KP Ambroziak

K. P. Ambroziak is a writer and freelance editor. She writes fiction, essays, and reviews at Fields of Twisting Phlox. She is expected to receive her PhD in Comparative Literature in 2014.

She was recently interviewed about her novella, "A Perpetual Mimicry," at Lon K. Montag's blog Reception Grown Stronger.
http://receptiongrownstronger.com/2013/04/15/a-conversation-with-paige-ambroziak/

Website: http://www.paigeambroziak.com
Blog: http://www.twistingphlox.com

• Back From Chaos on May 21, 2016
  
  This is the first work of Yvonne Hertzberger I have read, but it will not be my last. I picked up the free read from Amazon without knowing what to expect, and was pulled in from the opening pages. Hertzberger writes with an uncommon elegance, lending her story important details without weighing it down in extraneous prose. The pace is close to perfect, and the narrative moves its reader along without effort. Despite the simplicity of the story, I was wholly absorbed and rapidly turning pages from short chapter to chapter. Though this is the first book in her "Earth’s Pendulum" series, it doesn’t leave you hanging but leaves you wanting more. Perhaps that’s the thing. Hertzberger introduces characters easy to care for, while at the same time invites her reader into a modern medieval world she won’t want to leave. I think, however, the most successful aspect of this story is the romance. The compassion and attraction between the characters is deeply-rooted, and invokes a visceral reaction. I have admitted elsewhere that I am drawn to moments of literary romance, and for me, it’s not something a writer can fake. I think when done well, the reader is moved by the characters and the feelings they express for one another. Again, this can’t be put on. Like Rochester’s and Jane’s repartee, where love bleeds from the seams despite sardonic quips, deft flirtations and parries, Hertzberger’s dialogue channels romance and the romantic on every level. Even her descriptions of food serve to romanticize the atmosphere as a complement to her tightly-woven narrative. A great writer can pull this off without effort, and for me, Hertzberger is in that class. There’s everything to love about "Back From Chaos" … I couldn’t put it down.
  
• Through Kestrel's Eyes on June 01, 2016
  
  Yvonne Hertzberger is one of those writers whose prose inspires confidence. She has a way of pulling you into her story with ease, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the atmosphere and characters she has created without your worrying whether the magic will wear off before the story ends. She writes whole worlds into being, for multi-faceted and complete characters easy to love. I admired many of the characters Hertzberger introduced in “Back from Chaos,” and was pleased to see some of them return in “Through Kestrel’s Eyes.” Two of my favorites, Brensa and Klast, are given the fullest of returns since their daughter, Liannis, is the heroine of this second book. But even more, we are given the opportunity to see that the product of their union is a perfect composite of the best features of her parents. Liannis drives the story, as she takes us through the growing pains of coming into her gifts as a seer. This supernatural element is one of the strongest aspects of the story because Hertzberger doesn’t take the easy road. Rather she shows the struggle it entails, the physical toll it takes on Liannis, as well as the sacrifices she must make to serve Earth. This tension is kept taut throughout the story, allowing us to be privy to Liannis’s experience, while at the same time wrestling with the burden too. There are other elements of the story that enrich the mythos Hertzberger is building, such as the sendings Earth gives Liannis, and her familiars, Kira and Cloud. As with “Back from Chaos,” this second book in the “Earth’s Pendulum” series leaves you satisfied, and yet sets up a world so rich you will desire to return to it, especially as love promises to bloom at the end. I am looking forward to “The Dreamt Child,” ready and waiting on my Kindle.
  
• The Dreamt Child: Earth's Pendulum, Book Three on July 22, 2016
  
  I fell in love with Hertzberger’s storytelling with “Back from Chaos,” and having just finished the third book in her “Earth’s Pendulum” series, I’m sad to see it completed. It seems fitting to say that I feel as though I’ve spent time in a unique world that is vast and intimate, and yet full of life. The political intrigue that begins in the first book continues throughout the next two, but it is different and we are introduced to a new set of problems with novel characters. The balance between the old and the new speaks to the evolution of Hertzberger’s world, and the mastery with which she lets it develop. One of the story’s worthiest elements is its focus on family and union. There is a sense in this narrative, as with the others, that partnerships between spouses, between compatriots, between sons and fathers, mothers and sons, etc., do the world more good than can be imagined. To live any other way is to bring the chaos, and Hertzberger does a fine job, in all its subtlety, of using her characters to show her reader such truth. When Liannis breaks with tradition to become a seer who takes a partner, she must deal with the social stigma but also accept another into the life she had assumed would be spent without romantic interest. Yet Merrist is not merely the comfort Liannis needs to sustain her, but may very well be her source of energy, of life, and of love.
  
• Labyrinth Quest on Aug. 19, 2016
  
  I’m a fan of Hertzberger’s work. I read her “Earth’s Pendulum” series, finding her characters so compelling, I didn’t want to see the series end. But it did and so I moved on, picking up “Labyrinth Quest” as salve for my withdrawal. As expected, I discovered compelling characters are a feature marking all of Hertzberger’s fiction, and perhaps, more specifically, her heroines tend to be women with grace, courage, and an independent will that gives them insight to know when they need a partner. And it is with this that Hertzberger seems most skilled as a writer. She draws male/female partnership with such a fine pen a reader may not realize it is the crux of the whole. Creating the perfect pair, if not the most apt pairing—romantically, spiritually, physically—is what she does best. The romantic dynamics, sometimes subtle, are also enriched with anticipation, and confronted with equanimity. Sacrificial and generous, “Labyrinth Quest’s” heroine, M’Rain, is chosen for a task involving the rescue of a group of female villagers trapped in a labyrinth on the outskirts of their village. The setting is a finely woven web of fantasy, a new world that is both novel and yet recognizable in ways, but the story itself is allegorical. The story works on a literal level, of course, and is a fine tale of bravery, faith and choice. But the meaning beneath seems to capture the best of philosophical and cultural discussions that remind a reader why she reads. For me, Hertzberger’s setting evoked Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, making me think about blindness and the ways in which a society may subject itself to it for fear of the “other.” The implications of isolation and cultural purity are tackled with precision here, and brought to the fore in an enthralling story of peoples who are willing to trust a stranger because time and again she proves her worthiness. And as I mentioned, Hertzberger knows how to build romantic tension, never letting it devolve into static exchange. Her characters have to make choices that test who they are and who they will become, which, for a reader, is the best part of a journey into any new world.