#Interview with Nicole Sallak Anderson, author of Origins

Get to know author Nicole Sallak Anderson, author of Origins, and also get a sneak peek inside her book. Feel free to ask more questions in the comments section and follow the tour for even more. Best of luck entering the giveaway!

This is the lost story of Lord Ankhwenefer, known to the Greeks as Chaonnophris the Rebel, the last native Egyptian Pharaoh. The brilliance and heartache of his rebellion weave a tale that history has forgotten.

Until now.

In the year 205 B.C., after centuries of Persian and Macedonian occupation, a rebel king rises from the south to take ancient Egypt back unto native hands. He will battle the Ptolemy line for twenty years, and rule almost eighty percent of Egypt, yet in the end, history will never mention his name.

Born Prince Ankhmakis, the last in a line of native Egyptian kings, he is raised with one purpose—to help his father reclaim Egypt from the Macedonian occupiers and return their country to dynastic greatness. Fate, however, has its own plans. For lies and deceit live in the hearts of all involved, from his family to the priesthood, and the Greeks aren’t the only ones who seek to destroy him.

Natasa is in training to become the High Priestess of the temple of Isis. Her task is to strengthen the royal family with the magic of the goddess through love and pleasure. She never thought the connection between her and Ankhmakis could be so strong, or carry a power coveted by those lurking in the shadows. Nor did she know that the child they would create would have her own great destiny to fulfill.

Together, Ankhmakis and Natasa must defend the potential of their love from those who would seek to use it for their own gain. Theirs is a world of magic, power, riches, and lust, and there are those within the court who would do anything to keep Ankhmakis and Natasa apart. Between mystical forces, murder, and illicit schemes–only the gods know if they’ll survive.

Read an excerpt:

Before sunrise on the final morning of their journey, Natasa woke to the sound of gentle music. She slipped away from her snoring father, who was, of course, sleeping beside her and made her way up to the deck. There she found Iu-Amon standing in the shadows. He was watching Ankhmakis, who stood at the bow playing his pandura, unaware he had an audience. Natasa smiled at how beautiful and noble the prince looked, singing to the rising Sun God, Ra.
 
“What’s he doing?” she asked Iu-Amon.
 
“He’s played this song every morning since Alexandria,” Iu-Amon whispered.
 
“It’s beautiful,” she sighed. 

The sky turned purple, and streaks of pink and gold paled the horizon. 

“Why does he do it?”
 
“Well,” Iu-Amon said, smiling as bright as Ra himself, “it’s been my experience that only one thing compels a young man to sing to the sunrise.”
 
“What?” she asked.
 
“I think the prince is in love.”

On sale for $0.99 at Amazon!

Do you ever wish you were someone else? 

Who? Honestly, I’m fine with who I am. I’ve never wanted to be anyone else because I figure then I’d just have their problems. Better to stick with the problems I know, my own.

What did you do on your last birthday? 

My friend, Sarah, hosted a last minute gathering around the bonfire in her backyard. It was so sweet of her.

What part of the writing process do you dread? 

Copy editing. I’m the WORST when it comes to commas and semi-colons. I can’t keep it all straight.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it? 

I don’t really believe in writer’s block. I think that if the story isn’t flowing, then it’s time to work on a different project, or even a different art form. For example, I also knit and dance, and will take time off from writing to knit something or take dance lessons. I immerse myself in this other craft and find that the words begin to flow again. Writers are always writing, even if you’re not cranking out a daily word count. Every bit of research, every time you read someone else’s work, every time you commit yourself to exercise, or any art form, you are stirring the muse, waking her up. Then, the words will come.

Tell us about your latest release. 

This fall I will release Civilization’s End, the final book in my series about ancient Egypt’s last native pharaoh and his quest to wrest his lands from Macedonian control. It is my favorite book I’ve ever written and I can’t wait to share it.

Nicole Sallak Anderson is Computer Science graduate from Purdue University, and former CTO for a small Silicon Valley startup, turned novelist, speaker, and blogger, focusing on the intersection of technology and consciousness. Her essays range from AI and Zen to direct democracy to the loneliness of modern parenting (https://medium.com/@NSallakAnderson/pretty-birds-in-pretty-cages-could-the-nuclear-family-be-the-reason-were-all-miserable-46126d573263) — featured as a top twenty story on Medium. In addition, her work on Universal Basic Income has been included on 2020 presidential candidate, Andrew Yang’s, website: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/.
Her latest project, The Song of the King’s Heart Trilogy, is a series about the last native Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt and his quest to take back his ancestral kingdom from the Ptolemaic Empire. The first two installments, Origins and Blood and Chaos, are available on Amazon. The last novel in the series, Civilization’s End, will be released October 2021. You can keep up with all her latest writing on her website nicolesallakanderson.com or by following @NSallakAnderson on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NSallakAnderson/) , Twitter (https://twitter.com/NSallakAnderson), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/nsallakanderson/)  and Medium (https://nsallakanderson.medium.com/). Feel free to contact her, she almost always answers to any query or comment!

A randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour will receive a $50 Amazon/BN GC.

a Rafflecopter giveaway