UFI welcomes Sophie Masson Author of Trinity: The Koldun Code. Thanks for Joining us!!
What can you tell my readers about yourself that they might not know from looking on your bio or reading in another interview?
When I worked as a journalist on a local paper, many years ago, I had to write a puff-piece article about a plastering business. Now I hate boring readers, and plaster just has to be the most boring thing to write about, ever, but the guy who owned the business had paid for a big ad and so yours truly had been instructed by the editor to write an ‘advertorial’ as they were called. If I didn’t do it, I’d risk the sack or at the very least a not-so-gentle reprimand from the editor. So I went to see the guy in his plastering shop, and after asking one very uninspired question about plaster—which he seemed to find as boring as I did!—we got talking and he told me this amazing story of how as a child he’d escaped with his parents to the West after the Soviets invaded Latvia. It was an amazing tale of real-life adventure—and that’s what I wrote about in the piece! He loved it (even had it framed and hung up in his shop!), my editor was bemused but happy, and readers wrote in to say they’d enjoyed the piece. It was a great lesson in how you can discover a good story even in the dullest of situations!
What do you enjoy doing on your down time?
Travelling, reading, cooking, listening to music and watching crime and urban fantasy TV series!
What is your Favorite part of writing?
Having amazing adventures in my head—that other people can go on later too!
Do you have any certain routines you must follow as you write?
Not really—I’m a write-anywhere-even-underwater kind of gal!
What are some of your Favorite books or Authors in the Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Genres?
Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series; Laurell K.Hamilton’s Anita Blake series; Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files Series; Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Neverwhere; Peter Higgins’ amazing new Wolfhound Century series. Among many others!
How would you pitch Trinity: The Koldun Code to someone who has not heard of it before?
It’s an enthralling and surprising mix of urban fantasy, romance and conspiracy thriller, set in modern Russia, where nothing can be taken for granted—and anything can happen!
Can you tell us a little bit about the world that Trinity: The Koldun Code is set in?
It’s a world of colour and magic, boldness and suspicion, passion and fear, danger and darkness, beauty and terror, joy and sorrow where the past casts a very long shadow, a world that can be threatening but is never boring. It’s based very closely on modern Russia and its extraordinary mix of old and new, including a strong belief in magic that has never gone away. Hard-headed businessmen employ psychics and wizards; the Parliament votes to regulate witchcraft; ‘energy vampires’ are said to stalk the streets: Russia is truly THE uber-setting for urban fantasy, in my opinion! And so for my heroine Helen Clement, the contrast between the ‘grey world’ she inhabited and this startling new one she finds herself could not be bigger!
Do you have a favorite scene in Trinity: The Koldun Code?
When Helen first meets Alexey, in the woods—that scene gave me goosebumps to write.
Which one character out of all your books was your favorite to write about? What about the hardest to write about?
Out of all my books—that’s a hard question! If I can answer just for this book—my favorite, apart from Helen and Alexey, was Maxim Serebrov, the disillusioned policeman—but ironically he was also one of the hardest, as I had to do a lot of background research to make him come fully alive and as realistic as possible!
What Other Projects can we look forward to reading from you?
At the moment, I am working on the sequel to Trinity: The Koldun Code. And enjoying it enormously! Titled Trinity: The False Prince, it will be out next year. I’ve also a YA fantasy coming out next year, called Hunter’s Moon, which is a rather dark re-imagining of the fairy tale of Snow White.
This or That
Character: Helen Clement, heroine of Trinity: The Koldun Code:
Angels or Demons : Angels
Vampires or Shifters : Shifters
Left or Right : Left
Up or Down : Up
Pizza or Pasta : Pasta
Coffee or Tea : Coffee
Coke or Pepsi : Coke
YA or Adult : Adult
Knives or Guns : Knives
Reading or Writing : Reading
Facebook or Twitter: Facebook
Red or Green: Green
Witches or Wizards: Witches
London or Moscow: Can’t decide!
__________________________________
Find Sophie and her books
__________________________________
Trinity: Koldun Code Trinity #1
I am in a world deeply strange and strangely deep, a world as different from my old life as it’s possible to be, and it feels completely natural.__________________________________
An unexpected encounter with a handsome stranger in a Russian wood changes the life of 22-year-old traveler Helen Clement forever, catapulting her into a high-stakes world of passion, danger, and mystery. Tested in ways she could never have imagined, she must keep her own integrity in a world where dark forces threaten and ruthlessness and betrayal haunt every day.
Set against a rising tide of magic and the paranormal in a modern Russia where the terrifying past continually leaks into the turbulent present, Trinity is a unique and gripping blend of conspiracy thriller, erotically charged romance and elements of the supernatural, laced with a murderous dose of company politics. With its roots deep in the fertile soil of Russian myth, legend, and history, it is also a fascinating glimpse into an extraordinary, distinctive country and amazingly rich culture.