seen from Netherlands
seen from Canada
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from Canada
seen from Sweden
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
Authors in Conversation: Trip Galey and R.D. Pires
Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Trip Galey and R.D. Pires, authors of the upcoming Science Fantasy The Fall of the House of Valenziaga and Epic Fantasy Before the Ghost Sea, respectively! With both books launching Kickstarters this month, the authors wanted to chat about their projects, so before we get started, here’s a little more on those! Cover art by Jamie Flack Virtus is the…
So I started working in an adorable bookshop last month, and I have to say something that made my whole soul sing:
At my interview, I was asked what I'm reading. I figured they'd ask, so I'd brought the book I feverishly read 80% of in September and then put off finishing because I've loved it so much and I didn’t want it to end. I was rationing it as much as I could, so I was on the last twenty pages at the time.
I handed it to her, and she opened the front cover. She said, "It's signed!" and I said, "Oh yeah!" because I genuinely forgot it is, but that is very cool. I bought it at Gay's the Word shortly after its release in September, and ever since, I've been recommending it to anyone who'll stand still.
She checked the shop’s inventory for it, but they didn't have it, so she said, "Maybe I'll order it for the store."
After I was hired, one of my new coworkers was giving me a tour around the shop, and when we got to the SFF section, she pointed to the spine and said, "There it is."
In the month since I started, I made it a staff pick of mine, and I’ve sold five! :’)
This book really is wonderful, but I haven’t seen many people talking about it. Maybe because the marketing budget was low, maybe it just didn’t bounce off the right wall at the right time. Success in the publishing world is wildly mercurial.
So I’m going to try in my small way to get this book and books like it the love and excitement they deserve.
Here’s my li’l shop blurb for it:
Deri, an indentured servant in the enchanted Untermarket, is pursuing the road to his freedom by his wits and logic. But it’s his cleverness that may be his undoing. A warm-hearted historical fantasy set in Victorian London, this debut from Galey had me so captured by his characters and worldbuilding that I had to stop reading because I’d finished 80% of it in a single day while walking around modern-day London and I didn’t want it to be over. Highly re-readable.
Let me know if you’ve read it or if you decide to check it out!
“Even back then, they wanted that twink obliterated.”
@noahhawthorneauthor (he/they) interviews Trip Galey (he/him) about paying queer artists to make queer art, fae morality, identification with the alien, drawing inspiration from boredom, resonating with queer experiences outside of your own, writing the weirdest story of your heart, and the wildly entertaining I Want That Twink Obliterated anthology.
Trip Galey (he/him) is the author of the queer fantasy novel A Market of Dreams and Destiny and the cozy cosmic novella Apple Pies and Eldritch Skies as well as the co-founder of the small press Bona Books Ltd and co-creator of the I Want That Twink Obliterated anthology of queer spec fic. You can connect with him at linktr.ee/tripgaley and keep up with all the cool things Bona Books Ltd is up to at bona-books.com
Noah Hawthorne (he/they), also writing as Aelina Isaacs, is the author of the queer cozy fantasy series Adventures in Levena, beginning with Phantom and Rook. You can connect with him here @noahhawthorneauthor
Have you read A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Galey (2023)?
YES
NO
‘Hisst, kit! Slow and hark, and you may find the opportunity for an extra bit of profit.’ Deri followed the sound to a ginger tabby, grooming herself whilst perched atop the pole of a nearby market bell. ‘Milady Bess,’ he said, ‘you’re looking well.’
—
A Market of Dreams and Destiny is easily in my top 5 reads this year, I couldn’t get enough of the Untermarkt.
Gail Carriger Interviews the charming Trip Galey (tea, fae & a silly sense of humor)
Today I have invited the absolutely charming and lovely Trip Galey round for tea to talk about his new book A Market of Dreams and Destiny!
About you, the Author!
Tea or coffee and how do you take it?
