CROWN OF BLOOD SERIES

​

In Chenaya, the dead meddle in the affairs of the living.

​

I often joke that the characters I write about live in a world just like ours set in a parallel universe. Andromeda, perhaps

Through a gap in time, a wormhole maybe, they infiltrate our plane of existence.

 

Their purpose? To find some poor, long-suffering sap of an author to haunt until their stories are told.

 

That's certainly what Lynx, Axel, and Lukan did to me.

 

For decades, their whispered voices disturbed my sleep. Their shadows even followed me as I ferried my three daughters to their various activities, and worked with my husband Andrew in our adventure travel filmmaking and publishing business. As faithful as the rising sun, they never left my side.

 

Finally, they took it a step too far…

 

I remember the day as clearly as if it were yesterday.

 

Grocery shopping…that’s what I’d been doing, and that is about as mundane as you can get. But it was the day that changed my life.

I stepped out of the mall to find that I had lost my car. So engrossed in listening to my characters talk, I had no idea of where I’d parked. Sweating and cursing—it was a hot summer day—I pushed a full shopping cart up and down the rows of cars, looking for my Toyota Corolla.

 

Finally, after a twenty-minutes of slog, I had to admit defeat: my car wasn’t in the parking lot. That meant it had been stolen. (We lived in South Africa at the time, so that was a very likely scenario. Over the years, I had three cars stolen from me.)

 

Cursing internally, I pushed my now melting groceries to the mall security office and reported my car missing. Before calling the cops, a dozen guards helped me search the parking lot one last time.

 

And then I spotted my car… only it wasn’t my Corolla. It was Andrew’s Land Rover, parked exactly where I'd left it. So captivated by Lynx and Axel’s prattle, I’d even forgotten that I had driven his car to the mall.

 

My skin still burns when I recall what happened next.

 

Too embarrassed to admit I was THAT stupid, I slunk into the Land Rover, ducked down low so no one spotted me, and drove away without saying a word to security.

 

I know. Terrible. I still cringe to think of it.

 

But it finally prompted me to start writing the Crown of Blood series.

 

From a mere, often inconvenient, presence, the characters now became all-consuming as I drafted and redrafted their tale. I carried a notebook with me constantly to jot down blocks of dialogue that flowed into my mind like a second consciousness—usually at the store checkout counter.

 

And just as each character had stepped whole and breathing into my life, so their worlds followed them.

 

Lynx’s Norin combines parts of southern Africa, where I come from, with the endless grassy steppes of central Asia. Here, the sun beats hot, and the wind never ceases. Is it any wonder the Norin direct their prayers to the Winds? And in honor, the Winds reply.

 

Or so the Norin believe.

 

And as for ostriches in central Asia? Why not? Stranger things have been known to happen…

 

Lukan and Axel were just as vocal as Lynx. Every time they showed me glimpses of their world, I saw Mother Russia as it was under the Tzars, only with the addition of the terrible mind-controlling ice crystals the Avanovs love so much.

 

The Russian royals have always fascinated me. Catherine the Great is one of my heroines and I’ve read extensively about her world. The ill-fated Tzar Nicholas and his family tug at my heartstrings. So it wasn’t hard to translate that world into Chenaya.

 

As for the rest of the world-building… I draw heavily on my travels for inspiration. Cappadocia in Turkey inspired the mines in Treven. The dhows in Dubai found their way into Tarach in Blood Rites. Germany's Black Forest inspired the forests around Cian.  No doubt, I'll find ways of introducing even more exotic places into my world.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the characters and world as much as I do. Happy reading.