The fourth book in the Power Places series is out now!
These legendary mystics want a peaceful life. But with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, a new mission brings them too close to darkness.
Anne Le Clair and Michael Levy prefer the mundane joys of parenthood to any more world-saving. But when all the crystal key holders are summoned to Peru, they must once more answer the call of duty. For there in the Andes lies a mystical doorway that can usher in a new golden age.
Preparing for an ancient ritual to open the gate for the Old Ones to return, the couple is trailed by a sinister magician. And after the dark sorcerer steals all the known crystals for himself, Anne and Michael must prevent him from sealing the portal forever and seizing control of humankind’s consciousness.
Can the Anne and Michael rescue Earth’s future one more time?
Into the City of Light is the extraordinary fourth book in the Power Places urban fantasy series. If you like archaeological adventures, spiritual teachings, and international exploration, then you’ll love Theresa Crater’s visionary tale.
On Winter Solstice, Twin Eagles Publishing released the fourth and final novel written by Dion Fortune under her pen name V.M. Steele. Set in Africa, Beloved of Ishmael follows the adventures of Nina Barnet who, finally swayed by the romance/adventure novels of the day, travels to the West Coast of Africa to marry a man she became engaged to after spending a short time with him in England. She arrives to find him a sodden alcoholic wreck, and faced with the ruin and degradation a marriage to him would entail, Nina jumps ship, so to speak, and escapes with the one man in the settlement who seems to have strength of character and at least some integrity. True to colonial experience, Nina quickly falls in love and marries this man, only to discover that he is the notorious Cassalis, an Englishman who has organized the African and Arab criminal underground.
There’s so much to say about this novel. It is problematic for the 21st-century reader because of the casual racism. Paul Blakey and Richard Brzustowicz both discuss this, and Brzustowicz’s Foreword gives us some esoteric and scientific background on the thinking about race at the time this novel was written. The novel will most likely offend you, but if you are a student of Dion Fortune’s work or simply interested in history, it is worth the read.
Shiva Shakti Ardhnarishwra
What they don’t discuss is the change in how we see male/female relationships that is apparent in all four novels. Each of these books involves a casual acceptance of the potentiality of male violence against the woman in the book, and handling him properly is seen as the responsibility of the female character. If she’s smart and knows her man, she’ll come out all right. If not, well, she should have known seems to be the attitude. Also, written in the 1930s and on, they reflect the reality of women’s possibilities at that time. Women were just entering the work force and still dependent on men to a good degree. True independence is in the future, and perhaps still is.
One aspect of this novel is the coming together of the primal male and female, represented in this case by Nina and Cassalis. Because Cassalis has fallen fully and truly in love with Nina, and because she is a true clergyman’s daughter who has imbibed morality along with her mother’s milk, he realizes he must stop his criminal activities if they are to have a successful marriage. On a more practical level, he knows he cannot live in constant danger of arrest or assassination and raise a family. One interesting point is that Cassalis offers the least amount of violence to Nina. It is only when he thinks she is interested in another man that his jealousy is roused, but he sends it to the appropriate target—his crooked lawyer.
Nina’s reaction to his crimes is rather mild, and Fortune shows us that she has not imbibed the rigid, pompous, class-bound hypocrisy of her English upbringing along with the comparatively healthy morals of Christianity. Male morality is still in the hands of women, however. It takes a strong female presence to reform Cassalis, who has tried to go “straight” by opening a copper mine, but his application was denied by the former governor out of spite. But the new governor sees the potential in Cassalis when he rescues the governor’s wife along with two other women and leads them away from the Arab gangs, parlays with the tribal leaders, and runs the river in the dark. This new couple represent the best of the British aristocracy—clear-eyed, not easily shocked, willing to compromise in the establishment of real order. They stand not on abstract principles, but reality. They will balance Justice and Mercy for the good of the state.
So this tension between the poles of male and female is one esoteric aspect of the novel. The second is the vitality of the African continent which is said to reach out and awaken Nina. Fortune does not show this very well, though. Nina comments that she loves the sunlight on board ship as it progresses south. Then she tells Cassalis, who she knows as Lewis at the time, that even though she is in an extremely difficult situation, she still doesn’t want to go back to England because Africa seems so vital. Cassalis himself confesses to Nina he, too, has felt the strength of Africa and would never return. In fact, it is when she says she has fallen under Africa’s sway that he becomes interested in her.
