Over the next three months I’ll introduce you to the twelve awesome authors contributing to the Warlords, Witches and Wolves Anthology. First up are the wonderful Leisl Leighton, Daniel de Lorne, Claire Boston and SE Welsh!

You can still pre-order your copy for the special release price of only 99c! (It will be going up some time after release date!)

So let’s hear from Leisl, Dan, Claire and SE.

Why do you love fantasy romance?

Leisl: I love the idea of worlds that are not ours – either another planet or our planet but with a different version of our reality – and what goes on in them. I love mythology and history and blending them together with social structures to create a new whole (based in something from our reality) thrills me. I love to sink into those worlds and discover them – it feels like travelling. And of course, I love seeing characters I care about reaching their HEA.

Daniel: I love being able to create a world beyond the norm where the impossible is possible – and the chances for life-or-death romances is that much more ‘realistic’.

Claire: I’ve always been drawn to the fantastical – fairies, goblins, dragons and magic – and I adore love stories, so fantasy romance is the perfect mix of both of my passions.

SE: The biggest reason is because fantasy is so escapist. Also, I really love the ‘acceptance’ aspect of it. The heroines/heroes often find themselves falling for someone from a different race/species than themselves, and it doesn’t matter. I want our world to be like that.

Favorite otherworldly being and why?

Leisl: Dragons. I love the various mythology around them, especially where they can shift into human form and live among us. The idea of shifting into something so huge and terrifying, of flying far above the world and seeing it from a perspective shaped from the life a dragon must live – it sparks my imagination and makes my mind soar. I’m yet to write one – haven’t found the right story, but when I do, ‘there be dragons’.

Daniel: I’m partial to a dragon because they’re big and they can fly and (most) breathe fire – and yet I haven’t written a story with one yet. Maybe in the future.

Claire: Without doubt it has to be the dragon. There are so many different sizes from enormous, ride-them-through-the-air, down to hold it in the palm of your hand. They breathe fire, are majestic, and magical. You just can’t go wrong with them.

SE: I love shifters and Gods. And fae. And vampires. Ummm…I love them all, especially when they fall for a mortal heroine.

Why will readers fall in love with your anthology story?

Leisl: It is a friend’s kid-sister to lover story twined with prescience that indicates that a fated mate would be killed if they mated with you. There’s the desperation to change fate and then dealing with the consequences and coming to understand the depths of threads that join mates despite how a person might try to fight it. It’s emotional and fast-paced and romantic. And for those who love my Pack Bound books, it tells the story of Skye and River’s parents. And for those who haven’t read the series, it’s a great introduction into the Pack Bound world.

Daniel: It’s a captive romance with a warlord called Ragnar who thinks he’s all that. He’s forced to own up to the hurt he caused his former lover, Absolon, who’s now so much stronger than he was thanks to a mysterious new power. Will Ragnar repair the damage he’s caused to Absolon’s heart or just take Absolon’s new power for his own? Oh, and there’s a dog.

Claire: Shuree is a heroine who knows exactly what she wants—peace—but must risk her life to get it. She is required to stand up not only to her family, but also her family and her enemy. By her side is a man who was her enemy (and might still be), and who is unwavering in his confidence that she can change their whole world for the better. If you like reluctant heroes, high-stakes tension, and desperate, last-ditch efforts, then you’ll love The Daughter’s Duty.

SE: What’s not to love about a plucky single mum heroine who doesn’t need a man to take care of her, because she’s a badass witch herself? Still, might be she needs a growly wolf occasionally to back her up, particularly when the Inquisition come calling.

Next month I’ll be posting questions and answers from some of the other twelve authors contributing to the anthology.

So thrilled that HIGH FLYER, book 4 in the Verdant String series, is available from today. I really enjoyed writing this story and hope my readers love reading it!

I’m happy to help those stuck at home during this truly unprecedented time by making my fantasy fairy-tale retelling, Mistress of the Wind, free for five days on Amazon, until March 29th. For those who are familiar with the fairy tale Mistress of the Wind is based on, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, read on for my thoughts on how I took the original tale and worked it into a retelling.

