Owl Always Be Reading: Blog Tour + Giveaway + Review: TREMONTAINE by SerialBox (Multiple Authors)

Title: TREMONTAINE

Authors: Ellen Kushner, Joel Derfner, Karen Lord, Delia Sherman, Racheline Maltese, Paul Witcover, Tessa Gratton, and Liz Duffy Adams

Pub. Date: October 11, 2017

Publisher: Serial Box

Formats: eBook & Audiobook

Find it: Season 1 Amazon, Season 2 Amazon, Season 3 Episode 1 Amazon, Season 3 Episode 2, Season 3 Episode 3 Amazon, iBooks, Season 1 iBooks, Season 2 iBooks, Season 3 Episode 1 iBooks, Season 3 Episode 2 iBooks, Season 3 Episode 3 iBooks, Serial Box

Since launching last year, serial fiction startup Serial Box has been featured from coast to coast including stories on NPR, Wired, BuzzFeed and i09. Serial Box was called “a godsend for a niche market of readers” by The Chicago Tribune.

As one of the flagship serials from Serial Box with tens of thousands of readers across multiple platforms, Tremontaine has made waves in the serial, LGBTQ, and fan fiction community.

Tremontaine introducers readers to a world where ambition, love affairs, and rivalries dance with deadly results. In this serial, Ellen Kushner and a team of writers return readers to the world of scandal and swordplay introduced in her cult-classic novel Swordspoint. Readers familiar with the series will find a welcome homecoming while new fans will learn what makes Riverside a place they will want to visit again and again. Tremontaine follows Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, whose beauty is matched only by her cunning; Rafe Fenton, a handsome young scholar with more passion than sense; Ixkaab Balam, a tradeswoman from afar with skill for swords and secrets; and Micah, a gentle genius whose discoveries herald revolution. Sparks fly as these four lives intersect in a world where politics is everything, and outcasts are the tastemakers.

Team-written by some of today’s most exciting authors, Tremontaine season 3 is brought to you by Ellen Kushner, Joel Derfner, Karen Lord, Delia Sherman, Racheline Maltese, Paul Witcover, Tessa Gratton, and Liz duffy Adams.

BUY IT HERE:

We're so grateful that we were chosen to represent three blog tour stops for Tremontaine because it gave us the opportunity to read a different story of this unique, serialized story. I chose to read Season 1, Episode 1: Arrivals by Ellen Kushner.

Because it reads like a short story, the episode is divided into scenes, with each one focusing on a new character. And this was done brilliantly because you start to see the POV of various characters who seem to all reside in the same vicinity. It gives you an interesting viewpoint because no character is the same: you have Diane, the Duchess of Tremontaine; Micah, a young girl posing as a boy and in the city intent to sell her family's goods; and Ixkaab Balam, a free-spirited heir of a trader who is looking for adventures as fast as she can find them.

The multiple stories kept me flipping pages quickly and at 35 pages or so, it was easy to digest what was going on and to get lost in the story. Of course, this is also a well-written story so that always helps. The descriptions of the type of life, the clothing, the differing classes were easy to picture given the crystal clear descriptions and ensuing action.

And you will start to develop favorites, for sure, but the different characters all kept me engaged. And because I read the first episode, I quickly jumped onto the second to continue reading because I needed to know what was going to happen next. You get everything from the lives of high society who've been putting a facade the broker they get, a girl who is fiercely smart and is skilled in the art of map making, and a woman who is coming into her own and figuring things out both bravely and fiercely. All to say, that the characters are rich and multi-faceted which makes for an engaging read.

This is a fascinating way to tell stories and I highly recommend as you can read them in short bursts without committing too much time to each episode. And I especially recommend if you are a fan of historical fiction, where lawlessness abounds and scandals, swordplay, and the art of trading are the subjects.

As always, happy reading, and we hope you give this a try!

Ellen Kushner unites her talents and insights as a writer, performer, and cultural maven in one sleek package: she is the author of acclaimed works of literary fantasy, an award-winning audio book narrator and stage performer, the creator and former host of public radio's national series Sound & Spirit, and a popular teacher and lecturer.

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Joel Derfner is from South Carolina, where his great-grandmother had an affair with George Gershwin. After fleeing the south as soon as he possibly could, he got a B.A. in linguistics from Harvard. He is currently a writer and composer in New York City. He is also or has also been a knitter, step aerobics instructor, cheerleader, go-go boy, and math teacher.
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Karen Lord is Barbadian, born in 1968. She is a writer and research consultant, BSc, MSc, MPhil, PhD. She has written novels that have received many awards. She builds worlds, one word at a time.

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Delia Sherman is a fantasy writer and editor. She was born in Tokyo and brought up in New York City. She is the author of the novels Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove (a Mythopoeic Award Winner), and Changeling. She lives in New York City with her wife and sometime collaborator, Ellen Kushner.
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Racheline Maltese is a queer writer living a big life from a small space. She flies planes, sails boats, and rides horses, but as a native New Yorker, has no idea how to drive a car. She is a performer and storyteller focused on themes of celebrity, gender, desire and mourning. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their two cats.
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Paul Witcover is the author of Waking Beauty, and has also written a biography of Zora Neale Hurston and numerous short stories. He is the co-creator, with Elizabeth Hand, of the cult comic book series Anima and has served as the curator of the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series. His work has also appeared on HBO. He lives and writes in New York City.
Goodreads

Tessa Gratton has wanted to be a paleontologist or a wizard since she was seven. Alas, she turned out too impatient to hunt dinosaurs, but is still searching for a someone to teach her magic. After traveling the world with her military family, she acquired a BA in Gender Studies, then settled down in Kansas with her partner, her cats, and her mutant dog. She now spends her days staring at the sky and telling lots of stories about magic.
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