Blog Tour: Bloodmaiden - Christine Schulze - Guest Post

Christine Shulze is here today, courtesy of the Teen Book Scene blog tour for her book, Bloodmaiden. Look for my review of Bloodmaiden coming up on Monday. You can follow along with the tour here.

What books were your favourites growing up, and what authors have inspired you?

These days, I sadly don’t have much time for reading, as I am ever writing, promoting, and such.

However, as a child, some favorites included classic fantasies like The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, The Little House series, Dr. Suess, Stardust, and Diana Wynne Jones’ works. I tend towards both the epic and the quirky, so if you know these authors, you know what I mean! I revel in creating deep, intricate worlds, and especially deep characters and plots which intertwine into a vast whole. All of my books connect in some way, whether big or small, though all can be read as individual works as well. The Narnia books really helped inspire me as a Christian fantasy author, while I truly love the fresh ideas found in Diana Wynne Jones’ books, such as Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air.

Another big inspiration for me, from childhood through now, has been the video game series, The Legend of Zelda. Awed as an eight-year-old watching Ocarina of Time at a birthday party, I rushed home the same night to make a comic of everything I could remember—the gorgeous fantasy world and creatures, the epic and unique story-line, the wonderfully quirky characters—never had I seen such a game! It spurred the concepts for many future books, especially once I finally got to play and own it myself at the age of twelve.

I suppose you could say the Bible is a great inspiration as well, more by proxy. I consider a lot of my books to be not just fantasy but Christian fantasy. I have a couple which are definitely Christian, but the rest are not “preachy”; I aim for them to be reader-friendly to Christians and non alike, and a couple reviewers have said the books are not preachy and the Christian elements are subtle enough to be reader-friendly. Mainly, I have an allegorical God whom the characters refer to, talk about, sometimes even meet on occasion in certain stories. I also include values like friendship, forgiveness, and such, which are present in many young adult or middle grade works to begin with. Even Harry Potter speaks of self-sacrificial love—speaking of which, that series inspired my own called The Hero Chronicles. Available as both ebooks and print, the series follows a group of fairy and elf students on their ventures, and while they start out at a magical school, their world and its ventures greatly expand, crossing time and space, before the series’ end. Receiving a few good reviews, I highly recommend checking it out—along with Bloodmaiden, of course.

Well, hopefully this gives you a glimpse into some of the inspirations behind my works. Thanks so much for stopping by to read and to Corrine for having me. To you all, God bless, happy reading, and may you someday be inspired by my stories!

Thank you for being here today, Christine! I enjoyed reading about your inspirations, and love the fact that Harry Potter is one of them. I'll have to check out your "Hero Chronicles" series, it sounds great!