Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy by Pawan Mishra

Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy by Pawan Mishra

Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy by Pawan Mishra

Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy is a humorous account of a man with a quirk--and the extraordinary measures his colleagues take to combat it!

Set in a small town in northern India, this story follows Coinman, his peculiar habit, and the incredible animosity it provokes in everyone around him. He just wants to do his clerk's job with colleagues who'll treat him fairly. He just wants a wife who'll treat him like a husband. He just wants a happy home life. Instead, what does he get?

His colleagues are planning his complete destruction.
His wife is an obsessed actress more than a little "off plumb."
And there are enough shadows and secrets in his home for two lifetimes.

Can Coinman ever get what he wants? Or will that cost him his sanity?

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Guest Post from Pawan Mishra

India and the US have very different cultures, social structure, and issues that a common man undergoes--and living though the diversity has definitely influenced my thingking and my writing.

I spent my first twenty years living in very small towns in India. While fulfilment of basic needs is a wide challenge for a large population in the small cities in India, the beareucracy in the admistrative offices makes it tougher for the ordinary working class to make the ends meet. The perennial struggle very often causes very raw human reactions and behaviors to surface, manifesting a spectrum of human psyche not typically found in an affluent society. Spritual connection of the culture, as well as collectivism, work well as people work through their struggles; providing mental strength to endure hardship and allowing courage to laugh on their own myseries. My experience in the narrow alleys of small cities in India has resulted in a very rich world inside me, filled with vivid colors, that comes as almost surreal to the outside world.   

The influence of living in the US culture came primarily from individualistic culture: of one being oriented around oneself instead of identifying with a collective mentality, in typical social interactions, caused me to probe more in the areas which I would otherwise have left unexplained for the high context nature of the Indian culture where a lot of responsibility would have remained on the shoulders of the readers to interpret "the obvious". As a result, my writings have become more low-context: more precise and more eloquent. 

In combination, the writing has become more challenging. Explaining aspects of happenings that are surreal in more precise manner, without leaving a lot for a reader's interpretation--for a global reader has not seen much of the setting that is being talked about!

Praise for Coinman

COINMAN, a thoroughly modern Indian folktale, presents a humorous portrait of a nonconformist who triumphs without trying.
~IndieReader.t

Quotes from Coinman

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/47483150-coinman-an-untold-conspiracy

Sample Chapter

http://www.lunespark.com/sites/coinman/samplechapter.html

About Pawan Mishra:

Pawan Mishra is a leader in the technology and finance industries. He completed his education, including postgraduate work, at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), India, in 1999. He discovered his passion for storytelling, reading, and creative writing during his early childhood. Originally from Aligarh, India, Pawan now lives in Morrisville, North Carolina, with his wife Ritu and two daughters, Mitali and Myra. To learn more about Pawan and his writing, visit: www.pawanmishra.com.

Follow Pawan Mishra online: 

https://www.facebook.com/coinmanthenovel/
https://www.facebook.com/pawantheauthor/
https://www.facebook.com/LuneSpark/
https://twitter.com/coinmanthenovel
https://twitter.com/pawwyymishra

Guest Post: Carolyn Niethammer

 Why Writing Historical Fiction Is So Much Fun

By Carolyn Neithammer

While readers can learn a great deal from historical fiction, the genre is even more of a treat for writers. What a great opportunity to dive deeply into all sorts of  handwritten manuscripts and forgotten books to search out the perfect gem that will bring our characters alive.

My novel The Piano Player features two female characters making their way in the turn-of-the-century West. The story begins in 1882 Tombstone, a small town in Arizona Territory that served the nearby ranchers and silver miners. I wanted my readers to smell the dust that the horses kicked up, to feel the heat of an Arizona summer, experience what it was like for a single woman to live in a dusty frontier town full of men. To steep myself in what it was like for these women, I read every extant copy of The Tombstone Epitaph the newspaper of the day. The original copies are too fragile for much handling, so I scrolled through microfilm.

