Meet My Character Blog Hop: Silas Vendine

Welcome to the Meet My Character Blog Hop! First I want to thank Maron Anrow and Shari Sakurai for inviting me to participate this week.

Maron Anrow grew up in California, came of age in the Midwest, and is now passing time in New Jersey. She lives with her husband, stepdaughter, and three awesome cats. Maron has a Ph.D. in social psychology and has published (under her real name) over 20 scientific articles since 2008. Laika in Lisan is her first novel, and it details the journey of Laika, a private tutor who is invited to study in the mysterious country of Lisan. While in Lisan, Laika struggles with moral ambiguity and a life-changing ethical dilemma.
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Shari Sakurai was born in Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom. After completing secondary school she moved away from further education to work in administration. She is very interested in other countries’ cultures and mythology; in particular Japan. Japanese themes and influences can often be found in her work. Her debut novel Demon's Blood was released in ebook format on 25th January 2014. She has participated and won the National Novel Writing Month challenge for the past seven years. Meet My Character Blog Hop post | Website | Facebook | Goodreads

And now, let's meet Silas Vendine, the hero of my upcoming Daughter of the Wildings series:

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?
The name he goes by is Silas Vendine. He was born Siyavas Venedias, a member of an elite mage family of Island heritage, but he is estranged from his family, and going by an Islander name in the Wildings is a sure way to get yourself hanged as a wizard.

Don't tell him this, but he's fictional. He thinks he's real.

2) When and where is the story set?
Daughter of the Wildings is mostly set in the Wildings, a vast, mostly unsettled region roughly modeled after the American Wild West of the 1880s. The Wildings is being settled by Plain (non-magical) people who have fled from the mage-dominated society of Granadaia, the civilized land along the eastern coast of the continent.

3) What should we know about him?
He grew up in an elite mage family in Granadaia, but he never fit in. When he was very young, he came to realize that the way Plain (unmagical) people were treated in Granadaia was wrong. As he grew up, he had the chance to read some books, smuggled into Granadaia, by foreign philosophers talking about natural equality and rights of all people regardless of their birth or station in life, and he found he believed in this.

Now he works as a bounty hunter tracking down and stopping renegade mages who have rebelled against the ruling Mage Council and come to the Wildings to get rich and/or set up their own independent domains. He doesn't really care about enforcing the Mage Council's authority, though; his main concern is protecting the Plain settlers of the Wildings against these ruthless, lawless mages. He does this even though the Plain settlers hate wizards with a passion.

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4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
When he comes to the town of Bitterbush Springs, he meets a young woman named Lainie Banfrey, who appears to be Plain but is actually developing very strong magical powers. She wants to learn how to use her power, but is terrified of being turned into a heartless, soulless monster like she believes all wizards are. Untrained mages can be extremely dangerous to themselves and others around them, and the Mage Council's law requires Silas to either send her back to Granadaia for training or to Strip her of her power, which will leave her mindless and helpless. Or there's a third option - he could take her with him and train her himself, which would make both of them outlaws and renegades.

At the same time, dangerous plots are in motion among the mages back in Granadaia, plots that threaten him, Lainie, and the freedom of the Wildings.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?
His main goal is to protect Lainie. He also wants to protect the Plain people of the Wildings against mages who threaten their freedom and rights. The problem is that sometimes these two goals conflict.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?
The series is called Daughter of the Wildings. Follow the link to read teasers about the individual books and find links to excerpts, cover art reveals, and a playlist.

7) When can we expect the book to be published?
Good question! I'm aiming for book 1, Beneath the Canyons, to be released later this fall. To be notified when it's released, sign up for my email alerts.

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Be sure to check out next weeks' stops on the Meet My Character Blog Hop:

Kyoko M is an author, a fangirl, and an avid book reader. Her debut novel, The Black Parade, made it through the first round of Amazon's 2013 Breakthrough Novel Contest. She participated and completed the 2011 National Novel Writing Month competition. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Lit degree from the University of Georgia, which gave her every valid excuse to devour book after book with a concentration in Greek mythology and Christian mythology. When not working feverishly on a manuscript (or two), she can be found buried under her Dashboard on Tumblr, or chatting with fellow nerds on Twitter, or curled up with a good Harry Dresden novel on a warm central Florida night. Like any author, she wants nothing more than to contribute something great to the best profession in the world, no matter how small.
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Zoe Dawson is the alter ego of Karen Anders, award winning, multi-published author. Her writing journey started with poetry and branched out into fiction. With a couple of college English courses under her belt, she penned a historical, then moved onto contemporary romance fiction. Today, she is happy producing romantic suspense, romantic mystery, new adult, urban fantasy and paranormal novels. The words feed her soul and the happily ever afters feed her heart.
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Lyn Johanson: A computer science major, Lyn C. Johanson decided to leave the cold world of code lines and pursue her passion for writing romance stories. Now, she mostly lives in the world she dreams up. Except when her husband and sons drag her back to reality—where she enjoys photography, dancing, and spending time with her family.
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