Author Saturday Spotlight: 'Nathan Burgoine #Interview #Giveaway

Ahhh it's my favorite day of the week. Not just because it's Saturday and I was able to sleep late and had coffee waiting for me in my new coffee pot but because it's Author Saturday Spotlight! I'm super excited about the author here today. He's never been on Diverse Reader so it's thrilling to have a new face here. But, he's not new to the genre and we're going to talk about his work and about his Triad Blood series. There's an interview and giveaway so stick around!

During the full moon the vampires gather to renew their bonds. It takes three, and those in groups have total power over those who are alone. Luc, alone since he was created, takes the full moon as a rare freedom. Hunting for blood that will satiate him for the month ahead, Luc finds instead a rival. Anders, a demon just as alone, with the same plan.

They choose the same prey: a handsome young man resistant to their supernatural charms. Neither a vampire’s glamour nor demon’s passion working, it becomes clear their only chance of success lies in the unthinkable: working together.

As Luc tastes blood and Anders devours soul, they gain a chance at something neither expected.

Freedom.

The law of three is unbroken: three vampires form a coterie, three demons make a pack, and three wizards are a coven. That is how it has always been, and how it was always to be.

But Luc, Anders, and Curtis—vampire, demon, and wizard—have cheated tradition. Their bond is not coterie, pack, or coven, but something else. Thrust into the supernatural politics ruling Ottawa from behind the shadows, they face Renard, a powerful vampire who harbors deadly secrets of his own and wishes to end their threat. The enemy they know conjures fire and death at every turn. The enemies they don’t know are worse.

Blood, soul, and magic gave them freedom. Now they need to survive it.

The law of three is everything: three vampires for a coterie, three demons for a pack, and three wizards for a coven. Those alone or in pairs are vulnerable to the rest. Luc, Anders, and Curtis—vampire, demon, and wizard—sidestepped tradition by binding themselves together.

When something starts brutally killing demons in Ottawa, the three find themselves once again moving among the powers who rule the city from the shadows—this time working with them to try to stop the killings before chaos and blood rule the streets.

Hunting a killer who seems to leave no trace behind, the triad are forced to work with allies they don’t dare trust, powers they barely understand, and for the good of those they already know to be corrupt.

They have the power of blood, soul, and magic. But they have to survive to keep it.

Interview

Thank you so much for being here today! I’m so excited to pick your brain a bit. You have a new book of your new series and I want to talk about that today. So, let’s get started.

There’s a saying- “It happens in threes.” Your book truly stands by that. Can you explain it to us? (I know but for those who don’t do tell.)

The Triad series was born from a brief moment of wondering when I was re-reading Dracula before an anthology call for a gay erotic vampire story. Dracula’s three brides show up for a little bit, and I remember thinking, “why are there three?” It’s never really explained. It stuck in my head, and I decided it would be interesting if all the major supernatural powers-that-be had to form groups of three (or more) to be considered autonomous. It evolved from there, and that first story I wrote was “Three.” “Three” introduced Luc, my French Canadian vampire when he was alone, and thus quite vulnerable to all the other vampires (not to mention demons and wizards) out here. Luc ends up forming a bond with Curtis (a wizard) and Anders (a demon), which satisfies the “law of three” that my supernatural world has, but they still broke with tradition: they formed a group that isn’t three-of-a-kind. That leads to all the problems that happen in Triad Blood, the first book, where they’re having to defend their unique group against those who’d rather them not exist, but who don’t have a choice but to respect that they are, indeed, a group.

Three wizards make a coven, three vampires make a coterie, three demons make a pack—but Luc, Curtis, and Anders have made something unique, and it turns out to be more powerful than anyone is comfortable with.

Also, it just adds so much fun to throw three in to the mix. They’re very different personalities, and I get to explore how they interact with each other as well as the whole, and the slow-bloom of their open and evolving relationship has been a joy to write.

Triad Blood is currently two books strong with a 0.5 before book one and two. Are there plans for more? Dare I say…Trilogy?

I absolutely have plans for a third book, Triad Magic, to follow Triad Blood and Triad Soul. Each book stands alone, but I did have an arching secondary plot I was conscious of from the first book. And of course if there are anthology calls that suit the guys, I’ll write more short stories (my first love is and always will be short fiction, and their first four appearances were in various anthologies, though you don’t need to read the shorts to get the novels).

After that? I don’t know. I think the short fiction will continue, absolutely, and there are a couple of side-characters I could imagine crafting narratives around. It will depend on inspiration.

What is your fascination with paranormal? What has inspired you?

I came into my love of storytelling from two angles. The first was comic books (and the X-Men in particular). Mutants were such an easy thing for a young queer kid to identify with: born to “normal” people, but different, and hated and feared for the difference? It’s a pretty clear allegory. In fact, my first novel, Light, was very much a love-letter to all things X-Men. When you’re a queer kid, you don’t really “see” yourself in most fiction out there, so the X-Men were huge to me.