For those who don’t know anything about East of the Sun, West of the Moon, you might find some slight spoilers in my article below, but you can always read Mistress of the Wind and then come back and read it.

Writing Mistress of the Wind

I always loved fairy tales as a child, but when I was at university, doing research for a history paper on the witch hunts of the 17th Century, I came across a really interesting (but totally unrelated :)) journal full of articles on the meanings of fairy tales that reignited that love.

I suddenly saw the subversion in the tales. Even with the whitewashing that went on in the Victorian era to make fairy tales moral tales and warnings, especially to girls, to be good, and obedient and incurious, I realized one could read a subtext to the tale.

I then went on to read books on the interpretation of fairy tales by Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise Van Franz and others, and books like Clarissa Estes’s Women Who Run With the Wolves, and I found an even deeper love for the tales. Or rather, I finally understood why I loved them so much. I think I’d subconsciously understood the deeper layers, but now I could trace those layers better.

I started thinking about writing a book based on one of my favorite fairy tales, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and ended up weaving some other myths through the tale, to create the story that is Mistress of the Wind. I worked hard to keep it as a tale on a number of levels, just like the original.

It can be about a woman who meets an enchanted prince, falls in love with him and then, when a combination of the circumstances of his enchantment and her actions cause him to be taken from her, she goes on a long search to find and rescue him, getting help from people along the way. Or it could be about a woman coming into her power, and mastering the facets of her personality and understanding her faults and her strengths so that she is able to take on anything that is thrown at her with a clear idea of her worth.

The challenge with Mistress of the Wind, given I wanted to remain true to the original fairy tale, was to give Astrid a good reason to go against Bjorn’s request to see him as a man, which is the catalyst for her having to go on her quest.

The consequences of her doing so are huge, to both her and Bjorn, and I really had to create a compelling situation for her to act against his wishes. If she doesn’t do it, however, the story is over, and the heroine and hero remain trapped in an unhealthy, untenable situation.

I used a number of motivations.

The first was genuine curiosity. Astrid wants to see Bjorn as a man. Of course she does. He is her lover and which of us wouldn’t want to know what the person we love looks like? Her mother’s fear of what he is also spurs that. She wants to be able to reassure her mother that the man she has chosen is not a monster.

Bjorn himself has some responsibility. He could have taken Astrid to his palace and left her alone. But by involving her, drawing her into the complexities of the curse and forming the strong bond that he does with her, he blunts the importance of her never seeing him as a man. Of course, we understand his loneliness and his love for her makes staying away almost impossible, but it is a choice he makes.

Astrid’s personality plays a roles as well. She knows she is worthy of respect, if not love, just for being who she is, and so she has fought against her father’s attempts to beat her down and break her. That makes it extremely hard for her to accept some of the conditions that are set on her behaviour by her lover.

While she fights against the literal, and figurative, burying of her personality and her need to be free–because that’s what her imprisonment in the heart of a mountain amounts to–she tries to accommodate Bjorn’s need for her to never see him as a man, to stay inside, to stay in the dark, but it is eating away at her.

Even though Bjorn tells Astrid that the conditions of his enchantment are the only reason he holds her back, she sees what he cannot, that his enchanter, the troll queen, is merely using the conditions she’s imposed as a way to manipulate Bjorn. She has no intention of letting Bjorn win, and if he does–despite the difficult rules and conditions of the curse–she will have nothing to lose by reneging on their agreement. As an outsider to the situation, Astrid is clearer-eyed than Bjorn. He is playing by the rules, but Astrid has seen evidence the troll queen is not.

Astrid only breaks the enchantment conditions out of concern for Bjorn’s life–what do the rules mean if he is dead, after all?–but she also realizes that continuing on as they are is a slow death. She is proactive, and she wants to act. To fight rather than wait at someone else’s pleasure, for something she is sure will never be granted, no matter if she and Bjorn follow the conditions or not. The consequences of that act drive the second part of the book, where Astrid has to confront her faults and her power, and decide how to control them.

