Elle Katharine White: “Where I Write” + Heartstone Blog Tour Contest

Today, we’re delighted to be hosting a guest post from Heartstone author Elle Katharine White, who stops by to talk about where she writes. Her debut novel is a Pride & Prejudice-inspired fantasy epic, filled with magical creatures and bad-ass warriors. So be sure to keep reading to learn more about Heartstone and enter to win a copy!

Picture a well-worn wooden desk. It has ink stains and coffee stains and could use a few coats of varnish, but the thing has presence. It sits in the corner of a little rustic study, facing a window that stays shuttered to keep out distractions. Here and there cracks in the rain-warped slats let in a ray of sunlight. A chair sits behind the desk, a heavy, old-fashioned thing that takes two people to move and laughs at any chair that swivels. Its attempt at gravitas falls a little flat when you pull it out though; if its cushions saw better days, they were years ago. The one on the seat is leaking feathers.

There’s not much on the desk. Just a lamp and a laptop and a few square meters of endless possibility.

Picture that.

Now hold that picture in your mind, because my actual writing space looks nothing like it.

For lack of an office, I write at my kitchen table, or at my dresser if I need to stand while I type. (Unorthodox but it does the trick.) I’ve found myself writing in stranger places, too: in airports and on planes where, ever the occupant of the middle seat, I’m forced to channel a T-Rex as I type, on sticky notes during my lunch break, or on my phone as I’m about to fall asleep. And the more I write, the more I realize the place doesn’t matter so much as the mindset; we writers take our creating-space with us wherever we go. The room you’re imagining is the same one I keep tucked away in my head, ready for a visit whenever I find a spare moment.

A debut historical fantasy that recasts Jane Austen’s beloved Pride & Prejudice in an imaginative world of wyverns, dragons, and the warriors who fight alongside them against the monsters that threaten the kingdom: gryphons, direwolves, lamias, banshees, and lindworms.

They say a Rider in possession of a good blade must be in want of a monster to slay—and Merybourne Manor has plenty of monsters.

Passionate, headstrong Aliza Bentaine knows this all too well; she’s already lost one sister to the invading gryphons. So when Lord Merybourne hires a band of Riders to hunt down the horde, Aliza is relieved her home will soon be safe again.

Her relief is short-lived. With the arrival of the haughty and handsome dragonrider, Alastair Daired, Aliza expects a battle; what she doesn’t expect is a romantic clash of wills, pitting words and wit against the pride of an ancient house. Nor does she anticipate the mystery that follows them from Merybourne Manor, its roots running deep as the foundations of the kingdom itself, where something old and dreadful slumbers . . . something far more sinister than gryphons.

It’s a war Aliza is ill-prepared to wage, on a battlefield she’s never known before: one spanning kingdoms, class lines, and the curious nature of her own heart.

Elle Katharine White infuses elements of Austen’s beloved novel with her own brand of magic, crafting a modern epic fantasy that conjures a familiar yet wondrously unique new world.

In stores January 17th

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Elle was born and raised in Buffalo, NY, where she learned valuable life skills like how to clear a snowy driveway in under twenty minutes (a lot easier than you think) and how to cheer for the perennial underdog (a lot harder than you think).

When she’s not writing she spends her time reading, drinking absurd amounts of tea, having strong feelings about fictional characters, and doing her best to live with no regrets.

Connect with her on Facebook at @ellewhite.author, or witness the hilarious spectacle that is a writer contending with the 140-character limit on Twitter at @elle_k_writes.

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