King's Ward release and Blog Tour!

The re-launch & release is here! It kicked off on Homeschool Authors, with a Author Interview,  then Rebekah Stargazer's take-over guest post "Eight Reasons Why I Loved Traitor's Knife". And  then as a wrap up for the Big Release, advance readers Rebekah and Kelsey Bryant chatted about King's Ward.

  Their conversation was my absolute favorite of all!! (You gotta check that one out!)

  Then a blog tour hosted by Silver Dagger Tours kicked off on their blog: with a Rafflecopter giveaway featured. There are 4 swag packs up for grabs, so make sure you enter and let us know which prize you'd choose!!!

 And both Jeweler's Apprentice and Traitor's Knife are currently on sale at 99 cents, so everyone can get caught up on what's happened so far!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Story Peddler, by Lindsay A. Franklin

 Over all, one of the best books I've read in the past year, I think!


 The Story Peddler is a sumptuously presented book, from its gorgeous, gorgeous cover, to it's detailed interior formatting, it is a visual delight.
The publishing house did a great job with packaging.

  The concept of stories that become colorful strands and then can be seen and stand apart from the teller, is a unique plot device.

  Unfortunately, the Main Character didn't click with me at all at first. I failed to relate to the (what seemed "wanderlust/star-struck") girl who preferred to be treated terribly by the miserly, 'master storyteller', while chronically failing to live up to the teacher's expectations; roaming about a kingdom where everyone is so poor because the taxes are oppressive.
  Contrast that life choice with the 'secure' option to be a farmer's wife, with a boy she's known forever and who loves her desperately... however, this too struck a wrong note with me. Her love interest is too poor to pay for ale he drinks on credit, but also avows that they'd be totally financially secure ("I'd take care of you!") if only the MC would give up the road and marry him.

   Again, those blighted taxes are to blame.

  As someone who has dabbled in brewing one's one refreshing beverages, (it is not that hard!) one wonders why this poverty stricken swain darkens the door of a tavern when he's so penny-pinched, and hard at work dreaming of a financially secure married life.

 I realize that this is "stock plot syndrome"... there must be a "odious farm" as an option; oppressive taxes are long since cliche; and there must be a tavern in which to "exposition", guzzle a pint, and order a stew, (in reality, if times are hard, and if one has local friends, one drops in on them for dinner and does not pay commercial prices!  :) )

    Since the MC longs for the palace, of course she'll turn out to be a long lost princess, or something, and marry the prince.
     So... as a long and embittered veteran of the fantasy genre (don't get me wrong, I love fantasy,  :) just sometimes "new" would be nice,)  I was feeling a bit jaded only a few chapters in.

   But that cover is really pretty!  :)

Once she got with the actual main side characters, things started heating up. I liked the novel twist on the requisite hiding place, and the ‘band if misfits’ were well drawn and likable.

Franklin did a good job with her artist’s ‘abilities’, and the dark side to their use was an unexpected twist. Kudos to the author on that... and the resulting ‘story thread’ (if you’ll pardon the pun!) which leads into book  2 is deeply compelling. I must say, I want to read book 2 now, more desperately than I felt about book 1 the whole time! If done right, I could see this series escalating nicely into a “must read” and a “can’t put it down” experience.

The ‘one in the dark’ was a good touch, and I heartily approve of those sort of plot devices. They are not used nearly enough in storytelling, I maintain, and they are very satisfactory threads to see weave back in once the reader has reached the ending.

What elements of “romance” woven here, were respectfully handled with a realistic measuring and lots of confusion, and relatable awkwardness. Nicely done! Real life love interests are about like that, and this can be really fresh and new as well as enjoyable when handled right.

The tension only grows as the story progresses, and I can see the suspense continuing throughout the series... while still avoiding the over-used cliché of triangles.

Congrats to the author on that, as well!!

   In short, this is a very unique, fun tale that while it got off to a rocky start with me, definitely grew on me and the characters and their world came alive as the book progressed. I would dearly love to know what happens to them next, and how they all react to it!!!
   Tanwen turned out to be a likable protagonist after all, and not as “trope-ish” as my ‘plot-convenience’ suspicions instantly suspected.

I hope the author will continue in the way that she has started, and hold the lives of her characters in high regard... while danger is one thing, and very necessary for suspense, there is one character (you’ll know who I’m talking about as soon as you finish the book) who life should 100% BETTER BE SPARED. Or Else.

  So there.

In all, if you’re looking for a fun, fresh take on fantasy literature, I’d highly recommend the Story Peddler.

Blog Tour Schedule

Tuesday, April 24^th

-        Book Spotlight – Tabitha Caplinger

-        Review – Jane Maree Author

-        Review – E. Kaiser Writes-A-Blog

Wednesday, April 25^th

-        Interview – Quills and Inkblotts

-        Interview – H.L. Burke Author

Thursday, April 26^th

-        Review & Interview – Reality Reflected

-        Review – Lands Uncharted

-        Review –Scriblerians

Friday, April 27^th

-        Review – Ralene Burke

-        Book Spotlight – Morgan L. Busse, Author

Saturday, April 28^th

-        Interview – Liv K. Fisher

-        Review – C O Bonham

-        Visual Post – Jebraun Clifford

-        Review – Pages and Pekoe

Monday, April 30^th

-        Book Spotlight – New Authors Fellowship

-        Interview – Unicorn Quester

-        Interview – Singh with Books

Tuesday, May 1^st

-        Review – i am not a bookworm!

