Mythical Monday (26)

It seems there are many books based on or influenced by Myths and Mythological Beings.

There are so many different Mythology and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in.  The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.

I’ve invited authors to share briefly the Mythological being or Myth that influenced their character(s) or story, or what their character(s) are based on influencing their books.  Hosting here, one author and being or myth per week.

This week we have:

Urban Fantasy author Margaret Ronald

Talking of the Children of the Sea.

For Those in Peril on the Sea

I learned to read on Greek mythology (and Bloom County collections, but that's not currently relevant), and it stuck with me through a good part of my youth.  I also had a weakness for certain interpretations of the myths: Clash of the Titans (the one from 1981 that always showed up as the Sunday afternoon movie), confused me in that it messed with the myth I knew, but there was so much that was cool to a nine-year-old me that it didn't matter.  Come to think of it, the clockwork owl Bubo is probably one of the reasons I've been writing steampunk lately. 

But when I was writing the Hunt novels, I didn't consider Greek mythology at all for any of the underpinning mythos.  Some of this was because Evie's origins were very clearly Irish, and so I wanted to stick with those sources; some of it was because I preferred to look at folklore rather than myth, since the Greek myths at least have certain canonical versions, while folklore can be all over the map.  And I suppose some of it stemmed from those first readings; Irish mythology and folklore was something I could research, while Greek mythology was something I knew.

So what changed?

Soul Hunt was not a novel that came easily.  I had real trouble figuring out the underlying structure of it, even though I was clear on a few things I wanted.  I wanted to explore the consequences of the bargain Evie had made, I wanted to put her in a place where all her options were gone, and I wanted to explore the nature of dread.  Not fear, because fear can be a survival reflex, but paralyzing dread, the kind that turns in on itself and makes it impossible to get out of the situation.  And I wanted something about Boston Harbor, because I had found a fantastic setting on Lovells Island.  All that added up to a heap of nothing for a good long while, and I could not figure out what would work.

There's a tickle that I sometimes get when I know a solution is on its way, when I can tell my brain is trying to come up with something but doesn't yet have it.  For about a day I walked around with that tickle in my head, as if my hindbrain was turning over a puzzle piece.  And then, as if someone had whispered in my ear, I remember thinking the Gorgons and the Graiae, were both children of the sea.

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P24.1.html

I went to see if that hunch was right.  The Graiae, the three witches with one eye and one tooth among them, had advised Perseus on where to find the Gorgon Medusa.  But they were also sisters of the Gorgons, children of Phorcys (god of the dangerous deep).  Deino, Enyo, Pemphredo; dread, horror, alarm; they were entities of terror and dread, personifying the white foam of the sea.  I had my villain.  And I had a story that had been told a long time ago, about the downfall of different children of Phorcys, and I knew how Evie would defeat them -- or her, as the Gray Ones were diminished and corrupted over time into one.

I read about sunstones, polarized feldspar, which were used to determine the location of the sun on overcast days and as such were vital for sailors lost on the sear.  And I read about New England's Dark Day, when the smoke from a huge forest fire in Canada blackened the sun for an entire day and townspeople thought the world must be ending.  I thought about how that day, when even the sun was blinded, might be perfect for the theft of a different eye. 

I had my villain.  I had my history.  And when the story veered in one direction so that Rena and Sarah and Katie all ended up together on Lovells to help Evie, I knew I had the right parallel; one guiding trio against another. 

Sometimes it pays to listen to that tickle in the back of the brain.

Image from Wikipedia, Perseus slaying Medusa

You can learn more of Margaret Ronald and her books:

Site:  http://mronald.wordpress.com/

Facebook:  Margaret Ronald

*Note: Spiral Hunt (the first book) is 99c on Kindle

Mythical Monday (17)

It seems there are many books based on or influenced by Myths and Mythological Beings.

There are so many different Mythology and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in.  The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.

I’ve invited authors to share briefly the Mythological being or Myth that influenced their character(s) or story, or what their character(s) are based on influencing their books.  Hosting here, one author and being or myth per week.

This week we have:

Urban Fantasy author Margaret Ronald

Talking of the Werewolf.

Werewolf?  There Wolf.  There Castle.

