FALL in Love With Author Christie Meierz!

Hi GLIAS friends! I’m so happy to introduce you today to Christie Meierz. Christie is a “new-to-me” author, but she writes sci fi romance and space opera (!) and I’m dying to get my hands on her book  The Fall. Hope you’ll all give her a huge Get Lost in a Story welcome.

A LITTLE ABOUT CHRISTIE

Award-winning writer Christie Meierz writes space opera and science fiction romance set in a civilization of empaths on the edge of a dystopic Earth empire. Her published works include her bestselling debut novel, The Marann, and its sequel, Daughters of Suralia, and two prequel short stories published in Into Tolari Space ~ The First Contact Stories.

Christie has spent a night and/or eaten a meal in all 50 U.S. states, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Currently, she lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her mathematician husband and an assortment of stuffies. When she’s not writing, she writes about writing on her blog, Meierz Musings, Facebook, and her Facebook Author Page, where she welcomes comments, friend requests, and followers.

THE STORY BLURB

As bitter enemies scheme against each other with the fate of Tolar in the balance, Laura Howard, made a powerful empath by the Jorann's gift, loses everything—again. Now she must recover and find her place, and herself, while fighting against the ghosts of her past and the expectations of everyone around her.

Loss after tragic loss shakes the Paran to his very soul. With his allies vying for control of the planet and his own province caught in the middle, he must risk his life as well as that of the woman he loves to take the one action he never thought he would: fight for leadership of the ruling caste.

EXCERPT FROM THE FALL

“What else did you see in Laryth?”

“My father’s ears. That little crease he has, here,” she placed a finger where it would be on her own ear, “is a family trait. But other than that, he resembles you.”

“You told me you wanted a son who resembled me.”

“Did I?”

He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees. What smoldered in his dark eyes pulsed through him and into her. “You did.”

She looked at her hands, struggling to catch her breath. “I do not understand how I could be so wanton, so quickly. I was… I lost John, it was too soon.”

He moved from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. “You had lost everyone,” he said in a soft voice. “Marianne was your friend, and the Sural protected and sheltered you, but you had no one else when I met you. You were lonely.” He laid one hand along her face. “I knew very quickly I had met my heart’s match. It did not take you long to reach the same conclusion.”

“Love at first sight,” she whispered.

“When you remember more, and you are yourself again—”

Laura stopped breathing. “What?” She swatted his hand away from her face.

“Beloved?” He straightened, with brows furled.

She gasped a breath, and another, her stomach twisting as if she’d been punched. Her father’s voice echoed off the walls of his study. When the gene therapy starts to work. When you are smart. When you are a proper Johnson.

When you are yourself.

She fixed the Paran with a glare. “You do not want me.”

“You know I do. You are far too sensitive not to see it.”

“No, you want the Laura you once had. Not me, not as I am now. Is everyone else waiting for me to be myself again?”

“Beloved—”

“Are they? Who in this place cares about me?” She thumped her chest with one hand. “My family thinks I am dead. No one here wants me as I am. I have nothing. Nothing!” She rolled onto her side, her back to the Paran.

“My heart is yours,” he whispered. His fingers touched her arm. The confusion coursing through him magnified.

She shook him off. “Your heart belongs to a woman who looked like me, but she died. There is only me now, and you do not want me. Go. Get out.”

Purchase The Fall 

Barnes & Noble
Amazon

A FUN Q&A WITH CHRISTIE

LIZ: How often do you get lost in a story?

CHRISTIE: Every time I stick my nose in a book! I disappear when I’m reading—which is about a book or so a week. I think it’s Stephen King who says that if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. I make sure I spend time reading good books on a regular basis.

LIZ: What’s the first book you remember reading? 

CHRISTIE: Oh no, are you ready for this? Robert the Rose Horse, by Joan Heilbroner, illustrated by P.D. Eastman. I loved that book so much, I wore it out by the time I was five years old, and my parents had to buy me another.

LIZ: What’s your favorite “love” word?

CHRISTIE: “beloved”

LIZ: What are the next five books on your ‘to be read’ pile?

CHRISTIE:

Bound by Flames, by Jeaniene Frost

The Truth of Valor, by Tanya Huff

The Secrets of Jin-shei, by Alma Alexander

Shards of Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Moon Called, by Patricia Briggs

LIZ: What’s your favorite fairy tale?

CHRISTIE: Cinderella, because she won the handsome prince, even though no one appreciated her.

LIZ: What’s your favorite cartoon character?

CHRISTIE: Actually, I’m a big fan of Daffy Duck, because he’s always himself, and he’s not afraid to let you know it.

LIZ: Cast your book using fairy tale or cartoon characters.

CHRISTIE: Oh, that’s just… wrong, LOL.