Gunfights are the first thing that comes to mind regarding Tombstone history, but in fact there were very few. What people don’t know was that Tombstone at that time had the best food between St. Louis and San Francisco. The menus published in the paper confirmed the fact that French food ruled with offerings of fresh oysters, lobster, six salads, five roasts, four different pies and three puddings all at one restaurant on one Sunday. Because one of my characters, the historic Nellie Cashman owned the renowned Russ House, the food she cooked figures prominently in the novel.

Since stagecoach travel was still common during that period where the railroads didn’t reach, I had to try that myself  in Tombstone and wherever else I could find an old stage operating. It might have been a little touristy, and just going around the block in no way approximated what it would have been like to have been stuffed into one day after sweltering day, but it was great fun.

The second character, the piano player of the title, is Mary Rose, a fashionable young woman who needed to support herself and found a job playing the piano at the Bird Cage Theater. We learn the story through her “memoir.” Discovering what might be in her wardrobe led to an enjoyable afternoon in the historical society library looking over old ladies’ magazines with pictures and descriptions of bustles and bows and laces. Then there were the fabulous hats. And that was just the outerwear. The under garments were even more fascinating calling for layer upon layer of fine batiste and corsets with whalebone and laces.

Nellie Cashman had mining interests in Alaska and Yukon Territory where the second half of the novel takes place. I visited a friend in Fairbanks and went to look at the old mining records. Down in a locked cage in the courthouse basement, in huge dust-covered books no one had looked at in decades, I found my character’s signature when she signed for her claims. Here was her actual handwriting. A chill went down my back. Did it ultimately make a difference to what I wrote about her? Probably not, but it sure was fun.

After leaving Fairbanks, I took a bus east across Alaska to Dawson City, and out to Nolan Creek

where Nellie Cashman mined. Each claim on those creeks was entitled to only so many feet, so I figured out approximately where her claim was. I sat on a rock in the summer sun and willed her spirit to speak to me, to help me make her character come alive. Alas, no appearance from the other side with guidance on my project

When I was a young newspaper reporter, I used to tell people that I liked the job because it gave me a license to be nosy. With writing historical fiction, it’s the same thing except dialed back a hundred years. Now all this research has been woven into  The Piano Player in which well-bred Mary Rose follows her dream to Tombstone and quickly discovers that her sheltered life has not prepared her for the challenges of being a saloon piano player. She becomes Frisco Rosie and finds help comes from her landlady, Nellie Cashman, who runs the boarding house where she lives. It is an unlikely friendship. Years after each has left Tombstone, they join up again to seek their fortunes during the Alaska gold rush. Together they deal with a lover who turns out to be a murderer, imprisonment in a Mexican jail, near death falling into the icy Yukon River and disappointment when their quest for gold is dashed. They postpone romance with the men who love them until for one, it becomes too late.

Apparently I managed to use my research to evoke the era as one reader wrote in a review: “The main character in The Piano Player is the wild West itself….”

More About the Author

Carolyn Niethammer grew up in the territorial capital of Prescott, Arizona, and now lives in Tucson in a downtown historic district. She has lived in Africa three times with her professor husband but remains firmly rooted in the West. She is the author of nine nonfiction books on southwestern subjects including five cookbooks, two biographies, a travel guide, and a book on Native American women. The Piano Player is her first novel. Find her at www.cniethammer.com and on Facebook.

(sorry, no twitter.  My blog deals with Southwest food and is related to my earlier works, haven’t got one started on the Old West yet.)


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Guest Post: Ann K Howley

Today I'm please to welcome Ann K. Howley to the blog to talk about her book, "Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad," and what went into writing this book. 

Why Write a Memoir When You Can Make Everything Up?
by Ann K. Howley

My hairdresser, Dawn, was the first person who told me I was brave. Surprised that I wasn’t interested in coloring my hair to hide the inevitable gray, she said, “Wow, you’re brave! Not many women would do that.”

What Dawn doesn’t know is that most mornings I run my fingers through my short, wet hair and run out the door. If I can’t even commit myself to using a comb, there’s little hope that I would be willing dedicate myself to coloring roots for the rest of my life. Truth is, I’m too indifferent, and possibly lazy, to color my hair.

