Blog Tour: Circe by Jessica Penot

Hello again my amazing followers, today we are welcoming another great author who's promoting her book, a psychological thriller called Circe.

What is Circe exactly? Here is the book's description:

Dr. Black is a good man with a few vices. He is willing to sacrifice his career for his wife, Pria. He takes an internship at a hick institution in Southern Alabama to make his wife happy, but once he is situated in this old hospital, he finds that old habits die-hard. He is sexually compulsive and easily seduced by his supervisor, Cassie, who takes him to the bowls of the institution and shows him its tragic history. As Dr. Black loses himself in his obsession with Cassie, he becomes convinced that she is the key to Circe's mythology and magic and a series of bizarre murders leaves him convinced that she has opened the gates to another world. Madness and sanity begin to blur for Dr. Black and he becomes entangled in the mystery at the heart of Circe. A mystery that's as old as the ancient hospital itself. A mystery that could incriminate Cassie, an old god, or Dr. Black himself.

So without further ado, please welcome Jessica Penot, who will talk to us today about...

The Characters of Circe

I have written many books at this point and I think Circe is my best novel. It wasn’t the easiest to write, but it is my best novel. As I begin to read reviews of Circe, I realize that what made it so hard to write is that it was driven by an antihero. It is driven by a man who isn’t likeable and who is utterly, tragically flawed. He struggles with his own flaws and at times, he wants to be good, but his struggle is as doomed as he is. Writing a character like this was difficult. It is hard to find the shades of gray in such a character, to trace back to the childhood tragedies and black cognitions that make such a man. It is also difficult to make a character like this readable and interesting enough to be compelling. I think I accomplished this.

Characters are the driving force in Circe. The protagonist isn’t the only character driving the story. It is also driven by the patients in the hospital. The cast of lost souls trapped in the hospital are based on bits and pieces of real patients I’ve seen off and on in my practice in different states. They are the background music for the main character and his struggles with the haunted asylum. Their struggles help build the tension and propel Dr. Black forward into the abyss. In many ways, he is just as broken as they are, he just doesn’t know it yet.

The final characters in Circe are the women of Dr. Black’s life. Cassie and Pria are polar opposites. Pria is Dr. Black’s wife and she symbolizes everything that Dr. Black should do and should be. He should be loyal. He should be faithful and honest. Dr. Black yearns for these things, but in the end it is Cassie that he can’t let go. She is everything Dr. Black is at his core. She is deceptive and devious. Darkness and pain seem to follow her into the shadows of the haunted institution. She carries the evil of Circe with her in her pocket and she is utterly seductive. She is inexorable.

The characters in Circe State Mental Hospital are what drive the novel, but Circe herself is also a character. The hospital has a life of its own and it is Circe’s corruption that pulls all the characters down into a spiral none of them can escape.

Jessica Penot is a therapist and writer who lives in Alabama with her three corgis, children, husband, and other strange creatures. Her short stories have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies including CSM, Summer Gothic, Bound By Blood, and Outer Darkness. She has ghost story columns in theValley Planet and White Cat Magazine where she shares her love for ghost stories that send shivers down your spine and keep you up at night. She also shares her passion for all things ghostly and haunted at her blog, Ghost Stories and Haunted Places.

She is currently working on her next Haunted America Book for History Press, Haunted South Alabama. Follow her at her blog to learn about the ghost stories she is chasing and collecting for this fascinating addition to Haunted America. She's also working on the next book in her Circe series. The demon is awake and waiting for her new heroine in the swamps of Southern Alabama.

You learn more about Ms. Penot by vising her

• Website
• Blog
• Facebook
• Twitter. 

If you want to know more about Circe just drop by

• Goodreads
• Amazon
• Book Depository.

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