Image from Wikipedia

I love werewolves.  I'll just get that out of the way right now.  One of the first stories I tried submitting professionally involved a werewolf who ran a number of scams that played on the vampire craze, and even then I knew which side I chose when it came to fur vs. fang.  Part of it is the shapechanging fantasy, the desire to become another animal if only for a short time; part of it is the exposure of one's id, the dark, bestial side of one's personality bursting forth with a snarl.  It's a powerful image, and one that carries a lot of psychological, symbolic, and sexual undertones.  When I wrote my main character as being a dog of sorts -- a hunting hound -- I knew that at some point, I'd need to have the hound face a wolf. 

The thing about werewolves, though, is that there's about as many ways to make one as there are strains of folklore.  Sometimes it's a voluntary transformation, undertaken as part of a deal with a devil.  Sometimes it's involuntary: "even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night . . ."  Sometimes it's a curse, inflicted by a witch; more often it's a spell a witch works on herself that she may go unnoticed.  If I wanted to introduce lycanthropy into the Hunt novels, I had many sources to choose from, and I certainly didn't have to go with the usual contagion-by-bite approach.

So I chose two options.  I referenced the Volsunga saga as Janssen's own rationale for why he was like this and why, therefore, his condition could be passed to his son.  In the Volsunga saga, Sigmund and his son Sinfjotli find a hut with wolfskins hanging over the door, put on the skins, and run in the shapes of wolves for some time. They compete as to who can kill the most men, quarrel, then remove the skins and burn them.  Because of this, the descendants of Sigmund were known not only as Volsungs but as Ylfings (wolflings).  In the context of Wild Hunt, it made sense that someone who might be a little prickly about his relative social status might use the Volsungs' tale as justification for his own curse.  It made for a great story that a petty man might tell himself: yeah, I turn into a shaggy beast now and then, but it's because I'm descended from heroes, man!

To contrast with this, I chose a very lowbrow method as well to show how the curse could be transferred.  One of the ways I found for turning someone into a werewolf involved being smacked in the face with a urine-soaked wolfskin girdle.  Yuck.  However, given the nature of the story -- and, for that matter, the nature of the werewolf; human and controlled versus bestial and visceral -- it made perfect sense for this to be the underside of Janssen's curse.  Plus, it also said a lot about Janssen that he would be willing to hit his son with something like this. 

I don't know that it's an entirely novel take on the werewolf myth, but it fit nicely into the story that Wild Hunt became, and the berserker (or bear-shirt -- another allusion to skinshifting) nature that came along with the Ylfing curse provided an excellent starting point for some of Nate's story in Soul Hunt.  And it made a very good wolf -- or pair of wolves -- for my Hound to face.

Florence and the Machine's "Howl"

You can learn more of Margaret Ronald and her books:

Site:  http://mronald.wordpress.com/

Facebook:  Margaret Ronald

*Note: Spiral Hunt (the first book) is 99c on Kindle

Mythical Monday (10)

It seems there are many books based on or influenced by Myths and Mythological Beings.

There are so many different Mythology and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in.  The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.

I’ve invited authors to share briefly the Mythological being or Myth that influenced their character(s) or story, or what their character(s) are based on influencing their books.  Hosting here, one author and being or myth per week.

This week we have:

Urban Fantasy author Margaret Ronald

Talking of the Legend of Fionn Mac Cumhaill.

Long Live the Legend of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

It would be inaccurate to say that the Evie books started with Fionn Mac Cumhaill; the story started with Evie, and ran from there.  But it wouldn't be too far off.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill (usually pronounced and sometimes Anglicized as Finn MacCool) is a figure out of Irish myth -- and like many figures out of myth, he's changed as the centuries have gone by and the tellers of stories have changed.  Depending on what part of the Fenian Cycle you read, he's a young boy who accidentally burns his thumb on the Salmon of Wisdom and thus gains knowledge beyond any druid, or an established war leader accompanying his band on raids and hunts, or an old and bitterly spurned man following the woman who rejected him.  He's both a figure of awe or a buffoon.  He's a giant in terror of the giant Cucullen (any resemblance to Cu Chulainn, the Hound of Ulster is . . . probably not coincidental, but confusing as all hell) who must rely on his wife Oonagh's ingenuity.  He's a sleeper by the river, waiting to wake again.  He is all of these.

