Return To Destiny - Carlyle Labuschagne & The Broken Series.

Evanescent, in definition - soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing.

This week, I'm welcoming back South African author Carlyle Labuschagne - an author of whom I have become a huge fan. On the eve of the release of the highly anticipated follow up to her 2012 debut novel The Broken Destiny, I'm excited to be featuring "Evanescent - A Broken Novel". 

Upon its release, the epic dystopian fantasy "The Broken Destiny" and its multi layered heroine in Ava, was an immediate success and I remarked at the time that it was a richly constructed tale, with a narrative that drew upon classic elements of fantasy which Carlyle brought her own signature to. It was also crafted in a style that is highly visual, influenced by Carlyle's love of imagery and photography. I noted in doing some background research for my original feature on Carlyle, that she observes color and life in her photography with an astute eye and this was borne out in the original novel. Her characters too, were easy to invest in - an important quality given we knew then that this was to become a trilogy under the title 'The Broken Series'.

And now Carlyle returns with "Evanescent - A Broken Novel" which continues the journey through her fascinating world and pits Ava against greater peril, heightened stakes and battle that rages as much within herself as it does around her.

Her fall has just begun. Only his touch can save her from the shift that could destroy it all.

Within my blood runs a thing our kind calls the Shadowing Disease. It shadows over, and bends everything to its will. When the first blood- shift came, it tore through flesh and blood, threatening to bend me, break bone, shatter my mind and entrap my heart with its honeyed, seductive poison. It came with vicious intent, moving my thoughts and altering me forever.

The shift has caused a rift within me. No one was safe when it entrapped me in its claws of foul lust. But I have the only antidote against the evil that becomes me – his touch alone has the power to release the spurs of sweet darkness that clung on for dear life. I knew what I had to do; the desperation pulled my mind with the deep determination of a hungry predator. By the time the revelation raised me from the dark dungeon of my bounds – it might have been too late.

Carlyle Labuschagne is a South African author who has quickly established herself as a skillful story teller. Readers all over the world took Carlyle into their hearts with her first entry "The Broken Destiny". Not only an author, Carlyle works as a sales rep and marketing manager by day. She holds a diploma in creative writing through the writing school at College SA.

Carlyle loves to swim, fights for the trees, and is a food lover who is driven by her passion for life. Carlyle also writes for IU e-magazine India, an inspirational non-profit magazine that aims at inspiring the world through words. The drive behind her author career is healing through words. Carlyle is also the founder of the first annual book drive – Help Build A Library in Africa Project.

“My goal as an author is to touch people’s lives, and help others love their differences and one another.”

With a global launch date of November 16th, Evanescent - A Broken Novel, promises to deliver more of the epic ingredients of dystopian fantasy and sumptuous story telling that made "The Broken Destiny" a resounding critical success with readers.

Mark your calendars and fire up your readers now.

Connect with Carlyle here.

Carlyle blogs here.

Carlyle Labuschagne on Goodreads here.

Evanescent - A Broken Novel here. 

DFA.

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The Heart That Bleeds - Xavier Saer & Bleeding Heart.

Every once in a while, an artist emerges from the crowds of people before you and, through their sheer natural magnetism, you are drawn to them. 

Xavier Saer is one such artist - a man who has accumulated a treasure chest of life experience through his bountiful experience of living and it seems that his capacity to draw an audience to him - whether it be through his passionate photographers eye, his voice and his musician's fingers or through his fertile story teller's mind - is limitless. 

Xavier Saer was born in Peru where his passion for composing and performing started quite early. Saer himself describes his artistic genesis as such - "Living among such culture, history and political turmoil… it wasn't hard to be inspired." Peru is a country of contrasts - at once starkly beautiful in the arms of the Andes mountains, with architecture and culture that one can fall deeply in love with.

Xavier Saer.

Though his destiny lay in artistic endeavors, Saer's first vocation was rather removed from the musicality and imagery that he would eventually become synonymous with. He graduated with a degree in Economics - something that, in his own words, he could present to his parents. But Saer's destiny lay elsewhere. "I had fate to follow. Music chose me, and I knew I couldn't fight against my destiny".

And so the journeyman artist within Xavier Saer emerged and he embarked on something of a quest to mold and shape art and music into his own creation. From Spain, where he studied flamenco, to the bars and clubs of London where he shared his passion, to his homeland of Peru where he signed with renowned producer Pepe Ortega and birthed his debut sellout album "Ser Asi", to Africa where a series of adventures and experiences informed the tone and tenor of his follow up recording, titled "Saer".

Saer's progression from musician, song writer and recording artist to author, therefore, is a natural one and it is already capturing the attention of an audience well beyond that which has followed him thus far.  

Bleeding Heart, Xavier Saer's debut novel, is described as a timeless fable about living life with passion. The guff on the novel is thus;

In a grey, permanently overcast city in South America, a child is born with a gap in his chest; a heart that is open to the world. To most, it appears to be a weakness. It is in fact a gift. 

Sole heir to a wealthy sugar plantation, his totalitarian father tries to force him to follow the family tradition of administering their slave-run empire. Paco refuses, opting to follow his dream of singing. Driven from his home by his father's ultimatum, Paco is lured into a world of political deception where his musical abilities land him on the wrong side of the law... and deeply in love. Having to run for his life and freedom. Escaping to the Andes, fate leads him to a mystical Inca shaman, who teaches him how to follow his heart and his inner voice. 

He is confronted with the decision; to have a heart that bleeds forever, or choose the path where there's no more bleeding - even if it means death. He discovers that nothing is impossible, and that living with an open heart is not weakness, but a gift to the world.

