Ever tried the infamous ‘elevator pitch’? 

Harder than it sounds. 

Got cornered by someone who said ‘so, you’re writing a book, what’s it about?’

Hmm, not the best time to stutter, procrastinate…

Okay, Amy Grace is the tale of a young woman who is attacked, finds her inner strength, flies in an airship, and you know – rights wrongs and stuff.  So, it’s graphic where it needs to be, but not voyeuristic.  It is deliberately sympathetic to the long terms effects that such a brutal attack would have, so ‘coping’ theme reverberates throughout the tale. 

It’s steampunk insofar as we have an (nuclear powered) airship flying in a Victorian world, but it’s not googles and corsets, or dependent upon the technology to propel the story forward – but it helps.  The backdrop of Steampunk and the British Empire are wonderful tools that just beg for a few characters to be dropped in their midst.  The late 1800’s were a fascinating time, full of genuine epoch defining events, and so that’s why the time period is where it is.  We have the Empire at its height, the great game being played by other imperial powers, the burgeoning independence/nationalism of the ‘conquered’, it just cries out intrigue and adventure.  It was also a time where to be British, to be a man, to be an officer was all that was needed – so our hero is a heroine, a small woman, an Irish woman.  And her being a woman, and Irish to boot, I think adds a slightly different and very interesting slant on the whole adventure genre – oh, and that she channels the warrior women through her adds that little bit of Celtic Mythology into an already interesting mix. 

Can I get this whole thing across between floors three and four?  Possibly not, but I’ll practice, and I’ll try to get what, in my head, is a big complex intertwining series of thoughts together in such a matter as to come across as coherent and interesting, that or I’ll have to find the stop button to give me some much needed ‘waffle time’! 

So, if you hear of a man being arrested for a poorly planned and executed abduction in a lift – give that man some sympathy – it could very well be me….