Always tea, never coffee! If it’s black tea, a small splash of milk and a lump of sugar. If we’re talking fresh mint tea (I know, I know! It’s technically a tisane, but still!), just a bit of something sweet to counterpoint the delicious double bite of hot water and cool mint.
We (the Authorbeast of this bog) whole heartedly support this message, of course.
Please describe your personal style for author appearances.
There will be a hat, always a hat. Usually it will be in the ‘pork pie’ family of headgear, though the occasional trilby or fedora might make an appearance. I quite fancy having a top hat with a small dragon curled around the brim someday. Other sartorial staples include
a shirt that is in some measure geeky, or gay, or (ideally) both
a blazer with some manner of pin badge on the lapel (Be Gay! Cast Spells!)
and always, always a pair of deliberately mismatched shoes.
Again, this Authorbeast is in WILD approval.
If I were to observe the writer beast in its native environment, what surprising thing might I see? What does the environment look like?
Changeable. I do not currently have my own dedicated writing space, so aside from myself and my tablet or phone, you might see a kitchen table with some form of homemade cake on it (angel food, at present), or the leather-and-polished-wood of the study carrels of the British Library, or the absolutely hideous grey sofa that came with our current flat, or the charming and hyper-manicured environs of my local Victorian park (weather permitting).
If you could travel in any type of conveyance, what would it be?
Train. But not just any train. No tea, no shade, but American trains are rubbish. No, I’m talking about European trains. The kind with tables built in, and charge points, so I can sit and write and watch the world pass to the gentle rocking motion of the carriage. Heaven!
Again, we are in complete agreement. Some day I must just take off for foreign climes and putter about on trains for the better part of a month. What joy could be mine!
No deviating: vanilla or chocolate ice cream on a plain or a sugar cone?
(Gail will use this to determine your level of sanity.)
Vanilla ice cream on a sugar cone!
Gail pronounces Trip = slightly bonkers.
What’s most likely to make you laugh?
This is a tricky one. In general, it would most likely be snappy dialogue or witty one-liners, delivered by a skilled actor or comedian. Not everything hits, of course.
Then there’s my brain, which does this thing where every so often something will strike it as absolutely HILARIOUS and that thing will just get stuck in some crevice or cranny in my mind and whenever it comes up it’s as funny as the first time I encountered it. It could be a line from a film or a random meme that social media chucked in my face. The other denizens of the Writer Flat know these secrets and on occasion abuse them mercilessly.
Gail: OMG I do this too!
Since writers inevitably end up in the bar, what’s your poison?
A pint of cider. If for any reason I require the buzz to hit sooner rather than later, drop a shot of vodka, glass and all, into that bad boy. I am not a diminutive individual. Sometimes these measures are entirely necessary and justified.
Author Trip Galey
Trip is a writer, a doctor of the academic persuasion, and a researcher of all things pursuant to bargains, exchanges, and compacts of a faery nature. It is inadvisable to attempt to make a deal with him. He has been, in the past, a reluctant cowboy, an Ivy League collegian, and an itinerant marketing professional. Mostly harmless.
Trip can be found here.
About your book!
What should readers eat while consuming your novel?
Either their favourite food or their least. Barring that, whatever makes them think of London!
What form does evil take within its pages?
Greed. Brutal, extractive, exploitative greed.
Which one of your characters would you most want to kiss and why?
Rhys the pawnbroker, though for reasons I won’t go into here as they are not yet revealed! (Though if you need a reason, we can say it’s because he’s somewhat based on the character of Neal Caffrey from White Collar.)
What’s your favorite period in history and does it influence your world building?
I adore periods of history known for excess (as much as I abhor the reasons for them). Give me the decadence of the 1920s, or the dramatic opulence of the Late Baroque period. And I can’t help but respect the eye-searing, neon intensity of the 1980s. And yes, they absolutely do influence my world building and my general approach to storytelling.
Frankly, sometimes more is more.
