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Court of Twilight Publicity Kit Questions? Contact Colin Coyle -
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Front Cover Art by Lovely Creatures Studio (Full Cover Available in ZIP)
COURT OF TWILIGHT MARETH GRIFFITH Releasing 17 October 2017 Thank you for your consideration of Court of Twilight by the very talented debut author, Ms.
Mareth Griffith. Below are details about the novel, its launch, and some background information on Ms. Griffith that you may find helpful in preparing for your review, conversation, or article. If you have any questions or require any support, please reach out directly to Parvus’ publisher, Mr. Colin Coyle. A copy of this Press Kit can be downloaded from our web site: www.parvuspress.com/PressKits/CourtOfTwilightPressKit.zip. Special file formats, sizes, etc. are available upon request. Please inform Parvus if you intend to use any of the images from the press kit. The book will be available for pre-order on August 1, 2017.
Press Kit Contents: All graphics are in .PNG or .JPG format. Special formats available on request. ●
Full cover art (front & back)
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Front cover only (eBook cover)
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Mareth Griffith Promotional Photo - Color
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Parvus Press Catalog
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Parvus Press Logo - 328x125 px
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Parvus “Badge” Logo without text - 512x512 px
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Small Parvus “Badge” Logo without text - 73x73 px
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The Parvus Press Promotional Banner - 2120x1192 px ○
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Makes a beautiful desktop!
A copy of this document
About Court of Twilight: Informational Overview: Written By: Mareth Griffith - http://www.twitter.com/magpiemareth Editor: John Adamus - http://www.writernextdoor.com/ Parvus Press, LLC ✧ www.ParvusPress.com ✧ (424) 372-7887
Cover Art: Lovely Creatures Studio - http://www.lovelycreaturesstudio.com/ Publisher: Parvus Press - http://www.ParvusPress.com/ GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35650131-court-of-twilight Publication date: 10/17/2017 Pre-Order available: 8/1/2017 Print edition available through all major online retailers or by special order at your local bookstore (Available through Ingram Spark POD and Ingram’s distribution network) Digital edition available on Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, and all other major digital retailers Pricing: Print: $14.99 USD | ISBN 9780997661330 Digital: $6.99 USD | ISBN 9780997661323 Kindle: $6.99 USD | ASIN B074246DFY Where to Buy: Amazon: http://amzn.to/2tqxzTF Universal Book Link: https://www.books2read.com/u/bzapL2 Universal Book Links are a service of Books2Read (A subsidiary of Draft2Digital) and enable publishers to provide one single link for readers to find their books listed on multiple online stores (Such as Kobo, iBooks, Scribd, etc). Once a reader selects their prefered digital store once, the UBL link will remember their preference in the future, regardless of which publisher has provided them with a UBL. Kobo: http://bit.ly/2tqWdDu (Or use the Universal Book Link above)
Elevator Pitch: Court of Twilight is a hidden-world contemporary fantasy set in modern day Dublin that combines
mystery and magic with themes of family bonds, personal identity, and cultural obligation.
Back-Cover Copy: Explore a hidden world of ancient magic within modern Dublin. Six months ago, Ivy stumbled into the deal of a lifetime – great rent in a posh Dublin neighborhood and a flatmate, Demi, who was only a little weird. It didn’t matter that their flat is packed with exotic plants or that her flatmate does all her shopping on-line but refuses to meet the delivery man at the door?
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Now, though, Demi’s gone missing, there are strange men hiding in the flower boxes, and a lot of strangers have suddenly taken interest in the whereabouts of her peculiar flatmate. When the police won’t help, Ivy knows she’s going to have to solve this mystery on her own. Ivy dives headfirst into a secret Dublin, hidden in plain sight, and discovers that the longer she stays in, the more she risks losing the world she always knew. Can she save Demi without losing herself?