Cover Art for "Bleeding Heart".

Xavier the songwriter has become a story teller and he has done so with an outstanding literary work. In Bleeding Heart, Xavier Saer's words are not just words that exist in state on the page, they are exquisite lyrics of a literary kind, imbued with strength, romance, tension and passion.

Bleeding Heart is not a story that has been merely written. It has been lovingly handcrafted, sculpted from the collected experiences Saer has brought with him on his journey and it has been done so with a care and devotion that I have not witnessed from an author in a long time.

Saer brings to this story, his considerable talent as a song writer and lyricist crafting his tome in such a way that the entire book, arguably, becomes a song in and of itself. His words are poetic, picturesque, dramatic and inspirational.

Saer has an astute sense of romance and emotion - both in imbuing his characters with it as well as eliciting an emotional response from us, his readers. We feel for his characters, not the least of which, the unassuming hero in Paco who is rendered so vividly the we live through his experience. 

I've said before that I am drawn to writers who are able to write visually, allowing us to unlock the story-scape in our imagination. Here, Xavier Saer is no exception, presenting an accessible visual palette to his story that draws very much upon his Peruvian homeland, the beauty and the terror of its cities, the Andes Mountains and the contrasting people he populates his story with.

Bleeding Heart represents a high water mark in the inspirational fiction genre. Fans of Bryce Courtney's The Power Of One will find textural parallels with Bleeding Heart but Xavier Saer's work stands as a highly original piece that delivers on its own terms.

This is, hands down, an important work that will enchant you.

Purchase Bleeding Heart here.

Connect with Xavier Saer here. 

Facebook with Xavier Saer here. 

DFA.

Delving Into Destiny - Carlyle Labuschagne & The Broken Series.

I've been keen to feature South African native, Carlyle Labuschagne for a while now and, with the international release this past week, of her début novel in what is to become a three part cycle called "The Broken Series", I really wanted to help create a buzz around this exciting new talent.

Carlyle first came to my attention via author Lisette Brodey, who featured her at The Swansea Herald last month and I was immediately struck, not only by Carlyle's enthusiasm and drive, but also by the visual style that she incorporates into her writing. Carlyle shared some beautiful photographic examples, taken by her, which were resplendent with colour and life and I connected with the similar process that I have employed to imbue my own writing with a visual quality. I think that giving to the reader, something that will touch off intense visual cues readily, is an important skill that is a key quality in good writing.

So to Carlyle herself.  Born and raised in South Africa, Carlyle discovered her love of words early and describes writing a poem at aged 12 that was the catalyst for a life long commitment to writing. Through college, where she received a Diploma in Novel Writing and into adulthood, Carlyle continued to hone her craft, cognisant of her dream to develop a significant project that would allow her to achieve her dream of publishing.

That project, The Broken Series, has now come to fruition. Carlyle's first book "The Broken Destiny" was released internationally this month and both she and her novel - described as a rich, dystopian sci-fi fantasy - have been making a big impression. 

Ava is the great granddaughter of the founder of their kind: The Broken were genetically enhanced to survive evolution during the last years on earth, after which their experiments were abandoned and they moved to a distant star, Poseidon. Ava carries a secret journal that one belonged to her mother, which leads her to believe that her people are not what they seem. 

Ava has to decipher her mother's rantings in the journal, differentiating truth from madness to determine The Broken's true identities and origins. A few of The Broken will soon experience a "change," and each generation's change differs from the previous. (Ava's generation has been labelled the make it or break it generation.) Weeks before Ava's seventeenth birthday, an attempted kidnapping by Zulu warriors changes her destiny forever. Saved by a Minoan boy, she is taken back to his village where all the lies about her kind's existence (and how they came to be exiled to planet Poseidon) are brought to light. The Minoans are an ancient race that carries a secret tying in with Ava's prophesied destiny. Her destiny is to rise above the fall, to become what she hates to save them all.

"The Broken Destiny" is a richly constructed tale, brimming with detail and narrative that draws upon classic elements of fantasy, which Carlyle has skilfully re-imagined into her own signature brand. Her characters display a dynamism and voice that are accessible and visual. They are easy to invest in and one can really foster a relationship with them - which is important as the trilogy advances. Their individual arcs are established very well and they feed from the protagonist, Ava, effortlessly. Added to the characters are the cross currents of dystopian, fantasy and science fiction genres which Carlyle manages with a deft hand. Blurring the genre lines can be quite challenging and not always successful. It requires patience and balance. That Carlyle succeeds generously here, is testament to her skill as a word smith and stylist. 

The visual qualities of the narrative are inescapable here and it is to Carlyle herself that I refer via an informal email chat about her use of imagery, among other things, in her writing.

I use many tools to stimulate the creative process. My number one is of course music. Images are a necessity. One picture can spawn an entire novel on its own. A world lies within one moment captured in that image. 

My writing process centers and unfold around three things. One the book title or title chapter - I write around that and try to keep to the theme. Two the feel of the music kind of juices the mood of the scene out for me. Three and image - draws out the creativity and focus towards where I am going, what I am feeling, there are details in images, music and words that bring my writing to life in ways other things cant.

On it's own "The Broken Destiny" stands as a compelling piece of dystopian literature that carries quality, drama and adventure effortlessly across the pages. As the first instalment of the eventual three book cycle, it leaves the reader excited for more from this universe. It is a considerable achievement.

"The Broken Destiny" can be purchased right now from Amazon.

Readers can connect with Carlyle Labuschagne at her Official Site.

Carlyle's Facebook Portal can be clicked to here.  

DFA.