(Please don’t tell Dawn, though… I’m still going with brave.)

Other people have called me brave because I wrote a MEMOIR. Yep, that’s my life out there in print and cyberspace. Anyone with eyeballs and/or a Kindle can share in the occasional glory, and more frequent ingloriousness, of my life.

But why would I write a memoir when I can write fiction and make everything up?

Fiction is beautiful. What perfect freedom a novelist has to dig into the deepest parts of their knowledge and psyche and construct a plot and characters as real or bizarre as they want. There’s no limit to one’s imagination. Even a sweet, little nun in Poughkeepsie has the capacity to write a flesh-eating zombie horror story - not that a sweet, little nun would necessarily write about flesh-eating zombies.

But sometimes I wonder if the distinction between writing a novel and a memoir is less than we think.

Writing is such an intensely personal act that everything we write, in some way, reflects a piece of who we are. The genre doesn’t really matter. Whether we write westerns, mysteries or romance novels, every word gives clues as to how we think and feel and reveals what appalls, amuses, disgusts and intrigues us.

The biggest difference between writing a novel and writing a memoir is accountability. When you write a novel, you can take an experience from your own life and twist and squeeze it into whatever form, shape or scene you want. A novelist can turn something ugly into something beautiful in their book.

A memoir writer, though, is accountable for truth in substance and chronology. Memoir writers have a pact with readers to be completely honest with the beauty and ugliness of their lives. If a memoir writer breaks that pact, that writer loses faith and credibility.

When James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces turned out to be A Million Little Pieces of Crap, he not only embarrassed himself, but also the Almighty Oprah, who had raved about his book.

Personally, I would swim through shark-infested waters in Lady Gaga’s Meat Dress for the chance to be the tiniest asterisk on Oprah’s Book Club List. So I want Oprah to know that my memoir is honest and true to the deepest core of my memory and being. I would never write anything false that would upset her or give her gray hair.

But I’m certain my hairdresser Dawn would be willing to fix that.
 

About the Author

Ann K. Howley is the author of Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad, a humorous coming-of-age memoir published by Oak Tree Press. She is a Wonder Bread, middle-class girl who has never thrown a punch, is cursed with a big bottom, and who celebrated a personal milestone when she finally drummed up the nerve to call a crabby lady a b*tch.

She is a regular contributor to Pittsburgh Parent Magazine and her essays have also appeared in publications nationwide, including skirt! Magazine, Bicycle Times Magazine, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, LA Reader, Mirror newspapers, Clever Magazine and The Inkwell.

A wife and mom, Ann resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although she is an avid runner, biker and hiker, she still can't keep up with her uber-athletic husband or her dog, who is about 90 in dog years.

Book Summary

Confessions of A Do-Gooder Gone Bad is a wry, humorous coming of age memoir about a well-intentioned “problem child” raised by conservative, evangelical Christian parents in Southern California during the Sixties and Seventies.  As she naively stumbles through her youth and young adulthood, one misadventure after another, she also struggles to reconcile her ultra-Christian upbringing with women’s liberation, prejudice, protest and poverty during this turbulent era, eventually gaining a different perspective of faith in a world more complicated, funny, terrifying and wonderful than she expected.

Get Your Own Copy Here: 

Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad

Barnes and Noble

Kissed Blog Tour: Guest Post by Kimberly Loth

Favorite YA Couples ~ A Guest Post by Kimberly Loth

Thanks for having me here today. I read almost exclusively YA novels, but I read a wide variety of genres within that. Today I’d like to share with you my favorite couples in YA lit.

Historical Fiction: 

Jacky Faber and Jamie Fletcher From Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer. I could never write historical fiction and I’m not crazy about it as a genre but this is one of my all time favorite series. Currently there are nine or ten books in the series and I love every single one of them. Jacky is a feisty girl who pretends to be a boy so she can work as a ships boy in the early 19th century. She’s got serious spunk and attitude and poor Jamie can’t seem to hang on to her. In spite of the fact that they often end up on opposite sides of the globe, she still loves Jamie fiercely.

