish Date:
May 30, 2017
Publisher:
Monster House Books LLC

Synopsis:
For Elea, there’s never been a better time to turn away from witch life. The Tsar is in exile. The Vicomte is dead. And Rowan? Falling for him only broke her heart. Instead of casting spells, Elea spends her days running Braddock Farm and enjoying the flirtations of the very handsome and non-magical Philippe. Everything is going perfectly, except for one problem.

Someone’s trying to kill her.

Shujaa is a Changed One, a Creation Caster mage whose mutated form makes him invincible in battle. Now that the Tsar and Vicomte are gone, Shujaa wants to rise and rule. To do so, he must eliminate all those powerful enough to oppose him, and Elea is top on his list. Anyone who offers her aid quickly ends up dead.

In the end, there’s only one person who can keep Elea safe while helping her defeat Shujaa: Rowan. Like it or not, Elea must team up with her old love. With Philippe along for the ride, Elea plans to team with Rowan without losing her heart this time. But that’s when all her plans fall apart…


      

The Real People Who Inspired My Book Cherished
by Christina Bauer

My book, Cherished, tells the story of a woman who wants to be a farm girl but ends up as the most powerful Necromancer in her realm. It's book three in my Beholder series (if you aren't familiar with the series, there's a quick trailer right here. In any case, I'm now doing an author tour to celebrate the launch of Cherished, and I've been asked to share some of the folks who inspired the main characters. It's quite a story, so I'll share it in steps!

ELEA
Elea (pronounced Ah-LAY-ah) is the lead character of the series and a medieval necromancer. For her, I was inspired by so many strong women named Eleanor, in particular Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor basically ran England for much of her adult life, especially since her son Richard the Lionheart spent most of his time overseas or on crusade.
But I digress.
I could have named the character Eleanor, but we had a cleaning woman named Eleanor growing up and—how do I put this?—I’m pretty sure she hated my guts. Not without good reason, either. I was your standard issue angsty teenager who left her room a mess. Still, I couldn’t get past that brooding stare of the real-life Eleanor as she glared at the unfilled dishwasher, so I changed the name to Elea and moved on with writing the book.
ROWAN
This character was originally named Asher, but a friend was planning on writing a book someday with a main character who had a similar name, so she asked me to change it up. I swapped out one tree for another and Rowan was born.
Rowan as a character is inspired by all the golden age of radio plays I listened to growing up in the 1980’s. You could get them on cassette, and I ate them up. I’m talking the Shadow and all sort of Westerns, that kind of thing. What I loved about those stories was that the hero was a good guy: honest, open, true and still incredibly attractive. I can’t get behind the anti-hero. The golden age of radio simply ruined it for me. I like a noble dude and that’s that.
DUNIA
Now, the back cover copy for Cherished talks about Shujaa as the big bad, but the real nasty in the story is Dunia, Rowan’s Mother. Ironically, she’s also inspired by Eleanor of Aquitaine. There’s a not-so-flattering portrayal of her in the play-turned-film The Lion in Winter. Katherine Hepburn plays Eleanor and damn, she’s ruthless in pursuit of power and revenge.

On a side note, I think the real Eleanor of Aquitaine probably was somewhere Elea and Dunia, but it was an interesting exercise to tease apart both sides of the woman. With Elea, there was a sweet girl who got thrust into being a world player due to the fact that she inherited one of the most important tracts of land in medieval times. With Dunia, there was a ruthless woman who would do anything to maintain power and exact revenge. We’re all a study in contrasts, aren’t we?

Thank you so much for the opportunity to answer this thoughtful question; I certainly enjoyed the journey of writing my response. If you think of more queries, please know that I'm always up for reader interaction, and more information on how to contact me is listed below.

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Don't miss the previous titles in the Beholder series!
 
(covers link to Goodreads)

      

***Release Special***
Monster House Books is celebrating the launch of the ebook version of Cherished! As a result, the first two books in the series are specially priced for a limited time!



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**About the Author**
Christina Bauer knows how to tell stories about kick-ass women. In her best selling Angelbound series, the heroine is a part-demon girl who loves to fight in Purgatory’s Arena and falls in love with a part-angel prince. This young adult best seller has driven more than 500,000 ebook downloads and 9,000 reviews on Goodreads and retailers.

Bauer has also told the story of the Women’s March on Washington by leading PR efforts for the Massachusetts Chapter. Her pre-event press release—the only one sent out on a major wire service—resulted in more than 19,000 global impressions and redistribution by over 350 different media entities including the Associated Press.

Christina graduated from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School with BA’s in English along with Television, Radio, and Film Production. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband, son, and semi-insane golden retriever, Ruby.

Be the first to know about new releases from Christina by signing up for her newsletter.

Stay connected with Christina Bauer
      

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***The Giveaway***

Giveaway is Open Internationally

Blog Tour Organized by

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