Cassalis is also involved in the African religion. We see occasional references to earth-based vs. heaven-based religions, paralleling in an interesting way the reality-based new governor against the abstract-principle based old one. But we never see a genuine representation of this, except perhaps for the drums that speak through the night when the new couple escape in the boat. Nina is moved deeply by this. Cassalis does participate in a debased and insulting ritual with the African cult leaders, posing as a Messiah gorilla and eating from a pile of yams that symbolizes going to war to unite the tribes and set them against the Arabs and Europeans.
Which brings us back to the casual racism. It would be one thing to accurately portray the racial prejudice of the characters through their speech and attitudes, but the narrator of the novel, who is closest to Fortune’s own voice, shares in it to an extent. Some of the characters are more vile than others, but the book portrays Africans as childish, Italians and Portuguese as overly passionate, and Arabs as intelligent but devious. They are types—typical of the early 20th century. Here’s where Brzustowicz’s Foreword is interesting. He discusses how the esoteric schools at that time taught that different glands were associated with different chakras, and that different racial types vibrated in harmony with different glands. Science and esoteric teachings have progressed, of course. This novel was published 82 years ago. This is not an excuse. It’s a fact. Both Blakey and Brzustowicz suggest our reaction to this weakness reveals a lot about our own psychological state. This is also why in the Western Metaphysical schools, we are encouraged not to follow teachers blindly. They are human and have faults.
Brzustowicz discusses the current state of affairs in publishing books that take on race as a theme in fiction. Of this, I’ve had recent experience. School of Hard Knocks, just out in November, has received some criticism because I, as a white woman, have written from the point of view of an African-American woman. There is a white character who is too good for the time period according to one reviewer (thus evoking the “good White” narrative), but not good enough according to another. There’s more, but it’s not the point. Brzustowicz discusses this process, and in doing so seems to suggest that as a culture we have still not gotten out of the woods when it comes to dealing with our colonial and racist past. We are still in reaction. We are processing all our emotions about our past, some more successfully than others. He may disagree with my reading of what he says, but here’s the relevant passage:
It is almost inevitable that a reader nowadays will read this book through the filter of the conflicting, even paradoxical, demands of [21st century] cultural contradictions. Modern publishers tend to vet carefully books that touch on issues of race, sexuality, cultural conflict, and so on, even trying them out on focus groups or consulting sensitivity committees before committing to publishing them. (ix)
His next statement is quite interesting: “. . . it may be helpful to remember that it [the novel] was written in a time when the modern complex fabric of anxiety, guilt and hostility was still to be woven, and before people had [started] treating such issues with exquisite delicacy” (ix).
It was the phrase “exquisite delicacy” that really caught my eye. It put me in mind of my teenage year spent in the Rap Room in Winston-Salem, NC, during the civil rights movement and other times working in that movement when frank and sometimes heated exchanges between white and black people were common. People from the African-American community spoke their minds and often told us when we’d made some stupid comment or made a racist mistake. They told us with some heat. We were free to leave or listen, to go into neurotic defense mode or to learn something. It was embarrassing. It was painful. It was interesting, too. And we all survived it. At least the people I knew did.
That’s what’s missing from today’s conversation about race. White people are supposed to have already gotten over all their prejudices, whether they have or not. Mistakes are fatal to careers in some cases, but for black folks, racism is still literally fatal. Talking about it, though, is a minefield. I wrote School of Hard Knocks in this spirit. I just wrote about my own experience, except when I made up a history for a woman who was important to my mother. Perhaps I still can’t see that past as clearly as I should. Opinions differ. Perhaps I’ve contributed a book to the vast history of how Western culture is coming to terms with its global dominance and slave past. That is enough for me, and that is also what Fortune’s book does.
Hunters of Humans was released on the fall equinox. This is the third novel written by Dion Fortune under the pen name V.M. Steele that Twin Eagles Publishing has saved from obscurity.
I have to say the very best part of this one is Fortune’s sharp insight into the human mind. I quite enjoy her rapid portraits of each character, painted up in a few brush strokes that bring the person’s deepest thoughts and feelings to the fore. Her prose rapidly brings us into the situation describing how even readers of crime novels assume a death in the neighborhood is natural. Then we see Ann reading about a death in her neighborhood which she compares to her own family’s history of heart trouble. We meet her, her father, and then the detectives, and within two pages, we’re off. It’s almost dizzying how quickly and skillfully Fortune brings this complex world to life.