For me, Fionn was a clear representative of what I wanted to write about in Spiral Hunt: the shifting nature of myth, and the ways that myth could be used for good and ill. And even more, because the story started with Evie herself, I knew Fionn had to be part of it -- because of family.

The story goes as follows: When Fionn had established himself as a leader and was working on alliances, he had a young and unmarried aunt named Uirne, and he arranged for her to be wed to a lord.  However, the lord had forgotten to mention that he was already wed, and to a fairy wife at that.  His wife was not pleased by this girl he'd brought home, and so she changed the girl into a hound.  (Because baleful polymorph is totally the answer to bigamy.  Ask any fairy tale.) 

Picture from Wikipedia, by Stephen Reid 

Uirne spends some time as a hound and eventually gives birth to a litter of two puppies.  It's about then that Fionn finds them, and after he bites his thumb a bit, he realized that this is his aunt and these his cousins.  He changes his aunt back -- one suspects she also had a few things to say to him about vetting potential bridegrooms -- but either he cannot change the puppies back or they don't want to be changed.  So instead Fionn now has the two best hunting hounds in all of Ireland -- and given that he had Adhnuall before, who could run three times round the island, that's saying a lot.  He names the bitch pup Bran and the hound pup Sceolang, and becomes possibly the only person who doesn't get yelled at for throwing table scraps at his cousins.

The story doesn't end there, sadly.  Several years later and due to yet another baleful polymorph spell, Fionn's wife Sadb is changed into a fawn.  Bran and Sceolang give chase, and to keep his hounds from killing his wife, Fionn is forced to kill Bran.  What happened to Sceolang after that is not told . . . but I chose to believe that he became human again, and had a family.

That's one story.  There are others -- Bran and Sceolang were not relatives at all, but monsters yoked to Fionn's will by an unbreakable golden chain -- but this was the one that I took to heart when working out exactly why Evie was the way she was.  It made sense for someone whose power was an uncanny sense of smell to be related, far back, to someone who was hound and human both.  By giving her a heritage that she didn't know about, I was able to give not just her character but the world a stronger structure -- after all, if this was the kind of world where myths were true and a hound could become a human again, then there were a number of other possibilities that could crop up.

And so when Evie runs into a strange, tattooed man who calls her cousin and who gnaws on his thumb when he needs to make a decision . . . well, that's when I knew I was on the right track.  I used the name of Fionn's band as the name for the group of bad guys, showing how they'd co-opted and misused it as they had just about everything else.  Fionn himself is a mutable character, and here I saw him as an escapee from this misuse, trying to contact the one person he knew might help, the one link to family.

And if there's a golden chain later on, unbreakable and inescapable . . . well, I made sure there was room for many versions of the myth.

Dropkick Murphy's "Legend of Finn MacCumhaill"

You can learn more of Margaret Ronald and her books:

Site:  http://mronald.wordpress.com/

Facebook:  Margaret Ronald

*Note: Spiral Hunt (the first book) is 99c on Kindle

Giveaway Results for Margaret Ronald:

I want to first thank Margaret Ronald for doing the interview with me and for stopping by to respond to your comments.  Thank you!  I really enjoyed Margaret's answers and looking forward to digging into Soul Hunt, released yesterday the 28th.

I need and want to thank everyone for commenting on the interview with Margaret Ronald.  It is great to have followers who like to chat with the authors, whither you are entering for the giveaway or not. :)  Thank you all!

So, I have gone through and verified all entries and numbers.  There was a total of 69 chances to win, but only one number can be picked.  So with the help of Random.org I have come up with a winner.

#63 was the winning number and the person that the number falls on is....

Lisa R/alterlisa!  

Congrats, you are the winner!

Lisa, I will be emailing you shortly for your information.  You will have 48 hours to contact me back before another will be choosen in your place.  Starting at 9:20pm December 29, 2010.

Looking Forward To...(29)

There are so many amazing books already on the shelves and new ones coming out.

