Guest Author: Kate Klimo

Kate KlimoI am excited to welcome Kate Klimo, who is here celebrating the release of her first Centauriad novel, Daughter of the Centaurs.

Malora knows what she was born to be: a horse wrangler and a hunter, just like her father. But when her people are massacred by batlike monsters called Leatherwings, Malora will need her horse skills just to survive. The last living human, Malora roams the wilderness at the head of a band of magnificent horses, relying only on her own wits, strength, and courage. When she is captured by a group of centaurs and taken to their city, Malora must decide whether the comforts of her new home and family are worth the parts of herself she must sacrifice to keep them.

Kate Klimo has masterfully created a new world, which at first seems to be an ancient one or perhaps another world altogether, but is in fact set on earth sometime far in the future.

We’re giving away three copies of Kate’s Daughter of the Centaurs, so make sure you stick around.
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Writing a book is a bit like labor. It is a long ordeal, by turns excruciating and glorious, and it goes through many stages. By the time you have finally pushed the book out and shown your adorable bundle to the world, the memory of the pain has begun to fade and, along with it, the details of the process.

I can’t remember in which of many drafts of Daughter of the Centaurs I discovered that Malora was the last human being on earth. At first, she had just lost the people in her immediate settlement but I assumed there were other enclaves of humans elsewhere in the world. It was the same draft, I think, where I found that the world in which she lived was populated not just by centaurs, but by other hybrids as well. There were traditional mythological ones, like centaurs and fauns and minotaurs. But also new-fangled ones, like half-bat/half-humans called Leatherwings and half-house cat/half-humans, called Twani. At first, I figured that this was just an alt-world, inspired by ancient myth with some whimsical tweaks, but a draft or so later—wonder of wonders!–it evolved into a far-distant future world. These hybrids—or hibes—became the creations of scienticians, human scientist-mages who had tampered with the building blocks of life, not just out of whimsy (although there had to have been plenty of that) but also out of a need to preserve the wild animals that humans were slowly but surely driving into extinction. By linking human genetic material more inextricably with animals, the wild animal strains were being preserved. This union was also supposed to rekindle in the human consciousness the age-old empathy for animals that dated back to cave days. But in classic Frankensteinian fashion, it kindled hatred for humans. The hibes turned on their creators and wiped them out. The genocide wasn’t sudden. It occurred gradually over hundreds, even thousands of years. As the human population was reduced, both hibes and wild animals flourished. This is how I wound up with Malora being the last human.

In the remote and isolated settlement where she was raised, Malora has never been told about the hibes. And when the Leatherwings attack and start picking off the humans, it has all the terror of an alien invasion. Malora is driven into the bush, on the back of her father’s big, blue-eyed stallion, Sky. From then on, it’s just Malora and Sky, until they gradually accumulate other wild horses and Sky breeds with them and Malora finds herself the alpha female to a herd of horses in the wild. For a couple of years, Malora spends most of her time and energy keeping the horses healthy and protected from all of the many predators who find horses delectable: everything from ticks to rock pythons to lions. The horses are her charges to protect but they are also her only society.

When a band of centaurs captures both horses and Malora, Malora is at first delighted. Here is human company combined with her favorite animal! She could not have dreamed of a better, more fitting companion for herself. But when she discovers that these ideal-seeming creatures are the same enemy that had driven her people into the wild, she realizes that she’s not a guest but a captive. This is a story of survival, of adaptation, and of a world that is strange and new, not just to Malora, but to the reader as well. It is my hope that readers will want to spend time here.

Welcome to Malora’s world.
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Meet Kate Klimo!

KKlimo-Daughter of the CentaursWhen I grew up, I still wanted to write but writing for children seemed, well, childish. I determined to be a writer of Adult Books, and succeeded (on a very modest level). But what can I tell you? The lack of magic in the adult world, as much from a reader’s standpoint as a writer’s, eventually got to me. I missed the magic, and years later, here I am, drawn back to its portals. I even find myself believing again. I believe that the world in which we live, the world of consensus reality, is but one small room in a mansion full of rooms. I believe that writing and reading are two surefire ways to get access to the other rooms. And nowadays, it is my sole ambition to grow up to be one of those old people who just might be mistaken for a distinguished emissary from a magical land.
Do I fly, teleport, or cast traveling spells?
The answer to all of the above is yes!

Contact Info
Website: http://www.kateklimo.com/ | http://www.foundadragon.org/
Blog: http://www.kateklimo.com/?page_id=134
Social Media: Facebook | Twitter

Want to purchase Kate’s novels?
Centauriad (with K K Ross)

  1. Daughter of the Centaurs at Amazon | Book Depository

Dragon Keepers

  1. The Dragon in the Sock Drawer at Amazon | Book Depository
  2. The Dragon in the Driveway at Amazon | Book Depository
  3. The Dragon in the Library at Amazon | Book Depository
  4. The Dragon in the Volcano at Amazon | Book Depository
  5. The Dragon in the Sea at Amazon | Book Depository

Make sure you check out all the other fabulous stops on the Daughter of the Centaurs blog tour!
Feb 20 Tynga’s Reviews
Feb 21 Insatiable Readers
Feb 22 Taking it One Book at a Time
Feb 23 Literary Escapism
Feb 24 Total Bookaholic
Feb 25 Livin’ Life Through Books
Feb 27 The Children’s Book Review
Feb 27 LitFest Magazine
Feb 28 Bibliophile Support Group
Feb 29 The Compulsive Reader
Mar 01 Sea of Pages
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Contest Time!

Thank you Kate for taking the time to stop by Literary Escapism!

Kate is giving away three copies of Daughter of the Centaurs. To enter, all you have to do is answer this one question: So what do you think about this Frankensteinesque story? Remember, you must answer the question in order to be entered. (US only)

Even though I’m not giving the additional entries any more, you can still help support the author by sharing their article, and this contest, on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere you can. After all, the more people who are aware of this fabulous author ensures we get more fabulous stories.

The winner must post a review of the novel someplace. Whether it is on their own blog, Amazon, GoodReads, LibraryThing or wherever, it doesn’t matter. Just help get the word out.

The contest will stay open until March 2nd at which time I’ll determine the winner with help from the snazzy new plug-in I have.

I have not been contacting winners, so you will need to check back to see if you’ve won.

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

1 Comment

  1. Oh that was a great story and I am excited to see a centaur novel. I cannot wait to see what Kate brings in with this novel.

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