-        Review –Worthy2Read

-        Review – Lori’s Book Loft

-        The Story Peddler and Unbreakable Facebook Launch Party

Wednesday, May 2^nd

-        Blog Tour Wrap-Up –  Unicorn Quester

Purchase Links

Amazon — Barnes & Noble — Books-A-Million — ChristianBook.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36327140-the-story-peddler

About the Author

Lindsay A. Franklin is an award-winning author, award-winning freelance editor, and homeschooling mom of three. She would wear pajama pants all the time if it were socially acceptable. She spends a lot of time in made-up worlds, and she’s passionate about sparking imagination through stories of infinite possibility. Her debut fantasy novel, The Story Peddler, releases in 2018. When she’s not exploring the fantastical, she’s exploring the Bible and encouraging young women through her devotional books (click here for more information on Adored).

Lindsay lives in her native San Diego with her husband (master of the dad joke), their awesomely nerdy kids, two thunder pillows (AKA cats), and a stuffed wombat with his own Instagram following (@therealwombatman). You can find Lindsay on social media, too, if Wombatman hasn’t hijacked all her accounts. She’s @LinzyAFranklin on Instagram and Twitter, and she Facebooks at www.facebook.com/LindsayAFranklin.

Email list sign-up link: http://eepurl.com/bwF64j

Food, Family and Guilt? Guest post with Joel Canfield!

Hey! It is my honor today to host Joel D Canfield on his blog tour for his new book, A Still, Small Voice.
 It's always been fun to see what Joel has to say online, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to introduce him to some of you who perhaps haven't run across him yet!
  
    So without further ado, here's Joel and he can speak for himself...

 Everybody, here's Joooe-l D Canfield!!!

A Still, Small Voice in the Back of Your Head

JDC: The title of my latest book, A Still, Small Voice (Phil Brennan Mystery #2) is from something I heard as a kid: your conscience is a still, small voice that makes you feel still smaller.
I was raised on guilt, served both with meals and between them.

EKW: Phrased like a poet, Mr. Canfield! It's interesting, though how closely all that really is wrapped up in each other... we think of guilt as a bad thing, but without it completely there would be no conscience, and without that the world would be a terrible place indeed.
  I guess it takes a lifetime to wrestle with those dichotomies!

JDC: As I approach 60, it's far too late to blame my books on my childhood...

EKW: Oh... go ahead. What's the writer's prerogative for, if not that?

JDC:  ...okay, I'm going to give it a try. Before a certain age our experiences land straight in our unconscious mind, unfiltered and unfettered, and our interpretations are sometimes (often?) skewed. Most of us, whatever our age, carry a dozen misbeliefs we formed in early childhood. We don't see them that way, though, as misbeliefs.
We think they're superpowers.
The things we "know" without logic (because we believed them so young) feel truer than many things we actually do know based on logic and reason. As a result they can feel magical, as if we have information others don't. It's not a conscious thought, but an unconscious feeling.
It's also the source of most of our really dumb decisions.

EKW:  I'm going to have to play witness for the prosecution here a bit, because yes, we can get hung up on childhood lessons that set up misbeliefs... but childhood is also where it is possible to learn the best true beliefs, too. Depends on what source our teaching came from... and of course there's an element of luck there, or if you prefer, guidance.
  (Which I am extremely grateful for, in the end, the Lord has always turned things toward good for me, and I an very aware how easily I could be an entirely different person without His intervention in my formative years.)
  But back to the subject, I definitely get what you're saying!

JDC: When others make choices we don't understand, it's easy to think they don't have all the information (or aren't very bright.) Usually, though, it's because their prefilter childhood beliefs are different from ours.

EKW:  True, that's our own human/natural instinct, because so often a person is inclined to just react without really thinking the big picture through.

JDC: And yes, that means everyone, all the time. Welcome to humanity.

EKW: I think that's definitely something that comes into play a lot in all the deepest sort of stories... whatever the genre. (Also a very INFJ thing to think about! All the deep things!)

JDC: It's also, according to writing teacher Lisa Cron in Story Genius, the source of the hero's actions in a good story. Every step of the way, they make choices based on their misbelief (which they still think is a superpower) until in the end they're forced, painfully, to confront it

 EKW: Hmm... interesting theory. I hadn't heard that...

JDC:  Since those misbeliefs are born early, usually before school age, they're almost always grown in the soil of family life.
In A Still, Small Voice you'll see Phil Brennan bumble his way through a non-mystery based almost entirely on his feelings about his father.
Why no, I'm not writing about myself. Not at all.

 EKW: Haha!!! I think that's one of the scariest things, as a introspective writer who may be aware of the source we all pull our stories from... to show our fiction to the world definitely feels so scary because we fear the world will see us too clearly in that mirror. In actuality, I think most readers see less of the author and more of their own faces when they read... so authors can feel somewhat safer.
   After all, a piece that really resonates is tapping into a universal (or close to it!) theme that most everyone finds a piece of themselves inside it.
  Where can folks access to your versions of the universal theme, Joel?