My other love, when I first started working at the bookstore mumble-mumble years ago, was urban fantasies. Paranormal novels where it was our world, only magic, or psychic, or in some way “other”? This felt like a setting ripe for the queer identity again, but this time, even though I was reading as many of them as I could get my hands on, the mainstream titles really fell short. I mean, you had characters who were different, feared by those without their abilities, or monsters who had to keep parts of themselves hidden, and otherwise it was our world, but…everyone was pretty much straight. The books I read were really, really guilty of “bury your gays,” if they bothered to include any queer characters at all, and I got frustrated. After reading yet another novel where the only gay character (a werewolf) was killed, I actually walked away from the genre for a good long while, not reading it at all. When I started writing, I realized I could write the stories I’d wished I’d been reading, and that’s been where I’ve at pretty much since. So I guess the inspiration came from what felt like a missing piece. 

These days? I know where to look, and I know that the problem is rooted far more in the mainstream than the indies. I walked away from the series that didn’t include people like me, and went to the ones that did. It’s been great.

What paranormal creature would you want to be and with what power (s)?

Oh, that’s dangerous. I try very hard to be as good a person as I can, but I have a vengeance streak a mile wide (it’s not a good trait), so any power at all would likely be a truly bad idea for me. But that said, I’d love to have magic, so I’ll say wizard. I just don’t lay odds on how long I’d be allowed to wear a white hat. Curtis’s magic comes with a gift for easily understanding languages and learning languages, and I would love that. 

If the sky’s the limit, though, I’d also love telekinesis, which I gave Kieran in my first novel. But again, I don’t think it would be very long before I’d be mentally tying shoelaces together when people in line are being rude to cashiers.

Do you see this book series in your head play out like Game of Thrones or True Blood? If so, who would you like to see playing your beloved characters?

Like a lot of authors, I did pick “stand ins” for the characters when I started writing them, so I could keep a mental image of each. Curtis was modeled after an actor, Martin Rivas, though specifically when he was younger; Luc I pictured as a model named Roger Morin, though since “Three” was released as an e-short it has a cover model on it now that I’ve “updated” my mental image to represented Luc; Anders I pictured as Henry Cavil (but only when he was doing the scruffy oil rig scene in Man of Steel). Unlike Superman, Anders doesn’t shave.

As much as I’d love to see them on the small screen, I know that’s a pipe dream. But dreams are good.

Do you attend and conventions usually, or will you be? If so which ones? If no, what conventions would you like to?

I do! Most years, I attend The Saints & Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans (I missed it this year, alas) and Naked Heart in Toronto, both of which are queer specific literary events. I also generally attend Can*Con and Romancing the Capital in Ottawa; Can*Con is a spec-fic/sci-fi convention, and RtC is romance-specific, but neither of those is specifically queer. It’s a little like having whiplash moving among those four conferences, as they’re all very different from each other, but they’re all awesome in different ways. And next year, I’m going to be a part of the Bold Strokes UK event in England, which I’m very chuffed to be doing. I’m from England originally, and it’s nice to visit there from time to time.

I would love to attend one of the larger queer romance conventions, but given the political climate in the US right now, I sort of backed off on any plans to cross the border. The Triad books aren’t specifically romance, they’re urban fantasy/paranormal, but I’ve written a few specifically romance novellas and would really love to enjoy a specifically queer-romance space.

Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or any of your future projects?

I have two projects under a contractual deadline with Bold Strokes Books right now: one is a YA, which is a first for me and has me sweating bullets. It’s called Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks and is about a gay high schooler about to graduate and start his adult life who develops a bit of a teleportation problem, which throws his entire life trajectory off course. The other is my first collection, Of Echoes Born, which is a complete joy to be working on. I love short fiction, and I’ve gathered some favorites, but I’ve also been writing madly to make sure there are many new tales included in the collection.

In the pipeline is a holiday romance novella from Ninestar Press, “Homemade Holidays,” which is my first queer holiday romance. It revisits a group year after year, over the course of fifteen Christmas seasons, and is heavily about the chosen family queer experience. It’s also got a sweet romance that weaves throughout, and I’m just really stoked to have a holiday story to offer.

How can your readers follow you? Twitter, Facebook, Website?

On Twitter, I’m @NathanBurgoine. On Facebook, I’m www.facebook.com/apostrophen, and my blog is apostrophen.wordpress.com.

Fast Fire Questions:

Summer or winter?

Winter (Assuming it’s still sunny).

Coffee or tea?

All the tea!

Dog or cat?

Cats, except for my dog.

Beer or wine?

Ice wine.

Favorite color?

Anything earth-toned.

Favorite holiday?
I don’t really have one, though I like Samhain.

Favorite smell?

The approach of rain.

Star Wars or Star Trek?

One only has to consider Janeway to be Trek, all the way!

Okay, ‘Nathan, thank you so very much for being here today.

Thank you for having me!

Check out all 'Nathan's work on Amazon

Giveaway

'Nathan is happy to offer up e-book copies of Triad Blood, Triad Soul, and the short story “Three” that started it all. He has them all in epub format, but they can get them in kindle format if that’s what the winner needs. 

Contest ends July 7th! 

Thank you to 'Nathan for being here today! 

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