Matt Holgate is a Canadian independent author of horror and fantasy, and is best known for the ongoing dark fantasy series, ‘The Resurrection Tower’. He has published four books with a fifth slated for 2017.
All the hot and sexy stuff aside, a little known fact is that I am a huge fan of fantasy and horror novels. When all of my schoolmates were reading light fluffy romance novels I was reading Anne Rice, Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Later my taste in novels changed. I fell in love with the magic and fantasy worlds of Narnia, Middle Earth and Hogwarts.
This is why I have enjoyed Matt’s series so much. Rich language and descriptive imagery, characters you will connect with and a story line that will keep you intrigued. I highly recommend you take some time to check out this series. So pick up a copy of Matt Holgate’s novels and find out what happens in this epic series! http://amzn.to/WtmKud
A conversation with Matt is always fun, he likes to bring out my naughty side (check out some old twitter feeds if you don’t believe me). But I did try to be a good girl on this one, I did. A huge thank you to Matt for agreeing to the interview, I’m not going to divulge my sources on question #4, but it goes without saying it would be a great party!
Ed. Note — In the spirit of replaying some great hits, we’ve got Brookelynn Berry’s chat with Matt Holgate, and yep, things are still hot and sexy with Brookelynn around.
1) Which character in the Resurrection Tower series do you identify most with?
Probably Rinn, the orc. (I’m not sure what that says about me…)
2) The Resurrection Tower series is dark and terrifying, written with such care and detail. What was your inspiration for these novels?
I think of it as the bastard love child between Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkein and Neil Gaiman. (I wouldn’t picture that literally if I were you. Especially the conception.) My books are fantasy, mostly, but I have a terrible time sticking to one genre. Fantasy, horror, mystery, thriller … it’s all in there. All three of those writers have a voice that you can tell is theirs when you read their work, and I’m hoping for the same when you read my work.
3) What should readers and fans expect from your 2015 novel?
Oh, not much. Except for the home of the elves. And nightmares come to life. And then monsters worse than those nightmares. Oh, and dreamwalking, with prophecies spoken by the dead. And sex and dragons, albeit not at once, although the sex sometimes might feature more than two people at once. Just not the dragon. Uh, sort of. Oh, and there’s a wizard, too (but don’t make fun of his hat). Maybe even some royal family intrigue. But I’m sure no one’s interested in any of that. (Mock sigh. But seriously, don’t make fun of the wizard’s hat.)
4) I read somewhere that you like threesomes, beer and amateur porn. I am assuming it would be a little slice of heaven to have all of those at once. Have you any other deep dark secrets or fantasies you’d like to share with the readers?
As opposed to all those guys who don’t like threesomes, beer and amateur porn? Anyway, please let me know who is spreading all this filth about me. (I want to party with them.)
5) Since you do write steamy sex scenes in your novels, can you give the readers a little steamy excerpt from one of your scenes?
Excerpt from Unforgotten, Volume I, which is Book 3 of The Resurrection Tower:
There was no more time to think. The dark presence looming over the world was in some way closer now.
Kara held the sunstone in one hand and the Elder Blade in the other. Both were glowing in their fashion, along with the coldfire. While Kara did not trust the rune at all, and did not know about the dagger—a former deathlord’s weapon—for sure, she sensed that the sunstone was the same everywhere. Every plane, every dimension. Even in dreams. It was its own nexus point. But how could that help? The elf crystal was hardly a weapon!
Came the horrendous voice once more:
I AM THE EATER OF DREAMS.
I WILL MAKE YOU LONG FOR ME. I WILL MAKE YOU CALL FOR ME.
Steen and Vesta, still clutching one another, gestured for Kara to return to them. The young woman had not realized how far she had wandered away! She had stepped almost to the base of the monolith!
It felt good to be in their arms. Maybe a little too good, for Kara realized she had sheathed the Elder Blade! When had she done that? Why was it so difficult to think?
…I WILL MAKE YOU LONG FOR ME…
The trio braced themselves, huddled close under the enormity of the darkness, expecting an attack. Yet no attack came. At least, not of the physical variety. Kara slowly realized from the way Steen and Vesta were holding her that the other two were acting weird, especially given the situation. But so, she realized, was she.