The story both a romance and a mystery. Scotland Yard is called in to determine if the death of a local man was natural or a murder. The two detectives, two types aptly described by Fortune, lodge with a young woman, Ann, and her father. The book is a study of how the younger detective, Austen, and Ann find each other through class barriers that are rapidly falling and in spite of the crimes of her drunken father.
Ann is a reader of mysteries and Austen is the new detective, bringing science to solve the crime along with the older detective who is a master of his trade, although not educated in the new public school. But Ann is an aristocrat, a fallen one, but still. We watch post-war England break down social obstacles. We watch Ann gradually realize that not only is her father responsible for this death, but most likely killed her grandmother and mother, and has Ann in his sights as well.
The book is really about Ann and Austen managing each other’s temperaments.
“He had never paid much attention to women, having joined the police when he was only twenty and being extremely keen on his work . . . . Consequently, when the flood-gates went down, the tide carried all away, never having spent its strength in backwaters.” (30)
The older detective fears this baby aristocrat will toy with his young apprentice and he shepherds the two through the dangerous psychological waters of both their budding relationship and the trial of Ann’s father for murder. So you see, I haven’t really given the mystery away, because the story is Ann’s realization and her struggle with familial ties and a new relationship outside the bounds of her class. But she doesn’t view it that way. She doesn’t want to disgrace Austen’s career by marrying her, a murderer’s daughter.
The novel is the least esoteric of the three published so far, but it is fascinating watching the psychologist that Fortune was at work. I enjoyed her deep insights and even the look at gender relationships that have changed a great deal. And yet some of those same forces still run through us, so there is always something to learn from reading Dion Fortune.
OMG, it’s good. At least I think so. I couldn’t put it down. Twin Eagles Publishing has released their second V.M. Steele novel, The Scarred Wrists. V.M. Steele is another of Dion Fortune’s pen names. She published four novels as Steele. The books were looked down upon at the time, rejected as trivial and commonplace.
Richard Brzustowicz found himself drawn in when he went to the British Library during a research trip and read them. He writes about this experience in his Foreword. This novel was published in the same year as Fortune’s occult novel The Winged Bull, 1935, and Brzustowicz explores how similar themes are present—a young, vital woman meets a man suffering ill health both mentally and physically and brings both of them new life by their interactions. One has magical content, the other doesn’t, or at least not overtly.
Julian Pharmakos, who has named himself after the Greek scapegoat, must have a red head for a secretary (so he can pass her off as his sister) and hires young, innocent Patricia Stone. But Pat, or Coppernob as she is affectionately nicknamed, is an illegitimate child raised by the resentful husband of her mother who is also his wife, and has had to fight every day for a place in the family that dislikes her. Pat’s father kicks her out of the house when she disobeys him and marches off to her new job the next morning. Pharmakos takes her in, not as a lover, but to protect her.
It turns out he’s a recent convict, now working as a private detective with ties to Scotland Yard and many police chiefs in the area. If you suspect shades of Sherlock, you’re right. Pharmakos has made his home in a dilapidated warehouse, leaving the exterior in its disrespectful condition, but fixing one floor for his exquisitely decorated open-floor home. Fortune anticipates 21st century design here. Having spent so much time in solitary confinement, his nerves can’t stand anything close to walls or prison bars. There’s another floor to fix for Pat. The relationship develops from there.
Fortune’s experience and knowledge as a psychologist is very much in evidence in this novel. She reveals why Pharmakos is in such bad shape, showing an understanding of what is basically PTSD, and demonstrates how it should be treated. One can see why many in the 1930s would have rejected this novel as below Fortune since she was from an upper crust family. The novel deals with the criminal class, and paints such a vivid, realistic picture of the types to be found in this world, one wonders where Fortune got this expertise. It must have been from her practice as a psychologist.
Like her other occult novels, the energetics that play between this young, practical and down-to-earth woman and this artistic, highly sensitive, emotional man result in a transformation of them both. The dynamics of magic are at play, but not obviously so. Another similarity in many of the novels is the mix of classes. Pat is from a solid, middle-class family, but it turns out Pharmakos is an aristocrat. And not just any aristocrat. The family has given the heir the same first name for over 1,000 years. He’s a de Claire, a background he rejects until the very end. The ever-practical Pat thinks that if there is a coronet to be worn, well, she might as well wear it.