Contemporary: 

Alex and Brittany from Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkes. Poor sexy boy and rich popular girl, they are doomed from the very beginning. Full of tension and angst, their relationship leaves me on the edge of the seat for the whole book. Simone has written other books in this series using Alex’s brothers and they were very good, but Perfect Chemistry is magical.

Sci-Fi: 

Bree and Finn from Loop by Karen Akins. Technically this book isn’t released yet, but I managed to get my hands on an ARC. It comes out in October. I’m also not crazy about sci-fi, but this book is so fun to read. Bree is a time traveler from the 23rd century that meets Finn in a botched midterm to the 21st century. (Yep, she goes to time travel school, how cool is that?). Bree is fun snarky girl who has knack for getting herself into sticky situations and Finn just wants to keep her safe. He’s smokin’ hot and in spite of Bree’s reluctance he manages to win her over. Their first kiss is one of my all time favorites in YA lit.

Fantasy: 

Harry and Ginny from Harry Potter By JK Rowling. I don’t think I need to explain that one. Paranormal YA: Naomi and Kai from Kissed by me (Yep, shameless plug for my own book.) Wait, I meant to say Naomi and Puck. I love myself a love triangle. Naomi finds herself in middle of doozy in Kissed. Both are good guys, both have reasons for her to love them. Kai is broody and romantic, Puck is fun and crazy. Both are fantastic kissers. How is a girl supposed to pick???? If you want to read more about Naomi, Kai, and Puck, you can find the book here: http://amzn.to/1oeQAPf. It is only 99 cents.

Kissed (The Thorn Chronicles)

by Kimberly Loth

Naomi is rescued from her impending nuptials by the mysterious Kai who sends her off to Vegas with a sweet kiss and a promise of only a short time apart. But there Naomi meets Puck, a boy with wine colored hair and kisses that rival Kai’s. Soon Naomi is swept into a glamorous world where kisses hold power and not is all is at it first appears. Soon she must choose, freedom but heartache or love and captivity.

Buy the book: http://amzn.to/1oeQAPf Only 99 cents


About the Author

Kimberly Loth can’t decide where she wants to settle down. She’s lived in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Utah, California, Oregon, and South Carolina. She finally decided to make the leap and leave the U.S. behind for a few years. Currently, she lives in Cairo, Egypt with her husband and two kids. She is a high school math teacher by day (please don’t hold that against her) and YA author by night. She loves romantic movies, chocolate, roses, and crazy adventures. Kissed is her first novel.

Connect with the Author

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Guest Post: Karin Rita Gastreich (author of High Maga)

Letting the Voice of Your Characters Come Through

By Karin Rita Gastreich, author of Eolyn and High Maga

Thanks so much, DelSheree, for having me as a guest on your blog! It’s really wonderful to be here again, and to be celebrating the release of my second novel. 

I’ve been asked to write about letting the voices of my characters come through, especially when those characters are very different from me.

This is one of the toughest parts of writing. It goes far beyond grammar, syntax, story arc, and all the other technical rules that we learn from workshops and writers groups. Tapping into the deepest parts of human nature is a complex task that doesn’t conform well to any set of rules. Yet this piece of storytelling is absolutely critical. An author can have everything else perfectly in place, but if the characters are not authentic, distinct from each other and most of all from the author, the story falls flat.

Two pieces of information form the foundation of any character I build: history and motivation.

The history of a character determines to a large extent how they will respond to any given situation. What were they taught about themselves and the world as children? What have they learned from experience? What traumas have impacted their worldview? Has their life been marked by success, failure, or a mix of both? Deep inside, how capable do they really believe they are of achieving their dreams?

In addition to history, usually a single primary motivation will generate the specific actions of a character in any context. Examples of motivations might be the search for love, a thirst for revenge, loyalty to family or kingdom, liberation of the oppressed, or the quest for freedom.