The voice, softer now:
…call for me…
Vesta slowly but without pause put her lips to Kara’s, and Kara was not sure what to do at first. Well, okay, she knew what to do, but had not thought of something like this ever happening. Not beyond idle fantasy. She had heard the rumours about some people in Arrow’s Flight, who having once lived in Waterguard where the phrase ‘love is rampant’ had been coined, had invited friends over for more than drinks. Kara realized abstractedly that she would have to ask Tal about Waterguard. That was where he was from. Now that was interesting …
I want him, Kara thought, blurrily yet passionately. Yes, I want Tal. Would I do this if he asked me? What would I do if he and Shay asked me?
A pause. In mind, if not in body.
I think I would, she admitted, while another voice whispered soothingly, confidently, I will make you long for me… I will make you call for me…
The other woman’s lips were moving upon Kara’s, and Kara let hers join in, parting. Vesta sighed—Kara could feel her smile—and then the priestess kissed harder. More passionately. Kara let her tongue reach out and the other woman obliged. If Kara was going to do this, she was damned well going to do this, not simply be along for the ride! Even if it made no sense!
Raged one side of Kara’s fleeting lucidity: We don’t have time for this! You idiot! The tangent is breaking apart!
Raged the other: No! This is exactly what to do when the world ends!
Another set of hands
(that fickle prickling)
held Kara Kinfolk’s shoulders from behind. She had almost forgotten where she was! Another mouth was upon her, kissing the back of her neck, hands sweeping
(the spiders have come)
her blonde hair away. It had long since fallen out of its ponytail. But long since when?
“Listen, can you hear it?” Kara whispered, no longer at all sure what she was listening, looking, or even searching for.
The man and woman—Kara struggled to remember their names—took their own moment to kiss each other. Kara was pressed between them, enjoying the close proximity yet having to lift her head to breathe, as if trying to stay afloat above water. She was not afraid to watch, to savour the longing between them, taking those few deep breaths of air. She thought she heard something
(call for me)
(I am eating what makes you)
(devouring you whole)
but it was gone as soon as she tried to listen. Had it been important? What was it? And had there been a flash of light? Something that was now forgotten? A message
(you are a beacon to us)
of some kind?
The threesome pressed against the monolith, having staggered to it in their passion. Steen—yes, that’s his name, so he says—lifted Kara up, turned her, pressed her back lightly against the Standing Stone, and she straddled him with her legs around his hips. She felt him harden, pressing into her rhythmically. He would be perfect inside her. If only he was free!
Steen leaned in. Kissed her. Hard. Then he moved his face down to Kara’s breasts, as if trying to nuzzle his way through her top. She also felt delicate fingers upon her cheek, turning her face, and the mysterious woman was kissing her again, their mouths open, her fingers brushing Kara’s hair. The woman had already opened the top of her own robes, her dark skin luxuriant, her breasts so ridiculously full that Kara would have thought fakery involved if not for seeing them now. She made Kara … hungry …
(my many, many mouths)
hungry …
(…long for me…)
Kara got her feet back on the ground and helped the man (Steen?) push the darkly voluptuous woman (Vesta?) to the monolith. They were breathing so hard that they were almost panting. Kara found herself caressing one of the other woman’s breasts, alternating lightly and firmly. Steen had already taken the nipple of the other into his mouth.
Am I really going to do this?
Kara looked down to see that her own top was open. Her breasts were bare, the rune above her left breast barely noticeable in the gloom. The world was silent around them. Dormant. Yet the elf crystal was flaring brilliantly. Was that what had gotten her attention?
Steen, still touching one of Vesta’s breasts, reached out with his other hand and cupped one of Kara’s. The one beneath the Daermornian rune as if he could no more see it than he had seen the funnel cloud that had marked Kara’s passage into the Dim Realm. He had a look on his face that said he could not believe he was here … but also that he was not sure where here was. The nipple of her breast was hard as he ran his thumb along it, and she did not want the sensation—the thrill—to end. There were already so few moments in her life where everything happened just right.
Kara held Steen’s face in one of her hands. “You’re not the one I want,” she whispered. In a sense, it was a plea, but neither did she want to stop.
He paused. For just a moment, he paused. “Can you have him?” he asked.
“Something tells me no,” Kara admitted, and the hurt was worse than she had expected. It was an ache that would not die.
