Empty Hourglass (A Deal with the Devil story) by @corneliagrey Virtual Tour | Spotlight, Excerpt & #giveaway {@RiptideBooks}

Hello! I’m Cornelia Grey—welcome to the Empty Hourglass blog tour! At various tour stops, I’ll be sharing some secrets about my writing process, sources of inspiration and future projects!

Comment on each stop to be entered in a drawing for a $15 Riptide Publishing gift card and the two previous titles in the Deal with a Devil series—Devil at the Crossroads and The Circus of the Damned—in an e-book format of your choice. Thank you for joining me on the tour!

Thomas Escott has always wanted to be a toymaker, yet just as he achieves his dream, an accident claims his right hand. He’s certain his life is over—until he hears about groundbreaking prosthetics being made by a reclusive inventor.

Jethro Hastings is perfectly content to live alone up in the mountains working on a secret masterpiece: a humanoid automaton that will change the scientific community forever. He’s behind schedule, and the date of the unveiling is fast approaching, so when Thomas shows up on his doorstep offering help in exchange for a mechanical hand, Jethro agrees. Time, after all, is running out on another deal he’s made: one with the devil.

The devil gives Jethro’s inventions life, but he can just as quickly take life away—Jethro’s, to be exact. As the sand in the devil’s hourglass falls, marking the time until the end of the deal, inventions go haywire, people get hurt, and Thomas realizes he needs Jethro just as much as his prosthetic. Now he must find a way to save Jethro’s soul, but negotiating with a devil is just as difficult as it sounds.

Buy links: Riptide | Amazon 

Excerpt: 

The men were still looking at him, slowly advancing, forming a semicircle that barred his way to the exit. He flexed his hand, feeling the pressure of the metallic bracelet hidden under his sleeve, a small mechanism he’d devised that held a long, thick screwdriver that would snap out with a flick of his wrist. Pretty useful contraption down in Lunaris. His gut was telling him to just throw his luggage at one, kick another, and head-butt a third, then run out the door, but he restrained himself. That tactic might have been the most appropriate in the city, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t work as well in this little village.

He cursed inwardly. For all his experience as a street rat, he didn’t know how to behave here.

He glanced at the somber-faced men again and decided perhaps being friendly and using good manners might be the best way to start. He paused to collect his inner charlatan—he’d had plenty of experience with that—and took a deep breath.

“Good evening, gentlemen!” He beamed. “What a pleasant surprise to find such a, er, warm welcome in this lovely town of yours. Pray tell, would you happen to know where a fellow might find a hansom cab?”

His bright, cheerful tone echoed in the darkened room like inappropriate laughter at a funeral, and the cloaked men seemed to react with just as much disdain. Thick eyebrows furrowed, lips turned thin and severe, and mustaches trembled in outrage.

“We don’t like foreigners around here,” a gray-mustached man said, his forehead etched with deep wrinkles.

Thomas’s smile wobbled. “I’m not a foreigner. I come from the capital. I’m just a visitor.”

The men exchanged looks, and the man with the gray mustache continued. He seemed to be the leader of the pack.

“Well, we don’t like visitors, either.”

Oh bollocks.

To read this entire excerpt or see more books from this Author, visit Riptide Publishing. 

Cornelia Grey is a creative writing student fresh out of university, with a penchant for fine arts and the blues. Born and raised in the hills of Northern Italy, where she collected her share of poetry and narrative prizes, Cornelia moved to London to pursue her studies.

After graduating with top grades, she is now busy with internships: literary agencies, publishing houses, and creative departments handling book series, among others. She also works as a freelance translator.

She likes cats, knitting, performing in theatre, going to museums, collecting mugs, and hanging out with her grandma. When writing, she favors curious, surreal stories, steampunk, and mixed-genre fiction. Her heroes are always underdogs, and she loves them for it.

Connect with Cornelia:

·                     Website: corneliagrey.com

·                     Blog: corneliagrey.blogspot.com

·                     LiveJournal: corneliagrey.livejournal.com

·                     Twitter: @corneliagrey

·                     Facebook: facebook.com/corneliagrey

·                     Goodreads: goodreads.com/Cornelia_Grey

  

To celebrate the release of The Empty Hourglass, Cornelia is giving away the two previous titles in the Deal with a Devil series—Devil at the Crossroads and The Circus of the Damned—in an e-book format of your choice, plus $15 in Riptide credit. Leave a comment to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on April 16, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!