I want to make a very warm welcome for GB Gordon, a new author who is touring to promote the debut novel, Santuario! Due to being a little under the weather and gearing up for GRL, my reading and review is behind schedule, so unfortunately I don’t have a review to offer you today, though it is coming soon. I really like this peek into the world and the book looks fascinating, so join me in welcoming the author!

Remember that a commenter is chosen for each stop along the tour for a $10 gift certificate to Riptide, so leave a comment to win!

It’s an amazing and heart-stopping thing to promote your very first book on your very first virtual book tour. Everything is new. I am new. So I’d like to say an extra special thank you to all of you who came here to check out Santuario, now available for purchase via the Riptide Publishing website. Doubly so to Cole for giving me a chance to get my toes wet in the big pool. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here.

Don’t forget to comment for a chance to win a $10 credit to Riptide Publishing. All comments with email address included that are left by 11:59 pm on Sunday, Oct 14th will enter into the draw.

I’ve been asked a number of times now where Santuario came from, what inspired it, how it developed into the story it is today. While I tried to answer that question in the interviews it came up in, the whole thing really needs a bit more space. It relates to how I see the world and the concept of story. Plus, the muse need some room for dramatic flair. (I always blame her for these things. It works quite well.) Last not least, I enjoy a sneak peek behind the curtain, and I bet a few of you do too. So, for the next few days I invite you to the Making of Santuario. Please check the details below and follow along for a chance at more prizes.

I bet most of us have at one point or another in our lives dreamed about a better world, a perfect world without murder or war or … I’d run out of space long before completing that list. The specific dream that inspired Santuario was related to an incident of gay bashing that made me long (not for the first time) for a world where people can just be who they are without fear. It doesn’t take much to set the gears in my writer brain spinning and the muse scrambling. “What if?” questions are a surefire way to do it. What if there was a world without homophobia? What parameters would I need to change to end up with a society (still human) like that? What existing or historical cultures (if any) accept homosexuality as just another way of life, and how do they differ from those that don’t? What underlying causes–

At this point the muse kicked me forcefully in the shins. “Are you seriously contemplating to write about a perfect world?” she asked.
I was all fired up and ready to go. Of course I did.
“Moron,” she said.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It’s going to tank,” she said, and proceeded to tick the whys off her delectable fingers: “No drama, no tension, no development. Why would anyone want to read that?”
“Because it’s beautiful.”
“It’ll bore people to tears after the first paragraph. I’m not interested.”
“Fine, I’ll do it without you then.”
She smirked. She knows full well I can’t get anything worthwhile done without her.
I caved. “Any ideas?”
“Kaboom,” she said.
“Huh?” I said. I can be very eloquent that way.
“You can have your perfect culture. If I can throw in a scary and cruel one.”
“And?”
“And kaboom!”
“But I want a world without kaboom.”
“You want a story. Kaboom!”

I swear, that’s how it happened. That was the spark that ignited Santuario. We took it from there and ran with it. Of course it was by no means the last clash between the muse and me. She’s opinionated, and a drama queen. Me, I’m perfectly reasonable, of course.

If you’d like front row seats to the little show we call world building, join us tomorrow at The Kimi-Chan Experience. Full tour schedule available here.

 

Police teniente Alex Rukow has spent his life trapped on Santuario, his people’s isolated home-slash-prison-island. They’ve been living in poverty under the tyrannical regime of their own elite familias for the last two-hundred years, ever since their generation ship landed on the planet and found it already populated by earlier Earth settlers, the Skanians, who banished them to the inhospitable south.

Increasingly shamed by the decisions of their ancestors, the Skanians seek to open their borders. But dissent exists on both sides, and in the midst of this explosive political situation, a dead body appears on the island.

Bengt, a Skanian investigator, is shipped to Santuario to lead the murder investigation—which, he quickly realizes, the local teniente wants nothing to do with. As far as Bengt is concerned, things can’t get worse than the brutal climate, his own memories, and a growing attraction to a partner who will barely say two words to him. But then he and Alex run afoul of the local familias, and the problems with their investigation and their budding relationship seem like nothing compared to just getting out of this whole mess alive.

Read an excerpt and purchase Santuario here.

G.B. Gordon worked as a packer, landscaper, waiter, and coach before going back to school to major in linguistics and, at 35, switch to less backbreaking monetary pursuits like translating, editing, and writing. Having lived in various parts of the world, Gordon is now happily ensconced in suburban Ontario with the best of all husbands. Santuario is G.B. Gordon’s first published work, but many more stories are just waiting to hit the keyboard.

Find Gordon blogging at http://gordon.kontext.ca, tweeting as @gb_gordon and wreaking general havoc on Goodreads: or send an email to gordon[at]kontext.ca.

Remember! Don’t forget to comment for a chance to win a $10 credit to Riptide Publishing. All comments with email address included that are left by 11:59 pm on Sunday, Oct 14th will enter into the draw.


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