Storyteller Book III Release Day!

Storyteller Book III: The Last Page is here!

For those of you who have been waiting, the wait is over! I sure appreciate your support over the course of this trilogy. It's been a labor of love and I'm honored to be able to share it with you. I uploaded the file to Smashwords this morning. In no time at all, it should work it's way out to other distributors, such as Barnes & Noble, Diesel, Kobo, and iBooks. I hope you'll find it at your favorite ebook store and download it soon.  And if you missed the first two books in the series, you'll want to read those too.

Here's the brief description, although it might be a tad bit spoilerish if you haven't already read Books I and II:

When her story began in Storyteller: The True World, Lily Lightfoot didn’t know she was a fairy with the power to make things happen, just by telling a story, but then everything changed. Now she’s on a quest to save the True World with only a few friends to help her. Her mother and her best friend captured, it’s up to Lily to complete the Quest of Galamar – a centuries old fairy tale. All she has to do is figure out how to turn back time. Easy, right?

In Storyteller Book II: The Quest of Galamar, Gabriel sent the three friends to find the Full Moon Amulet, hidden deep in the mountains and guarded by a fierce dragon. The amulet, one of four moonstones created ages ago by the fabled elf warrior Galamar, holds the power of the Northern Portal keeper, Ironblood the dragon. Whoever possesses all four amulets has the power to recreate or destroy the True World. Gabriel’s brother, Lord Kane, will stop at nothing to have the ancient powers for himself and keep Lily from fulfilling the Prophecy of Galamar.

Now, the amulet recovered, Lily loses her guardian and best friend in the process. The only way to save him is to face the remaining portal keepers, the Griffin and the Harpy, and Lord Kane himself. As the True World prepares for an epic battle, Lily races to find those she loves and fulfill the ancient quest before it’s too late.

 

Enjoy the journey~

October 26 ~ More on Themes

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about writing the Storyteller series is that it’s several stories within a story. I have a tendency to make my main characters into readers, so they’re always lugging around a book or reading something in a book, and, in Lily’s case, always learning crucial information from books.

 

Storyteller starts off in our world, but very soon, the reader is propelled into the epic fantasy of the True World, complete with pixies, trolls, dragons, and a whole host of other critters. I had to create an entire world, complete with its own mythology, which was probably the most fun for me as a writer. Not only did I get to write Lily’s story, I got to write the mythological tales of Galamar, a foolish, lovesick elf.

 

I grew up reading Greek and Norse mythology, so it was sheer delight to create my own.  Even better than that, it became integral to the story. I think it makes the series so much richer by adding even more themes. Galamar takes on three impossible tasks in order to win the object of his affection, with dire consequences for the rest of True World. The fall out is what Lily is faced with while trying to save her mom. I think the exploration of “we all make mistakes” and the importance of forgiveness make the Storyteller series unique and hopefully, satisfying for the reader.

 

As Lord Erik wrote~ Forgiveness is the greatest gift anyone can ever bestow, and the hardest.

 

If you haven’t yet read the Storyteller books, you can find them here. You’ve still got time to read the first two before the last one comes out! Enjoy~

Blog 26 One of my favorite things~

I had hoped to be posting a release day post about Hush Puppy in July, but it seems I'll have to wait just a bit longer. There is  a lovely galley in existence now, which means it's getting oh-so close to being published.  There's also a blog post, all ready to go on release day, to tell you just how the book came to be. Until then, I thought I might chat a little with you about the themes in the book and what I was striving for when I wrote it.  You already know how much I love themes, right?

 

Hush Puppy could succinctly be described as a coming of age story, but I like to think it's also about growing into one's own sense of self esteem, something many of us don't truly achieve until later in life.  In addition to that, the book is about a funny little thing called friendship.  It's one of my very favorite themes and it crops up in my writing again and again, no matter what I write.

Friendship is a hard thing to get your metaphorical arms around. If you were to define friendship, how would you describe it? An affection between two people? Is it trust or an understanding and acceptance of another's personality, their flaws and foibles?  Is a friend a confidant, a person you can trust with your secrets?

 

I myself have very definite opinions about what makes a friendship and I wanted to explore that in Hush Puppy.  What happens when the trust of a friendship is betrayed? Or when that friendship gets tangled up with feelings of love or dependence?

To me, a friend is someone you can be totally yourself with without fear of rejection or ridicule.  Even then, there's a constant push-pull between the two of boundaries, of affection and closeness. Some friends are more distant than others and we're constantly trying to gauge where we stand with them. The friends we're closest to are those that know our inner most fears, those that support us, and encourage us to grow, maybe even against our will.

What do you think makes a friendship? Have you ever had a friend betray your trust? What happened?