If The Light Escapes by Brenda Marie Smith

Please welcome Brenda Marie Smith author of If The Light Escapes

One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.

If The Light Escapes

by Brenda Marie Smith

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GENRE: Sci-fi (post-apocalyptic)

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INTERVIEW:

Have you ever had an imaginary friend?
When I was little, I had an imaginary friend named Piggy Dodson (I’d heard the name Peggy on TV and misunderstood it, lol). Piggy had a friend named Juicy (I think I got that from Juicy Fruit gum). I was three or four when I dressed up in a princess dress from a box and told my dad to take me to a party at Piggy Dodson’s house. My dad drove me around and let me point the way. He pulled into a driveway and said he would walk me in, but I said, “I think Juicy is bringing some big mean boys, and I don’t want to go.”

Do you have any phobias?
Yes, fear of heights. It’s something I developed in middle age when I started having vertigo on highway flyovers. Now I will drive twenty miles out of the way to avoid flyovers. I’m also allergic to racists.

Do you listen to music when you’re writing?
Sometimes I do. For my first novel, Something Radiates, I did it almost constantly. Nirvana Unplugged for the scariest scenes, Cat Stephens for the sad scenes, Van Morrison and Doug Kershaw for the love scenes, Moody Blues for the action. I haven’t listened to it as much for my two apocalyptic stories, but I always have news and political podcasts on in the background. They seem to set a good apocalyptic tone. Funny/not funny.

Do you ever read your stories out loud?
Yes. I think it’s a great way to catch bits of tangled text and errors. It helps me make sure the flow is working. I read my first novel out loud twice through. Now I only read aloud for passages that seem off, and it helps me fix them.

Tell us about your main character and who inspired him/her.
Keno Simms is an eighteen-year-old science geek—a woke, casual-cussing Austin, Texas teen—who suddenly finds himself in an apocalypse with no power, cars, phones, or running water. He has to spend his days farming his neighborhood, chopping firewood, and scrounging for water. He is crazy in love with Alma, and he’s mourning the death of his sister from an accident he blames on himself. He’s stalwart and loyal to his grandmother, mother, uncle, and cousins, but his grandpa causes nothing but trouble. Adults around Keno are broken, and he takes on more responsibility than he’s capable of handling until he can no longer hold it together. When he gets Alma pregnant, he vows to keep her alive if he has to die to do it. But militant marauders and Nature itself seem to be conspiring against him. He’s a tender-hearted boy coming of age in an apocalypse, forced into manhood before his time.
My husband and I have five sons between us, and I raised teen boys for seventeen years straight. I never knew I had a teenage boy living inside me until I started writing this book. Keno came spewing out of me with so much to say that I couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with him. I wrote a 120,000-word first draft in 27 days. Then I spent a year or two revising and trimming the story to 83,000 words. Keno isn’t based on any particular boy, but on what I know of boys from raising five of them and also having three brothers. They inspire me. Their lives are hard, yet they soldier on.

BLURB:

A standalone sequel to IF DARKNESS TAKES US

A solar electromagnetic pulse fried the U.S. grid fourteen months ago. Everything’s gone: power, cars, running water, communications, all governing control and help—gone. Now northern lights have started in Texas—3,000 miles farther south than where they belong. The universe won’t stop screwing with eighteen-year-old Keno Simms.

All that’s left for Keno, his family and neighbors is farming their Austin subdivision, trying to eke out a living on poor soil in the scorching heat. Keno’s still reeling from the the death of his pregnant sister. His beloved Nana is ill, Grandpa’s always brandishing weapons, and water is far too scarce. Desperate thieves are hemming them in, yet he can’t convince his uncle and other adults to take action against the threat.

Keno’s one solace is his love for Alma, who has her own secret sorrows. When he gets her pregnant, he vows to keep her alive no matter what. Yet armed marauders and nature itself collude against him at every turn, forcing him to make choices that rip at his conscience. If he can’t protect Alma and their unborn child, it will be the end of Keno’s world.

IF THE LIGHT ESCAPES is post-apocalyptic science fiction set in a near-future reality, a coming-of-age story told in the voice of a heroic teen who’s forced into manhood too soon.

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EXCERPT:

OPENING LINES:

Bright green lights stream and pulse across the northern sky all night now, growing from thin and wispy to bold and fat, expanding, contracting, sending out bands of yellow streamers like they’re partying on ecstasy at some cosmic rave. The lights are pretty, and they’re hypnotic, and they creep me out to the core.

Northern lights every night for two solid weeks in Texas. Halfway to the equator from where they belong. They’re supposed to be a phenomenon tied to the magnetic poles—it’s a scientific fact.

Nothing is right about this. The only explanation I can think of is that the north and south poles are shifting. I don’t know what that means for the planet and the future of its creatures. We don’t have TVs or talking-head scientists to tell us…

The universe just won’t stop f**king with us.

Today, I’m hoeing corn in our front yard, sweat stinging my eyes. It’s blistering hot out here—early December in what used to be high-tech Austin, until the … sun zapped us with an electromagnetic pulse and took our power, our cars, the damned running water. It stopped pretty much everything—everything modern, that is.

It’s been fourteen months, and all the front yards in our subdivision are mini-cornfields now. We grow beans and veggies in the backyards. It’s a desperate attempt to keep us alive when our food stockpiles run out. Don’t know if it will work, but I’m doing my damnedest to make sure it does.

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2018-10-18_Brenda Marie Smith

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Brenda Marie Smith lived off the grid for many years in a farming collective where her sons were delivered by midwives. She’s been a community activist, managed student housing co-ops, produced concerts to raise money for causes, done massive quantities of bookkeeping, and raised a small herd of teenage boys.

Brenda is attracted to stories where everyday characters transcend their own limitations to find their inner heroism. She and her husband reside in a grid-connected, solar-powered home in South Austin, Texas. They have more grown kids and grandkids than they can count.

Her first novel, Something Radiates, is a paranormal romantic thriller; If Darkness Takes Us and its sequel, If the Light Escapes, are post-apocalyptic science fiction.

Social Media:

Website: https://brendamariesmith.com/

Twitter: @bsmithnovelist

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrendaMarieSmithAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brenda_marie_smith/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJlLSnORIyoaygvZ1j49ZKw

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52206957-if-darkness-takes-us

Buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN/

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/if-darkness-takes-us-brenda-marie-smith/1133374442?ean=9781970137835

BookPeople Austin: https://www.bookpeople.com/book/9781970137835

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3848/