Blog Tour: Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder - Guest Post + TWO Giveaways

Wow!  I am sooo excited to welcome Maria V. Snyder to the blog today to share a little bit about her Healer series.  And I've got two, yes TWO, great giveaways for you!  But first, here's more about Scent of Magic, the newest book in Maria's Healer series, which just released TODAY!!

Title: Scent of Magic
Author: Maria V. Snyder
Series: Healer, book #2
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Publication Date: December 18, 2012
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Hunted, Killed—Survived?

As the last Healer in the Fifteen Realms, Avry of Kazan is in a unique position: in the minds of her friends and foes alike, she no longer exists. Despite her need to prevent the megalomanical King Tohon from winning control of the Realms, Avry is also determined to find her sister and repair their estrangement. And she must do it alone, as Kerrick, her partner and sole confident, returns to Alga to summon his country into battle.

Though she should be in hiding, Avry will do whatever she can to support Tohon’s opponents. Including infiltrating a holy army, evading magic sniffers, teaching forest skills to soldiers and figuring out how to stop Tohon’s most horrible creations yet; an army of the walking dead—human and animal alike and nearly impossible to defeat.

War is coming and Avry is alone. Unless she figures out how to do the impossible ... again.

You can find my review of Scent of Magic here.  And you can view the awesome trailer for the book below:

10 Things you might not know about the Healer Series:

1.  I picked Fifteen Realms because my birthday is on the fifteenth of April.

2. The Nine Mountains was chosen because TOUCH OF POWER is my ninth novel.

3. The map of the Fifteen Realms is based on the map of Eastern Europe turned 90 degrees on its side.  I’d gone on a Baltic Sea cruise, visiting Sweden, Finland, Russia, Latvia, and Poland and was enamored with the area.

4.  Kerrick’s name means Chief Hero.  I wanted to use the name Ava for my healer (it means Life), but I’d used that name for a short story titled SWORD POINT.  I started writing the book using Lexa as my main girl, but it sounded too modern.  I returned to Ava and tried various spellings and found Avery.  Not wanting her to be confused for a man, I changed the spelling to Avry.  Avery means Elf Council.   Btw – I used Lexa for my short story titled, THE COLDEST GAME, which I wrote while working on TOUCH OF POWER.

5. Belen’s name means An Arrow, Loren’s is Crowned with Laurel (I originally had his name as Vinn, but thought it was too close to Finn from SPY GLASS), Tohon’s means Cougar, and Quain’s means Clever (this one doesn’t quite fit him).  Flea’s name was the nickname of my son’s friend, Ben.  Ben played soccer with my son and was the youngest/smallest member of the team, but he was fast so the other boys called him Flea.  I liked it.

6.  The city of Grzebien is named after a friend of mine who lives in Canada.  The other city names are taken from the map of Eastern Europe and Russia – I zoomed in on Google Maps and picked names that I liked.  So yes, there is a real town named Koo.

7. Great Aunt Yasmin is named after another friend of mine.  When I was hired for my first job after college as an environmental meteorologist, I needed to find an apartment and move away from home.  A scary prospect, but Yasmin, a soon-to-be co-worker offered to help me find a nice place and became a good friend, easing the transition to living on my own.  My first night in my apartment I slept on the floor, watched TV on a 13 inch black and white TV set and my single piece of furniture was a bright pink bean-bag chair.

8. I’m not 100 % sure where the idea for the giant man-eating Lilys came from, but I suspect my fascination with the Batman and Robin TV show back in the 70s might have helped (the show ran in the late 60s, but I saw the re-runs much later!).  In one Batman and Robin episode they had a run in with Louie the Lilac and were trapped in a giant lilac plant, being slowly eaten.  And I’ll fess up…my sister and I made our own utility belts and pretended to be Batman and Robin going outside on our own neighborhood adventures.  Of course I was Robin, my sister is four years older than me ;>  (shhhhhh!  Don’t tell her I told you about this!  She’d kill me!).

9.  I didn’t plan for Tohon’s special soldiers to be…well, dead.  I needed them to be able to sneak up on Kerrick and the gang and with his forest magic, it was almost impossible for a living creature to surprise my chief hero.  I also thought that an ambush in the mountains would be too obvious to all concerned, so…non-living soldiers did the trick.  And I never refer to them as zombies – I just didn’t want to go there!

10. I learned to juggle in college.  My friend Nisha taught me how with golf balls, which are very noisy when dropped.  The people living below our dorm room were not amused.  I taught both my kids how to juggle with koosh balls (quieter and easier on the furniture, lamps, pictures, etc…).  My son Luke caught on very quick and has now surpassed me.  His daily practice was the inspiration for adding in juggling to the book.  My son’s not a reader, but he read TOUCH OF POWER this summer.  Luke also is very quiet so he didn’t say if he liked it or not, but when we went out on a hike as a family, he found 3 rocks and started juggling.  From the one act, I knew he really liked the book.

I just love finding out how characters and places in my favorite novels got their names.  And it's so fun discovering how some of the most fantastical elements of this series have come to light...I have to admit that I wondered at how Tohon's dead came to be a part of the Healer series.  Such an excellent, informative post, and I want to heartily thank Maria for sharing!

About the author:

Maria V. Snyder changed from being a meteorologist to a novelist in 1995, when she began writing to keep her sanity while raising two children. Since then, she has published numerous freelance articles in magazines and newspapers, and teaches fiction-writing classes at the local college and area libraries. The classes give her the wonderful opportunity to encourage fellow writers, and to keep improving her craft.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Maria always had a fascination with big storms. Dreaming of chasing tornadoes, Maria earned a bachelors of science degree in meteorology at Penn State University. But she discovered, much to her chagrin, that forecasting the weather wasn't one of her skills. In order to chase tornadoes you had to predict where they might form. Creating fantasy worlds where she has complete control of the weather was more agreeable to her.

Maria's research on food-tasting methods with an expert chocolate taster, her husband, turned out to be a delicious bonus while writing Poison Study.

Maria has a brown belt in Isshinryu Karate, and enjoys playing volleyball and the cello. Traveling in general and via cruise ship in particular are her biggest distractions from writing. Maria has traveled to Belize, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal.

Maria lives with her husband, son, daughter and yellow lab, Hazelnut, in Pennsylvania where she is at work on more LUNA novels. She is also pursuing a master's degree in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University.

Find out more about Maria V. Snyder and her books:

Website | Blog | Goodreads | Facebook or contact her via email:  maria@mariavsnyder.com

Below, you'll find two separate giveaways:  one is a publisher-sponsored giveaway for a prize pack featuring Harlequin Teen and MIRA books (US/Canada only) and the other is an author-sponsored giveaway for one copy of Scent of Magic (International).


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Special thanks to Rockstar Book Tours and Maria V. Snyder for allowing me to take part in this tour!  Don't miss the other stops on the tour...there are more chances to win your very own copy of Scent of Magic!

Tour Schedule:

12/10/2012 Parajunkee       Review and a Q&A

12/11/2012 Paranormal Urban Fantasy Reviews      Review

12/12/2012 Read Now Sleep Later    Interview with Maria

12/13/2012 The Book Heroine    Review

12/14/2012 We Fancy Books   Playlist

12/17/2012 Two Chicks on Books     Guest Post From Belen

12/18/2012 The Starry-eyed Revue     Guest Post

12/19/2012 A Great Read      Review

12/20/2012 YA Reads    Guest Post

12/21/2012 The Book Hookup    Review

Thanks for stopping by & happy reading!

Labels: blog tour, giveaways, guest post, harlequin-teen, healer, maria v. snyder, rockstar book tours