Hi everyone! We have a special guest post for you from Melody Winter, author of Iniquity!
Today, Melody will be talking about how her life at 21 compared to Athena’s. You can also find out more about her book and enter a giveaway at the end!
Melody and Athena at 21
It’s very different in a lot of ways.
At 21 I was at university. I was independent to a certain degree, needing to cook, clean and do my own laundry. But even though I was busy studying, I also had quite an eventful social life and travelled a lot during vacations.
Athena has a very restricted life in comparison. She’s been very much on her own since she was sixteen when her gran was killed. The only social life she has is meeting her friends in the evenings or celebrating with the whole village at the monthly feast.
I think the biggest difference is the freedom. I had lots, I travelled to different parts of the country, but Athena’s stuck in the village. She’s not even allowed to venture into the surrounding forest for fear of been attacked. Mentally she will have to be incredibly strong—the darkness is a constant drain on any fleeting happiness.
She works every day, weaving cloth, and fights off tiredness and boredom by dreaming about returning the light. I didn’t have such world changing worries, only that of hoping that I’d done enough revision to pass my next lot of exams. At 21 I may have thought that my life was hard, but Athena’s is a lot harder.
Her clothes are plain and dull. There is no make-up or any luxurious bathing products, something that is taken for granted these days. But it’s the cold and damp that I would struggle with the most. Homes would be cold, the near enough constant rain a depressing start to the darkness of every day.
She has no hope for her future, just a continuation of the life she lives. She has no prospects, no outlet for her intelligence. She’s stuck in a world that shows no signs of changing.
Not only does she have to cope with the fear of her surroundings, but also the impending doom of being sent away to an unknown place where rumours of depravity and torture are rife. Her life isn’t one that I’d ever want to swap with mine.
About the book
Iniquity
Author: Melody WinterSeries: Ascent #1
Release date: October 25th 2016
Genres: New Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Add to TBR: Goodreads
Purchase: Amazon UK | Amazon US
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Athena Harrow is about to turn twenty-one, but there will be no celebration. What is there to celebrate when the world is ruled by demons?
She hates the darkness the demons brought with them and longs for the light to return to the world—a world she only vaguely remembers. The people in her forest village blindly accept the life the demons forced upon them, even tolerating the yearly ascension ceremony where all the girls who have turned twenty-one are either sent away to serve the Master Demon or left in the village and forced to procreate.
But Paymon, the assigned village demon, selects a different role for Athena, a role that pits her against the village. While she adapts to her new life, Erebus, a younger, more powerful demon, arrives, and Athena must play a dangerous game with his emotions in return for information about the demon’s reign of darkness.
As Athena’s dreams of restoring the light begin to fade, her life with Erebus takes an unexpected turn, and this time it’s her life being put to the test.
Set in the forest around Buttercrambe in North Yorkshire, England, INIQUITY explores the frightening, darker side of romance and the uncontrolled emotions it can unleash.
About Melody Winter
Growing up, Melody showed a natural ability in art, a head for maths, and a tendency to write too long English essays. Difficult to place in the world when she graduated, she pursued a career in teaching, but ended up working in finance. Melody is convinced the methodical times she spends working with numbers fuel her desire to drift into dream worlds and write about the illusory characters in her head.
Melody Winter lives in York, North Yorkshire, England with her husband and two sons. When not dealing with football, rugby, and a whole plethora of ‘boy’ activities, she will be found scribbling notes for her stories, or preparing for another trip to the nearby beaches at Scarborough and Whitby. With an obsession for anything mythical, Melody revels in reading and writing about such creatures.
Thanks for being on the tour! 🙂