For a list of books yet to be released I'm looking to get, you can also look on my right Sidebar at the ever growing list titled Desired Reads - just scroll down.  Of course there are tones of other new books to come out that are amazing as well, but these ones are part of series I have already started or for one reason or another caught my eye (and haven't seen much on other blogs yet). But I will highlight one here each week.

(mentioned in order of Release Date then Alphabetical if there are more than one book coming out on the same date.)

The Next Book Is...

Soul Hunt

By:  Margaret Ronald

Due Out:  December 28, 2010

I've read the first two books of this series on Evie Scelan.  She is a very unique 'person' with an ancestry that reaches back into the Celtic times, and she has a few hound specialties.  The books have a lot of great Celtic mythology base twisted into a current style world.  I have enjoyed these books.  And I was left with the feel in the last book that Evie's abilities are changing, or growing.  And I want to know what happens to her and her boyfriend.

The reviews of the first two books (just click the title):

  Spiral Hunt

  Wild Hunt

Book Description from HarperCollins Publishers:

The hunter has become the hunted . . .

Without even realizing what she was doing, Genevieve Scelan has made a bad bargain. The Red Sox fanatic and supernatural tracker known as "Hound" for her extraordinary power of scent wishes she could leave magic behind now that she’s eradicated the evil cabal that oppressed Boston’s undercurrent for centuries. But now her talent’s fading, the local adepts’ squabbles are turning ugly, and worse, she’s just discovered that she owes a very large debt to someone . . . or something. And in the undercurrent, debts are taken very seriously.

Evie has until midwinter to pay up . . . or else. So when she gets a job that might save her—even if she’s breaking all her own rules to take it—she can’t pass it up. Now, with danger at her back and uncertain allies beside her, she’ll trace the very bones of Boston itself to protect both the city and the people she loves.

Book Review: Wild Hunt

Wild Hunt

By:  Margaret Ronald

Publisher:  Eos Books

Publish Date:  January 2010

Genre:  Urban Fantasy

Format:  Paperback, 309 pgs

Series:  2nd book of The Evie Scelan Novels.  If you would like to read my review of Spiral Hunt, 1st book, click here.

Recommendation:  Yes, if you enjoy Celtic myth with some magic thrown in along with a few different angles in the beginning coming together in the end.

Book Synopsis:
Genevieve Scelan thought she was done with magic.
She was wrong.

Sure, six weeks earlier Evie - bike messenger, supernatural tracker, and avid Red Sox fan - had been instrumental in bringing down the Fiana, the organization of magicians that had ruled Boston's undercurrent for hundreds of years.  But now they were gong, Boston could breathe easy again, the Sox had a chance at the pennant, and Evie was ready to relax.

Except it turns out that when you take down the guy on top, everyone assumes you're going to gill his spot, and now Evie finds herself at the center of a whole lot of unwelcome magical attention.  On top of that, a new client needs her to call up a family ghost and ask about a stolen inheritance; Evie's friend Nate has a supernatural problem of his own; and a legendary pack of hounds has been terrorizing Boston's undercurrent.  And try as Evie might to deny the legacy that runs through her blood, when the Hunt is called, the Hound must run...

First Sentence:
Yuen died twenty minutes after I arrived, and I was there to make sure of it.

My Review and Summary:
There may be SPOILERS to Spiral Hunt, the first book.

This book starts six weeks after Spiral Hunt ended.  This book starts off with a few different things going on. 

First, Evie is summoned to Yuen's side was he passes on.  But her job here is to verify, by scent, the ghost of his father is gone when Yuen passes too. 

Then you start to see Evie seems to have a new found respect from... or at least response from the undercurrent now after taking out the top man of the organization named Fiana, of Magicians and ran the undercurrent (at the end of Spiral Hunt).  Those of the undercurrent seem to be sizing her up, for one reason or another... Also, her world of normalcy seems to be colliding with the undercurrent work she does, which bothers Evie as she doesn't want to put her friends in harm. 

Finally, Evie is visited by a potential client, an older woman who recently inherited chests of her Great-Great Grandmothers and believes they hold stolen items she would like to return to the rightful family.

