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About the Author
Dead fingers curled around an ancient crypt and a love of Celtic mythology were the two inspirations behind Cheryse Durrant's The Blood She Betrayed, the first novel in her young adult/new adult Heart Hunters series. Durrant grew up on an Australian farm where she chatted to scrub faeries and an imaginary superhero. She wrote her first story on her aunt's bedroom wall when she was five, but it did not attract literary acclaim. She worked as a journalist for 15 years before trading her soul for fiction. The coffee/chocolate/strawberry addict now lives on the eastern Australian coast where she teaches writing through Creative Dragons and is an avid WriteFest fan.
A Fascination of Aliens and Dark Creatures
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Growing up in the dusty, parched heartlands of Australia never stunted my love of speculative fiction, even though my parents often thought I’d been swapped at birth.
From my youngest childhood years, I harboured a strong fascination for magic and fairytales, aliens and spaceships – the latter were surely hidden in the milky way galaxy that glowed like a fluorescent spider web in my outback sky at night.
The greatest spec fic influences of my youth were fuzzy BBC episodes of Blake’s 7 and Dr Who, that immortal, ever-regenerating icon celebrating his 50th anniversary this weekend.
For me, this TV series always stirred within me both fear and fascination.
I was fascinated by Tom Baker’s long scarf, rogue hair and that never-ending bag of jelly babies.
I was terrified by the cybermen and cybermats, ice warriors and Robots of Death, those and many others, all hell-bent on destroying the universe.
To protect myself, I’d sleep with a sheet thrown over my head, much to my mother’s disgust. “Don’t you realise those aliens on TV are make-believe?” she’d ask.
“They don’t scare me, Mum. I’m only worried about the real ones!”
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For dark demons and alien creatures had already taken lodgings inside my mind and their stories soon tumbled out onto scraps of paper, for anyone to read.
By the time I was a teenager, I was writing full-length fantasy and sci fi novels – similar to what I read but with strong female heroines and Australian settings.
I suppose my Shahkara heroine and The Blood She Betrayed had always been waiting, dormant, inside me, waiting for a chance to be unleashed.
I just needed time – and the courage to believe I could write a story as powerful as this.
Fortunately, growing up in the Aussie bush taught me many lessons – about the power and honesty of character, the fear of the unknown and the magic of setting – all ingredients that I’ve hopefully translated into my action-packed Heart Hunters novels.
My family, to this day, struggle to understand my genre.
My parents and grandparents were always far more at home with saddles and stockyards than aliens and spaceships.
Even my nickname, Pint-pot, is a sentimental mutation of the Aussie word, quart-pot, the tiny billy-type jug that stockmen took when them while droving or mustering.
But even in Australia, Pint-pots can write about dragons and demons – and maybe bring magic to new readers, just as older writers like John Christopher and Terry Nation gave that magic to me.
Long live the doctor, and all the world’s spec fic icons – they bring joy and magic to our hearts.
Her Book
Publisher: Clan Destine Press
Paperback Released: October 12th, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9875538-6-7
eBook Release: Coming soon (within the next week)
ISBN: 978-0-9872717-9-2
To save her kingdom, she must betray her blood…
Thrust into the technology-driven Earthlands via magical mists, Shahkara is forced to rely on Max McCalden to help find the ancient Elnara death lantern, her homeworld’s last chance of survival against the heart-devouring Taloners.
Max has his own problems – a manipulative billionaire father, a murdered brother – but nothing prepares him for this fugitive warrior’s razor-sharp talons and magical abilities.
Shahkara’s half-Taloner blood demands what she knows she can’t have – a human heart. She longs for love, but as deadly enemies attack at every turn, will her lust for Max destroy them both? Or will she find the strength to free both worlds from a threat more horrific than the demons that share her blood?
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eBook link: To download the first 12 chapters FOR FREE, go to http://www.clandestinepress.com.au/content/blood-she-betrayed-launch-giveaway
Other Buy Links
Giveaway
3 kindle copies of The Blood She Betrayed - International
And an autographed paperback to one lucky Australian winner.
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