Review Copies: Review copies are available through NetGalley (http://netgal.ly/aw8MYT) and Bookfunnel (https://dl.bookfunnel.com/kw5qtbgvyy). If you are looking for a .mobi or .epub version of the ARC, Bookfunnel is the fastest way to get your review copy. If you need a different format, special accommodation, or a print copy, please contact Colin. Physical copies are limited availability.
Pre-Launch Promotions Parvus is giving away Advance Reader Copies of Vick’s Vultures from now until the release. Readers need only join the Parvus mailing list with a valid email address to be automatically entered - http://parvuspress.com/court-of-twilight/ Parvus will gladly support our reviewers and partners with promotional give-aways through your own website. Please contact Colin (
[email protected]) to arrange a give-away for your audience.
GoodReads Promotions Parvus will be running GoodReads give-aways beginning in August.
About the Author Official Bio Mareth Griffith bounces between summers along the Alaskan coast and winters in various warmer locations. She lives in Seward, Alaska, and continually tells people that the winters there aren’t as bad as people think. When she’s not writing, she works as a naturalist and wilderness guide, leading adventurous souls on epic quests to seek out glaciers, bears, and whales in the wilds of coastal Alaska. She’s also lived and worked in Scotland, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland – where her nearest neighbors Parvus Press, LLC ✧ www.ParvusPress.com ✧ (424) 372-7887
included two thousand puffins and the ghost of a spectral black horse. Originally from West Virginia, Mareth attended Smith College in Massachusetts, and the University of Glasgow in Scotland, studying music and theatre. Prior to moving to Alaska, she worked as an audio technician for several east coast theater companies, eventually discovering that while she loved working in theatre, she didn’t love living in cities. Mareth plays classical violin well and rhythm guitar badly, and her writing has previously been featured in the Redoubt Reporter, Alaska Magazine, and Pen the Kenai, an essay exhibit documenting life on Alaska’s Kenai coast.
Author and Title Background The following is intended to inform your conversation with Ms. Griffith. It addresses both Ms. Griffith’s background and the background of her debut novel, Court of Twilight.
Court of Twilight is Mareth Griffith’s debut novel. Mareth maintains a residence in Seward Alaska though she could consider herself a global nomad, having lived in the New Zealand countryside, the heart of Glasgow, Scotland, and a remote island populated with more livestock than people off the coast of Northern Ireland. Of her Alaska home, she says, “it’s a place for my stuff to live and for me to join it.” When not writing, Mareth serves as a wilderness tour guide into the Alaskan interior in Summer or the wilds of Mexico in winter. Mareth’s professional career did not begin in the woods, but in the theatre. Mareth worked as an audio engineer for the National Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. before being redirected elsewhere by her love of the great outdoors. She found herself volunteering as a guide in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and even New Zealand. It was in New Zealand that Mareth had began to write Court of Twilight, and although Mareth had written two other novels in between, it was during her transition out of professional theatre and into the world of being a wilderness guide when the magic happened: She completed writing Court of Twilight! Mareth’s nonfiction writing has been published in the Redoubt Reporter, Alaska Magazine, and Pen the Kenai, an essay exhibit documenting life on Alaska’s Kenai coast. She is currently sailing the rivers of the Alaskan interior and can’t wait until she can put down the bear spray and get back to the work of writing the as-yet-untitled sequel to Court of Twilight.
Mareth Griffith’s Writing Process Court of Twilight has had a long and strange history. The book began with the broad outlines of a
character that just wouldn’t leave Mareth’s head. She wrote some opening dialogue in a notebook
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while living in the field in New Zealand. In short order, those pages would be lost, but the character behind them would stay with Mareth over the years and miles ahead. Mareth wrote two historical novels before returning to the concepts of Court of Twilight for
NaNoWriMo 2015. Mareth freewrote the novel, focusing on the characters that inhabited her world and their reactions to the challenges they faced. The entire book was written, start to finish, during NaNoWriMo with a bit of time to spare; the last scene was completed on Thanksgiving day. With her first draft completed, Mareth then built an outline to better visualize the components of the story before her and move scenes and set pieces about to smooth the structure of the story. Once she sold the book to Parvus Press, the editing process got even more interesting. Mareth was working as a wilderness guide in Alaska throughout the summer of 2016 and Mexico in the fall and winter of 2017, when the bulk of the editing was completed. Throughout most of the week, Mareth was working aboard a boat or roughing it in the wilderness. She was running scenes in her head and working through revisions mentally while keeping an eye out for angry bears and giving tours of ancient glaciers. Mareth would have for hours or so of cell reception and internet service each Saturday with which to type up any changes she worked through in her head during the week, download the latest revisions of the manuscript from the editor, and talk to her publisher.