JDC:  Folks who sign up for my newsletter get all my novels free, including A Still, Small Voice. Sign up. Download. Read. Quick and painless.
Before you go do that, though, why not grab a snack? Bake a pie, maybe. Or if that takes too long, make a sandwich. This one, perhaps.

Joel's Meatless BLT

I am a meat-eater. I'm also overweight (thank you, childhood stress) so I'm always looking for delicious food that's less bulky. This takes the gold in that category.
The first time I bit into this sandwich, I kid you not, I opened it back up to see if someone had put bacon on it while I had my back turned. Sometimes it's more a hint than overt flavor, but if you like a BLT, this does a great job of giving you the taste without the bacon. Of course, those of us who love bacon and aren't watching our weight should, in fact, pile on the bacon. I'm all for bacon. But this sandwich offers an alternative, because, y'know, choices.

Ingredients

Don't substitute. It won't work.

• Whole wheat bread, lightly toasted.
• One side, olive oil black pepper mayo, spread thin. It's just a moisture barrier, not to add moisture. The veg will do that.
• Other side yellow mustard, spread thin. I know it comes out of a squirt bottle, but it needs to protect the bread from sog. Spread it.
• Zucchini planks, about 1/8"-1/4" thick. Use the smallest zuke you can find. Small = sweet and flavorful, large = dry and woody.
• Roma tomatoes, halved and cored. No, you do not want the wet mass of seeds and white nonsense on your sandwich. Slice each half from the top and bottom so you can press it flat sort of like those accurate maps which no one uses even though we all know that, no, Greenland isn't as big as South America.
• Alfalfa sprouts and radish sprouts, pressed in a paper towel to dry them. The other veg is wet. Sprouts shouldn't be.
• Fresh spinach.

  Assembly

Put the tomatoes on the mayo side.

Put the spinach on the mustard side.

Pile the zucchini on the spinach, the sprouts on the tomatoes.

Spritz it all with fresh lemon juice.

Lightly salt with sea salt, not table salt eww that stuff is horrible.

Make two and have lunch with someone you love.
 

EKW:   Well, That's an interesting recipe, Joel. I think we all have a "perfect figure" in mind that we like to wish we were... though I've made peace with my inner critic (most of the time) and figure if I'm able to get through the day without too much pain than I'm luckier than a lot of folks, and should shut up and be grateful!!!
   Of course, eating healthy should always be a priority, which for me actually means trying to make sure I get some meat in my diet, because I naturally prefer sweets and starches to proteins... pretty much all the time.
   Which isn't ideal, because ... Balance!

 (Post Scriptus: when it comes to sandwiches, I love my bread soggy! The more mayonnaise that can soak in the better, and tomato juice draining into the bread is just delicious!!!
  Living in a wheat-free house for the past 15 years (for family members who have Celiac) makes me very appreciative of bread, and dreamy-eyed at the thought of tomato sandwiches!!! )

   And the topic of maps and Greenland was just being discussed around the house the other day! So perfect timing on that subject!
   Like I said, wheat-free house here, so that means slapping together some of my favorite things can be a challenge. Luckily for me, I found a recipe that combines sweets and starches into a creation that even gluten free can't pester, and it's a snap to concoct. Came upon it among Mom's exhaustive collection of gathered recipes, which I'd never seen used, and I've since kept it near and dear to my heart!

  So! Taking all that into consideration, Impossible Pie is a great favorite with me.
 Everything goes into a blender:
1 3/4 c. Cooked pumpkin (/squash/yams/carrots anything soft enough to squish to nothing in a blender.)
1 1/2 c. milk (of cream/ half and half/ whatever... you get the idea.)  {Somewhere in here I sometimes add up to two eggs, but I think I dock the milk back to 1 cup when I do that.}
1 Tb. oil/butter (or 2 Tb. because, guys, this is butter we're talking about!)
1/2 c. sugar  (this is probably a lot less sweet than a lot of people are used to, but for us, it's just nicely sweetened with very little guilt factor.)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger      (really, folks, just toss some pumpkin-y spices in, don't fret it. I like to throw Allspice in, 'cause it's basically an herb, and is good for you. When I do I leave the nutmeg out, because this isn't supposed to be a Pumpkin Pie SPICE pie.)
and last but not least, added after the others are all blended nicely,
 1/2 c. flour with a dollop of
1/2 tsp. baking powder on top. Then hit that button again, on high, till smooth

  You've greased the pan, and pre-heated the oven, so pour it in, bake @350 for 30-45 minutes and presto! you've got a pie.
(You're also outta there equally fast...)

And if I set a timer, I can generally get it back out of the oven before it gets too "browned"... though no one seems to complain about a black edge on a pie, anyway. They're so glad to see it in any condition!!!

   What I love about this is it's so fluid. Don't have canned pumpkin on hand? Use something else that is remotely similar. It'll work out.
    And yes, I suppose someone could argue that a recipe isn't supposed to be fluid... but, hey. I'm a creative. I like things that work out even when I swap things around.

