Mysteries of a Writer's Mind: Welcome M. Pax!

I'm so stoked to have M. Pax here today talking about what inspired her Rifters series. I'm always fascinated by how authors get their ideas. Check this out...

Mysteries of Oregon

Oregon is filled with mysterious landscapes. They make me wonder and spark my imagination.

What if the whole universe was on this tree?

 

What if a different world existed beyond the mist?

 

What if this mushroom grew teeth and sucked the life force out of my toes?

 

 

If the bubbles are breath, what lives under the lake?

 

Watch this video

 

What if the lava were alive?

 

 

That last question inspired a swarm of beasts in my imagination ten years ago. They made their way into The Initiate, Rifters Book 2 as the starring monster.

As fantastic as my stories can get, they’re based on real things and places around me. Oregon never fails to disappoint me. To me, it’s the most awesome place in the galaxy.

 

The Initate is now out! It picks up exactly where The Rifters left off. More monsters. More time travelers. More steampunk. More adventure.

 

A junction erupts between the worlds in Settler, Oregon, a rift from which horrors attack our world. The Rifters defend us.

To trust unquestioningly is the first lesson Daelin Long must learn as the newest Initiate of the Rifters.

Her first day is a disaster. She stands on a deserted street in a town smaller than a city district, courting killer rocks from another world with her ancestor from the Revolutionary War. Normal no longer exists.

While she struggles, Earl Blacke grapples with atoning for his past ill deeds, running far and fast from Settler, Oregon. The Shaman of the Desert promises him redemption, and an old mine puts the possibility of a gold strike in his grasp. His luck has changed for the better, but he can’t have both.

Available from: Amazon / iTunes / B&N / Googleplay / Smashwords / Other

 

What Inspires You?

 

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M. Pax is author of the space adventure series The Backworlds, the urban fantasy series The Rifters, plus other novels and short stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird beckons  to her, and she blames Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain Observatory in the summers as a star guide, has a cat with a crush on Mr. Spock, and is slightly obsessed with Jane Austen. Learn more at mpaxauthor.com.

 

Ghost Head Hunter of The Rifters

I'm so happy to have M. Pax as my guest today. Mary has two new books coming from a new series, but today she's talking about The Rifters - and ghosties! And you know how I love my ghosties! SQUEEEE! *clamps hand over mouth* Oops, sorry. That just slipped out. But you're going to love this.

And hereeeeee's Mary!

George “Haw Shot” Hawley

Strange creatures, the stranger the better, fascinate me. I loved Relic for that reason and I loved the interesting creatures Cheri Reich dreamed up for Reborn. Beasts can make a world come alive for me, i.e., Dragon Riders of Pern.

Gwen writes about great ghosts with pasts getting them stuck in the present... well, in haunting the present.

George “Haw Shot” Hawley is a ghost with a twist. I based him slightly on fact and slightly on fiction. One of the main characters in The Rifters was a real outlaw. So I did a lot of research and ran across this guy: C.B. Hawley (18??-1882) - An outlaw, Hawley confessed to stage robbery in 1882 near Globe, Arizona and was lynched. Index of American Outlaws

Hanging was a common sentence in the old days, whether by proper sentence or mob. It also wasn’t uncommon for the head to come off during hanging. “Black Jack” Tom Ketchum was the last man to hang in America in 1901, because hangings often went wrong. Tom ended up in three pieces. more info

Sounds like a reason to be a ghost with a thirst for vengeance to me. The C in CB stood for Charles. I already had a Charles old west outlaw, so I renamed him George and moved him to Nevada.

George uses my other outlaw to murder townspeople and steal their heads. The heads give him more powers, because he’s not a normal ghost. He’s possessed by another creature from the rift using him for its nefarious purposes.

 

 

Rifters blurb:

The Gold Rush trickles to a fool’s quest and a string of stagecoach heists. In 1888, Earl Blacke decides to make a new start and become a better man. He escapes into the mountains, heading north. In the wilds of Oregon, a rift inside an ancient volcano opens and sends him into the future, into the present day. It also shaves forty years off his age, forty years to live over again and atone for what he’s done.

Starting over is hard to do. In current day New York, Daelin Long’s dream job at a publishing house goes the way of the dinosaurs her sister chases. With no money and nowhere else to go, Daelin accepts the librarian position in her sister’s dinky town in the middle of Oregon. Nestled inside ancient volcanic peaks, the town of Settler holds onto many secrets. Residents roam the streets with weirdly fashioned devices, and odd lights pulse in the night skies. People whisper of a phantom outlaw and start dying, murdered and missing their heads. On top of it all, Daelin’s sister is missing, and Daelin doesn’t know who to trust.

Earl knows more than he’s saying. He shares a notorious history with the phantom, one he’ll see remains buried. Keeping Daelin’s sister’s secrets is his only chance at redemption, and the only way to keep this world safe.

 

Try Rifters for free!

Download from: Amazon / AmazonUK / B&N / Smashwords /Googleplay / iTunes / Other

 

Take advantage of the preorder special on book 2, The Initiate. Only 99 cents via preorder from Amazon, iTunes, B&N, and Googleplay. Preorder

 

 

 

 

Author Bio:

 

Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird beckons to her, and she blames Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain Observatory in the summers, and one of her cats has a crush on Mr. Spock. You can find out more by visiting her website: mpaxauthor.com