Here at Book Heaven, we love meeting young adult authors. It’s our pleasure to introduce you to Alyssa. She writes gripping YA dark fantasy and is here to introduce you to her series. I asked for an interview with her and she agreed. So, grab your favorite beverage and join us. Alyssa, take it away!
What do you consider to be your best accomplishment?
Successfully joining the U.S. Navy and completing + publishing my first novel. These accomplishments are very different and required unique decisions to bring into fruition, so I cannot choose between them. The Navy was my first challenge as an adult who was, frankly, sheltered. I didn’t know much about “adulting” at the time, but I knew my own eagerness. I knew the military was something I wanted and needed to do, so I enlisted during high school and had a fantastic time folding my clothes, doing physical things I loathed, and signing almost as many papers as there are in my book during training. The book was its own struggle, from lore creation, to organization, edits, hiring cover artists, and formatting. However, it was something I deeply looked forward to finishing while I was in boot camp.
Have you always liked to write?
Music, writing, and giant monsters – these are the “constants” of my lifetime. My writing mania? Obsession? Blossomed when I was a tiny child. I’d have relatives try to get me to watch TV so they didn’t have to worry about me, but I remember frequently rejecting this in favor of scribbling out stories and drawings on the floor. I’d stand up from a completed story with a nice blush in my elbows and knees from sitting down there so long, and sometimes I’d force the writings on my relatives. Other times, I kept them to myself. My first completed story and “picture book” was a Godzilla fanfiction titled Godzilla and Mothra: The Good Old Days, complete with an eight-year-old’s enthusiastic sketches and a heart-warming narrative I still cherish to this day.
Is there a certain type of scene that’s harder for you to write than others? Love? Action?
Racy?
Romance is my weakness. I’ll confess – I dislike writing it and it makes me uncomfortable. I also avoid racy scenes in most of my writing, but I do have a published short story where seduction is the central theme. I believe certain themes and stories are justifiable for presenting a message, and in that collection, the “raciness” does serve an explicit purpose.
Is this your first book? How many books have you written prior (if any?)
Daughter Darkness is my firstborn. She’s the only child of mine who arrived in the mail with a fully developed vocabulary and a sweet gloss finish. She doesn’t require my attention now that she’s a public figure, but like a real parent, I want her to succeed in this world and make a name for herself.
What are you working on now? What is your next project?
The Myrk Maiden Trilogy is about to expand! The sequel to Daughter Darkness and the meat of the series sandwich, Book #2, will be releasing soon. New and old fans alike no longer have to wait to enjoy the first book as part of an unfolding series.
Do you drink? Smoke? What’s your vice?
Candy, critiques, and compliments. Feed me these and I’ll consider being your friend… after you’ve passed my rigorous psychoanalytical tests and intuition checks, of course.
What do you dream? Do you have any recurring dreams/nightmares?
My dreams are caked in chaos. They usually occur in some vague, unknown, and probably nonexistent place on Earth, and their common theme is they’re never dull. Not once. And I never forget them. Most of them crawl with creatures and madmen. Some brush against Paradise, echoing my ache to be apart from this world. Still others drip with lava, planet-ravaging storms, and, strangely enough, swimming pools and waterparks. (As I write this, I’m puzzling over another pool dream I had last night.)
What were you like as a child? Your favorite toy?
“Bizarre” boils me down appropriately. I’d talk to myself and shadows on the wall as a tyke. I daydreamed my way to D’s and C minuses in nearly every math class. As a teenager, my Chromebook was my boredom repellent tool in school, where entire novels, digital songs, and YouTube video scripts took shape. I never believed my creative focus during these years was regrettable or wasteful – much the opposite. I took myself seriously as a young person, and it’s why I was able to publish myself at nineteen. I do have a favorite toy, and “he” is strange like me!
If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
Cicadas sing, shriek, flutter around, and hang out in trees. They’re not nasty like other bugs can be, but neither are they especially charming (to most people, anyway), and they put forth their music for the benefit of their species. I believe this insect captures me well. The issue? I’m only obnoxiously outspoken thirty-five percent of my life. I exist quietly the rest of the time, and the male cicada simply cannot relate. They’ve got women to woo, after all.
What secret talents do you have?