Never mind, I googled it for you!

 Impossible Coconut Cream Pie is good too, but is a little more strict. You simply must have coconut, or it's not the same. (Google it! See if it's up your alley!!!)

  Anyway, if you're not hungry by now, nothing can help you! Go get Joel's books and read until you feel ready to eat!!!

   Thanks for being here, Mr. Canfield, and here's hoping you shed that pesky pound that's bothering you.
 As always, keep writing! (It's good mental therapy!)

The Many Princes of Demargen

via Pinterest

 While combining elements from several tales, and several versions of those tales, one of the fun ones we definitely borrowed from the Disney version of the Snow Queen, (the recent film Frozen ) is the idea of a royal family with 13 princes. It was too juicy of a tidbit to leave on the table!

  As the "youngest of 13" our boy, tall, dark & handsome Hess of Demargen has a feeling of being "over shadowed" by his brother's achievements.

  But he has no idea that the twelve older than he once endured a harrowing brush with Fairyland, (the plot for the upcoming Twelve Dark Knights) when he was too young to be involved with their activities.
 They never talk about it, putting it resolutely behind them, and yet, there is a distinct feeling that Hess has "been the lucky one", to have missed that. And they "protect him" from knowing about their scare, and near doom; assuming that being ignorant is similar to being safe.

 In the end, that is never the case, and Hess himself feels the sting of unfriendly Fairyland when he is maliciously poisoned with the potion known as "Devil's Mirror"... beginning a journey that will harrow his soul, too.

 Coming from a family of five kids, but having a background of friends who had up to ten/eleven children, I really enjoyed getting to get my hands deep into the family dynamics of a sibling set that ranges over twenty years.

 Our own family had a wide range, so while the youngest was only #5, she was 5 when the eldest was 19, so the life experiences were very varied between them.
 She often felt "left out" of things, simply because she wasn't even born when things happened in the older kid's childhood memories. It took her until she was into her early twenties to feel like "she belonged" as part of the family... the she had "earned her place". (She is a sweet, thoughtful type who everybody loves, so no one else viewed her in that way at all! Only herself.)

   On the flip side, the eldest in our family felt like everybody younger than her had it "so much easier" and we all "abysmally failed to appreciate it."


 As the middle child I can unequivocally state that each end had it's advantages, but after struggling with my own place in the family for years I'm now extremely grateful for where the Lord put me! He knew exactly what lessons were important for me, and set me where I could get a good view!
 (Thankfully, I'm actually not too bad at learning from others mistakes, so that's convenient!)

The Crown of Noran

 As an artist/writer I am very visual, so when I write a description of something in my books, I tend to have a mental picture of it very distinctly.

  But on the flip side of the coin, as an artist, bringing something like that to life is tough, because I'm my own worst critic!


 Since very few things make the transition from the written word into a visual representation; it just doesn't matter too much.
 But with this series we went ahead and did a lot of art work for it, and so I was able to bring to visual life many of the pieces I'd described in the books. This was a lot of fun, and also a challenge, because I wanted to make sure to "hit the nail on the head" perfectly!

  One of the major pieces that has a lot of importance in the culture of Noran, (but regrettably doesn't get a too much lengthy focus in the book!) is the Crown of Noran.

 This is more than just jewelery, of course, since it carries with it the weight of power and centuries of tradition. But I also wanted it to be uniquely beautiful, and not duplicating what is usually "Accepted Fashion" in crowns.

 As a jeweler and historian I have long been particularly intrigued by old-to-ancient examples of precious metal working... and crowns are a great example of that.

 But there was no historical crown style that fit my idea, and so I invented it completely.
  The back-story on this crown is unique, in that it was not made by mortal hands, but instead pulled from the very mountain's depths by the nearly-mythical Stone King as a symbol of the joining of the first royal couple and their right to rule.

 (Note on the Stone King: Although trolls are a staple in Norse legends, they are usually bad, and also linked with "dark magic" which I didn't like at all. So I took a slightly modified take on the idea by following Tolkien's example in his Ents -as opposed to the Greek tree-spirits of very heathen origin - and I made Stone Ents. Basically. The old ones speak slowly and are very wise, whereas the younger ones, at merely a couple hundred years old, are much more quick, and also foolish. I didn't invent a new name, but went with a generic "Stone Folk", since it seemed logical the people of the area would suffice with something simple.
 In the scene were Girta first meets them it is evident that she has heard of Ents, and likens these to that elusive people. The reader is thereby free to assume that the story loving Girta may indeed have read the tale of the One Ring somewhere in all her library of folklore.)

 The Stone King played the matchmaker in the long ago union that started Girta's line; and did an extremely quick job of it, since being non-mortal he has other abilities to call on then most hopeful matchmakers.

 Anyway, to form the crown I researched my "based on countries" of Norway and Sweden, and drew inspiration from their mineral resources. Since the new king of Noran is actually a captain from Svesser, the Stone King scattered pink stones representing Svesser in among the blue stones to represent Noran, - the new couple's henceforth home - and joined them all on Noran silver.

 I wanted a very organic feel for the silver as well as the gemstones. So it was clear from the first that the gems should be rough, uncut by jeweler's, but in perfect crystal shapes they come in.

