Obscura Burning Book Blitz: guest post & giveaway

Obscura Burning by Suzanne van Rooyen 

December 7th 2012 / Etopia Press

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | OmniLit

The world's going to end in fire…and it's all Kyle's fault.

Kyle Wolfe's world is about to crash and burn. Just weeks away from graduation, a fire kills Kyle's two best friends and leaves him permanently scarred. A fire that Kyle accidentally set the night he cheated on his boyfriend Danny with their female friend, Shira. That same day, a strange new planet, Obscura, appears in the sky. And suddenly Kyle's friends aren't all that dead anymore. 

Each time Kyle goes to sleep, he awakens to two different realities. In one, his boyfriend Danny is still alive, but Shira is dead. In the other, it's Shira who's alive...and now they're friends with benefits. Shifting between realities is slowly killing him, and he's not the only one dying. The world is dying with him. He's pretty sureObscura has something to do with it, but with his parents' marriage imploding and realities shifting each time he closes his eyes, Kyle has problems enough without being the one in charge of saving the world...

GUEST POST:

Obscura Burning: Poems and Lyrics

When I first started writing Obscura Burning I discovered a poem by the Muskogee

writer, Joy Harjo. Sadly, I couldn’t include this poem in the final version of the book due to copyright issues but I can include it here. This is the poem to which Shira and Kyle refer in the story:

“I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce

magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.”

Joy Harjo, Secrets from the Center of the World

Given the apocalyptic theme in the book and Kyle’s penchant for fire I’d like to share a few more quotes from songs and poems, which I found inspirational while writing this story.

“Now I'm all alone

Kept the pain inside

Wanna torch the world

Cause I'm breathin fire”

Cold, End of the World

“You're still alive, she said

Oh, and do I deserve to be

Is that the question

And if so...if so...who answers...who answers...

I, oh, I'm still alive”

Pearl Jam, Alive

“World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed.

Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right.

You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

...It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”

R.E.M, It’s the End of the World as We Know It

And lastly, perhaps the most poignant and chilling of all comes from a bleak but brilliant poem by T. S Eliot:

“This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”

T.S Eliot, The Hollow Men

About the author:

Suzanne van Rooyen

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

Suzanne is a freelance writer and author from South Africa. She currently lives in Finland and finds the cold, dark forests nothing if not inspiring. Suzanne is the author of the cyberpunk novel Dragon’s Teeth (Divertir), the YA science fiction novel Obscura Burning (Etopia) and has had several short stories published by Golden Visions Magazine, Space and Time and Niteblade. Niteblade nominated her short story Where dreams are grown for the Pushcart Prize. Her non-fiction articles on travel, music and other topics can be found scattered throughout the Internet. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When not writing you can find her teaching dance to ninth graders or playing in the snow with her shiba inu.

Suzanne is represented by Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency.

Giveaway: 

There is a tour-wide giveaway, it's open internationally, and ends on January 31st.
The prize is for:

-1 autographed paperback of Obscura Burning

-1 ebook of Dragon's Teeth (epub, mobi or pdf)

-1 $10 GC for Amazon

-3 surprise items from each of the main characters

a Rafflecopter giveaway