Blog Tour and Contest for Jordan by Susan Kearney

To celebrate the recent of release of JORDAN, Susan Kearney relates some of the background for this book and the others in the Pendragon Legacy series.

[See contest details at the end of the essay.]

The Legend of King Arthur

I’ve often been asked what inspired me to turn the King Arthur legend into a futuristic romance trilogy.  But here’s the truth . . . I came up with a futuristic series I wanted to write, then looked for a legend from Earth’s history that would complement my story idea.

That might seems backwards to most people, but there are several reasons for why this happened.  First, I tend to think about the future first—not the past.  Second, I wanted to try something different with this series, something I hadn’t done before.  And third, I wanted new readers to try the series.

Now using a popular ancient legend to try and win over new readers might seem like a cold and calculated way of going about creating a story.  But if my books aren’t popular I can’t continue to sell them.  And actually finding new readers who are willing to spend their hard-earned dollars on a genre they’ve never heard of—is no easy task.

So I tried to make the ideas of dragon shifting more palatable to readers.  I want them to feel comfortable and a good way to do that is to put a new twist on a time-honored legend.  And King Arthur Pendragon was perfect—especially with his last name.  In addition, not much is really known about King Arthur, including the exact century he lived.  As a writer this was a great opportunity for me to twist the past and insert it into my story.

But in addition to all of the above, King Arthur’s time was known for chivalry, brave deeds, bold men.  Alpha men.  Those were great character traits for my heroes.  So I didn’t just use past historical legend, I built upon the characters of knights.

And in  JORDAN, I took a murky, quirky character from the past, Merlin, and remade him into my kind of hero.  Bold, determined, pure Alpha male.  His woman had to come from Earth’s future - not so far into the future, just enough so that space flight to other worlds might be believable.  Just enough so that we could have adapted to new DNA.  Just enough that Earth was different enough for my stories to work.

Will I use other legends in future books?  It’s possible.  Stay tuned . . .  In the meantime, you should know each of my books while connected stands alone. You won’t feel lost if you start with Jordan and work your way backwards.

If you’d like to read more about LUCAN, RION, or JORDAN there are excerpts at www.susankearney.com

Contest

Thanks to Anna Balasi of Forever Romance five lucky readers will each win a copy JORDAN

This contest is open only to residents of the U.S. or Canada (No P.O. Boxes)


To be eligible do the following:

*Answer this question: What is your favorite character from the King Arthur legends?  (If you don't have a favorite pretend that you do and put down a name.)
1 point


You may also:

*Link this post to your own site or a social network site, and be sure to let me know the URL.  1 point for each link.

*If you are a follower 1 point

*If you are an email subscriber 1 point

If your email is not associated with your ID, please put the address in your response.

Contest ends March 18 at 11:59 PM PST