This somewhat mitigates the race and class consciousness of the time on display in the book. The novel also suffers from what we writers like to call the “narrative knot,” where the story is downloaded in big chunks at times. Pharmakos nervous breakdowns got to be a bit much at times, but none of that really slowed me down. I enjoyed every minute of it. You probably will, too.
I know many of you like metaphysical and visionary fiction. In case you haven’t read him yet, here’s another writer for you: Alan Richardson. Richardson has published many books, both fiction and even more nonfiction.
I’ve just finished his latest novel, The Lightbearer, a tale of the ending of World War II and the Piscean Age, replete with modern figures who bear curious resemblances to mythical figures. Michael Horsett’s plane crashes, but his parachute catches him in a tree—hanging upside down with one leg crossed over another. Remind you of the Hanged Man? Plus his last name breaks down to Hor (Horus) and Sett (Set)—a combination of two Egyptian Gods. And a group of women recognize him as such. They have deep tantric plans for him—much to his delight. At first. You can play a game with this novel finding all the Tarot characters or pathways on the Tree of Life. Or just enjoy it. The novel is written in his characteristic witty, slightly irreverent, occasionally violent or shocking, but always revelatory style.
The bio I find most often for him is this one from Llewellyn’s website: “Alan Richardson was born in Northumberland, England, in 1951, and has been writing on the topic of magic for many years. He does not belong to any occult group or society, does not take pupils, and does not give lectures on any kind of initiation. He insists on holding down a full-time job in the real world like any other mortal. That, after all, is part and parcel of the real magical path. He is married with four children and lives very happily in a small village in the southwest of England.”
I’ve also read On Winsley Hill, the story of Rosie, a visionary who sees into the past and into the nature of standing stones and other sites. An American archaeologist finds her and uses her talents, awakening the Goddess who engages in a somewhat debased, but still effective reenactment of the old rites at the end of the novel.
Then there’s The Fat Git, a modern day slacker Merlin whose job is, as always, to protect the lands. But Vivienne distracts him while Mr. Vortig brings earthmovers in to demolish the sacred circle and build a monument to capitalism. Will Elaine and Yvonne wake him in time?
There are other novels that I haven’t read yet, but look forward to exploring, plus he’s written biographies of Dion Fortune, Aleister Crowley, Christine Hartley and William G. Gray along with books on magic. His Inner Guide to Egypt will intrigue many of you if you’re prepared to do a little meditation.
A while back, I wrote about Dion Fortune’s novels for the Visionary Fiction Alliance.* At the end of that three-part blog, I said that she had written other novels under another pseudonym and that I would let you all know if I discovered them.
Paul Blakey of Twin Eagles Publishing has done just that and brought out the first of her four “romantic thrillers,” The Yellow Shadow. He promises the next three are on their way: The Scarred Wrists, Beloved of Ishmael, and Hunters of Humans.
Dion Fortune is a woman of several names. Dion Fortune is her magical name created this name from her family motto Deo Non Fortuna, ‘God not luck’. She was born Violet Mary Firth and writes these novels as V.M. Steele. The short introduction to the novel says this “combines the names Violet and Mary with Steele (as a node to the source of the family’s fortune).”
The Yellow Shadow is the story of a young woman, Stella Morris, whose father has died and who now will go to live with relatives in China. Used to conversation with her father’s older academic friends, she brings this same frankness to her conversation with a man traveling on the same ship she is on whom she assumes to be an older man. But at the end of this conversation, he reveals himself to be Chinese—just slightly older than she is.
Stella pushes aside British prejudices and forms a friendship with him, but at first he snubs her on the boat, much to her chagrin. Later, though, he rescues her from her loud and hot room, sets her up in a suite, and proceeds to befriend her in the evenings (properly, of course). He cautions her that their friendship must remain secret, it would seem because of this prejudice. But there is a bit more to it. This mysterious man is quite rich and a well-known business man. He doesn’t want to ruin her reputation or his own.
Once set up with her vacuous family in China, Stella gets to know Mr. Li through a series of happy accidents when her family realizes she speaks Chinese. They have not deigned to learn the language after living in the country a good number of years. They send her to bargain with an antique dealer. Because she knows Chinese manners as well as the language, having been taught by Mr. Li, she wins his admiration and gradually gains her independence from her rude and shallow family, finally finding a way to pursue her romance with Mr. Li.
