Hi guys, we have debut author Medella Kingston popping in today with her debut Lesbian novel People Fish, we have a short Q&A with Medella, a great excerpt and a brilliant giveaway, so check out the post and click that giveaway link <3 ~Pixie~

People Fish

Medella Kingston

Her Cree grandmother called it the gift of seeing, but for Petra “Pete” Orvatch, knowing things in ways that defy explanation has made reality and fantasy blur in a world where the clocks literally go backward. Her fascinating and clairvoyant mind is a riddle that many doctors have tried to solve with medication. Love comes her way unexpectedly when she meets Fiona Angeli, a stunningly beautiful single mother. A risk-taker by nature, Fiona is not scared off by her new lover’s psychic abilities and eccentricities.

The two of them share passion and secrets on a magical and surprising journey, and their torrid love affair takes them to thrilling new places until betrayal divides them. Both these women fight battles within themselves; Fiona must gain control of her dangerous compulsions, and Pete’s onerous gift ultimately puts her at risk of losing herself in the gap between delusions and the real world.

NineStar Press | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords

Q & A with Medella Kingston!

Do you have any advice for all the aspiring writers out there?

No matter how busy your life is, make time to write, and defend that time against your to-dos or excuses. Write, write, and write! Leave home and write so you can’t clean, feed the dogs, or be distracted by any of the demands that make up your day-to-day routines. Remember that all rough drafts are crappy, and keep in mind that even though your book or story may feel done to you, it will more than likely be finished and polished in the editing and revisions phase. There’s what we intend to write, and what pours out of us. See the writing clearly and let it take the shape it is meant to, for just like true love, it may not look the way you expect it to!

If you could travel forward or backward in time, where would you go and why?

The thought of going forward in time is enticing because of the imagined technological advancements of our future, but also terrifying when I think of what might become of planet earth. So, I suppose I’d go backward several hundred years to a majestic North America, which predates colonialism. I’d be a strong woman who could stand with some of my ancestors and live in harmony with the environment.

We’ve all got a little voyeurism in us right? If you could be a fly on the wall during an intimate encounter between two characters, not your own, who would they be?

Well, I must have more than a little voyeurism in me, because when I think of being a fly on the wall, I think heck no – I’m not staying put on that wall. I’m going to sail through the air and land on whatever I please to get the best angles on the action! Let’s see… when I read Patience and Sarah, by Isabel Miller, I was very young, and the book made me reflect on the tenacity and courage of those in a ‘forbidden love,’ all throughout history. So, when Patience White and Sarah Dowling are finally in their first locked room alone, I would be the fly there to watch and celebrate them, a tiny witness to the enormous bravery of a dangerous love.

If I were snooping around your kitchen and looked in your refrigerator right now, what would I find?

Nothing too exciting: bacon, beef, chicken, vegetables, cheese, milk, orange juice, and always a few IPAs. Just your standard healthy grub. Oh wait! I just remembered there is a nice big bottle of champagne in the back that’s being saved for a special occasion. Who doesn’t love a glass of bubbly!?

Excerpt

PeopleFish

Pete looked up from the mystery she was reading and scanned the faces in the waiting room. There was Tired Pinched Mom, with faded blond ponytail and dark roots coming in. She had one kid under control and was now quietly negotiating with the other. Next to this trio sat Man Too Large for His Seat, who seemed to be staring at his shoes or sleeping with his eyes open. In the corner was someone so nondescript she couldn’t instantly name her—then it came to her: Any Woman. This woman was neither thin nor large, short nor tall, and had a slightly exotic yet familiar face. She looked as if she could be from many different places, like Greece, Morocco, Central America, or New Jersey. She was text-messaging so quickly, Pete half expected her thumbs to spark and set fire to her phone.

Doesn’t anyone people-watch anymore? Was she the only person left who liked to read faces and create narratives? Maybe so. She’d never stop doing it. She’d been spinning this stuff since she was little—much to the annoyance of her mother. Instead of acknowledging the creative gifts of her child, or at the very least being entertained by them, she’d say, “God will punish you, Petra Marie, for thinking bad thoughts about people and making up lies.”

Some traits must skip generations, because Grandma Sweets had the right attitude. She’d join right in and embellish her granddaughter’s rough outlines of strangers’ lives with additions that could only come from a seasoned mind. If Pete said a passenger on the bus looked guilty, Gram Sweets would say, “Of course he looks guilty, he ought to! Instead of cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving, he cooked his wife!”

Her reminiscing was perforated by the staccato ring of a telephone.

“Cambridge Holistic Health and Wellness Center, please hold.”

Please hold? No one else is on the line; is this receptionista just fucking with the caller? Pete dog-eared the page in her paperback, closed it, slipped it into her bag, and decided to devote all of her energy to observing. She was just about to make up a story about the receptionist when her eyes landed on something strange. She hadn’t noticed the cheap plastic clock on the wallpapered wall before, but now she couldn’t take her eyes off it because the second hand was moving backward.

At first she thought she was seeing things, since her imagination was such a well-developed muscle. So she did something that made her feel seven instead of thirty-seven. She closed her eyes to reset, inhaled a long, slow breath, and then opened them, hoping this simple act could alter what she saw, or make things feel right again. She didn’t return her gaze to the clock right away, but rather avoided its face like you would dodge direct eye contact in a volley of flirt-and-stare with a stranger who’d caught you looking.

She panned her eyes evenly over all she had just taken in. Now the previously obedient child of the two was acting petulant, Man Too Large for His Seat actually was asleep, and Any Woman had stopped texting and was staring back at Pete. This startled her a bit. She looked away and then forced herself to look at the clock again. The red second hand was still moving backward and now instead of 2:27, it was 2:26, and the room seemed brighter to her than it had been just a minute ago.

“Petra Orvatch?”

She heard the automaton call her but she couldn’t move—she felt obligated to monitor the clock and confirm that it was in fact going backward, but knew she shouldn’t say anything about it. It was one of those times when she couldn’t expect people to understand her. These occurrences had happened ever since she could remember and could be confusing, amusing, or even downright dangerous.

About author

Medella Kingston fell in love with writing at an early age and published articles, poems, and stories when she was growing up. She wrote, performed, and sold songs for movie soundtracks, and continued writing short stories for her own pleasure. She currently sings in the band Omnesia, which has aired locally on UC Berkeley’s radio station and been heard as far east as Goa and the Mumbai University. She lives with her partner and their two dogs in the East Bay. PeopleFish is Medella’s first novel, and she is currently working on a new book.

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