 I was a little stumped for reference on the silver base until I came across an ingenious Etsy seller who casts precious metals in molds form from twigs she gathers. I nearly hyperventilated with joy as I stared at her earthy-inspired creations, and I really tried to reduplicate the look of her pieces with the strands of silver.
  In the end, the Crown of Noran is one of my favorite pieces of jewelry...
     If I could have one "prop" from the Thaw: books it would be that!

DIY Wolf Fight

Pinterest

What about the wolf fight? I've heard that is uniquely realistic, and inspired from experience?

Yes! That one makes me laugh, because of the story behind it. I wrote that scene in Prince of Demargen where the timber wolves play a pivotal role and it was one of the most intense scenes for me to write, (among many, because with this story I just didn't include a scene unless it sucker-punched me a little some way or another.) But this wolf fight scene especially plays against the backdrop of some of childhood's integral fears: the night, the snow flurries, nobody can see: and then there's these wolves stalking the characters. In the back of these characters minds they fundamentally know that the pack is really after their horses, (in real life, wolves will go for horse meat above most other domestic animals) but these predators will take anybody they can get, of course. And the people aren't going to abandon their horses in mountain forest; so the one character rushes out to bring the fight to them, and ends up in a dagger-vs-fang fight. Knock down drag out, very rough and tumble as you might expect, going hand to hand with a wild animal.
 I wrote that as authentically as I could and then when I later received that piece back from my editor she commented that it felt so real. She said, and I quote: "Wow. This is so thrillingly scary. How did you imagine what a wolf fight would be like???!!"

 Check out Prince of Demargen's pinterest board for some scary wolf fight pictures!

 It'd been some time since I'd written the scene, and so I had to think about it for a moment. And then I just laughed, because I could link that the memory of writing that scene directly with the memory of a certain dog I had as a teen. He was a magnificent animal, I've rarely seen anything more athletic than he was. He was a Karelian Bear Dog, so for anyone who knows that breed they'll immediately understand. I raised him from a pup and worked hard to train him... he was incredibly smart but one of the most arrogant dogs I've ever experienced. He was just an "untamed spirit" kind of thing, and although he loved me, he didn't want to do what he didn't want to do. No matter how much I wanted him to do it!
 And worming him was something he flat out didn't want to participate in. I would literally have to wrestle him to the ground and fight with him physically until he finally surrendered enough to take his wormer and swallow it. After the first few times I left the wormer with a sibling, and got the wrestling fight over with first. He knew exactly what was about to happen so we'd roll all over the yard and he'd resist until he finally gave up. Then I'd get the wormer handed to me and then we'd have a few more struggles, and then I'd get him to swallow it.
 All the other dogs took it fine. They didn't like it, but it was just something you swallowed and then you were done with. But with him, it was always a point. Never ever just said "Okay, fine" from the get go. Always was a "I refuse!" tussle.
  This was an extremely exhausting process for me, and I always emerged totally played out... we came to respect each other deeply, that dog and I, for he knew that I would refuse to give up longer than he would and so I always got the 'last word in' so to speak.
 And I was really the only one he'd listen to, because I had proven to him that I wouldn't give up, and so in most other things he'd do what I said. I never underestimated him; he wasn't "obeying me"... he was just "siding with me".
  He was an amazing dog and an amazing experience, and I truly believe that any wolf would be fairly similar to what he presented. Possibly less athletic, 'cause that dog was super-powered and like a canine version of Spiderman. From what I've seen of wolves they are looser jointed, and so would be slightly less "quick twitch" muscle... but then dealing with a wild animal attacking would color the situation a little differently as well.
  But I think the situation, while fictional of course, is feasible: wolves attack by slash and run, they don't "close" with their prey (the way a bull dog is famous for, never letting go) So once you did close with them, they'd be pretty uncomfortable, and mostly trying to get some distance, while of course trying to slash with their fangs as they did it.
 If you were able to get their head unable to reach you well, then you could conceivably defeat a wolf with only a dagger... so long as you weren't worried about getting hurt yourself. You'd have to be all in, totally invested in the fight, or else you'd pull back and it'd surely escape you.

Tompte

Tompte, (a short history of Thaw's most important horse)

Okay! Well, you've picked a fun subject today!
 This is the back info on Tomtpe, the most important horse in the Thaw books. At least he knows that he is. You see, he is not just any horse, but a very special horse. He belongs to a prince of Demargen and that makes him a royal horse. Or a royal's horse, if you want to be picky.
 Tompte thinks there's not much difference between the two.

 Okay, so the quintessential Prince Charming's horse is of course white. Always white. 
 The war leader's horse is black, and also the bad guys horse.
   A lot of time the girl's horse is a yellow or beige color...
  But the prince's horse is always a white/gray.

 (For those of you less into horses than some, "gray" is a color pattern that actually isn't gray all the time. In fact a horse that is a "gray" is invariably born dark, (whether that is black, brown or chestnut) and then as they grow their hair "grays out". Different graying-genes have different time-spans; some family lines start going white as young as two years old, while others go slower and so retain some color late in life. These slow-gray-ers make for the gorgeous dapple-grays and steel-grays that will hold that phase of the pattern for several years.
 In the end, though, they all end up white. 
 Like a snowy haired old man or woman, "white" horses are rarely born white. They are grays.

