Silver Dagger Tour + Giveaway + Guest Post: Black Waltz

Black Waltz 

by Yoshiyuki Ly
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy Romance

As a Black Waltz—a magical ballet dancer—Stella Azrith appears to all as a composed, no-nonsense sorceress of notable talent. Yet she is deeply dependent on her muse for far more than most artists, complicating her relationships. Nyte Lysander is a suave, emotional cellist who once struggled in her obsession to stay in Stella’s world. She and Stella find one another again after a tumultuous breakup, needing the other for reasons warped beyond the norm. Black Waltz is a sprawling urban fantasy romance set 350 years after The Scorpion’s Empress and 100 years after Venus and Lysander, concluding the trilogy. Can be read as a standalone.

Searching for acceptance, Stella and Nyte learn to understand each other anew, strained only by disagreements past and unspoken. Nyte’s living situation in the crime-ridden district of Maleficus in the city of Eden pushes her and Stella to pursue better artistic opportunities elsewhere. As they toy with the idea of exploring a power play relationship, they learn about a greater evil that threatens the Azrith and Lysander families. The true enemy twists on its head through whirling rainstorms, driving Stella and Nyte to prove who and what they stand for. 

There can be no waltz for three. 

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Hey everyone, I’m Yoshiyuki Ly and I’m here with a guest post for my third book, Black Waltz. The title for this book has a story behind it, tying into my writing inspirations and some general puns. Since this is my third book, the waltz is appropriate, since the style of music is often written in 3⁄4 time. Music composition nerds will get the reference.

The concept of a Black Waltz comes from the video game Final Fantasy IX that released in the year 2000. I’ve been gaming for as long as I could read and write. I enjoy role-playing games in particular, since they typically have well-written stories, great music, and memorable characters. If you’ve heard of the Final Fantasy series, this is what they’re known for, and Final Fantasy IX is no exception.

In this game, there are three Black Waltzes that act as villains against the main cast of heroes. They’re sorcerers who look like scarecrows, plumed in all-black feathers and wearing traditional witch-like pointy hats. Even though they’re supposed to be evil, they’re really only soulless dolls who can’t question their orders or their existence. Some of the most thought-provoking moments in the game happen when one of the main characters, a young boy named Vivi, questions his own existence because he looks like the Black Waltzes who cause so much destruction with their magic. There are a lot of loaded, more personal ties as to how all of this relates to the title and even the themes of this book. I can say that one of the lead protagonists, Stella, the Black Waltz on the cover,has to stare at the truth of her own existence that’s entirely defined by her art and her muse. She doesn’t always like what she sees, but she knows that she can’t run away from it.How her love interest, Nyte, reacts to these truths is what defines the core of this book, at least on a surface level.

 We can’t control who accepts us, but we have the choice to embrace the ones who do accept us for who we are, flaws and all.

 I hope that, if you read the book, that this post will make more sense in context.

Yoshiyuki Ly was born in San Diego, CA. Her pen name represents her multiracial heritage and a unique, diverse outlook that reflects in her work. She is a writer and a gamer, primarily inspired by thought-provoking, well-written video games such as the Shin Megami Tensei, NieR, and Drakengard franchises.

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