In practice, motivation is one of the hardest things for me to clarify, especially with my minor characters.  I wrote the entire draft of my first novel, Eolyn, without fully understanding the motivations of key characters such as Eolyn’s tutor Ghemena and the enigmatic Mage Corey. In the rewrites I came to understand them better as individuals, and that understanding led to much richer experience for my readers. Once a character’s motivation is identified, determining how they will respond to people and events around them is relatively straightforward.

One of the hardest characters I’ve ever written is the villain of High Maga, Prince Mechnes.

Mechnes is unlike anyone I know, and very unlike myself. He does things that are truly abhorrent and that were difficult for me as an author to let him do. But in understanding his history and motivation, I was able dig into his personality and paint him as a three-dimensional character.

Mechnes comes from a position of extraordinary privilege, having been born to a royal family in a misogynistic and rigidly stratified society.  From the moment he was born, Mechnes was taught that royalty, and especially Syrnte royalty, are superior to the masses that serve them.

However, as the son of a second wife in an extended family riddled by vicious rivalries, Mechnes’s future was not guaranteed. So he dedicated himself to the arts of war and became one of the finest generals in the history of the Syrnte Empire.

Mechnes’ primary motivation? Self-gratification. Anything that contributes to his personal pleasure is the “right” thing to do. Mechnes lives to suck the marrow out of life, so many things give him pleasure, including conquest, domination, battles, violence, bloodshed, wealth, women, beauty, sex, and music, to name a few.

Any obstacle to his self-gratification is smashed out of existence without hesitation. This includes internal obstacles, such as a sense of compassion, which Mechnes does feel on occasion, though he invariably swipes that impulse away with renewed violence.

Mechnes was a force of nature to deal with in the writing of High Maga.  There were scenes with him that literally made me ill. I would have to take a break from the novel for a week or more before I could get back into it. But Mechnes is also one of the characters who taught me the most about writing, precisely because he was so difficult to deal with.

I’m really curious to hear other writers’ experience with this.  Have you written about characters very different from yourself? How did you tackle those characters? What did you need to know and do in order to make them real?  Please share! I look forward to reading your comments.

Title: HIGH MAGA

Author: KARIN RITA GASTREICH

Publisher and imprint: HADLEY RILLE BOOKS

Publisher url: hrbpress.com

Trade Paperback ISBN  978-0-9892631-9-1

Cover price: $16.00 USD

Month and day of publication: April 4, 2014

Lands ravaged. Dreams destroyed. Demons let loose upon the earth.

War strikes at the heart of women’s magic in Moisehén. Eolyn’s fledgling community of magas is destroyed; its members killed, captured or scattered.

Devastated yet undaunted, Eolyn seeks to escape the occupied province and deliver to King Akmael a weapon that might secure their victory. But even a High Maga cannot survive this enemy alone. Aided by the enigmatic Mage Corey, Eolyn battles the darkest forces of the Underworld, only to discover she is a mere path to the magic that most ignites their hunger.

What can stop this tide of terror and vengeance?

The answer lies in Eolyn’s forgotten love, and in its power to engender seeds of renewed hope.

“War propels the book forward, and the characters are at their best when the events engulfing them are at their worst. . . . Fans of Gastreich’s previous work will want to catch this continuation of her story.” –Publishers Weekly

Get your copy today!

Amazon Paperback
Kindle

Meet the Author

KARIN RITA GASTREICH lives in Kansas City and Costa Rica. An ecologist by vocation, her past times include camping, hiking, music, and flamenco dance.  Karin's first novel, EOLYN, was nominated for the 2012 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award.  Her third novel, DAUGHTER OF AITHNE, is scheduled for release in 2015. Karin’s short stories have appeared in World Jumping, also from Hadley Rille Books, as well as in Zahir, Adventures for the Average Woman, and 69 Flavors of Paranoia.  She is a recipient of the Spring 2011 Andrews Forest Writer’s Residency.