  Some slow graying genes can actually hold onto the mane and tail color for a long time, and it is the last to go. On others it goes white right away. The gray gene is probably one of the most baffling and untrackable horse colors for equine geneticists to figure out... and they haven't gotten it coded yet.
 So it remains in the realm of "horse sense" and those still in the business of buying and selling horses rely on their own experience and the long history of horse-trading stories when dealing with grays.
   How long will they hold their color? Will they be dappled? Or that worst of all fates; flea-bitten? 
 A fleabitten gray is generally a horse that was born chestnut, and even though its hide goes white, specks of if stays red. This is considered among the least attractive of grays, and not at all prized.
  
  There is a stack of horse trading lore dealing specifically with grays, how some unscrupulous traders can "color" dapples onto a white horse to make it look prettier and fetch a higher price, or to make it look younger for the same purpose. 
 But that is not our subject today.)

 As we were saying, the Prince's horse must be white, and although at first I thought I might break the mold and give our prince a different colored horse, Tompte soon shook his head decidedly and insisted that he was white. And all white, having grayed quickly and thoroughly, so that although he is still in his prime, (what Tompte considers to be his prime, at any rate; around eight or so) he is pristine-ly white, as befits a prince of Demargen's royal house.

 Because you see Demargen has a reputation to uphold. With twelve dashing, gallant princes ahead of him, all Hess's brothers have set the bar high in military exploits. For though the known world has not had a war in almost a thousand years, the art of war has been kept alive with jousts and robust competitions, which Hess's older brothers loved dearly and did very well in. 
  The reputation goes back further than that, though, for old King Leopold in his day, was a force to be reckoned with on the field as well. 
  And so Demargen must keep up its chin and shine its buttons, because even though long ago it lost it's claim to the then empty Noran throne on a battlefield, it is not to be trifled with now. Or ever.

 So Demargen cadets train harder than any other kingdom's cadets. Demargen officers salute snappier, and with more meaning, than any other kingdom's officers. And Demargen princes are drilled in the school of honor and ability, turning out thirteen perfectly polished princes to unleash upon the world; which receives them in various ways, but is invariably impressed with their military precision. 

 And Tompte is a part of that, of which he is duly aware.
  And though his boy may attend the Noran coronation on his own, he is not alone. For he has a prince's horse, who knows his duty.


 This horse turned into quite the character as I was writing, he just sort of developed his own "voice" even though of course he can't speak. But looking back on it, I realize that the horse from my past that was channeling onto the page was just such a beastie... a half Welsh, half Percheron that was 13 hands tall, mostly white and as full of importance as a horse can get. 
 His name was "Buddy", which if he would have understood English he certainly would have objected to. He probably would have insisted on being named "Prince" or at the very least "Duke". 
 Perhaps "Charger" would have been a better name for him, since there was nothing that could stop him. 
 He rode and drove, and pulled a wagon as if he'd been born to it. (Which of course he partially had, on his Percheron half.) He had a hitchy little trot that just wouldn't give up, flicking his white feathered hooves with each step, he looked the part of a proud harness horse.
 He was just about six inches too short to be the sort of impressive he was aiming for! 
 But he was cute as a bug... with a deep, Percheron jaw and a nice Welsh muzzle... arched white neck with thick wavy white mane flowing over it. 

 But he was a good horse.  At eleven years old, I learned to ride on Buddy, and even though he had all the heart in the world, his pulling horse build wasn't designed for speediness. My brother would race away from us on his Arab mare, and Buddy and I would be left loping along in the dust. And then we'd run out of dust, for even that had settled by the time we came along. 
 But I was never worried with Buddy because he never bucked, didn't spook... he was so solid and confidant he never met a worry. And he always knew the way home, even if I didn't.

   He was so coordinated he could stand on an ice-slicked sloping path... and run in place to keep from falling down. Seriously, this was actually witnessed one winter... he just moved his feet so fast he didn't have time to slip, until he could edge himself off the icy patch.
 This degree of dexterity is referenced in Prince of Demargen when Hess asks Tompte to jump back over a wall onto the road toward him, and Tompte does so from a standstill. It takes great coordination for a horse to do that, not to mention great back muscles.

 Buddy could gallop away fully hobbled; tie his front feet together and he'd simply left them both of the ground at once and hop off like that. Pretty soon he was literally galloping around doing that, so the decision was made to side hobble him. Most horses move their lateral feet in opposite directions and so tying left hind to left front effectively stops them from going too far.
 Not Buddy. He took maybe half a day, and then figured out how to "pace", moving both laterals forward at the same time.
   We liked to keep him in the yard where we lived at the time in the mountains, so he could eat the grass down. But he kept turning mobile on us, until we finally ended up tying his front feet and a hind foot.
  That kept him restricted... poor Buddy. Not even he could figure out how to lift all three feet of the ground at once. Though he did try for some time, just in case.

