UFI welcomes Author Viola Carr. 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?
I'm actually a super-powered criminal mastermind, posing as an ordinary person. You'd never know it to look at me.
What do you enjoy doing on your down time?
Right now I'm sitting in the sun, thinking about writing! I also like console games – my favorite right now is the Assassin's Creed series – and pretty much any TV show with fantasy in it.
What is your Favorite part of writing?
I actually really like editing. I know, right? Weird. But the first draft is hard work. I mean, so is editing, but it's the part where the book really starts to sparkle and you see some results for your efforts.
Do you have any certain routines you must follow as you write?
I like to do lots of outlining before I start. So there's plenty of mooning about thinking and scribbling in notebooks and writing on index cards. Kind of a ritual, I suppose, but it works for me!
What are some of your Favorite books or Authors in the Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Genres?
Bec McMaster and Kristen Callihan write terrific steampunk/historical paranormal romance with lots of action. If you want urban fantasy action, there's always Ilona Andrews.
How would you pitch the Electric Empire series to someone who has not heard of it before?
A dark, edgy, steampunk, gender-flipped retelling of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, where Dr Eliza Jekyll is a crime scene investigator in Victorian London, secretly addicted to her father's magic potion and in a love-hate relationship with her dark side, Lizzie Hyde.
That begins to cover it, I guess :)
Can you tell us a little bit about the world that The Dastardly Miss Lizzie is set in?
It's a quasi-1860s steampunk England, where science is strictly regulated and magic is forbidden. Trouble is, no one really knows where magic ends and science begins. SO anything strange or wonderful is fraught with danger – which makes life very difficult for Eliza Jekyll, who's trying to forge a respectable career as a police physician in a time when women doctors were a curiosity at best. And she's always afraid that Lizzie will burst out without warning.
Do you have a favorite scene in The Dastardly Miss Lizzie?
In this book – the third in the trilogy – we get to learn a lot more about Lizzie's origins, which have been shadowy until now. There are some lovely suspenseful scenes in which we discover what happened when Eliza was a teenager, and her troubled relationship with her father, Mr Hyde.
There's also kissing. Just so you know.
Which one character out of all your books was your favorite to write about? What about the hardest to write about?
The parts where Eliza and Lizzie interact – is it real, or just in Eliza's head? She's not sure – are always great fun. Remy, Eliza's love interest – presently her fiancé – is fun to write about, too. He's clever and amusing and desperately romantic, but he always calls Eliza out on her bullshit. And I have this appalling character named Mr. Todd, a razor murderer who's obsessed with Eliza. He sees himself as a tragic artist, but … well, you'll see.
What Other Projects can we look forward to reading from you?
I have a few secret projects on the go – stay tuned! I also write UF action, space opera and paranormal romance as Erica Hayes (www.ericahayes.net)
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Viola Carr was born in Australia,
but wandered into darkest London one foggy October evening and never found her
way out. She now devours countless history books and dictates fantastical
novels by gaslight, accompanied by classical music and the snoring of her
slumbering cat. She likes steampunk, and thought it would be cool to
investigate wacky crimes with crazy gadgets…just so long as her heroine was the
creator of said wacky gadgets: a tinkerer, edgy, with a dash of mad scientist.Find Viola and her books
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Dr. Eliza Jekyll must turn to her dark side, Miss Lizzie Hyde, to stop a madman targeting London’s most important scientists and sorcerers terrorizing the city with dark magic in this third Electric Empire novel—a dazzlingly original steampunk fantasy set in the gritty world of alternate Victorian London, with echoes of H G. Wells classic, The Time Machine
Being two people in one body isn’t easy. Metropolitan Police crime scene physician Eliza Jekyll is trying to maintain a semblance of control, even as her rebellious second self, Lizzie, grows increasingly wild—threatening the respectable Eliza’s reputation and her marriage to Remy Lafayette, the Royal Society investigator and occasional lycanthrope. With England on the brink of war, Remy’s away in sorcery-riddled Paris on a secretive mission that grows ever more sinister. Has he been an enemy agent all along? Or is coping with Eliza’s secret divided self finally driving her mad?
Eliza needs her mind clear and sharp if she’s to catch an evil genius who is killing eminent scientists. The chase uncovers a murky world of forbidden books, secret laboratories, and a cabal of fanatical inventors whose work could change the world—or destroy it—and who may hold answers to Eliza's past.
As sorcery-wielding terrorists attack London, Eliza discovers her own enemies are closing in, driving her to desperate measures—enlisting the aid of the wily, resourceful, mercurial Lizzie—to thwart the killer. But Lizzie’s got her own life now, and true to her nature, will resort to the devious and diabolical to keep it. Even if it means throwing Eliza to the wolves, and letting the world burn. . . .
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