Laura, played by Wilma Flintstone

The Paran, played by Kocoum (from Pocahontas)

The Monral, played by Namontack (from Pocahontas)

Sharana, played by Nakoma (from Pocahontas)

Farric, played by Li Shang (from Mulan)

Lord Albert St. John Rembrandt, played by John Smith (from Pocahontas)

LIZ: That is awesome—best answer to this question I’ve ever gotten, Christie.  Wilma Flintstone—a kick butt cave lady if ever there was one!

LIZ: Write us a haiku about your book or one of your characters!

CHRISTIE:

One dark night I fell

Losing everything at once

Then my love found me

(by Laura Johnson Howard)

LIZ: Hardly anyone ever writes me a haiku. This was beautiful, I loved it.

LIZ: What one thing about your hero drives his heroine crazy? And what one thing about your heroine drives her hero nuts?

CHRISTIE:

1) His desire for her to be what she was before.

2) Her belief that she’s stupid.

LIZ: Name three things that are, at this moment, in your heroine’s purse, weapons belt or bag.

CHRISTIE: The love letter the hero wrote to her, a sketchbook, and a pencil.

LIZ: What sound or noise do you love?

CHRISTIE: Are you kidding? I had four sons. My favorite sound is silence. :-D

LIZ: Bahahaha!

LIZ: If you were given a chance to travel to the past, where would you go and specifically why?

CHRISTIE: I would go back and find out what the ancient Egyptians were really like, and see the pyramids in all their pristine glory.

LIZ: What will always make you smile, even on a bad day?

CHRISTIE: My husband saying he loves me.

LIZ: What’s your favorite movie of all time?

CHRISTIE: The Princess Bride

LIZ: Who’s your favorite villain?

CHRISTIE: The Master, from Doctor Who, especially
the incarnations played by Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley. Ohhh so sexy!

 
LIZ: What is your biggest vice?

CHRISTIE: Chocolate.

LIZ: What’s your favorite kid joke?

CHRISTIE:

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Interrupting cow.

Interrupting c—MOO!

LIZ: What do you hope for the future of romance publishing?

CHRISTIE: I hope that publishers put out more SF romance, and I hope that more authors will write really good SF romance.

LIZ HAS GOTTA ASK: What’s the most personal thing you’ve ever put in one of your books?

CHRISTIE: How I fell in love with my husband… at a conference… viewing the art show. That’s exactly how Laura Howard meets and falls in love with Kazryth (soon to become the Paran) in Daughters of Suralia.

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION YOU’D LIKE TO ASK YOUR FANS?

Whose story do you want to see next?

CONTACT CHRISTIE

Website: www.christiemeierz.com 

Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/christiemeierz
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tolarispace
Twitter: http://twitter.com/christiemeierz
Christie's Blog: http://christiemeierz.blogspot.com

WHAT COMING UP NEXT FROM CHRISTIE:

The Fall, coming Mar 2, 2015.

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PREVIOUS RELEASES:

A complete list of books is on my website

The Marann (Amazon) (B&N) (winner, 2013 PRISM Award for Futuristic Romance)

The Marann recounts one woman’s journey through loneliness, shattering revelations, and attempted assassination on a world where everyone can read her emotions.

Marianne Woolsey is a high school Spanish teacher in rural Iowa, when Earth Central Command decides her linguistic talents would be better exercised if she spent 26 years teaching the daughter and heir of an alien ruler on a planet 24 light years from Earth. Now she’s alone on a planet of aliens so humanlike that she has to keep telling herself her student’s noble father is just her boss.

Handsome—and deadly—the Sural has ruled his province and led his planet far longer than he can admit to his daughter’s human tutor. He hides much more from the space-faring races of the Trade Alliance than he is willing to reveal. What he doesn’t want Central Command to know, he has to conceal from Marianne, but Marianne is concealing her own secrets from him—and as an empath, he knows it.

This first novel in the Tales of Tolari Space series explores what could happen when you put an unsuspecting human on a planet full of empaths.

Daughters of Suralia (Amazon) (B&N)

Three women, two planets, and a whale.

For Marianne Woolsey, linguist and tutor, being empathically bonded to the leader of the Tolari turns out to be a bed of roses—complete with thorns. Especially thorns.

With diplomatic relations severed and humans kicked out of Tolari space, the Earth Fleet ship Alexander is gone… for now… but Earth Central Command hasn’t given up trying to get Marianne back. As she struggles with surprises, nightmares, and a bond-partner who can’t be tamed, she just wants to figure out where she fits in a society that isn’t quite human.

Laura Howard, the Admiral’s widow, only desires to be left in peace to gather the fragments of a shattered heart, but Central Command has plans for her, too.

Meanwhile, the Sural’s apothecary is a serene and gifted healer who knows what—and who—she wants. Circumstances have conspired to deny her the man she’s always loved, but in the pursuit of his heart, she has an unexpected ally—in the depths of Tolar’s oceans.