Ann Gimple Tells About Her Transformation Series

Hi Marilyn,

Thanks for inviting me to guest blog on your site.

You’d asked about what inspired me to write the Transformation Series. It’s not accidental that the main character in Psyche’s Prophecy, Psyche’s Search and Psyche’s Promise is a psychologist. Since that was my chosen vocation for many years, it’s something I can write about with a great deal of familiarity. I’ve been pleased when reviews of Psyche’s Prophecy and Psyche’s Search have found them eerily close to real life.

Because I write genre fiction—in my case contemporary fantasy—the psychologist in question has psychic abilities. Lara McInnis has the sight. She also reads auras. I’ve had a lot of fun applying her expanded sensory abilities to the practice of psychology.

Another strong interest of mine is ecology. It’s no surprise that my novels and short stories often have a green twist. The Transformation Series is set in a dystopian near future where we finally managed to run fossil fuel supplies dry. Society is imploding because of shortages of everything from food to gas for people’s cars.

I prefer contemporary fantasy to high fantasy. There’s something about a real world setting that makes the addition of magic grittier somehow. Readers expect magical things in alternate worlds, but when a main character is flattened by a vision in the middle of her daily jog around Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, it feels far more powerful to me. Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of the unexpected against a life that looked normal until just a couple of pages ago. If it’s skillfully woven, I think a modern world with magic is far more interesting than one without.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written my share of high fantasy, and science fiction, too. Genre fiction opens many possibilities. Its relative popularity speaks to readers’ desire to have books transport them outside themselves to a new, plausible reality. The very best books suspend disbelief while you hold them in your hands flipping pages (or clicking buttons!).

What have some of your favorite books been and why do they loom large in your memory?

(This question is for the readers of my blog--and be sure and check out the information below about the books and Ann herself.)

 

Psyche’s Prophecy

Book One of the Transformation Series

By Ann Gimpel

What if your psychotherapist could really see into your soul?  Picture all those secrets lying hidden, perhaps squirming a bit, just out of view.  Would you invite your analyst to take a peek behind that gossamer curtain?  Read your aura?  Scry your future…?

Classically trained at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Doctor Lara McInnis has a special gift that helps her with her patients.  Born with “the sight” she can read auras, while flirting with a somewhat elusive ability to foretell the future.  Lara becomes alarmed when several of her patients—and a student or two—tell her about the same cataclysmic dream. 

Reaching out to the Institute for answers, Lara’s paranormal ability sounds a sharp warning and she runs up hard against a dead end.  Her search for assistance leads her to a Sidhe and ancient Celtic rituals blaze their way into her life.  Complicating the picture is a deranged patient who’s been hell bent on destroying Lara ever since she tried to help his abused wife, a boyfriend with a long-buried secret and a society that’s crumbling to dust as shortages of everything from electricity to food escalate.

Amazon Paperback  Amazon Kindle   BN    Smashwords      

ARe        Books on Board

 
Psyche’s Search

Book Two of the Transformation Series

Born with the sight, Laura McInnis is ambivalent about her paranormal ability. Oh it’s useful enough some of the time with her psychotherapy patients. But mostly it’s an embarrassment and an inconvenience—especially when her visions drag her to other worlds. Or into Goblin dens. In spite of escalating violence, incipient food shortages and frequent power blackouts, Lara is still far too attached to the comfortable life she shares with her boyfriend, Trevor, a flight attendant who lost his job when aviation fuel got so expensive—and so scarce—his airline went out of business. Forced to seek assistance to hone her unusual abilities in Psyche’s Prophecy, Book I of this series, Lara is still quite the neophyte in terms of either summoning or bending her magic to do much of anything.

Reluctantly roped into channeling her unpredictable psychic talents to help a detective who saved her from a psychopathic killer, Lara soon finds herself stranded in the murky underbelly of a world inhabited by demons.  The Sidhe offer hope, but they are so high-handed Lara stubbornly resists their suggestions.  Riots, death on all sides, a mysterious accident and one particular demon targeting her, push Lara to make some hard decisions. When all seems lost, the Dreaming, nestled in the heart of Celtic magic, calls out to her.

Amazon Paperback  Amazon Kindle  BN   Smashwords ARe

Books on Board

Short Bio:

 Ann Gimpel is a clinical psychologist, with a Jungian bent.  Avocations include mountaineering, skiing, wilderness photography and, of course, writing.  A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies and she has published two novels, Psyche’s Prophecy and Psyche’s Search. Psyche’s Promise, last book in that series, is slated for release during the summer of 2012. A husband, grown children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out her family.

           

www.anngimpel.com

http://anngimpel.blogspot.com

http://www.amazon.com/author/anngimpel

http://www.facebook.com/anngimpel.author

https://twitter.com/#!/AnnGimpel

Coming soon:

The Transformation Series is about finding out who we truly are when the chips are down. About what is real and what is illusory. About what matters and what doesn’t. It’s easy to show our best side when everything is going well. How about when the world is disintegrating around us? What happens then?

The remote location that was supposed to solve all Lara and Trevor’s problems has done anything but. Still dogged by Goblins, Lara looks to the Sidhe for help, only to find them less than available. Though she works diligently, her crash course in magic proves woefully inadequate. With Brad’s love for her finally coming to the fore and Trevor captured by demons, Lara curses her decision to leave Seattle. “If only I’d known,” she cries, knowing she can’t go back. Or can she?

In this final book of the Transformation Series, Lara and Trevor’s relationship undergoes stresses that threaten to annihilate them. Constantly hungry, besieged by dark forces, they need every resource they’ve developed as a couple to keep from ripping each other apart. With Lillian and Raven— two ancient Celtic mages— off fighting their own war against Goblin hordes, Lara has only herself and her half-baked magic standing between survival and certain death for both her and her unborn  child. After Lara is shanghaied by a Goblin lord, Trevor plays a risky game, calling up magic not meant for mortals. Will he be able to rescue his love? If so, what will be the cost to himself?