Intuiting truths about people’s personalities and motives. This skill isn’t infallible, but it seldom leads me astray. I’m conscious of my own faults and how they come across to others, and others are also fairly transparent to me. I’ll admit some relationships (romantic, professional, and otherwise) have ended because I voiced my observations and consequently confirmed them.
Thank you, Alyssa, for the fantastic interview. Readers, scroll down to check out book one in her series, Daughter Darkness.
Title: Daughter Darkness
Author: Alyssa Charpentier
Genre: YA Dark Fantasy
Book Blurb:
What if you were born to destroy the world... not save it?
15-year-old Twilight dreams of a better life away from her uncaring family, longing for purpose and adventure. When her humdrum existence is soon shattered forever, she is thrust into the wickedly enticing realm of the Shadows, a society of sorcerers who look to her as their living salvation from the light. As darkness seeps into Twilight's soul, she comes to live by three words - "maim and kill." In this brutal coming-of-age tale, young Twilight finds herself tangled in a twist of existential crises, divine dangers, and monstrous mishaps as she navigates the various bends and turns of her new life, always wondering whether she should obey her "true nature" and remain in the dark - or fight for a glimpse of light beyond the Shadows' compound walls.
Excerpt:
I should have felt something.
Sadness. Regret. Despair.
Anything but nothing.
Our slow descent back into the bowels of the building produced no distinct emotion. The longer we walked through the twisted halls, the more cemented my mental paralysis became. I would not feel for my friend.
Cobi was a zyz, and I, as Solshek had noted, was different. Cobi and I could never understand each other again as we once had. He was as he was always intended to be; dead to me.
"Here is its home," said Father.
He paused in front of a weathered stone door with a tiny square of bars stretching across the top and allowed me a moment to gather myself. Before he opened it, he said his piece.
"Remember to forget whatever it once was to you. It has a very slim hold on life now as it is. The saas is yours. Consume it and move on. You are above any zyz now," Father told me. "Remember who Twilight is."
"Yes," I agreed. "I will remember."
Father nodded, then unsecured each lock, one by one. When the stone door swung open, a slow second passed with each inch it crept forward. I thought about how I would feel when it revealed the body lying inside.
Nothing.
It was almost wearisome how long it was taking. Was that my mind turning a door into eternity, or was it actually that stubborn and cumbersome?
But then, as it happens with all moments, the moment was gone. I found myself gazing upon the figure of the boy I had almost grown to cherish months ago when we were just a bit younger and much better, much more well in our bodies and minds…
When I entered the cell, I fought back the revulsion I felt at the thought of demolishing him, of gutting his insides and shredding him to unrecognizable ribbons of flesh and battered bone so no one would remember the boy the Sharavak Aaquaena had once called friend. The old Twilight grappled with the new again, but the new me was winning.
No zyz is worth its heartbeat, Shadow Twilight snarled. An irreversible action can occur in one moment, meaning the difference between eternal contentment and existential regret. You will not regret destroying this thing as it deserves, but you will regret trading Aaksa's favor for fancying lesser creatures.
But why does he deserve such a thing? The girl in me argued. What crime has he committed by living?
A much darker voice in my head growled, A crime against the sacredness of Aadyalbaine. Kill the zyz. This is your true testament of faith, your final chance.
But– Girl Twilight started to protest.
The voice hissed again, But nothing. The game has changed, Twilight. Committing raefsa on this zyz will determine what and who you are. Twilight Urik, Aafyrira, Myrk Maiden, and Aaquaena of the Sharavaks, or Twilight Mavericc, meritless zyz girl, Queen of Nothing?
Queen of Nothing. Daughter Darkness. Queen of Nothing...
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Darkness-Myrk-Maiden-Trilogy/dp/B0B2TW64L4/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Author Biography:
Alyssa Charpentier is a dark fantasy author, poet, and U.S. Sailor. Her debut novel, Daughter Darkness, commenced her career as an author and marked the birth of her Myrk Maiden Trilogy. Alyssa has written for Daikaiju Enterprise's G-FAN magazine and attended G-FEST as a book vendor in 2022. When Alyssa isn't ravaging worlds or regaling her readers with twisted tales of light and dark and good and evil, she can be found enjoying Godzilla films, playing with giant bugs, and composing digital music.
Social Media Links:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TheMyrkMaiden