Today we have a great guest post and a neat giveaway from Emma Jane Holloway. If you love Steampunk, you’re gonna love this!

Help Wanted, Steampunk Style

by Emma Jane Holloway

Once in a while I step back from a character I’ve created and wonder how they’d fare in the real world. The heroine of A Study in Silks is a case in point. Evelina is a capable young woman but she spends a great deal of her time prodding dead bodies and chasing monsters of both a magical and mundane nature. One side of her family is circus performers and the other is Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. It’s all very exciting, but hardly a practical lifestyle.

And while Evelina can spend all three books of The Baskerville Affair trilogy larking about with sorcerers, steam barons, lost princes and dragons, does she have what it would take to endure a desk job? What job could she hope to get if plucked out of her Victorian, steampunk universe?

RESUME:

Name:  Miss Evelina Cooper

Address: Hilliard House, London

Education:     

• Wollaston Academy for Young Ladies, recent graduate. Areas of special accomplishment include chemistry, botany, and returning zombies to the grave.
• Spent several years learning clockwork repair and maintenance as an informal apprentice for grandfather’s business.

Current position:

• Debutante

Previous work experience:

• Ploughman’s Paramount Circus: tightrope, trapeze, tumbling.
• Assistant to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective.

Additional skills and accomplishments:

• General magic with particular talents in communication with and manipulation of nature spirits.
• Successfully achieved fusion of magic and mechanics.
• Skilled in the waltz, quadrille, Schottische, and other ballroom dances.

The formal work experience is a bit thin, but there might be something out there for our girl. Sure, she has experience working with a master of detection, but as she rapidly discovers during her first murder investigation, the whole crime-fighting gig isn’t as neat and tidy as Dr. Watson makes it sound in his stories. Still, there’s always private security.

If that doesn’t work out, I suppose someone versed in combining magic and machinery would make an amazing barista, and I’ve always thought a touch of wizardry was essential for working with computers. Perhaps laying zombies to rest might come in handy for human resources?

Of course, I didn’t create my characters for the here and now, but for a larger than life universe filled with unimaginable wonder and steampunky goodness. Maybe it’s just safer to leave the door between fact and fiction closed. I wouldn’t want to find out one of my characters just became my day job supervisor. After all I put them through during the trilogy, I shudder to think what they might put on my performance appraisal.

What fantasy character would you hate to see turn up as your boss?

GIVEAWAY TIME

Answer the question above in the comments, and you’ll be entered into a draw for these earrings. They are adorably perfect for book lovers!  They’re made in Scotland and are tiny bound books with real pages. These are a lavender color and made from hand-made paper. giveaway ends 09/27/13 at 6PM Eastern Standard.

Visit my web page: http://www.emmajaneholloway.com/

Like me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmmaJaneHollowayAuthor

A Study in Silks

September 2013

Evelina Cooper, the niece of the great Sherlock Holmes, is poised to enjoy her first Season in London’s high society, but there’s a murderer to deal with—not to mention missing automatons, a sorcerer, and a talking mouse . . .

In a Victorian era ruled by a Council of ruthless steam barons, mechanical power is the real monarch, and sorcery the demon enemy of the Empire. Nevertheless, the most coveted weapon is magic that can run machines—something Evelina has secretly mastered. But rather than making her fortune, her special talents could mean death or an eternity as a guest of Her Majesty’s secret laboratories. What’s a polite young lady to do but mind her manners and pray she’s never found out?

But then there’s that murder. As Sherlock Holmes’s niece, Evelina should be able to find the answers, but she has a lot to learn. And the first decision she has to make is whether to trust the handsome, clever rake who makes her breath come faster, or the dashing trick rider who would dare anything for her if she would only just ask . . .

Read the first 50 pages here.

Read the prequel short story here.

Watch the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wq2oLLtmV0

About Emma Jane Holloway

Ever since childhood, Emma Jane Holloway refused to accept that history was nothing but facts prisoned behind the closed door of time. Why waste a perfectly good playground coloring within the timelines? Accordingly, her novels are filled with whimsical impossibilities and the occasional eye-blinking impertinence—but always in the service of grand adventure.

Struggling between the practical and the artistic—a family tradition, along with ghosts and a belief in the curative powers of shortbread—Emma Jane has a degree in literature and job in finance. She lives in the Pacific Northwest in a house crammed with books, musical instruments, and half-finished sewing projects. In the meantime, she’s published articles, essays, short stories, and enough novels to build a fort for her stuffed hedgehog.