Richard Brzustowicz has written an Afterword in which he gives some excellent historical background and discusses the similarity between this female character and the ones in The Sea Priestess and Moon Magic, who bring their magnetism to enliven a man who has been enervated by society, restoring him to his vitality. He points out that even the character’s name has magical implications: “Just as the Virgin Mary is associated with the sea (and the name Stella Morris is clearly reminiscent of one of the titles of the Virgin Mary, ‘Stella Maris’, Star of the sea) so is Kuan Yin” (198).
You’ll most likely enjoy this novel. You might bump your nose up against some of the frank language about race which seems dated now, but do remember that in The Magical Battle of Britain, Fortune argues that the new age coming after WWII will blast down the prejudices of the old, effete leadership of Britain and predicts an egalitarian global society for the Age of Aquarius. This novel shows some blasting away of those racial and class barriers.
Click to order a copy of The Yellow Shadow. Paul says the $10 price is a special offer, due to rise once we arrive at the summer solstice (and the release of her next book, The Scarred Wrists). I can’t wait to read the next one. Twin Eagles Publishing will use the proceeds from this novel to pay the cost of the British Library copying the others that are in their collection.
*If you want to read more about her novels, my blogs on her visionary fiction can be found at the Visionary Fiction Alliance website here: The first was on her better known novels Moon Magic and The Sea Priestess. The second considered The Secrets of Dr. Taverner, and the third her lesser known novels The Demon Lover, The Winged Bull, and The Goat Foot God.
Please welcome Rea Nolan Martin, Visionary Fiction author and contributor to the Huffington Post. You’ll find her books enlightening and entertaining!
Please tell us a little about yourself.
I live on the banks of the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan. Thanks to the vision of John D. Rockefeller, our home abuts 20 miles of protected parkland. Even though human activity abounds across the river, on this side we entertain a menagerie of wildlife on our portico every morning. It’s an inspiring place to write, which I’ve been doing here and at various other locations through four decades, 5 dogs (current one named Spirit), two children (now young men), and one husband who have all made space for my overactive imagination. I am also a lover of music, physics, world religions, and a deep, personal spirituality which I nurture daily through prayer, practice, and the writing of Visionary Fiction.
How did you become interested in Visionary Fiction?
Like most visionary authors, I had no idea I was writing Visionary Fiction, per se. I just wrote about the experiences that informed my life. My first published book, The Sublime Transformation of Vera Wright, is about an ordinary woman in her sixties, a beautician, who answers her pastor’s simple suggestion to surrender her life to God. What follows is a carnival ride through the spiritual realm, complete with levitation, bi-location, teleportation, lucid dreams, and all the terror and hilarity those experiences infer for the average person. Vera is squeezed through her experience like toothpaste, which for me at least is a critical element of successful storytelling. By the end of her harrowing adventures, she is transformed into something entirely different. Transformation is the reason I tell stories, and also, I believe, the reason for our existence. Some of us enter into this sacred contract willingly and consciously, while others, like Vera, have to be squeezed through a tube.
My next book, Mystic Tea, is about a loosely held-together group of nuns on a monastery in upstate NY, who have gotten lost in belief systems that no longer apply. Through the alchemy of a recovering teenage addict who finds her way to the monastery, they find authentic spirituality that redefines their lives personally and collectively. The juxtaposition of this wild teenager with the older cloistered nuns provided me with months and months of comedy, as well as eye-popping opportunity for personal growth.
The Anesthesia Game, Visionary Fiction book # 3, is about a teenager with a critical illness whose treatments subject her to weekly anesthesia. Instead of sleeping under this influence, however, she is instead able to slowly expand her awareness into other realms. Through this perilous practice, she is eventually able to identify the ancient source of her illness, as well as the karmic conflict that has besieged her family for generations.
My most recent book, Walking on Water contains 32 inspirational essays, a collection of insights designed to illuminate a spiritual path in a confusing world. Some of these essays were previously published in Huffington Post.
