ENFIELD, U.K. - March 15, 2021 - Ten years ago, Annie Percik found herself debating with her husband whether or not a society based on magic would need call centres and customer complaints departments; and whether a burgeoning MT (Magic Technology) industry would grow to mirror the IT industry. Annie thought it would, and wrote a short story to explore how it would work. From that small start a novel was born.

'I've worked for years as a university complaints officer,' Annie points out. 'And I've seen every twist and turn that a complaint can take. A magic world won't stop people's grievances.'

There were no problems with that side of the story, but there were issues elsewhere. 'I'd built a world and characters,' she says, 'but I hadn't really explored the details of magic tech.' The story was well received but the IT geeks in Annie's life showered her with questions; how does it work, where does it come from, what does it look like? One of them even wrote another short story based in her world. 'My first fanfiction and I wasn't even published!'

By now Annie was engrossed in her fictional world and how it all worked, and the story developed far beyond its original bounds. In exactly a decade it had become The Defiant Spark, Annie's first novel.

'It wasn't plain sailing,' Annie tells me. 'I sent the manuscript out in 2018 and received a raft of contradictory advice, with only one point of agreement; no one liked the naming convention I'd chosen for the magical artefacts. It left me with nowhere to go and no idea what to do with it.'

That might have been the last anyone saw of The Defiant Spark, but after reading about Fantastic Books Publishing in Writing Magazine, Annie submitted it one more time. 'My reader saw at once that this was something worth pursuing,' Dan Grubb, CEO of Fantastic Books Publishing says. 'The artefact naming convention needed a small tweak, that's all. And it's left us with an excellent debut novel.'

Noting that it launched on Valentine's Day, I ask if it is a romance. 'Yes, there is a romantic thread,' Dan tells me. 'But it doesn't go the way you might expect, and even when you think everything's settled, there's a twist in store.'

Information about the book

The Defiant Spark launched 14th February 2021 and can be ordered here: http://getbook.at/TheDefiantSpark

Information about the author

Learn more about Annie Percik on her blog: http://www.alobear.co.uk/index.php/blog

Media Contact
Dan Grubb - Fantastic Books Publishing