Which one of your characters would you most like to slap and why?
Garog Graspar. It’s not enough that he’s greedy, malicious, and cruel; he’s stupid and willfully ignorant as well.
Without spoilers, what’s the funnest (or funniest) part of the book?
For me, hands down, it’s the moment that involves
exploiting a loophole on a deal
a five-syllable, ten-dollar word
and an unflappable entity with more legs than arms.
If your story smelled of something, what would that be?
Elderflower cordial and hot copper.
A Market of Dreams & Destiny
A tale of faery bargains, nascent industrial action, and clever shenanigans in an alternate Victorian London where magic can be found around every corner, and anything can be had…for the right price.
Gail’s thoughts:
I’m guessing from that pitch alone, that those of you who enjoy my Parasolverse books are probably gonna love this one. I don’t write the fae per-say but I do write fae-like characters (Lord Akeldama and Preshea both spring to mind). Also I think if you are, specifically a fan of Romancing the Werewolf, you’ll probably love this.
Yours (destined to be killed by a tumbling TBR pile),
Miss Gail
Below Covent Garden lies the Untermarkt, where anything and everything has a price: a lover’s first blush, a month of honesty, a wisp of f
Below Covent Garden lies the Untermarkt, where anything and everything has a price: a lover’s first blush, a month of honesty, a wisp of fortune. As a child, Deri was sold to one of the Market’s most powerful merchants. Now, after years of watchful servitude, Deri finally spots a chance to buy not only his freedom but also his place amongst the Market’s elite when he stumbles into the path of a runaway princess desperate to sell her royal destiny. But news of the missing princess and her wayward destiny spreads. Royal enforcers and Master Merchants alike are after it. Outmanoeuvring them all would all be hard enough had Deri not just also met the love of his life, a young man called Owain, whose employers are using the Market for their own nefarious schemes. Deri soon finds that the price of selling the royal destiny, making a name for himself, and saving the man he loves is dear. The cost of it all might just change the destiny of London forever.
"True Love? That’s worth far more".
Trip Galey's A Market of Dreams and Destiny is a fun adventure set in an alternative England where Henry VIII turned to druidry to achieve his divorce, and Elizabeth I made a pact with Titania; where magic permeates every dealing, and the goblin market is the place where one can find anything, ruled by its own fay rules, but also a place where great injustice abounds.
The setting is intriguing, and yet the execution feels a little lacking; much more could have been explored. We follow the lives of two indentured servants as they navigate the market and face new threats, attempt to buy back their contracts, fight against the system, and fall in insta-love. Their relationship isn't fully explored, and this takes away from the shock that the big resolution should provoke.
Deri is a great protagonist, mischievous and very smart, able to male do with less than nothing and find new ways out of trouble. A thorough planner, it's a joy to watch him outmaneuver almost everyone in his quest to find the best solution with the least loss, even though his more altruistic plans are almost an afterthought. His ability to hear words when the London bells ring makes for an interesting power that could have been explored further.
The prose is phenomenal, lyrical and vivid and filled with great imagery, clever turns of phrase, and memorable characters populating the goblin market, from Deri's master who can speak with gold, to the cat that decides to take an interest in Deri's affairs, and many others. The goblin and fae, being genderless, are referred to exclusively with a neutral pronoun of the author's design.
A Market of Dreams and Destiny is a book that's filled with wonder.
✨ 3.5 stars
.
📚📚📚 IF YOU LOVE THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE:
* Lava Red Feather Blue, by Molly Ringle
for: faerie, mischief
[You can find more of my reviews about queer speculative fiction on my blog MISTY WORLD]
sometimes reading a book is hard, because there's so much* going on and even though you know it's going to end the way you want, it's still hard to keep going. but then you get to the end and even though you knew it would end the way you wanted, it still renders you absolutely speechless with delight.
yeah, that happened to me.
*pain, love, heartache, worry, fear, etc