“Then have me while you’re waiting,” he replied, quiet yet earnest, and in that moment it made all the sense in the world.
And so Kara grabbed him, and kissed him as hard as he had kissed her. She was going to do this. She was going to do this and damn the repercussions!
“Friends help friends,” sighed Vesta in her ear, although some last fleeting instinct of Kara’s told her that those words did not belong to the priestess. They had come from the waking world. Flown on wings.
Vesta slid her fingers into Kara’s pants, between her legs, first exploring and then feeling her, sliding inside her. It was the first time since the hated Dallo Fell that Kara had been touched this way, even by herself, but it looked like that was all water under the bridge, so to speak. She was already wet. It felt wonderful—maybe even practiced on Vesta’s part—but that was not what Kara wanted.
Kara pulled herself closer to the both of them and continued the grind. Yet she managed to warn Vesta between kisses, although it was playful and teasing now, “This is what it
(…call for me…)
wants. It is empty and it doesn’t want to be.” The compulsion was so much stronger now!
Vesta smiled, as if it was pure delight. “I don’t care anymore. Our story is already written. And I like it.”
It was Steen’s turn to be pressed up against the monolith. Both women took one of his arms and held him there, and then they began kissing their way down him. As Vesta took off his shirt, Kara reached lower and began slowly stroking him atop his pants. He was already hard. Kara kept looking him in the eye, smiling mischievously, and proceeded to take a firmer grip. Steen was trying not to make a sound, like it would break some sort of code, but he was the only man here, and she wanted to get one out of him.
If only that stupid light on my chest wouldn’t keep flashing, Kara thought, irked by it, quickly ripping whatever it was off and throwing it away.
With that out of the way, Kara pressed herself against Steen. She could feel the tips of her nipples touching his chest. She gave him a quick kiss, but never took her eyes off his, never closed them, and kept one hand stroking him down below. Vesta pressed in with them, kissing his neck and his chest, alternating to help Kara make him as hard as could be. He did not seem to need much help in that respect, but they were not going to leave that to chance.
“Do you like that?” Kara asked him softly between kisses, as if she did not already know the answer.
“I do,” Steen whispered back, barely a sound escaping, as if he were afraid of what other sound he might make.
Kara smiled. She was going to make him talk, even if they all knew where this was going. That was part of the fun.
“What do you want next?” she asked playfully, giving an extra tug and squeeze.
Steen tried to laugh, almost self-deprecatingly, but another tug by both Kara and Vesta brought him along.
“I want you to use your mouths.” He had almost said, ‘Your many, many mouths.’
Kara and Vesta smiled at one another. “I think that can be arranged,” Vesta replied.
The two women knelt down together in the sand. They tried to make a game of it, but there was haste now, something close to true abandon at the end of the world. They were undoing Steen’s pants, their mouths kissing each other until they could work on him, taste him. Steen leaned back, not trying to speak anymore, only enjoy.
His pants were difficult to undo. It never ceased to amaze Kara how difficult a simple task could be when you could not stop yourself from rushing!
You’re next, Tal. I promise—I swear!—that you’re next!
In the Saint’s Hall as a child, Kara had worried profusely about sin. The Builder had a unique prison of fire for those who sinned too much, and young Kara Kinfolk had always worried about how evil or impure her thoughts were, whether in moments of weakness or long thought-out fantasies. But Father Devlin had always said no god would ever damn you for your thoughts or dreams.
‘In fact,’ Father Devlin had once told her with a smile and a grandfatherly wink, ‘not only do your actions count for more, but acting morally in spite of bad thoughts is a very respectable thing. You cannot be damned for your thoughts any more than you can be damned for your dreams.’
“Oh Father,” whispered Kara, “would you say the same thing about my dreams now?”
She had escaped Arrow’s Flight, but misrule had finally caught up with her. Everyone’s misrule is just a little bit different, those little things we think of that are wrong but cannot convince ourselves of it. We all have them. We are all the same in our individuality, and therein lays the biggest joke or redeeming quality of life, take your pick. That possession of individuality makes us just like everyone else.
