This week I’m hosting Kay Marshall Strom with The Love of Divena, Linda Rondeau with America II The Reformation (see below about giveaway) and Nikki Arana with The Next Target (giveaway for US only). Linda Rondeau’s giveaway: if 15 or more original comments are left (not including Linda’s responses) she will award a copy of her award-winning novel, The Other Side of Darkness. If less than 15 and more than ten, she’ll give away a $5.00 Starbucks coupon. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (August 5th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from America II The Reformation by Linda Rondeau:
1. Bridget Cavanaugh, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I’m a rebel at heart but imprisoned by my desire for privilege. I am the daughter of sitting governor of the Highland Province. Da is an individualist, devoted to Old Scotland afore his tribute to the World Government. This has caused conflict with the President Elect, Edwin Rowlands. A rebellious young woman, I left home to join the Interprovincial Equalization Authority—the policing arm of The Constitutional Government. Although a promising career stretched before me, I left it to join in a familial contract with Ian McCormick, delegate to the Highland Province, and leader of the Reformation Party. This last rebellion severed my relationship with my father, a humanitarian, but distanced from the Reformation movement. How I long to be rejoined with my da, especially now. I am widowed and carrying Ian’s child. Da needs to know he’ll be a grandfather, even though the pregnancy is illegal.
2. What do you do for fun?
There are ill winds in the Continental Government, and little time for fun. But I used to enjoy long walks with Da in our palatial gardens. I hope Da will forgive his errant child and take me back into his loving arms, walk with me one more time before the world falls apart and civil war pulls us into a third dark age.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
I waited too long to tell Ian McCormick of the child we conceived. Together, we used Ian’s political front to smuggle artifacts to the Treasure Keepers in the Sierra Province. We were discovered and Ian was fatally injured. I can only hope the Maker will let Ian watch his child from his heavenly roost.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
That the child I carry will be forced to live out his days in the Badlands of the Highland Outlands, scavenging for food, orphaned and alone.
5. What do you want out of life?
To be reconciled with my da and that young Ian Bryan James Cavanaugh will be accepted by his grandfather and know the privilege his mother once knew.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
My faith and salvation in Lord Jesus.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
Paper is banned in United Earth. A few books were salvaged from the ruins and sent for preservation to the Treasure Keepers. Most reading is done through Entertainment Feeds, controlled by The Continental Government’s Mainframe Monitors. Religious dogma of any kind is considered treason. Readers project the images or pages and may place themselves within the stories as they unfold—an advancement of your current interactive video games. Perhaps my favorite readings, though banned, are those of John Locke that Ian and I smuggled to the Treasure Keepers last year.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
To learn obedience both to my earthly father and the Maker.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
Pets are outlawed in United Earth. Most dogs that survived the cataclysmic events that caused the second dark age turned wild. Cats are extinct, devoured for food.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I would like to meet the Mary Queen of Scots who defied the British Queen and built secret prayer chambers in the castle to practice her outlawed religion. I’d like to visit the royal mile and see the once proud Holyroodhouse as well as Edinburgh Castle in its glory days, places Mum told me about before she died. The Holyroodhouse House is now a dormitory for factory memes (pronounced mēm), genetically altered human embryos, and Edinburgh Castle has become a squalor-haven for relocated Outlanders, dumped into Sector Ten, dependent upon Humanitarian drops for survival.
