Rhythm Sword Warriors Book Tour

 

Readers drawn to stories where emotion and imagination collide will be captivated by Rhythm Sword Warriors by Lara J. Nance—a high-concept sci-fi adventure pulsing with rhythm, light, and heart.

After decades of hiding underground from alien invaders, Calena has learned to survive—but not to live. Haunted by her mother’s death and trapped in her own isolation, her only outlet is Rhythm Sword, a virtual reality game where she can lose herself in patterns of sound and motion. When the alien threat resurfaces, Calena must lead a rebellion of fellow gamers into the real fight for Earth’s survival. But victory will demand something she’s never been able to master—trust, courage, and love. Rhythm Sword Warriors is both a thrilling survival tale and an intimate story about reclaiming hope in a fractured world.

Lara J. Nance, an award-winning speculative fiction author, writes with an adventurous spirit fueled by real-life exploration. Having sailed across oceans and wandered continents as a digital nomad, she brings a sense of authenticity to her futuristic worlds. Her fiction often blends bold imagination with deep human emotion, creating stories that resonate as much in the heart as in the mind. Discover more of her adventures on her website.

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Rhythm-Sword-Warriors-Lara-Nance/dp/B0FSJVBWWR

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/241919280-rhythm-sword-warriors

 

 

Author Interview

 

How did you research your book?

The idea first sparked for me as an avid player of the virtual reality game, Beat Saber. I envisioned the cube that I attacked in the game as alien blobs, and had the thought, hey, what if a person was playing this game and then found that the skills used were very specialized and needed to kill alien invaders that couldn’t be killed any other way. From there my creative brain took over and imagined how this could play out in a dystopian world setting. I did a lot of research on the science side which included data about muon particles to validate the way the swords could work to kill aliens while taking into account the highly volatile nature of the particles. It was an interesting exercise in staying true to the science.

 

 

What’s the hardest scene or character you wrote—and why?

Calena was a difficult character. She was a bit crusty and salty in the beginning due to her trauma and chronic depression, so finding ways for readers to connect with her and pull for her was a challenge. The hardest scene was the one where she attempts suicide. I also suffer from chronic depression and felt that although this is a tough subject, writing about it in a way that might make those without depression understand it a bit better, and those with depression find common ground was a message I felt was extremely important.

 

 

Where do you get your ideas?

As far as the spark of the ideas and general plot, things just pop into my head based on random thoughts, as in this case it was playing the game. From there, like most writers, I begin to dig into the specifics in research and go down a bunch of rabbit holes that can spark additional ideas. So, Yay, Google. LOL

 

Also, for some of my novels and this one in particular I took a lot of ideas from my work as a nurse practitioner. I treat patients with depression, anxiety and PTSD with ketamine treatments and have been very interested in the amazing promise of treatments with psychedelic medicine. I drew on that for the issues with Calena and her use of mushrooms (psilocybin) as a healing modality in this book. I wanted to get this message out there that there is hope for those who haven’t had success with traditional psychiatric meds, that there may be other options that could help them. It’s a timely topic for our times as many of these drugs are set to be approved for use by the FDA in the future. In fact, there is hope that MDMA can be approved in 2026 for treatment for PTSD as there are about 17 deaths by suicide among veterans every day due to PTSD as reported by the VA in 2024.

 

What sets your book apart from others in your genre?

I don’t know of another book that incorporated elements of the Beat Saber game, so that is one area. There are other uses of virtual reality out there, of course, but not directly related to Beat Saber.  Also, I think Calena is a unique character with her many flaws but yet maintaining that core of goodness and courage that ends up saving the world.

 

What helps you overcome writer’s block?

Taking a break and playing Beat Saber. LOL. Also, just getting away from the intensity of the writing for a while helps to kind of reset my brain and open up fresh ideas.

 

What’s your favorite compliment you’ve received as a writer?

Probably the one I valued the most was from my first professionally published book, Memories of Murder. It’s a paranormal romance/mystery that won several awards and was reviewed in Romantic Times magazine receiving the highest rating and the reviewer commented that a new star in mystery writing had entered the publishing world. That gave me a lot of hope and validation that I needed as a new author at that time.

 

 

Any quirky writing rituals or must-have snacks?

Maybe not too quirky, but if I am writing a sexy love scene I need to listen to some sexy music like “Red-light Special”  by TLC. I put on some noise canceling headphones and listen as I write, sort of like a soundtrack for the scene. It really helps put me in that frame of mind to describe the love-making properly.

Must-have snacks –  Dry Crispix cereal – not too fattening and satisfying crunch!

 

Why did you choose this setting/topic?

An idea popped in my head while playing Beat Saber that it would be a cool weapon in a Sci-fi story and then it took off from there. I dearly love a dystopian world also. The idea of people thinking out-of-the-box to survive and using whatever they have on hand in different ways out of necessity is intriguing to me. I also am drawn to the idea of having the nobler traits of humans emerge in a crisis to overcome evil or to survive when they could have gone the other direction and become more violent, a la Mad Max.

 

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