I'd like to give a big warm-welcome to Michele Lang, author of the
Lady Lazarus Trilogy! On today's
Rebel Angels blog tour stop Michele has provided readers with an excerpt from the Lady Lazarus Trilogy and a list of the cast of characters.
Don't forget to enter the awesome giveaway at the end of the blog, TOR BOOKS is giving away three (3) complete sets of the Lady Lazarus Trilogy, and EVERYONE who enters wins the novella “The Magic of Fabulous” (set in the world of Lady Lazarus).
ABOUT THE SERIES: LADY LAZARUS TRILOGY
The LADY LAZARUS
series by Michele Lang
The series is set on the eve of World War II, and tells the story
of Magda Lazarus, a witch with the power to call souls from the dead. In
order to avert her sister’s visions, Magda must battle SS werewolves, wizards,
and demons, including the one who has possessed a willing Adolf Hitler.
Book 1: Lady Lazarus
ADVENTURE, ROMANCE, AND MAGIC ON THE
EVE OF WORLD WAR II
Summer 1939: In Budapest, the magical city where East meets West,
beautiful, young Magda Lazarus has managed to make a life for herself in a
dangerous world that teeters on the edge of war. But then her sister has a
terrible vision: Nazi Germany overruns all of Europe,
and their family and millions of others are exterminated.
Magda, the last of a long line of witches descended from the
legendary Witch of Ein Dor, must find the secret of her family's magic. Alone,
pursued by SS werewolves, a Nazi wizard, and demons, including the one that has
possessed a willing Adolf Hitler, she has no choice but to summon the family's
guardian angel, the dark keeper of secrets Archangel Raziel.
And when she stands in his celestial presence, her heart is
utterly, completely lost…
Book 2: Dark Victory
Magda Lazarus was a reluctant witch, until the dire threat of Nazi
Germany convinced her to assume the mantle of her family's ancient powers. But
though this young, beautiful woman has fought Hitler's werewolves and the demon
who would rule through the Fuhrer, she has been unable to prevent the outbreak
of World War II.
There is still a chance of saving the millions slated for
destruction, but Magda knows she cannot fight the Nazi supernatural war machine
alone. With the power to summon an army
of spirits, Magda stands with her guardian angel Raziel in a battle against the
human and unholy forces of evil arrayed against her people and all of Europe.
Magda is desperate to win at any price, but the victory she seeks
may be at the cost of her soul…
Book 3: Rebel Angels
THE THRILLING CONCLUSION OF THE LADY
LAZARUS TRILOGY
Magda Lazarus, the Witch of Budapest, has returned from the dead
time and time again to fight the Nazia' devastating conquest of Poland.
To prevent the Holocaust her sister has seen in terrible visions, Magda will
need the Heaven Sapphire, a gem powerful enough to defeat even the demon
Asmodel. With the future of all Europe in the balance, Magda and her beloved,
the angel Raziel, begin a perilous journey to the Caucasus,
the resting place of the fabled stone.
Surrounded by Nazis, Stalinists, and wary Azeri tribesmen, Magda
must summon all of her magic to battle her supernatural foes. But more
dangerous yet is the power of the Sapphire itself, which could stop Hitler --
or destroy Magda.
At the end of this long road Magda's epic quest will end…in love
and redemption, or with annihilation. REBEL ANGELS, the climactic book of the
LADY LAZARUS trilogy, filled with suspense, magic, and action, will have
readers on the edge of their seats until the riveting conclusion.
Excerpt from the LADY LAZARUS trilogy and cast of
Characters!
By Michele Lang
PROLOGUE, LADY LAZARUS
JULY, 1945, Paris
I damned my soul in the
summer of 1939. I did it for the noblest
reasons, the best ones – to save the people I loved; to make a terrible wrong
turn right. But still I am tormented by
the thought that my sins overwhelmed my intentions and turned my noble
sacrifices to dust even as I made them.
Only time will tell if my desperate measures, in the end, were
justified.
In my mind, that final summer
is saturated with golden sunlight. My
beloved home – gilded Budapest, the Paris on the Danube – glittered brilliantly
in the sun, even blighted as it was by the stain of fascism. The cafés still buzzed with energy, the city
still throbbed at night. My Budapest still lived.
And I felt at home there like
no other place I have lived before or since.
To me, a girl of only twenty, Budapest was the culmination of a life’s
dream of freedom. My family, originally
from the northern mountain town of Tokaj, was drawn to Budapest’s brilliant
light at the end of the nineteenth century, and my father, a wine trader,
eventually made his fortune.
Not even the depredations of
Bela Kun’s Bolshevik regime in 1919, followed by the genial fascist toad, that
hypocrite Regent Horthy, not even an army of their small-minded followers could
destroy the restless creativity of the city.
I knew it was dangerous to be a Jew.