Concepts & Ideas When asked about what drove Mareth to write Court of Twilight and the secret world that hides in plain sight, she said, “I’m not really interested in mediocrity. But I also feel like ‘write what you know’ isn’t necessarily the best advice for authors. It’s certainly advice I do not follow myself. Write what you’re passionate about. If you’re interested enough in the subject, you can do the research, you can ask enough questions, you can read enough books, you can knock on enough doors.” The first spark of the idea for Court of Twilight’s plot was inspired by David Pinner’s 1967 novel
“Ritual,” which went on to inspire the 2006 film “The Wicker Man.” Mareth was intrigued by the idea of a culture whose superstitions forced them to sacrifice the life of one of their own and wanted to apply it to a modern setting with a fantasy twist. She blended this idea with her love of hidden-world fantasy and interest in the rich folklore of the Irish to come up with the concept for Court of Twilight; The Trow, a race that inspired stories of the fae, have hidden inside Irish culture for generations. Their king must be sacrificed each year or the trow will be exposed and doom will come to all of them. Mareth wrapped this concept up with rich characters that struggle with bonds of culture, family, and obligation and she explores the complexity of managing one’s own identity against those larger forces.
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One persistent theme throughout Court of Twilight is that of disappearance. The action of the
story is set in place when Ivy’s flatmate, Demi, disappears. People from Ivy’s life have faded into the background. Her own relationship with her mother has weakened to the point of being little more than cordial. Ivy not only has to find the strength to overcome the challenges she faces in her quest to save Demi, but she must also find who she is, where she belongs, and how the ties of family and obligation bind her.
Influences Some of Mareth’s favorite authors are H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne, Barbara Hambly, and Ray Bradbury. She was especially influenced by Laurie R. King and her Mary Russell books, which featured an effectively written and powerful female character that inspired her as a child growing up in West Virginia. When asked what writer Mareth would be most afraid of seeing read her work, she replied “Neil Gaiman. I think every hidden world owes a huge debt to Neverwhere, it’s kind of like the benchmark for this book.”
Sequel Mareth has already begun work on the sequel to Court of Twilight, tentatively titled Changeling.
About the Publisher Parvus Press was founded in January of 2016 and is dedicated to publishing top-tier fantasy and science fiction that hold their own against the biggest names in the industry. The company name, “Parvus” is latin for “small” and they are committed to quality over quantity. Parvus believes that a small team of motivated, creative people can do great things. By bringing together the best emerging talents in art and design with the undiscovered voices of new authors, Parvus can play a role in helping bring exciting new approaches to the fantasy and science fiction genres to life. The company was founded by life-long best friends Colin Coyle and Eric Ryles who bring passion for genre fiction along with successful backgrounds in marketing, business management, and partner development into this endeavor. They quickly brought industry veteran, editor, and writing coach John Adamus into the fold to help navigate the intricacies of the world of publishing and oversee the editorial process.
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As of July 2017, Parvus has seven titles in development. Their debut release, Vick’s Vultures, is available everywhere books are sold. A copy of the Parvus catalog is included with this press kit and more information about Parvus’ upcoming titles can be found on their website: www.ParvusPress.com.
Contact: Still have questions? Would you like to schedule Ms. Griffith for an interview, signing, guest blog, etc? Please contact: Colin Coyle Publisher, Parvus Press 424.372.7887
[email protected]
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