Saturday, December 15, 2012

Interview with Carol Phipps

Interview between Keira Kroft and Carol Marrs Phipps

Welcome to Keira’s Corner, where there is always chocolate, and lots and lots of coffee.

Keira: You have a series just out entitled Heart of the Staff. What is that about?

The Heart of the Staff series is an epic fantasy saga which spans four generations of a wizarding family. Life in the pastoral world of niarg becomes a desperate struggle with evil as liberty, privacy and fundamental human dignity become forbidden.

Keira: What do you wear, to write?
The most comfortable things I can find at the time.

Keira: Is writing your only talent?
No, but writing is what I love.

Keira: Where in the Hell did you find time to write?
It isn’t easy and sometimes it comes at the expense of other (far less interesting and imaginative) things.

Keira: Why are you a writer?
I write because I have all these ‘people’ and stories running around in my head screaming to get out…

Keira: If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor?
Tolkein

Keira: How many hours a day do you dedicate to writing? 
I’ve no ‘set’ amount, but I certainly spend more hours writing and promoting than I spend doing anything else most days.

Keira: Do you use a particular writing method?
No

Keira: What time of day, do you write best?
The best times for me to write are mornings and evenings, when things are quiet.

Keira: Do you use one or more pen names?
My pen name is simply made by combining my maiden name and married name so I become Carol Marrs Phipps, rather than Carol Ann Phipps when I write.

Keira: Please share a particular detail about one of characters.
The sorceress Demonica is a very strong and thoroughly evil character who has a driving need for power and control. However, she prefers to orchestrate from the shadows and does so with great deal of finesse and expertise

Keira: What advice would you give to an unpublished writer?
If you want to become a published author then write, write, write, and never give up.

Let’s get personal…

Keira: What is your favorite food?
(Real) mashed potatoes with (Real) county gravy

Keira: What is your guilty Pleasure?
Cheesecake

Keira: What is your favorite Smell?
Coffee

Keira: If you could change one your physical feature? Would you? What would it be?   
Yes, I’d be taller

Keira: What is your favorite color?
Red

Keira: What is your favorite day of the week?
Saturday

Keira: What is your favorite favorite animal?
Cat

Keira: Can you tell us a secret?
I am and always shall be a ‘Trekkie’…

 
Keira: Do you have pets?
Yes, I have four cats, an Amazon parrot, two cockatiels and a raven.

Keira: What do you consider a household staple?
Flour…I bake a lot.

Keira: What are you reading?
In Her name: Empire by Michael R. Hicks

Keira: Can you share your blurb with us?
Yes


Good Sister, Bad Sister

 

Minuet Dewin, eldest daughter of the wizard Razzmorten, practically raised her half sister Leeuh, who was abandoned by her mother. For many years, Minuet is Leeuh's passionate champion. As time passes, Leeuh becomes increasingly hard to defend as she grows determined to be awful at every turn. Whilst undoing her dangerous pranks, Minuet finds herself the target of her hatred and jealousy. And when they fall for the same prince, it looks like war.

Suddenly Leeuh vanishes. She returns years later, compliant and sweet as she always should have been. Minuet is stunned. Should she trust her, or will it be the very death of her?  

The Collector Witch

 
Rose's parents couldn't be telling her everything. Frantic to find out if she really is the daughter of an evil sorceress, she makes a rash departure on a quest to the Chokewoods, a forest of horrors which no one in her kingdom dares to enter.

Her journey is beset with challenges. Her brother Lukus accosts her in the stables and blackmails her into traveling with him. Together they evade royal authorities, survive a cyclone, escape from the castle of her betrothed, and discover that trolls, Elves and cyclopses really do exist as do the perilous visions which they struggle with in the Valley of Illusions.

In the Chokewoods, they narrowly survive a horde of flesh eating devils, the fruit of the choke oak and a village of beasts who take them captive. As the beasts prepare to make a feast of them, a hag crashes through the treetops and rescues them, leading them away into a mad forest of her own where she turns them into thralls and taunts them with threats, telling them that they owe her.

Rose and Lukus soon find that life everywhere has become a desperate struggle with an evil seeking to conquer the world as liberty, privacy and fundamental human dignity become forbidden.

 
Stone Heart

 
A great evil awakens to shatter Niarg's peaceful world.

In her remote island keep off the shores of Head, the fearsome sorceress Demonica at last learns from her unfaithful husband Yann-Ber the whereabouts of the long lost Staff of Power. He crawls before her to tell her that it has turned up in the hands of her granddaughter Spitemorta, the new queen of Goll, hoping to buy his release from her horrid curse of boils. She is ecstatic about the Staff, but will never forgive his faithlessness. He will be released, all right. He will get to die in one year, after the most excruciating boils yet to come.

Demonica leaves for Goll at once. She arranges an accident for the nanny of Spitemorta's son, becomes the new nanny herself and offers to teach Spitemorta how to develop her considerable powers. Spitemorta accepts at once, thereby uniting the two most dangerous sorceresses of the age, determined to conquer the world. Their first step is to find the First Wizard's Stone Heart which would make the Staff the most powerful tool of all time.

The Burgeoning


With both the Great Staff of Power and the Stone Heart in their hands at last, it seems that nothing can stop Demonica and Queen Spitemorta from crushing Niarg and conquering the entire world. King Hebraun of Niarg is dead and not a single Elf is left alive in the Jutwoods.

Spitemorta's husband, King James, tries to ride out of Castle Goll with her Great Staff of Power, but is tortured by Demonica and her and locked away to die in the fleas and fetid straw of the dungeon. He manages to escape across the Great Barrier Mountains, just as the army and people of Niarg are sent out into the countryside by Queen Minuet and Wizard Razzmorten, who flee to the Pitmaster's Kettles in time for Spitemorta and Demonica to effortlessly destroy Castle Niarg. Is this the end of everything?

You can find the first four books of the (Heart of the Staff series) at:
Amazon
Amazon UK



You can find (Carol Marrs Phipps) at:
Website



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