It was a fine line to walk and one which continually challenged me.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Breakaway, the first book in the Verdant String series, is free on Amazon until Sunday, March 15th.

I’m happy to announce I’ll be contributing to the Pets in Space® 5 anthology this year, with a novella from my Class 5 series. Pets in Space® 5 will be available for preorder on May 8th and the release date is October 6th.

You can find more information on the website, sign up to the newsletter, or join the Pets in Space® Facebook Group

10% of pre-orders and the 1st month’s royalties from Pets in Space® 5 go to Hero-Dogs.org, who raise, train & place support dogs with U.S. veterans and first responders.

It’s the end of the year and I’ve got two print copies of DARK MATTERS to give away.

Enter below, and good luck!

Woohoo! DARK MATTERS is now available on Amazon!

DARK MATTERS . . . taking matters into her own hands

A time bomb, waiting to go off . . .

Lucy Harris is on the run, not sure where she can turn to for help, or if help is even available. But even as her abductors chase her down, she realizes they don’t just want to recapture her, they want to erase her.

When your very existence puts a planet at the risk of war, there’s no choice but to do everything in your power to stay out of your enemies hands.

A predator . . . waiting for the chance to pounce

The powerful AI battleship, Bane, is accompanying the United Council envoy to Tecra to mete out the punishment the Tecrans have earned for breaking UC law. He revels in the power he’s about to have over his old masters. But his mission isn’t only to rain down retribution on the people who kept him chained for years, he’s also looking for a human woman his fellow Class 5 thinking system mentioned in the final seconds of his life. Paxe admitted to taking Lucy Harris from Earth, and Bane has been looking for her ever since.

A warrior conflicted . . .

Commander Dray Helvan thinks the Grih made a mistake in not pushing for war with the Tecran, but he’s had to accept the compromise, that he and the other envoys from the United Council will go to Tecra and dismantle its military from the top down. His mission is not one of his choosing, but when he and his team arrive, he’s handed a very different job. While he distrusts Bane on principle, when the thinking system tells him there’s a woman running for her life on the planet below, he will do whatever he has to to see her safe. And if that means war for Tecra, well, then it means war.

See the rest of the books in the Class 5 series here.

I’m thrilled to announce that Dark Matters, the 4th book in my Class 5 series, will be available from Oct 15th on Amazon, and elsewhere as a print book shortly thereafter.

DARK MATTERS . . . taking matters into her own hands

A time bomb, waiting to go off . . .

Lucy Harris is on the run, not sure where she can turn to for help, or if help is even available. But even as her abductors chase her down, she realizes they don’t just want to recapture her, they want to erase her.

When your very existence puts a planet at the risk of war, there’s no choice but to do everything in your power to stay out of your enemies hands.

A predator . . . waiting for the chance to pounce

The powerful AI battleship, Bane, is accompanying the United Council envoy to Tecra to mete out the punishment the Tecrans have earned for breaking UC law. He revels in the power he’s about to have over his old masters. But his mission isn’t only to rain down retribution on the people who kept him chained for years, he’s also looking for a human woman his fellow Class 5 thinking system mentioned in the final seconds of his life. Paxe admitted to taking Lucy Harris from Earth, and Bane has been looking for her ever since.

A warrior conflicted . . .

Commander Dray Helvan thinks the Grih made a mistake in not pushing for war with the Tecran, but he’s had to accept the compromise, that he and the other envoys from the United Council will go to Tecra and dismantle its military from the top down. His mission is not one of his choosing, but when he and his team arrive, he’s handed a very different job. While he distrusts Bane on principle, when the thinking system tells him there’s a woman running for her life on the planet below, he will do whatever he has to to see her safe. And if that means war for Tecra, well, then it means war.

See the rest of the books in the Class 5 series here.