January 2016 – A Wandering Eyre

January 25, 2016February 1, 2021

Mythology Mondays: Satyr

Welcome back to Mythology Mondays, where I highlight a different Greek myth or an aspect of mythology that has influenced the Turning Creek series.

Honestly, when I set out to write this, even though I knew it was not accurate, this is what my mind thinks a satyr looks like:

Mr. Tumnus from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Or perhaps like this:

What I tend to think of as satyrs are actually fauns. A much better example of a satyr would be this:

In true Greek mythology, satyrs were between a faun and the Narnia satyr above. In Greek mythology, satyrs were closely tied with Dionysus though they were also known to cavort with and serve Gaia, Rheia, Hermes, and Hephaestus. They were most often the companions of Dionysus, drinking and playing flutes or tambourines. The flute was their preferred instrument.

A Greek vase depicting a satyr with Dionysus.

Satyrs had the head of a man, but had pug noses, donkey ears, donkey or horse hind legs, and a horse tail. Though their body was mostly hairless, they were almost always depicted with long dark hair and beards. If they wore clothes, they were made from animal skins with the fur still intact and wore laurels of vines or ivy on their brow. They were considered to be symbols of nature, life, and the harvest, and as such were often shown with large, erect members. *cough* If you do a Google image search for satyr quite a few interesting things come up. I would advise you not trying that one at work.

Satyrs often consorted (sexually) with the nymphs, maenads, and other bacchanals. By some accounts, they were adapt at every kind of sensual pleasure. Their main purpose seems to be to follow Dionysus around, drink, and pursue females of all kinds.

Their parentage is disputed. The most widely held belief is that the satyrs were the sons of Hermes and Iphthima or that they were descended from the Naiads. They were also claimed by Silen. Strabo wrote that they were sons of the five daughters of Hecataeus and the daughter of Phoroneus.

In Turning Creek, satyrs make an appearance at the end of Lightning in the Dark as not very welcome additions to a gathering.

January 23, 2016February 1, 2021

Goodreads Giveaway for Lightning in the Dark

This giveaway ends tomorrow!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lightning in the Dark

by Michelle Boule

Giveaway ends January 24, 2016.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

January 22, 2016February 1, 2021

Books Read in 2015

Before I compiled the numbers, I was sure I was going to average less than a book a week. There were a couple months there I felt like I was not reading at all. Only two books a month?! Ridiculous. In a perfect world, I would just sit on the couch all day and read only getting up to make more tea or go write. Sounds fabulous.

Here are the numbers:

Total = 55
Least Read in a Month – 2 in March and November
Most Read in a Month– 7 in September

Favorite book of 2015: Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope

I hate writing this category, sometimes because I read a ton of great books and I do not want to pick one and sometimes because not very many stood out. I read a lot of meh books this year and a lot of books whose covers I remember but the details are fuzzy. Song of Blood and Stone easily stood out from the crowd.

It is set in a world that is wonderfully created. There is a strong romance arc. Penelope uses this world to discuss some extremely timely social issues: injustice, slavery, where do exiles belong, who is an immigrant, what do people’s origins have to do with the person they are/become, bigotry, racism, economic inequality, and fear (especially of the Other). The words of this book are beautifully crafted, as are the characters and, while I appreciated the fantasy and world-building, I loved her light hand on some very heavy topics. Bonus, the main character is a WOC (woman of color).

Other books of note: The author I read the most from is Courtney Milan. There are six of her books on the list and they never, ever disappoint.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a stand out on this list. From the eighties nods to the geek jokes, I devoured that book. Anne Bishop’s Others series was a favorite of mine this year as well. I liked her take on supernatural creatures and want my hands on the last in that series yesterday. Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles are absolutely fantastic.

I have marked some of my other favorites on the list with a *.

Best Reread: I only reread five books this year and three of them, the Tolkiens, were because we are reading them to the boys and only half count. I reread an old Garwood, The Bride, and Emma by Austen. Emma gets tedious in some of the middle bits because, while I love Emma Woodhouse, she needs to be shaken a couple times, so I would have to go with The Bride.

Other notes: If you read my monthly list, you will also see that I went on a bit of a non-fiction journey starting in May on the subject matter of the church and gay people. While I did have a conservative book, a rather large one, to balance my reading, I DNFed so it did not make the list. I felt I already had a solid handle on the conservative argument, so I wanted to read the other side of the coin.

I learned a lot and would highly recommend to anyone God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines. I heard an interview on NPR with him, which is what sparked my journey, and found him to be passionate about God and the Bible. I knew I needed to read his book. Besides being wonderfully researched and well thought-out, it is a passionate plea for Christians to consider another biblical view. I loved it. I think everyone should read it.

I also read a lot of dragon shifter books, because DRAGONS. They are like crack. I tried an erotic romance (not my first one) and I want to write a whole post on it, but if erotic romance is your thing, the Kit Rocha books are fantastic. Plus the ladies that write them are hilarious online.

The very last book on the list is an indication of things to come. Mr. Rochester has decided we are opening a brewpub and is dragging me along, pint in hand, with him. Enjoy the list!

January – 5
Unveiled by Courtney Milan
Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Unlocked by Courtney Milan
Unclaimed by Courtney Milan
A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan

February – 3
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater*
Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha

March – 2
Written in Red by Anne Bishop
The Trouble With Magic by Patricia Rice

April – 6
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Cress by Marissa Mayer
Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop
Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan
Proof of Seduction by Courtney Milan

May – 6
Hexed by Kevin Hearne*
Love Is An Orientation by Andrew Marin
Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church by Jack Rogers

June – 4
Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Eagle’s Honor: Banished by Sandra Schwab*
Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick

July – 6
Highland Fling by Amanda Scott
The Avalon Chronicles: Once in a Blue Moon by DeFillipis, Weir, and Vieceli
The Avalon Chronicles: the Girl and the Unicorn by DeFillipis, Weir, and Vieceli
The Bride by Julie Garwood (reread)
Emma by Jane Austin (reread)
Her Man of Affairs by Elizabeth Mansfield

August – 5
The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil by Stephen Collins Through the Woods by Emily Carroll*
Laird Wolf by Vivian Arend
The Polaris Uprising by Jennifer Ibarra
Soul of Smoke by Caitlyn McFarland*

September – 7
Medusa, a love story by Sasha Summers
The Lilly Brand by Sandra Schwab*
Wilder’s Mate by Moira Rogers
It Started With a Scandal by Julie Anne Long
Shadow of Flame by Caitlyn McFarland
Burned (Dragos, book 1) by Amber Kallyn
Rocky Mountain Heat by Vivian Arend

October – 4
Scandal: a Regency Historical by Carolyn Jewel*
God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines
Rebel Mind by Olivia Dart (pre-release)
Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron*
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

November – 2
A Heartless Design by Elizabeth Cole
Lair of the Lion by Christine Feehan

December – 5
Dragon Fall by Katie MacAlister
Avatar of a Dream by Kai Mullins (pre-release)
At Blade’s Edge by Lauren Dane*
Truth of Embers by Caitlyn McFarland
Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope
The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery by Dick Cantwell

January 11, 2016February 1, 2021

Mythology Mondays: Manticore

Welcome to Mythology Mondays, where I highlight a different Greek myth or an aspect of mythology that has influenced the Turning Creek series. The first two books, Lightning in the Dark and Storm in the Mountains, are out now. Letters in the Snow (Turning Creek 3) comes out in February.

A Greek historian and physician, Ctesias, who lived in the 4th century B.C., and served in the court of Artexerxes II, wrote a book called Indica (India) which included descriptions of many terrible animals he said could be found in the land of Persia. One such monster he described had a diet which consisted mainly of human flesh.

A brass engraving of a manticore by Joannes Jonstonus.

The Manticore (“man-eater” in Persian) was called Anthropophagos (“man-eater”) by the Greeks. Ctesias described it this way:

It has a face like a man’s, a skin red as cinnabar, and is as large as a lion. It has three rows of teeth, ears and light-blue eyes like those of a man; its tail is like that of a land scorpion, containing a sting more than a cubit long at the end.

The manticore’s stinger had the unpleasant and deadly ability to launch poison darts, like arrows, at its prey. Later, historians theorized the tale of the manticore originated from sightings of nothing more exotic than tigers.

Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century A.D., described the sound of the manticore as a horrifying combination of pan-pipe and trumpet.

Manticores are a staple of many different mythologies and have made appearances in modern fantasy stories and worlds like Westeros (George R.R. Martin) and Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling).

In Turning Creek, the matriarch of the Neal family is a manticore. I will close this post with an amazing picture of some fabulous street art from Australia.

Art by McMillan and Gage from H-Studios.Blogspot.com

January 5, 2016January 4, 2016

Finding Safe Harbours

If you talk to me long enough, you will probably know a few things about me. I am a Christian, I read a lot, and I am a geek girl to my core. My dad raised me to love Star Trek and scifi and it was the one lesson I never argued about.

I loved Joss Whedon before he directed The Avengers and non-geek people took notice of him. My movie collection contains Buffy, Angel, multiple copies of Firefly and Serenity, and a fan film (not made by me). I have books that discuss his world creation and the fandoms that have resulted from the work of this geek god.

I tell you this so you will understand that I love him with zealousness, but I realized last week that he does one thing that I do not like.

He never lets his characters be happy and he keeps a sense of realism by killing off characters we love. Main characters that are unhappy, unfulfilled, or facing the yawning portal of doom drive forward and move the plot along.

This means, as a viewer, I always knew that, while the bad guys might get caught, relationally everything could go to hell (literally in Buffy and Angel) in a moment. If two characters settled down and were happy, one of them would die, or leave, or have a pesky soul getting in the way of them consummating their relationship. If two characters had been pining for each other, the moment one decided it was time to move the relationship forward, the object of their desire would move on, tired of waiting.

It ripped out my guts. It broke my heart. I can describe all those heart-wrenching scenes from those shows because they slayed me. (word choice intended)

I still love Joss Whedon. I think he is a genius, but all that emotional upheaval without some safe harbour is exhausting.

This lack of safe harbour is one of the reasons why I broke up with the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. For the non-geek, they are the Game of Thrones books. I read three or four of them, praying they would get better, but my prayers were in vain. Nothing good ever happens in those books to the characters and if it does, they die a horrible death or want they want/need gets horrifically snatched away. It was emotionally draining and no amount of great prose and character development made up for the way it hacked away at my heart with no glimpse of it ever making a turn for the better.

Recently, I read At Blade’s Edge by Lauren Dane and I realized Joss Whedon and the Martin books scarred me. At Blade’s Edge is the fourth in the Goddess With a Blade series and I highly recommend it. Like drop everything and read this book, recommend it. In the fourth book, Rowan, the main character, has finally found a safe harbour in the midst of a very violent and responsibility filled life. Her harbour grounds her, makes her stronger and lets the reader know that things can still be going to hell in a hand basket, but there is hope.

The entire time I as reading At Blade’s Edge, I was waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me. Dane has never done this to me as a reader, the way Whedeon and Martin do, but a sense of dread followed my reading. I was so caught up in my worry, I failed to let myself become emotionally attached to the relationship cementing on the pages. I was waiting for the worst to happen and for Rowan’s harbour to be smashed to pieces. I wanted desperately for that not to happen. It did get dented, but at the end of the book, Rowan’s harbour is, mostly, in tact and that made me realize something.

There is power in a safe harbour.

I want the characters I love to have one good thing even if the world around them is crumbling at their feet. I need them to be able to come back to one person they love and who loves them back. I want an HEA* or some semblance of it. I need it. Not only do the characters need a safe harbour, so do I.

I am not talking about a unicorns pooping rainbows kind of HEA. It does not have to be perfect, but I do want some hope at the end, a light that tells me all is not lost for the characters I have come to love. I think everyone deserves some peace and happiness.

I know that real life is not like that. I know many people live desperate, horrible lives filled with pain, abuse, hunger, and death. Life on this planet sucks an awful lot.

But sometimes it doesn’t and we need to be reminded that life can be good. Life can be great, fantastic, and amazing.

When I read a book, I want to be entertained by hope and happiness. You can take me to hell, but I want you to drag me back from the brink before you write The End.

As a writer, I can promise, even with only a few books under my belt, that I will never leave you without a safe harbour to dock your ship, fold up sail, and have a nice rest with someone you love.

*Happily Ever After