My novel The Archimedean Heart is a story about perceptions of beauty. I was initially inspired by a book about John Singer Sargent, an American expatriate painter in Paris, circa late 19th century. He caused a great scandal by portraying a famous beauty in an unexpected way. I thought it would be interesting to explore what people think of as beautiful. Another element that I wanted to consider is what happens when nature and science collide. So we have the naturalist painters fighting to restore their country to a more “real” place and the Court painters still slavishly devoted to the porcelain doll beauties of the Court. Plus a lady scientist who is probably the coolest of the bunch, because, SCIENCE. It’s set against an 1880s France that never was. In this France, the Scientists created a weather machine and the French people never go hungry. There was no French Revolution and the old monarchs are still in power, at least as figureheads. The Scientists have Augmented them to keep them going much to the dismay of our Naturalists.
I started planning this novel in the summer of 2014 and then wrote the bulk of it during NaNoWriMo 2014 . Got my 50,000+ words written in a month. Of course, that was really just the beginning. After a lot of revisions, two rounds of editing by a professional editor, and beta reads, The Archimedean Heart is ready to be published! It came in at just over 62,000 words, so it will be a quick read. I find that I’m just not a writer who wants to go on and on.
I am currently slogging through formatting. Kinda fun, kinda drudgery.
The really cool news: I hired an AMAZING cover designer to create the cover. Eloise Knapp of EK Cover Design did a superb job on Gods of Chicago and Gods of New Orleans, so I had to have her work on my cover. Reveals will be forthcoming.
BJ Sikes, author 