But I had one secret advantage, and I clung to it for dear life.
I was a Lazarus. And the eldest daughter of an eldest
daughter.
The city teemed with magical
folk, living alongside the pure mortals.
Vampires, dryads, dwarves, other, hidden, immortal beings – and the
adepts, the sorcerers, necromancers, and witches. As for me, I am a Lazarus witch. My power is passed from mother to daughter,
and has been so conveyed since time out of mind.
My mother, bless her vanished
soul, tried her best to teach me the Lazarus creed and how to use the power I
inherited, and the dangers such a power brings, but I was born rebellious. And when she died suddenly, my training was
still unfinished. I preferred to haunt
the cafes, debate Communism and literary theory with half-starved poets living
on weak tea and rum balls, indulge in mad affairs of the mind and heart that in
the end led absolutely nowhere. In
short, I was a young fool, but a happy one.
The trouble crept up on all
of us, a shadow that lengthened over everything we knew. Horthy’s regime was dreadful, but after the
disaster of Bela Kun, we all believed we could survive the Regent. So we, the Jews, kept our heads down and
worked. And we, the witches, kept to our
creed, respected the destructive potential of our powers and invoked them
rarely. We told ourselves useful lies,
that the trouble would soon pass. And a
fragile balance held.
Such a state, balanced on
lies, could not sustain itself for long.
Despite this, when the end came, none of us was ready.
And now I hold my breath, my
pen hovers over the paper before I write.
How can I explain to you, a stranger, what has happened to me? At this pause in my earthly trials, I do not
know which is better: to press forward
and leave the past to die, or to commit my strange tale to paper.
Well I know the power of
words. In many instances, I am the only
witness, the only one still living who knows of the great-hearted sacrifices of
those who are now gone, the only one who can now remember. So: I
write this story not to glorify the living, but to honor the dead.
The summer of ’39 is seared
into my mind, and lives on forever unchanged in my memory. Hitler had not yet invaded Poland, war had
not yet exploded the world I had known into irredeemable shards. I was still a girl, the future still lay
before me, indefinable, infinite with possibility.
I was still kissing-close to
the people I loved most in the entire world.
And simple love matters more than magic, treasure, or even the promise
of eternal life. It is for love that I now set this strange tale into words.
Remember this as you read on,
for though my story has its triumphs, in the end it has always come back to two
fundamental questions:
Who
do you love?
Do
you seek the darkness or the light?
A Cast of Characters from the Lady Lazarus Trilogy
Magda Lazarus:
the eldest daughter of the Lazarus witches, with a lineage that stretches all
the way back to the Witch of Ein Dor.
She has a secret passion for the magic of the word - with words she can
summon a soul, even her own, back from the dead.
Raziel: An
archangel with the unenviable task of serving as Magda's guardian angel. She
pushes him to a grim dilemma: stand aside in heaven and watch as his ward is destroyed?
Or fall to earth and sacrifice his wings and his celestial status? Raziel's
secret love: Magda Lazarus.
Count Bathory:
The Chief Vampire of Budapest values power over
the night, and his assistant Magda Lazarus gives him a valuable edge over his
enemies…a key advantage in the perilous days before World War II explodes in Europe. Hidden within his cold, dead heart is a passion for
humankind…he cares more about the mortals he feeds upon than he would ever
admit.
Gisele Lazarus:
Magda's little sister, she of the terrifying visions of a world destroyed. Her
dearest wish is for her family to stay home and safe, but her wishes for peace
are not to be. But she is not the little mouse her sister Magda believes she
is…
Eva Farkas:
Magda's best friend, an irrepressible blonde with not a drop of magic in her.
Full of fun and courage, Eva has a dark side and a secret destiny she keeps well-hidden
from those she loves the most.
Winston Churchill:
the British lion speaks to angels, maintains a network of spies throughout Europe, and foresees the future almost as clearly as does
Gisele. But he is willing to make any
sacrifice to crush his country's foes.
Asmodel: An
ancient, primordial demon with a lust to dominate and destroy the world. With
Magda under his control, he believes he can overthrow both celestial and
worldly authority and recreate the Garden of Eden into his own, evil image. But
can he succeed without destroying Magda first?
GIVEAWAY
TOR BOOKS is generously giving away three (3) complete sets of the Lady Lazarus Trilogy, and
EVERYONE who enters wins the novella “The Magic of Fabulous” (set in the
world of Lady Lazarus).
The Lady Lazarus Trilogy sets (US/CA) only.
"The Magic of Fabulous"
novella (Everyone) just
provide your name and email in the comments)!
TO ENTER PLEASE FILL OUT THE RAFFLECOPTER
a Rafflecopter giveaway
About the Author
Michele Lang writes
supernatural stories set in futuristic places: the stories of witches,
lawyers, goddesses, cops, bankers, demons, and other magical creatures
hidden in plain sight.
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