TFFOS: Jennifer Estep -- Guest Post & Giveaway

To find out more about The Four Flavors of Summer and to view a master-list of all features and giveaways, click HERE.

To wrap up fantasy week, here's JENNIFER ESTEP, author of TOUCH OF FROST. She's here to give you guys a sneak peek into the monster-filled world that is Mythos Academy. And the book's name does not lie...  

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Greetings and salutations! First of all, I want to thank Jenn for having me on the blog today. Thanks so much, Jenn!

My name is Jennifer Estep, and I write the Mythos Acad­emy young adult urban fan­tasy series for Kens­ing­ton. The books focus on Gwen Frost, a 17-year-old Gypsy girl who has the gift of psy­chom­e­try, or the abil­ity to know an object’s his­tory just by touch­ing it. After a seri­ous freak-out with her magic, Gwen is shipped off to Mythos Acad­emy, a school for the descen­dants of ancient war­riors like Spar­tans, Valkyries, Ama­zons, and more.

First Frost, a prequel e-story to the series, came out today, July 1. The first book, Touch of Frost, will be out on July 26, while the sec­ond book, Kiss of Frost, will hit shelves on Nov. 29.

So Jenn asked me to talk a little bit about creatures/monsters today, since they are featured in my Mythos Academy books. There are tons of creatures/monsters in various cultures and mythologies around the world, everything from sphinxes to dragons to chimeras to gargoyles to gryphons and many, many more.

In Touch of Frost, Gwen runs into her first creature – a Nemean prowler. Basically, in my books, these are enormous, panther-like creatures with big teeth, big claws, and big, burning red eyes. Their fur is black, although it has a reddish tinge to it. In the books, the Reapers of Chaos (the bad guys) use the prowlers to stalk and kill their enemies. One character says that the prowlers are really just oversize, kitty-cat assassins, and I think that’s a pretty good description of them.

So how did I come up with this monster? Well, I allude to a lot of Greek and Norse myths in Touch of Frost and the rest of the Mythos Academy books. In Greek mythology, Hercules (aka Heracles) was tasked with killing the Nemean lion, a vicious creature which supposedly couldn’t be killed with regular weapons. But, of course, Hercules managed to kill the lion in the end.

One of the things that I love about writing fantasy is that you can take a myth or legend and put your own spin on it. So I decided to take this creature and myth and reimagine it, turning my creature into more of a prowling panther rather than a lion and giving it the same creepy red eyes that the Reapers of Chaos often have when they are attacking folks in my books.

Gwen will meet more creatures/monsters in future Mythos Academy books. Some will want to eat her, and some won’t, but one thing is for sure – it’s going to be interesting to see how she survives her encounters with them. Here’s hoping that everyone has as much fun reading about my creature features as I did writing them. Happy reading, everyone! ;-)

What about you guys? What are your favorite fantasy creatures/monsters to read about?

Jennifer Estep is a USA Today bestselling author who also writes the Ele­men­tal Assas­sin urban fan­tasy series for Pocket Books. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assas­sin code­named the Spi­der who can con­trol the ele­ments of Ice and Stone. When she’s not busy killing peo­ple and right­ing wrongs, Gin runs a bar­be­cue restau­rant called the Pork Pit in the fic­tional South­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land. The city is also home to giants, dwarves, vam­pires, and ele­men­tals – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.

Books in the series are Spider’s Bite, Web of Lies, Venom, and Tan­gled Threads. Spider’s Revenge, the fifth book, will be released on Sept. 27. Visit www.jenniferestep.com for free short stories, excerpts, and more.

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Summary:  

My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Acad­emy — a school of myths, magic and warrior whiz kids, where even the lowli­est geek knows how to chop off somebody’s head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spar­tan guy in school, also hap­pens to be the deadliest.

But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jas­mine Ash­ton was mur­dered in the Library of Antiq­ui­ties. Then, some­one stole the Bowl of Tears, a mag­i­cal arti­fact that can be used to bring about the sec­ond Chaos War. You know, death, destruction and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I’m deter­mined to find out who killed Jas­mine and why – espe­cially since I should have been the one who died…

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GIVEAWAY

Courtesy of Jennifer, I have one finished copy of TOUCH OF FROST to giveaway! For an extra point, answer the question Jennifer posed purple.

To enter, fill out the form below. Open to U.S. addresses only.