(Psi Fighter Academy #2)
Published: July 11, 2016 by Entangled TEEN
Genre: YA superhero/romance
Pages: 340
Summary:
Rinnie Noelle would rather kick some creepy villain butt than go on a date. As a Psi Fighter trained in the Mental Arts, she can’t be distracted by emotion. Her nemesis, Nicolaitan, is manipulating students from her school, using them as puppets to carry out his new plan to find the infamous Morgan Girl, and he doesn’t care who becomes collateral damage in the process. People’s lives are depending on Rinnie’s ultimate focus.
But Mason Draudimon keeps slicing into her soul sharper than a Thought Saber, and her feelings for him knock her off her game with the strength of a psionic War Hammer. Mason insists on helping Rinnie take down Nicolaitan for his own reasons—to avenge his mother—and the closer they get to the truth, the more dangerous the dance between mind and heart, life and death, logic and love.
INTERVIEW
Welcome, D.R. I'm so excited to have you on The Left-Handed Book Lover today!
Thanks, it’s a pleasure to be here!
First thing's first: Are you right- or left-handed?
Depends. I use a sword in my right hand and a shield in my left.
Now, word on the street is that before writing this series, you were a research consultant. I'm not exactly sure what that entails, but it sounds a lot different than writing a YA novel. What was it like to transition from technical papers to YA adventure stories? Did you face any major challenges?
The transition from writing boring, technically-abundant facts and figures to exciting, action-filled battle scenes and snappy dialogue was invigorating, revitalizing, inspiring, and all those other synonyms for “WOW, this is a blast!” The major challenge was learning a different form of writing. A well-written technical paper has tight sentences with clear, concise wording. That’s necessary for writing YA adventure, but I also had to learn how to put a story together, how to create characters that people could relate to, and how to write dialogue that doesn’t suck.
Bullying is a major element of your series. What do you hope the teens reading will take away from this?
My message to kids who feel different is simple. Stick together. We have the rest of the world outnumbered. Bullies are cowards. They don’t like it when their victims stand together. My message to bullies is also simple. You have a choice. Use your powers for good, not evil. Stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.
Can you tell us a little bit about what the Psi Fighters and Mental Arts are?
The Psi Fighters are a secret society of protectors. They wear high-tech masks and armor to keep their identities secret and their bodies unharmed (usually). Over the years, the Psi Fighters have taken on covert missions against dictators, evil organizations, and crime lords. They operate from a training complex hidden hundreds of feet beneath the city in a section of the abandoned mines which, according to official records, doesn’t exist. It requires years of intense training in the Mental Arts before a Psi Fighter is awarded a mission. Rinnie Noelle is the youngest Psi Fighter ever to achieve a black belt and take on a mission.
The Mental Arts are the source of a Psi Fighter’s power. Unfortunately, they are also the source of a Walpurgis Knight’s power. They can be used to hurt or heal. Kung fu, aikido, jujitsu, yoga, acupuncture, shiatsu, reiki, all have their origins in the Mental Arts. Sad to say, so do black magic and voodoo. The real power of all these arts comes from the mind. As the Kilodan says, “The ability to break inanimate objects is irrelevant. It requires nothing more than a bit of brawn. Breaking an opponent who is physically superior to you requires quite another talent.” Masters of the Mental Arts make weapons from their thoughts and emotions. Each Psi Weapon is unique. Some disrupt the opponent’s perception. Others affect their memory or distort their reasoning. All tug at emotion in one form or another. The Psi Fighters have invented a technology to help them form Psi Weapons. They call it the Amplifier. It looks like a fountain pen or some other ordinary, everyday object. Easy to carry, easy to hide, completely undetectable. For a long time, only Psi Fighters who had mastered the Mental Arts could turn their thoughts into physical weapons. But with the invention of the Amplifier, the fledgling black belt has the ability as well. The technology behind it is very intricate, from the silver and gold encephalographic electrodes to the resonating core, which amplifies the Psi Fighter’s thoughts. Pure Emotions form Psi Weapons that are used for good. Dark Emotions are the choice of the Walpurgis Knights, the Psi Fighters’ fiercest enemy. Psi Fighters don’t do Dark Emotions.
Once this series is finished, do you think you'll be working on more YA fiction?
The manuscript for the third book in the Psi Fighter series, titled The Psi Who Loved Me, is scheduled to be completed by October 1. The book will be released in early 2017. That’s the final book in the trilogy, but I have three more Psi Fighter stories in the works.
I’m also working on a totally new series tentatively titled “Geek Wars.” It’s a modern-day sci-fi thriller romance series for teens, where the main characters are absolutely brilliant with science, but totally clueless when it comes to boy-girl relationships. A top-secret government agency called ORDER asks three brainiac brothers to team up with three girl geniuses to help fight a war of the minds. A group of equally intelligent teens known as HAVOC has stolen sensitive US government information to invent a machine capable of destroying a city. Plenty of action, romance, and comic relief. Imagine The Big Bang Theory characters with James Bond missions.
LIGHTNING ROUND!!
Salsa or guacamole? Guac. I just like the sound of it.
Pet dragon or pet unicorn? Unicorn. Better magic.
Gif: soft 'g' or hard 'g'? Potato, potawto
What was the last book you read? Touching Fate by Brenda Drake
Do you have any pets? Yes, I have a tank full of minnows.
What are your plans for world domination?
Once the Psi Fighter Academy series is on the Big Screen, the villains of the world will turn themselves in willingly for a chance to star in one of the films. After they play the part of a Psi Fighter, they’ll understand why Good will always conquer Evil. Then they’ll fill their social media with messages to the other bad guys who haven’t seen the movies, and evil will finally go the way of the dodo bird.
That's all I've got! Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to more Psi Fighter awesomeness!
Thanks for having me!
D.R. is such a funny, entertaining guy, and that definitely shines through in his books. I'm currently read the first book in the series Psi Another Day and it's a lot of fun. Quick, witty, and fun!
Live and Let Psi Gift Basket Giveaway, featuring: a signed copy of Psi Another Day, a Psi Fighter tshirt, a Psi Fighter hoodie, a Psi Fighter backpack, and a Psi Fighter Amplifier, a device that allows Psi Fighters trained in the Mental Arts to create weapons out of their thoughts!
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