Please welcome our next guest, Author Toni V. Sweeney...

...and co-conspirator over at the Pink Fuzzy Slipper Writers Blog:)

Quick Reminder:
Don't forget you have a chance to register to win a gift basket by listing all the "Liberty Bell" sightings this month. For more details please visit my website, click on the "Contest" tab and then jump back here to begin the hunt:) Happy Hunting!

Welcome, Toni. Wonderful to have you here. Can't wait to see what you have in store for us today.

Hi, Dayana. Thanks for having me. I'd like to share a bit of history with you today.


Blood Sin could be considered a warning to young men: Be careful with whom you fall in love. is a cautionary tale. The story of a prince who falls in love with the wrong woman and pays the price for that crime (through five novels), it is the first of a series called the Kan Ingan Archives.(The kan Ingans apparently had no shame in recording their deeds and mis-deeds for posterity!) Blood Sin has had a history. It was the actually second novel in the series to be written, in the 70's when I wrote what was intended to be a stand-alone novel. About ten years after I wrote the book, I got to thinking about the background to that story. I ended up writing of happened before Blood Sin took place--about the crime he committed, and the acts leading up to it. A prequel, if you will, that eventually became Book One.

During all this switching and re-writing, I also decided to relate the stories to The Chronicles of Riven the Heretic by having my hero (Erik Brand) be a direct descendent of the hero of The Chronicles. That necessitated a change of name and spelling, so he became Aric kan Ingan. Since Riven was considered the ancestor of the ruling family in the Emeraunt Galaxy, Aric became the Crown Prince of the current branch. The story came mostly out of my own imagination but I will admit it has a vague resemblance to the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra. You know...older man, young wife, young handsome male relative...prime ingredients for disaster. That story's been played out a thousand times in a thousand variations--especially on the daily Soaps--since Euripides introduced the female character Phaedra in his drama Hippolytus in 428 BC. She's become a staple ever since.

Blood Sin was submitted to 4 publishers--and rejected by all of them. At this point, I'll repeat myself, so those of you who know this story: Don't listen! Shortly afterward, Danielle Kaheaku of Leucrota Press, called me to give me her reasons for not accepting the story. She talked to me for nearly thirty minutes while I occasionally asked her to slow down because I was taking notes. At the end of her conversation, she told me if I would act on her suggestions, re-work some sections and add more characterization, she would review the manuscript again.

The rest, as they say, is history...

So here's the Promo: Blood Sin, the story of a man destined to be the most powerful person in the galaxy until that winged troublemaker Cupid skewered him with one of those little darts. A man accused of committing a crime and unable to prove himself innocent because to do so would reveal he's committed an ever greater crime. It's got everything thing that makes life worth living--plenty of love, sex, and violence. It's a winner!

Blood Sin will be released in August by Leucrota Press. For a preview, here's the trailer.




More about Toni:


Toni Sweeney was born in Georgia after the War between the States but before the Gulf War. Her writing career began during an extended convalescence following an automobile accident. Since her recovery, she has survived hurricanes in the South, tornados and snow-covered winters in the Midwestn, and earthquakes and forest fires in California. She had been associated with the South Coast Writer's Association, the Pink Fuzzy Slipper Writers website, myspace, Facebook, and YouTube. She presently has numerous novels in publication, as well as several short stories featured in magazines, online, and on amazon.com's Amazon Shorts.