Ruth Vincent is joining us today with her novel Unveiled. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Following the events of Elixir, Mabily “Mab” Jones’ life has returned to normal. Or as normal as life can be for a changeling, who also happens to be a private detective working her first independent case, and dating a half-fey.
But then a summons to return to the fairy world arrives in the form of a knife on her pillow. And in the process of investigating her case, Mab discovers the fairies are stealing joy-producing chemicals directly from the minds of humans in order to manufacture their magic Elixir, the dwindling source of their powers. Worst of all, Mab’s boyfriend Obadiah vows to abstain from Elixir, believing the benefits are not worth the cost in human suffering—even though he knows fairies can’t long survive without their magic.
Mab soon realizes she has no choice but to answer the summons and return to the Vale. But the deeper she is drawn into the machinations of the realm, the more she becomes ensnared by promises she made in the past. And in trying to do the right thing, Mab will face her most devastating betrayal yet, one that threatens everything and everyone she holds most dear.
What’s Ruth’s favorite bit?
RUTH VINCENT
It seems such a cliché to say that the inspiration for your novel came to you in a dream; I’d certainly never thought I was that type of writer. Yet oddly enough for UNVEILED it did. And not just any dream, but a nightmare. This was a strange occurrence because the CHANGELING P.I series is largely a happy, feel-good urban fantasy. Yet darkness lurks in this world – not gory, in-your-face horror, but a more subtle, psychological foreboding – hence the dream.
It wasn’t some monster dogging me in my sleep that night; it was one of my old high school math teachers. Now I was lucky to have had excellent teachers for the most part growing up, teachers to whom I will forever be grateful – but there were few exceptions. This gentleman, who I will leave nameless, was known for his patronizing sneer, his snide remarks upon any wrong answer, and the way his attitude made us all feel smaller, less confident, less capable. I’d always struggled in Mathematics but I’d never felt stupid – not till his class. All these years later, I recall his face and I grimace.
At the time of the nightmare I had recently met a man I thought was “the one.” He turned out to be a complete jerk and broke up with me – thankfully freeing me up to meet the wonderful man to whom I am now married. But at the time I was devastated, not so much angry with him as with myself. I had always taken pride in being a good judge of character, and now I had to admit that I could be utterly wrong about someone’s intentions. I felt like I couldn’t even trust myself.
With these ingredients simmering in my subconscious, I had the following dream: I dreamed I was lying in the arms of the man I’d been seeing, talking as unselfconsciously as if we were old lovers, when suddenly, his face began to melt. This would have been disturbing enough, but as his face shifted before my eyes, it began to take on another form – the cruel, hardened scorn of my old math teacher. What was worse was he began to speak, repeating things I had said to him in moments of intimacy and mocking them now in his cruel, derisive way, torturing me with my own most vulnerable admissions. “Didn’t you realize?” he sneered, “It’s been me this whole time.”
Years later when I found myself tasked with trying to write a truly villainous villain for my series, I realized that having a bad guy who simply tries to kill my heroine would be too easy a way out. A truly terrifying villain’s violence is psychological. That’s more believable to the reader than any apocalyptic scenario. Most of us have (hopefully) never had someone out to murder us, but we have had people who’ve gotten in our heads, maybe even into our beds, who left us feeling smaller, more helpless, who tried to make us ashamed of our selves. If my protagonist, Mabily Jones, could stand up to a villain like that, I’d think her more of a badass than the toughest, gun-toting action heroine in all of urban fantasy.
I’m not sure what it says about me as a writer that the most disturbing aspects of my book are always my “favorite bit.” And yet, while the lighter, more comic relief elements of UNVEILED gave me great joy to write (and there are many of those – it’s mostly a happy, hopeful book, I swear!) it’s the villains that loom large in my memory long after the manuscript is complete. Villains should play on our own deepest fears. Perhaps I’m not afraid of the fight-scene villain, but I do fear the villain who pretends he’s in a love scene, the villain who manipulates trust and shatters consent. Those are the villains that haunt us, like a bad dream that refuses to fade upon waking.
LINKS:
BIO:
Ruth Vincent spent a nomadic childhood moving across the USA, culminating in a hop across the pond to attend Oxford. But wherever she wanders, she remains ensconced within the fairy ring of her imagination. Ruth recently traded the gritty urban fantasy of NYC for the pastoral suburbs of Long Island, where she resides with her roguishly clever husband and a cockatoo who thinks she’s a dog.
She is the author of the CHANGELING P.I urban fantasy series with HarperCollins Voyager Impulse, beginning with her debut novel ELIXIR. The second book in the series, UNVEILED, releases 12/6/16.
Ruth always loves to hear from readers. Get in touch at www.ruthvincent.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RuthVincentAuthor, or on Twitter at @ByRVincent.
For a chance to win a free signed and personalized copy of Ruth Vincent’s latest release, sign up at http://eepurl.com/bMwMrn