The main thing I would like to say I enjoy about these books so far is the way Margaret Ronald starts off with a few different happenings and how they come together in the end.  All the ties get connected and the lose ends tied up.  And the mythology used in doing so.

Scent is Evie's ability to find anything, the descriptions used for scent are great.  With Evie being part Hound and the way scent identifies everything to here I could really tell what she was smelling by the descriptions in words.

To me Evie seems to have grown more in this book.  Not only does Evie seem to be accepting the Hound in her which is becoming stronger and helping those who need helping, but she seems to be starting to figure out what she is to do to help.  Boston is changing or at least the undercurrent of Boston is.  She still doesn't want to be involved in the undercurrent world, and the struggle to keep her normal life and the magic life separate is a big one for her.  But she seemed to accept that the undercurrent is there and she is not going to be able to stay out of in completely.  Although, Evie is a strong enough character in the end of this book that she decides the friend that don't want to know of this world or be around it, that she will protect them anyway she can - verbally not talk of it or physically fight to protect them.

In the end, I loved what happened with Evie and Nate.  On all angles. 


**For those who have read the book**
Otherwise enter at your on risk...

And if there is anyone who read this book, I would like to ask you one question from the end of the book.  What was the deal with the water spirit?  Why can she not see her reflection in the window?  I had a thought but I'm not sure of it after she couldn't see her reflection in the window.



I won this book from Eos Books.

This book qualifies for the Speculative Fiction Challenge I am involved in @ Book Chick City.

Book Review: Spiral Hunt

Spiral Hunt

By:  Margaret Ronald

Publisher:  Eos Books

Publish Date:  February 2009

Genre:  Fantasy

Format:  307 pages-Paperback, pocket size

Series:  1st book in the Evie Scelan Novels

Recommendation:  Yes, if you like lots of Celtic Mythology and mystery with Urban Fantasy, this would be a great read for you.

Book Synopsis:
Some people have the Sight.
Genevieve Scelan has the Scent.

They call her "Hound," and with her unique supernatural sense Evie can track nearly anything - lost keys, vanished family heirlooms... even missing people.  And though she knows to stay out of the magical undercurrent that runs beneath Boston's historic streets, a midnight phone call from a long-vanished lover will destroy the careful boundaries she has drawn .  Now, to pay a years-old debt, Evie must venture into the shadowy world that lies between myth and reality, where she will find betrayal, conspiracies, and revelations that will shatter all she believes about herself and the city she claims as home.

When the Hunt is on, the Hound must run...

First Sentence:
No one ever calls in the middle of the night if they have good news.

My Review and Summary:
Genevieve, or Evie as friend from school call her, works as a bike courier in Boston.  But, on the side works to help recover, or find, items for people - for a fee to help pay rent.  Evie has a special ability passed down in her family blood of years past, she can smell scents even almost taste them at times.  Evie has the nick name in the Undercurrent of Hound.  But one night, after midnight she receives a call from a friend of the past who Evie thought was gone or dead.  Frank, someone Evie had not talked to in fifteen years which didn't end on best of terms, calls to say he has found a way out and is leaving.  But the coversation changes and Evie now can taste the scent of a hunt.  She receives a warning from another through Frank.  Because Frank was once a friend, and possibly more, she feels she owes him and decides to hunt him since no one knows where he is, and there was something in his voice which she feared he would be in trouble.

The story caught my attention at the beginning.  The mystery started right off from page one.  Then as I read more questions surfaced to me.  I love mystery with my urban fantasy, and this book had it.  Fifty pages into the book I was caught up with many questions and wondering how they will tie together.  From here on out I started to get the pieces and the puzzel was coming together.

There is magic, Celtic mythology, and a dark side mixed in here.  The magic is defined in this story as three different categories and what would fall in those areas.  The Irish mythology is added in and blended with the gods and magic together to come to the end of the book.

I enjoyed reading this book, although I did at times stumble over a few words I was not sure of.  My confusion was only because I was not quite sure what some words were, ones used in the magic world, which I am sure many of you would know them.  These words did get defined in the book.

I have book two here and will be getting to it as well!




I received this book from winning a giveaway at Eos Books & Harper Collins.
This book qualifies for my Speculative Fiction Challenge at Book Chick City.