Follow Karin’s adventures into fantastic worlds, both real and imagined, at http://eolynchronicles.blogspot.com and at http://heroinesoffantasy.blogspot.com. For the latest updates on events and publications related to HIGH MAGA, join Eolyn on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Eolyn/110814625640244 and on Twitter @EolynChronicles. 

Author web links:

Blog for Eolyn:  http://eolynchronicles.blogspot.com

Blog Heroines of Fantasy:  http://heroinesoffantasy.blogspot.com

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Eolyn/110814625640244

Twitter:  @EolynChronicles

Guest Post: Jesi Lea Ryan

Rooting paranormal fiction in realism

I think we can all agree, no matter how cool they sound in theory, that vampires are not real. *Shocked face* Neither are werewolves or faeries or angels/demons (at least not the kind from urban fantasy novels). But what about psychics? Hmmm...just maybe.

That’s the thought I originally had when I had the idea to write my young adult, paranormal novels Arcadia’s Gift & Arcadia’s Curse. I’ve always been fascinated by psychic phenomena. Unfortunately, I don’t have an ounce of psychic intuition, but that doesn’t stop my generally skeptical mind from wondering about the possibilities of a paranormal story that is rooted in reality. Sounds like an oxymoron, but I rolled with it, and my character, Arcadia (Cady) Day, psychic empath, was born.

“Our bodies have five senses: touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing. But not to be overlooked are the senses of our souls: intuition, peace, foresight, trust, empathy. The differences between people lie in their use of these senses; most people don't know anything about the inner senses while a few people rely on them just as they rely on their physical senses, and in fact probably even more.” — C. JoyBell C.

Early in my research, I stumbled upon the above quote, and I decided to base my entire fictional world on it. In my series, the soul senses were once common in early humans, but over time, as verbal and written communication flourished, these senses devolved out of the gene pool...mostly. Now, a very minor percentage of people have the recessive genes for these soul senses, and each soul sense corresponds to a psychic ability.

Soul Senses	Intuition	Peace	Foresight	Trust	Empathy
Corresponding Psychic Gift	Telepathy, Dream Walking, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience	Medium, Spirit Handler	Future-Teller	Charismatic, Telekinetic, Hydrokinetic, Pyrokinetic	Empathy, Healing

Usually, the soul senses manifest themselves during puberty, but in Cady’s case, hers became active after a

traumatic event. I chose to write about a psychic empath because I hadn’t read about one before. Lots of paranormal books have telepaths, mediums and telekinetics, and sometimes an empath is a side character or it is a secondary ability for the main character, but I had never read a book with a main character who was primarily an empath. (I know there are books out there with empathic characters, but I make a point now not to read them for fear they may influence my work.)

I spent a lot of time doing Google searches on empathy, and didn’t come up with a lot of useful information. However, I did stumble upon a suggestion that an empath may have a larger aura field than most people, and maybe this is how they can feel the emotions of others who step into their aura. Sounded good to me, so I ran with it.

Taking a “normal” sixteen year old girl and turning her into an empath overnight was a bit tricky. I wanted her to have the ability there all along, lingering just below the surface of her personality, so when the triggering event happens, the empathic abilities made sense. The first thing I did was make Cady a naturally compassionate person.  She gives people the benefit of the doubt, tries to get along with others and has a huge soft-spot for animals. Secondly, Cady is an identical twin.  There is lots of research on the psychic bonds between twins, so *SMALL SPOILER* when her twin sister is killed, their auras would naturally reach toward each other, thus stretching Cady’s aura field so out of shape, it never snaps back.  Ta da! A psychic empath is born!

Along the course of learning to use, grow and control her abilities, Cady meets several other psychics with varying gifts.  To read about Cady and her friends, you can purchase the books at the links below:

Arcadia’s Gift:

Amazon (e-book & paperback)

Audible (audio book)

iTunes (audio book)

Arcadia’s Curse:

Amazon (e-book & paperback)

Jesi Lea Ryan Jesi Lea Ryan grew up in the Mississippi River town of Dubuque, IA.