 His antics were so amusing and impressive, that we soon let him go completely, where he could charge about the place as he liked. He enjoyed this very much, and the sight of the little white horse grazing tranquilly along the creek-bed below the house was like something out of a fairy-tale. Then he'd get the notion to gallop up the trail to the barn, all rounded neck and floating mane and rat-a-tat-tat thundering hooves on the forest path. He seemed to enjoy showing off his freedom to the other horses in the pens.

  Buddy is a memory horse that will not be forgotten... and his indomitable spirit, good looks, physical prowess, and quirky character lives on in Tompte, (who is taller, like a riding horse should be.)
 But he too would make a white vision of loveliness grazing lush spring grass along a gurgling creek in a tiny mountain valley.

  And there the both shall ever live in our dreams.



 (Scroll through the Pinterest boards for more inspiration for the Thaw books!
  Winter's Child board.
  Winter Queen board.
   Prince of Demargen board.)

From Whence Came the Roses

When we went back to Anderson's original Snow Queen tale one element that really jumped out was Snow Queen, roses show up in many others including the Red Shoes, (not one of my favorite tales!) at the end when the angel shows up in the room with the girl, (now footless) and also pious; and touches the walls and ceiling with a rose, transforming them into a church.--

the repetition of roses within the tale. -- This wasn't just confined to Anderson's

 So... roses were a major theme in Anderson's mind, and they definitely come out in the Snow Queen. First the childhood friends Gerda and Kai either play together in their rose gardens, or lean over the rose planted window boxes in their second story bedroom windows.

 Later when Gerda is searching for her friend she comes to a house where the lady wants to keep her, so the lady makes all her roses go underground so Gerda will not see them and remember the friend she's searching for. Gerda's tears wakes one the bushes and the rose comes back topside, and tells her that Kai is not buried, for it would have known if he was in the ground. (Anywhere, I guess... the ground is a lot more communicative than we suspected, apparently.)

 So, roses had to play a part in our tale as well... and as I wrote they began to unfold into a sort of symbol of our Princess Girthild's enthusiasm and zest for life in spite of life's obvious drawbacks. Early in the story "Girta" plays in the garden alone, trying to walk the stone wall of the rose beds. She slips and falls headfirst into the thorny bushes, but when her Nurse pulls her out and scolds her Girta appears more disappointed in her failure to complete the challenge than the fact that she is scratched and her dress torn.

 So here they could be viewed as symbolizing life, and possibly illustrating one of the chief differences between the royal sisters. Ilise focuses mostly on the painful, sad parts of life and draws away more than she should, hiding from it all.... while Girta disregards any risk, ignores the possibility of downsides, and rushes headlong into life, blithely certain that her force of will alone will make things turn out right.

 (Both are of course quite wrong, but how they come to deal with that is another, longer, story.)

 Later nurse sets Girta to snipping blossoms as a distraction, and Girta is enchanted with the prospect of going all over the castle giving roses to all the guards.
 (This childish eagerness to distribute gifts could be seen as more than a simple pastime, perhaps the roses are standing in for the love that Girta wishes to receive, and so she hurriedly hands it out to anyone she can reach?)

 When Girta leans over the castle wall and sees young Kai, she throws him roses too... she doesn't differentiate at all whom she reaches out to. (This could be seen as foreshadowing... unknowingly desperate to be loved, she gives it eagerly without the usual precautions.)

When another boy visits Girta eagerly fetches roses for both Ilise and the visitor, blithely handing Ilise a red rose and the visitor a yellow one. Ilise, conditioned to Girta's excitability, simply accepts the gift, but the boy rejects the yellow rose, citing the thorns. Girta is dismayed, but the repercussions of the boy's act will echo long into adulthood for him.

 Later, when she is grown, both she and Ilise are presented with golden jewelered roses, their petals gilded with enamel to look like perfect reproductions of  the original.
 Ilise receives a white one, the color of innocence, purity and sincerity; but unconsciously mirrors the cool frosty world in which she exists. To her the gift means little, it is simply a trinket presented by a visitor.

Girta's is crimson red; the color of fire, exuberance, and of course, passion. This rose begins to take on more and more meaning in her mind as the tale progresses, until the reader could almost think that she sees it as the return on all the roses, and love, she gave away throughout her childhood. They have come back to her, condensed into a rose that will never die, a love preserved, forever.
 Toward the end of the tale her view on it changes again, but if there is one thing consistent about Girta, it's changeability.

 Later, when Girta is hotly pursuing her search, she comes to the Rose House, which we left with exactly that name. It seems logical that a lady so devoted to growing the flowers would happily christen her home in the same vein. When further along in the story we encounter the only inn in the nearby village of Rasnaburg; called "the Rooster and the Rose", it is not hard to imagine that the lady of Rose House also owns the inn. Possibly this fascination with the flower is a familial thing, since the inn and the house have most likely worn their names for several generations.


 When at last Girta hotly discards the crimson enamel rose, it is a gift she will not receive again. In time she will recognize it on the gown of another, and she herself will receive a rose of a different color. It is true that sometimes the things we are so certain will make us happy are the very things we throw away, but then can their loss truly sting if they were not really meant for us? One beautiful thing can be admired by many, but truly belong only with the perfect match.

 And Girta's zest for life is not done yet, not by a long shot.
She is much more than any color of rose, and her check-mate is yet to come.



