Blog Tour: MAGICAL BEASTS SERIES

Magical Beasts Series

by Geoffrey Saign

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GENRE:   YA Fantasy

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BLURB:

Samantha and Jake fight to save their poisoned parents, and instead find themselves in a battle to save the parallel magical world of KiraKu. The two teens discover they must defeat the Evil One—a diabolical master of deception—or their own world will fall too. Samantha must master the mysterious supernatural staff, WhipEye, and find out if she has what it takes to fulfill the prophecy of the true guardian. In a final battle, reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, the two teens will have to risk everything, or lose it all. For Fans of Fantastic Beasts, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings.

Winner Outstanding YA Fiction IAN BOTY

~ Magical Beasts is now in development for a major motion picture. ~

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Excerpt One:

“Watch out, Sam!” yells Jake.

I fling myself sideways onto the grass, pulling WhipEye out of reach of the lizard’s snapping jaws. The beast keeps going, leaping up.

Tarath springs vertically after it, but the Komodo’s flapping wings lift it fifty feet in one beat, inches beyond the caracal’s swinging claws. Tarath falls back to the ground, landing silently on the grass. She snarls up at the Komodo.

Hissing, the lizard hovers above us. His eyes bore into mine. “If you want to save your elders, bring the staff to Gorgon. Today. Alone. Or they die.” Shifting his gaze to Tarath, he says, “We’ll meet again, Great One.”

Tarath yowls while the Komodo quickly flies away, giving a faint roar before it fades in the distance.

“Mom.” Jake rests his hand on his mother’s shoulder. She appears unconscious.

Scrambling over the lawn to Dad, I press trembling fingers against his neck. He has a pulse. Jagged cuts on his thighs have darkened his jeans with blood. The same ugly slashes mark Cynthia’s legs. The wounds appear serious enough for stitches, but not life-threatening. In fact, when I examine Dad’s cuts closer, they’ve already stopped bleeding. Komodo bites can be deadly due to venom, but I’m not sure about claw wounds.

Jake looks bewildered. “Why didn’t you give the staff to the Komodo, Sam?”

My throat thickens. “I couldn’t.” It sounds lame, even to me. With one decision everything in my life is in shambles. And I have no one to blame but myself.

Tarath surprises me when she shrinks to five feet tall while padding toward us. Lowering her head between our parents, she sniffs the air. “Poison,” she spits.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Geoffrey Saign’s love of wildlife led him to write the award-winning fantasy series, Magical Beasts. He often experiences the magic of nature and wildlife while hiking and swimming. He has a degree in biology and has assisted in field research on hummingbirds and humpback whales. Geoff loves to sail big boats, hike, and cook—and he infuses all of his writing with his passion for nature. As a swimmer he considers himself fortunate to live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota. See what he’s up to at https://geoffreysaign.net/magical-beasts

Book 1–FREE April 12-18; Book 2–99c April 12-16

Kindle/KU/Paperback Series page

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZR6VDJ8

Audible

https://www.audible.com/pd/Guardian-The-Choice-Audiobook/B081PVPNLN

Bookbub

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/geoffrey-saign

Goodreads—Magical Beasts Book 1—Guardian The Choice

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50094484-guardian

Website

https://geoffreysaign.net/magical-beasts-fantasy-book-series/

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Interview

Where are you from? Tell us a little about yourself!

I hail from the Midwest, St. Paul, MN. If you want to know how I relate to MN, it’s water and nature. Swimming in summer, hiking in the woods. Love it! Also I love the cold in winters. Something about the challenge of dressing warm and plowing through feet of snow with boots on is an adventure. And our winters prevent our state from having 20 million people, malaria, and a host of other unwanted things. So I never complain about weather. I love wildlife, sail a little, swim, big into self-awareness (taught a class and wrote a book—SMILE MORE STRESS LESS), and have always enjoyed the thriller and fantasy genres. All my writing has thriller elements to the storyline. It’s what I enjoy reading or seeing on the screen, and thus I write it too. Also I have a sense of playfulness and humor and in Magical Beasts I put that element in wherever I could.

Tell us about your book? How did it get started?

MAGICAL BEASTS was retitled and rewritten a number of times. I finally met someone in marketing that helped me strengthen the titles and names—in their current state. I love wildlife, so I wanted a main character, Samantha (Sam), who was a wildlife guru, so that element could be in the series without sounding preachy or ‘educational’. Also the fantasy parallel world of KiraKu again has all these magical Great Ones that are giant animals capable of morphing into humanoids. Thus the story is a wildlife paradise with all these wild magical creatures too. Book 4 in the series was so exciting to write! Now that I have a movie deal, I’m unsure if #4 will be the end.

How do you create your characters?
Magical Beasts has many characters. I tend to write without outlining, with intuition guiding me. So I create characters that provide the story with challenges, solutions, and conflict. I want them interesting, mysterious, and often with secrets that the main characters have to discover. In Magical Beasts, since any animal could be a character, I had an endless list to choose from. Also in Magical Beasts, the Lessers (Great Ones that came to our world, with some mutating) represented all the creatures and monsters in all human mythologies, so I had another long list to draw from. It was very fun!

What inspires and what got you started in writing?

I’ve always loved reading and that led to writing. The idea of a story, something different that is exciting and spurred the imagination, was endlessly fascinating to me. I also read a lot of comic books when I was younger, so the hero theme was ingrained in me. Writing is a creative process, and one where I can insert themes and values that mean something. I write fiction and nonfiction, and both are abundant in themes of nature, wildlife, and self-awareness.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

Geoffrey Saign will be awarding a $30 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway