Today is the day I launch book two of the Turning Creek series into the wild. Storm in the Mountains tells the story of Marina and how she finds her true purpose. With Marina, things are never easy. In this book, you will find saloon fisticuffs; throw-down brawls with monsters of all kinds; women who love their whiskey, tea, and coffee; a harpy who is always ready for an adventure; dialog full of wit and snark; and a man who knows the best things sometimes have the biggest thorns.
Here is the blurb:
Marina Ocypete is a harpy, a Remnant of the Greek myth living in a small town in the Colorado Territory She would rather start a decent fight than sit around idle. The local sheriff offers her a job as a deputy which seems like a better choice than suffering from boredom, but Reed Brant has a way of getting under her skin.
With the influx of Remnants in his town, Reed needs Marina’s skills as a harpy to keep the peace. His head knows she is not the get married and settled down type he wants, but she might be just the thing his heart desires.
When women start disappearing in Turning Creek, it will be up to Marina and Reed to find the cause behind the fear gripping their town. Marina will have to choose between a fate she never questioned and the man who makes her believe even a harpy can have a heart.
Order your very own copy at these fine establishments:
To celebrate Marina’s book birthday, I am giving away a Colorado Book and Coffee package which includes a signed copy of Lightning in the Dark, a signed copy of Storm in the Mountains, a Colorado coffee mug, a tree ornament made from recycled Colorado pine, and a bag of gourmet coffee. Click on the entry form below and share with your friends! a Rafflecopter giveaway
I am not sure what is is about Greeks and monsters but rarely were their monsters ever just really big ants or larger than normal, aggressive spiders. All their monsters are one part this, another part this, and why not just throw a goat head on top for kicks, shall we?
The chimera had the body of a lion, the tail of a snake, a set of goat udders, and a goat head projecting up from the middle of its back. Why the udders and random goat head? I think someone had an unhealthy phobia of milking goats but couldn’t convince his friends of the danger, so he mixed the goat with a lion body and snake tail. Instantly scary. Or weird. Maybe both. The important question is, if you could milk a chimera, what kind of cheese would it make?
The Chimera on a red-figure Apulian plate, c. 350–340 BC (Musée du Louvre).
Thanks to Buffy, we all know how common barn animals can be frighting. “Except for bunnies.” Thanks, Anya.
The chimera was a female monster in the myths, the daughter of Echidna and Typhon. According to Homer, the chimera had three heads, one lion, one serpent, and one goat to represent the three species which made up the whole. She also had the charming ability to breathe fire.
Bellerophon was sent on a quest to kill the chimera, which he did, riding his trusty steed, Pegasus.
In Turning Creek, the chimera does have the head of a lion and the hind quarters of a snake. I left out the goat bits because I found them a little too odd. The chimera is male, in my tale, and spits fire, though Marina does not give it much of a chance to do so.
When I set out to name the place that my harpies would live, I wanted it to have meaning and sound like a western town. In Greek myths, the harpies are banished to the islands of Strophades, which means the isles of turning or returning. Thus, Turning Creek, the place where each harpy must make a choice about her future, was named.
I struggle with naming the mountains more than anything else. More than the names of characters. Definitely more than the names of the books themselves.
I can only conclude it is because mountains are, by far, my favorite topographical feature. Most of the names of the mountains are slight variations on real peaks in Colorado and Wyoming. Pikus Peak. Baldy. Lady’s Favor. Atlas’s Peak. The Twins. Shaker’s Way. They all pay homage to real mountains found in one of the best regions of the US.
Only one name was borrowed from a real place: Silvercliff.
Silvercliff on a sunny summer day.
Nestled in the middle of Colorado, down the road from the small towns of Buena Vista and Nathrop, there is a camp called Silver Cliff Ranch. It sits at the base of a cliff face called Silvercliff, named for the grey rock which makes up its exposed face.
Silvercliff in shadow.
For the past two years, I have spent a week at Silver Cliff with high school students from my church. I could tell you hilarious stories of shenanigans, touching tales of how students stepped forward to love each other, or amazing ways God has used five short days to impact the lives of the people on the trip.
All the stories would never do the place or the people justice. It is a cherished place in a state that I love.
In the Turning Creek books, Silvercliff is Dora’s home. Dora, who is the most introspective and sensitive of the harpies, lives near the peak of the mountain named for a place that has changed many lives. It is fun, as an author to pay homage to things that hold weight in my life.
In a few short days, I will board the bus again and head to Silvercliff. I will wake up in the mornings and watch the sun rise from a fallen log on the mountain. I will hear the birds sing and the crisp air will remind me that I am home.
Nothing is better than a sunrise in the mountains.
Hera was the queen of the gods of Olympus and wife to Zeus, supreme ruler of the gods. While many of the other gods have roots in different regions, Hera is strictly Greek in origin. She was the goddess of marriage which is amusing because her marriage was fraught with strife. At one time, Hera contemplated putting Zeus in chains and once he suspended her in the clouds by her wrists with anvils on her ankles.
Zeus was as famous for his infidelities as Hera was for her jealous nature and the manner in which she punished the women Zeus seduced. Zeus, on the other hand, almost always got away without a scratch. Figures.
Hera pursued Leto unto the ends of the earth while the woman was in childbirth. Leto, wracked with pain, wandered the earth looking for a safe place to give birth, until Asteria, taking pity on the woman, offered her haven. Io was changed into a cow by Zeus to cover up his transgression and Hera stole the cow Io and treated it mercilessly. Hero turned Callisto into a bear and ordered Artemis to hunt it down like a wild animal. Hera killed Semele with trickery and a lightning bolt.
Hera’s wrath was not limited to the mothers. She often hunted, cursed, or generally made the lives of the numerous offspring of Zeus’ unions miserable.
Hera was also celebrated as the goddess of family. She was such a loving mother she threw one of her sons, Hephaestus, over the cliff after his birth because he was deformed. Hera was a hard lady to please.
Hera herself has not made an appearance in Turning Creek. Most of the gods and goddesses disappeared into history after the Fall of Olympus. The harpies have been known to utter the exclamation, “Oh, for Hera’s sake.”
Many of you will be traveling this summer. Most of my favorite trips are ones that Mr. Rochester and I have taken together: Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in summer, Jackson Hole in winter, Scotland, Germany, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, and more. We always manage to find the best local beer and walk until we find something of interest.
You might dream of a vacation on a beach like this:
Surfboards for rent in Costa Rica.
Or you may want to sit at a cafe like this:
Order a bier and relax, friend.
Or you may just want to escape into the wilderness:
Telluride, CO
No matter what you want to do, you will need a good book.Lightning in the Dark (now with bonus content!) is on sale at all major vendors (except iBooks, sorry). It will remain on sale until a little after Storm in the Mountains is released. When will that be? In the first couple weeks of July, depending on how fast I get it formatted.
Buy a Lightning in the Dark ebook for yourself or a friend.
I am not going to talk about Styx, the 1970s band, who are on tour this summer, and whose songs seem to be composed entirely of earworms. “Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with meeeeee.”
I am going to talk about the River Styx, the river you only see in Greek Mythology if you are dead and your loved ones remembered to put a coin in your mouth or on your eyes for the ferryman’s fee.
The river was named after the goddess Styx, who personified hatred and was an ally of Zeus in the Titan wars. Styx had many children who served under Zeus. She lived in a grotto above the river bearing her name in the underworld.
When a god or goddess took an oath, Iris would fly to the underworld and retrieve a cup of water from the river. The vow was made “By the River Styx” as the oath giver poured out the water from the cup. This vow was seen as binding.
The River Styx separated the world of the dead from the world of the living. When a soul made its way down to the river, it was transported into the underworld by Charon, the ferryman.
The Styx was not the only river of the underworld, but it is the most famous. In Dante’s Inferno, it is the river of the fifth circle of hell. This circle was reserved for people guilty of wrath, anger, and sulliness.
See the souls over whom anger prevailed. In the warm bath of the sun they were hateful, down here in the black sludge of the river Styx do they wish they had never been born.” — Dante’s Inferno, by Virgil
In Turning Creek, Petra is fond of the exclamations “Styx and fire.” Both Petra and Marina are known to say “hells” and “Styx.” All of these sayings reflect Virgil’s version of the underworld with its many levels.
The Remnants, like the real Greek myths, make binding vows “By the River Styx” though they do not dump out water from the river when they do so.
Publishing is a funny business. If it was only me writing in a little cabin in the mountains, things would be simpler, books would come out faster, and they would also be not as good as we would all prefer. I am, sadly, not in a cabin in the mountains and I have, happily, a small team of people who help me make my books better. Thank you Baby Jesus for editors.
I wanted to have Marina’s book, Storm in the Mountains, in your eager hands already, but it is not going to happen as quickly as I planned in my head. You know what they say about the best laid plans… they get swept down the river of life.
Storm is almost done. It is so close. I want to tell you it will be June, but to be safe, let’s just say July. In the weeks before Storm comes out, I will be releasing a new version of Lightning in the Dark with some bonus material. The other good news is that Iris’ novella, Letters in the Snow, is written. It just has to get through the editing process.
Marina was an absolute joy to write. She made me laugh and she always keeps Reed on his toes. There are many moments in this book that I love, but the verbal sparing between these two is worth the wait. Trust me.
If you need some suggestions on what to read in the interim, here are some things I recently finished that I loved.
Eagles Honor Banished by Sandra Schwab (I have not actually read this one, but you can pre-order it now or buy it as a serial. Sandra has never steered me wrong.)
The aegis is sometimes called the breastplate of Zeus and sometimes referred to as the shield of Zeus. The Aegis was made up of four spirits who were the arm guards of Zeus.
“Across her [Athena’s] shoulders she threw the betasselled, terrible aigis (aegis), all about which Phobos (Terror) hangs like a garland, and Eris (Hatred) is there, and Alke (Battle Strength), and heart-freezing Ioke (Onslaught) and thereon is set the head of the grim gigantic Gorgo (Gorgon), a thing of fear and horror, portent of Zeus of the aigis.” Homer, Iliad 5. 738 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.)
Phobos was the male personification of fear. He was the son of Ares and Aphrodite.
Eris was the female spirit goddess of strife. She had such a malignant personality that she was the only goddess not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. When she turned up anyway, she started a feud that led to the Trojan War.
Alke was the female personification of strength. Ioke was the female personification of pursuit. Both of these spirits are associated with the battle spirits known as the Makhai.
In my mind, these spirits of war and strife are like the Christian version of the Four Horseman of the apocalypse. If they show up, you better hope you have a paddle and a boat to get through that flood of unpleasantness headed your way.
A statue in the Church of San Vitale of the Four Horseman. Photo by Cheryl Cook.
After working months on a manuscript, mostly in isolation, it is fun when my beta readers and editor read what I have written and provide comments. Often their insight, makes me re-frame what I have constructed. Occasionally, their comments are observations on things I have done that they liked or were surprised by. These make me smile because I know the small details I labored over were noticed.
Something my editor pointed out to me during the course of edits on Storm in the Mountains got me thinking about what is and is not permissible for female leads in romance or books with a strong romantic element. She pointed out that my female leads drink, a lot, and they enjoy their ale and whiskey, unabashedly. She loves this about them.
When Petra, Dora, and especially Marina are sitting around, they are either eating cookies (biscuits), drinking tea, drinking tea fortified with whiskey, drinking whiskey straight, or drinking ale. There is a ton of drinking going on in Turning Creek. When I wrote them, I did not consider that this was odd, because it is what I would prefer to be doing most days. Who doesn’t want to sit under a shade tree with a pint of brown ale and chat with friends?
I love tea and I love beer. I drink copious amounts of tea because I am a recovering coffee drinker. I love coffee, but I loved it too much.
I like enjoy beer. Mr. Rochester and I are fairly serious homebrewers and you can get me to agree to pretty much anything by offering me a wee heavy or a Belgian ale. The darker, heavier the beer, the more likely I am to love it. I would drink scotch and Irish whiskey more often, but I can not afford that indulgence. I save those for special occasions. I might be a good Baptist girl now, but I was raised Catholic and it shows.
See those three on the right? Delicious.
After Brenda, my magical editor (Her blog says she is a story sorceress and I completely agree with that.), pointed out my characters’ tendency to drink for leisure, I started thinking about what drinking means in romance.
In romance drinking can be a sign of dissipation, especially in regencies and historicals. A character who drinks too much is most likely a reprobate in the process of losing his family’s fortune. These characters will either be stripped of their responsibility by the hero or if they are the hero, will have to sober up, shape up, and win the lady to redeem themselves.
Characters will also over-indulge when they are grieving. It should be noted that the grieving is often brought on by their own poor choices. Poor choices, it should also be noted, which drove the damsel away. The moment the hero sees the backside of the heroine (ha!) often results in them realizing that, oops, I think she might be my soul mate. You screwed that one up, buddy. They may also be drinking because the damsel in question is making them insane with lurve and they are having trouble with all these new emotions coursing through their veins. Male leads in romance novels frequently struggle to contain and understand emoshuns and turning to drink, though only briefly, can magically help them realize, like the tin man, that they too have a heart.
All the scenarios I have described above relate only to the male leads in the story. Female leads rarely drink and almost never to excess. If they do drink, it is in ways socially acceptable for females, like wine at meals or after dinner drinks. If they become intoxicated, it is by accident because in their inexperience they did not know the punch was that strong or that too much whiskey makes everything go wibbly wobbly. In contemporary romances, which shares most of the rules historicals follow, the female leads will sometimes have a night of excess. These result most often in either accidentally winding up with the male lead or moving the plot along in some fashion. Female leads rarely drink just because and never because they really want to get their hands on that special edition limited release bourbon barrel ale.
Mmm, I really need a drink now. Good thing I have a fully stocked beer fridge.
I have been trying to think of some notable exceptions to these rules. I have read a lot of historical, steampunk, paranormal, and some contemporary romances and I could only think of one exception. It may because, honestly, it is pretty much all I am thinking about the last few days.
Outlander is on my brain. In the first book, Claire get smashed before her wedding and enjoys scotch neat, surprising many of the men. The men around her note often that she is able to hold her liquor much better than other women of their acquaintance. Claire has trouble hiding her modern sensibilities and habits which makes for some amusing conversations.
In the book, she is gloriously hungover for her wedding day after drowning her nerves the night before. Once the wedding day commences, she applies the hair of the dog strategy and drinks a bit more. She gets tipsy and then strips Jamie of his pesky virginity. In the show, she is a little more than tipsy by the combination of nerves and drink and goes through the day in a fog. It is a nice reversal that Jamie remembers the day with clarity and Claire has trouble with many of the details. In the book, she actually passes out from too much drink and not enough food as they are leaving the church.
My female leads have never drunk in the books, yet. Marina does get out of hand, as she likes to do, but even she even is never truly drunk. The harpies enjoy good whiskey and good ale. They are violent creatures who are a bit wild and do not quite fit social norms. I love them for it.
Can you think of any female romance leads who enjoy drinking openly?
Styx and fire, I have had this sitting on my computer for about a month or so already and it has killed me not to show it to you.
You will notice that there are buildings on the cover of this one and that is because Marina spends quite a lot of time in town. I am in the middle of revisions and edits on Storm and I admit that Marina has kept me on my toes. She is constantly getting into trouble and saying things she should keep to herself. It is why I love her. I can not wait for you to read about her adventures.
You will be able to read Storm in the Mountains yourself in May. I have not set a firm date yet, but join my newsletter for the official date announcement and some freebies.
Here is the summary:
Marina Ocypete is a harpy, a Remnant of the Greek myth, living in a small town in the Colorado Territory. She would rather start a decent fight than sit around idle. The local sheriff offers her a job as a deputy which seems like a better choice than suffering from boredom, but Reed Brant has a way of getting under her skin.
With the influx of Remnants in his town, Reed needs Marina’s skills as a harpy to keep the peace. His head knows she is not the get married and settled down type he wants, but she might be just the thing his heart desires.
When women start disappearing in Turning Creek, it will be up to Marina and Reed to find the cause behind the fear gripping their town. Marina will have to choose between a fate she never questioned and the man who makes her believe even a harpy can have a heart.
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