 (Scroll through the Pinterest boards for more inspiration for the Thaw books!
  Winter's Child board.
  Winter Queen board.
   Prince of Demargen board.)

Dealing with the Spiritual in Fiction: Paranormal... and Fairytales

Dealing with the Spiritual in Fiction: Paranormal... and Fairytales

 Although there is a growing trend for fiction that involves major spiritual beings, (it's called Paranormal, and has been hot in publishing) most Fantasy titles stay clear. (Somewhat. Lines are blurring everywhere, but I'm talking generalities.) Fantasy and Fairytale genres tend to lean more toward the "magic is the power" way of thinking... (which, personally, I'm not super comfortable with, either.)
 That's one reason why I was so surprised to find heavenly influences featuring so prominently in the tales of Hans Christian Anderson, an author whose writings I had never really cared for. Giving them a new look in researching my latest series, I realized how heavily Anderson opted to have angels appear in his tales.
  Think of the Red Shoes... (have you read that story? Talk about gruesome! Ow!) At the end the penitent girl (now footless) has turned her heart so pious that she wishes above all things to go to mass, an angel appears, touches the walls and the ceiling with a rose (what is it with roses and Hans Christian Anderson?) and the room becomes the church, with the girl seated right in the middle of the worshiping congregation. (At least the version I read. In others I hear she dies of joy. Fun stuff, Anderson!)

  In the Snow Queen Anderson again employs heavenly messengers; at last reaching the Snow Queen's icy palace, Gerda prays and her breath takes the form of angels who resist the snowflake guards and allow her to enter.
 Although I'm not a fan of Anderson's works -- they are much too rambling and with no through-line whatsoever, not to mention very little of the fascination many other fairytales command-- I was uniquely intrigued by his marriage of angels and fairytales.
 It made me rethink some of my positions.

 I am rather on the conservative end of speculative fiction, I feel that while there are many vistas spread wide open, some are totally out of bounds. The recent rash of paranormal is definitely one of those places; for me, I feel it plays lightly with things that are very serious and very much beyond our ability to know. Demons are nothing to be trifled with, and angels cannot be translated into human terms and then danced about like puppets on a string.
 The seemingly popular "star crossed angel/demon lovers" theme is gravely ill informed, since biblically it would seem evident angels, as Chirst says "neither marry nor are given in marriage". Since marriage is the appointed place for love as the "star crossed lovers" definition would have it, then angels are not composed with that as an option. In fact, since they are truly spiritual beings, it would only make sense that they would have no level that mirrored the animal-like aspects of reproduction at all... we mortals are near to the other mammals on this earth being all born of creation, but angels are spirit beings and would be as intrinsically different as light itself. And just as light can never, ever get wet; no matter how much water it goes through, it simply has no physical state.
 So too, I believe, angels must, (if capable of such a "free choice" notion as "love",) must function fully in agape love, as an extension of the Father whose face they see continuously.

 Anyway, I take spiritual realities very seriously, and will be the first to admit that I am in no way capable of actually knowing what is going on in that invisible realm. But since it's so important, I'm reluctant to make wild stabbing guesses and turn it into a plaything to twist in the hands of my imagination.
 It's serious stuff, and I respect it as such.

 So previously I had gone with the route of not having anything "angelic" in my tales, since I wasn't sure where crossing a line might happen. (I realize others have run hog wild, but I'm still responsible only for me.)
 But as I approached the middle of this story, with it's origin's distinct inclusion of prayer and angelic assistance, I began to wonder. What do we know about angels? How might they possibly work? And even if we don't know, is there a way they could be handled in the realm of fantasy that might bring them respect from minds in our own world?
 "Angelos" simply means "messenger" in Greek, and as I read the only trustworthy tome (I feel) we have on angels, it becomes obvious that they are all over the scale. They had different jobs, different ways in which they interacted -- or didn't -- with mortals, and certainly different appearances.
  Like drastically different! The description of the ones that guard the Holy Throne... I tell you what, I've got a great imagination, but I cannot for the life of me concoct a mental picture of that.

 Since there are so many types and kinds of them, I was uniquely struck by the passage in KJV Rev. 16:5 that says "...I heard the angel of the waters say..."
 Our understanding of exactly what something like that means is necessarily imperfect, but what about just as a jumping off point for a obviously fictional world and a fairytale setting?
 If there is an angel of the waters in real life, then might not there be angels for the seasons? In a fairytale, couldn't that be a way that the Creator of that world might work His will in that realm?

 In the end I decided to go ahead and accept that as part of the world that was emerging in my writing, and as soon as I did it opened up so many new opportunities for the story to point more openly toward Ultimate Truth. I think it was a necessary part of the tale, and I'm glad I went with it.
  Whether I'd include angels into any other of my worlds, I can't say. I'm still reluctant to tread too far over a line on this subject, and so I think I'll stay on the cautious side of careful.
 But this did open up some places that I hadn't gone before with my own perspective on our world, and I have to say that I'm humbled and a little amazed how the pursuit of writing can bring us deeper into the understandings of even such a little thing as the magnitude of ignorance we have on the forces arrayed in our favor as children of the Most High King.