Well, I’ve always thought it was easier to avoid temptation than resist it…
They worked Steen free. Vesta moved in immediately. But Kara, at the last moment, leaned her head against his thigh but away from the action. Yet the impulse to give in was strong! She felt her hand running up along Vesta’s naked back, into her hair, as if soothing her, relaxing her. Loving her. Kara felt the priestess’s head running along the shaft of Steen’s manhood, and then slowly begin to take it in, deeper and deeper, her head
(devouring you whole… sucking you down like a too ripe oyster… succulent and sweet…)
moving rhythmically as she did, with little twists and sighs.
What is wrong with me? Kara wondered. Even the sound of Vesta’s lips working on Steen was driving her wild! Why do I want
(letting your juices roll over my lips… out from my mouth…)
it so badly to be me?
Kara’s hand pleasured Steen firmly while Vesta worked, and she began stroking him to the other woman’s rhythm. Yet, deep down, it was not all play. A part of Kara hoped for method to intrude rudely on madness. She was trying to make Steen empty into Vesta’s mouth before she felt herself overcome with the heightened need this tangent was producing, knowing she was unlikely to last that long.
I’m not used to worrying about a man lasting longer than me, Kara laughed in her mind, but it was an unfortunate laugh. A sad clown kept to the outskirts of the carnival. In fact, she–
Another flash! This time, when it appeared in the corner of Kara’s eye, she did not let it go. For all their sake, she did not let it go!
The sunstone lay in the sand. She only vaguely remembered snapping its cord from around her neck and casting it away. It sat in the middle of two dots and a long curved line that had been traced by an unknown hand in the sand. It was the crude image of a smiley face, and it was one Kara had seen before. Written beneath it in the sand was the word
EATER
and it was a word Kara Kinfolk had also seen writ before. One that she was learning to dread. Someone had indeed put a monster on her trail.
“Mister Smiley,” Kara whispered, unsure of why. “Eater of dreams…”
I’ve been in a tangent before. When I spied on Roth and Laurelin. The Dream Eater was there, but I had hidden myself so much better then, even if I didn’t understood why!
I also promised never to say his name…
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About Matt Holgate
Matt Holgate is a Canadian independent author of horror and fantasy, and is best known for the ongoing dark fantasy series, ‘The Resurrection Tower’. He has published four books with a fifth slated for 2017.
www.mattholgatebooks.com
Facebook www.facebook.com/MattHolgateAuthor
Twitter @Matt_Holgate
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About each book in Matt Holgate’s The Resurrection Tower series
The Dim Realm, Volume I: Book One of The Resurrection Tower
In this fantasy tale, a former blacksmith, a teenager, and a stranger must team together to fight an ancient evil – before it is too late.
“…left me astounded with a sweeping tale so graphic in intensity and prose that I was literally mesmerized.”
“rich…with chilling scenes that really stayed with me after I put the book down.”
The Dim Realm, Volume II: Book Two of The Resurrection Tower
Kara Kinfolk, Tal Stormgren and their companions find themselves in the midst of murder, disappearances, and an ancient cult bent on destruction as they battle an evil that holds unyielding power over the small town of Arrow’s Flight – a dark house that hungers, a monster that wants as much as any mortal, and it will do anything to prevent anyone from entering or leaving town.
“…a carefully-constructed world, painstakingly detailed, that carries you along in its wake”
“…the main draw for me is the horror element which is something Holgate has a real flair for.”
Unforgotten, Volume I: Book Three of The Resurrection Tower
The Reaver hunts them while they are awake. The Eater of Dreams stalks them while they sleep. In light of these and other menaces, how can Kara Kinfolk, Tal Stormgren, and companions new and old ever reach the elves? Old magics are awakening, most of them horrific, and none more so than the ancient, haunted city of Jorim-Sa. It lies between them and their salvation.
“Looking forward to the next book!”
“…vividly depicted horrors and action sequences.”
Unforgotten, Volume II: Book Four of The Resurrection Tower
When the Companions reach Al’Taara, they face dangers from outside the towering walls . . . and from within. Even as deathlords plot the destruction of the city, its citizens are slowly being transformed into hideous creatures that are driven by a vast and screaming hunger. The Companions walk the nightmares of vanished civilizations, and the dead whisper secrets to Kara Kinfolk, but she and those with her have little time to solve the riddles of Al’Taara before Tarsis the Artificer comes another step closer to their world.
Twisted Sister lit mag 