She holds bachelor degrees in creative writing and literature and a masters degree in business. She considers herself a well-rounded nerd who can spend hours on the internet researching things like British history, anthropology of ancient people, geography of random parts of the world, bad tattoos and the paranormal. She currently lives in Madison, WI with her husband and two fat kitties. 

Guest Post: Melissa Eskue Ousley

Today I'm excited to welcome Melissa Eskue Ousley to the blog to talk about her new book Sign of the Throne! 

And stop back by tomorrow for my review of Sign of the Throne!

Sign of the Throne Guest Post

Melissa Eskue Ousley

Traveling

A question I’m often asked about writing Sign of the Throne is: “What inspired the setting?” When I worked as a social science researcher, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel, sharing my research findings at conferences throughout the United States and internationally. I’ve also had the chance to travel in my free time, and I’ve lived in some amazing places. A number of my experiences have inspired the settings for both Cai Terenmare and Newcastle Beach.

I currently live in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by old-growth forests with trees encased in moss. One of my favorite places to visit is Oswald West State Park. To get to the beach, you must journey down a twisting path bordered by ferns and ancient trees with gnarled roots. It’s the kind of forest that could easily be found in the pages of a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to run into a hobbit or some other Tolkien character, but thus far, I’ve only met surfers. The small beach is nestled within a rocky crescent covered in lush vegetation. Waterfalls course down the craggy face of the surrounding cliffs, spilling onto algae encrusted rocks and tide pools populated by sea stars. It’s a stunning beach, and the perfect location to inspire the cliffs near Caislucis, the castle of the Solas Beir.

Not far from there, I encountered a tree stump carved with the face of a bearded man, and crowned in shelf fungus. His origins are a mystery to me, but he inspired the Emerald Guardian, a figure that will make an appearance in The Rabbit and the Raven, the sequel to Sign of the Throne, available March 2014. Caislucis was inspired by the castles and cathedrals I saw in my travels to Europe. The Solas Beir’s home is ivory-colored because in Cai Terenmare, white signifies royalty. The castle has leaded glass oriel windows, gothic arches, and soaring ceilings with ribbed vaults. I’ve not yet been to Morocco or India, but I imagined that Caislucis boasted architectural features similar to buildings you’d find in these locations as well, giving the castle an eclectic look that would feel both familiar and exotic to visitors from our world.

The Spanish Colonial architecture of the Newcastle Beach Inn and the ruined mansion was inspired by the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara, California, as well as my old neighborhood near the Arizona Inn in Tucson, Arizona. Across from the Arizona Inn was a mysterious, seemingly abandoned house masked by a tall fence and trees. I heard rumors from neighbors that the large house was built around the same time as the inn and may have been a boarding school, but I never was able to learn more about its history. I longed to explore it, but resisted because I didn’t want to get arrested for trespassing. The conservatory and grounds of the Newcastle Beach mansion were inspired by my visit to Casa Loma in Toronto, although the dome in the ruined mansion is not nearly as elaborate as the one in Casa Loma’s conservatory.

When I traveled to Puerto Rico, I had a few nighttime excursions. I kayaked into a blue lagoon filled with bioluminescent algae that sparkled like stars. This was the inspiration for the second portal in Caislucis. My explorations of Old San Juan and El Morro (a 16^th century fortress overlooking the sea) inspired the idea of the Kruorumbrae masquerading as cats. There were a number of cats roaming the narrow streets of the city, and while visiting El Morro, I turned to see the glowing feline eyes and black silhouette of a cat, as it stared at me from atop a stone wall of the fortress.

Finally, my travels to Australia were an inspiration to me. Cai Terenmare is much like Australia, but turned upside down with the tropics to the south. Because of the vast desert in its center, the people of Cai Terenmare live near the coasts and outer regions. While visiting Cairns, I got to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, and so, of course, David had to experience this as well in his travels. I have not, however, gotten to cage dive with great white sharks, so I’m jealous of his adventures. I’m a bit envious of his 1961 Harley too.

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Sign of the Throne!

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