I found out about the burgeoning (yet ancient) genre of Visionary Fiction when my second book, Mystic Tea won the Independent Publishers’ (IPPY) gold award in 2014. (The Anesthesia Game won the same award in 2016.) The VF designation made complete sense to me once I accessed the VFA (Visionary Fiction Alliance) website and saw the other books and authors identified in that genre. Personally, I define VF as a powerful means of interpreting the new world order, providing it with, among other things, a unique and much needed vocabulary. VF sees the world through an expansive lens concomitant with the rapid spiritual awakening of our times. Before VF I defined my books as Metaphysical, Spiritual, or Mystical. But Visionary is more precise, since some aspect of every story I’ve written has been prescient, manifesting a critical aspect months or years after its writing. And like many VF authors will no doubt tell you, the writing of these books is more than a little hair-raising for its creators. As our characters are pushed and pulled through the cosmic tube, so are we, forced like bulbs into early blooming as a result of our attempts to awaken others. There’s a price for going first.
If your book were chocolate, what would it be?
Organic dark chocolate with a jalapeno cream center. Lots of twists and surprises, including humor, which I think is unexpected in this genre, but shouldn’t be.
Does this book fit into a series.
No. My characters like to go it alone.
How did you prepare to write this book?
The central character in The Anesthesia Game is a critically ill teenage girl with a sweet nature and strong connection to the mystical world. Many years ago, one of my sons was extremely ill, and I was able to draw from that experience enough to create authenticity in the clinical (and family) environments. None of the book is remotely autobiographical, however. I just believe that an experience as deep as that cannot be adequately conjured through academic research. Since I knew the harrowing path it took, I felt it would help others if I expressed its essence in easy-to-absorb storytelling form, instead of a lecture.
How does this book fit into your real-life interests?
Aside from the particular experience of my son’s illness, I have an odd penchant for acquiring lots of medical information, both conventional and unconventional, and storing it. Some of it was acquired through years of intensive caretaking, but at this point in my life it would be foolish not to admit that I have a somewhat photographic memory for medical information. (A past life?) This would also apply to physics, metaphysics, and spiritual traditions. This affinity, combined with a hearty storyteller archetype, explains me and my career.
What are you working on right now?
I’m currently writing a story about two elderly sisters in a confounding situation surrounding their family funeral home. They are cracking me up. Enough said.
Please welcome Maighread MacKay, an author and Podcaster from Ontario, Canada. She is a member of the Writer’s Community of Durham Region (WCDR), Visionary Fiction Alliance (VFA) and Sisters in Crime, Toronto (SINC).
Her publishing credits include three books for children: Bedtime Treasures, The Mysterious Door and the Crystal Grove written under the name of Margaret Hefferman. Stone Cottage was published in 2015 by Solstice Shadows Publishing. She was included in the 2015 Christmas Soup for the Soul: Merry Christmas edition with her story “Being Santa”. Stepping Stones, an anthology of inspirational parables released March 25, 2016 from Solstice Publishing. A new story, “Once Upon a Midsummer’s Eve” is included in the Solstice anthology of Let’s Have Fun, released June 21, 2016. Her story, “A Unique Vessel” was included in the Chicken Soup for the Soul, Curvy and Confident anthology, released December 27, 2016.
How did you become interested in Visionary Fiction?
Ghosts, spirits and things that go bump in the night. Ancient mysteries and the riddles of our vast universe. Questions – lots of fascinating questions about the reality of our cosmos. Are there other dimensions or planes of existence? Are they inhabited? Do our parallel universes ever converge? Angels, Spirit Guides. Are they real? Can we communicate with them? What about other entities such as the Fae, Unicorns, or Dragons? Could they exist? What happens when we die? Has the soul that inhabits our body been here before? Why would we come back? What about animals? What happens to them when they die?
These questions have led me on a journey of investigating Christian Mysticism, Yogic Spirituality, Native Theology, Wicca, Celtic Shamanism, Quantum Physics, the Realm of the Fae and many other related topics.
How do you define VF?
To me, besides telling a good story, VF enlightens and encourages readers to expand their awareness of greater possibilities. It helps them see the world in a new light and recognize dimensions of reality they commonly ignore.
Please tell us about your novel?
Stone Cottage asks the question: If you could plan your life before you were born, what could that life look like?
The story deals with reincarnation, past life regression and pre-birth planning and how these could really fit into an actual life. Although I have read numerous accounts of these things, I wanted to write a story about how they could affect one’s life. That is not to say Stone Cottage is the definitive answer. It is, after all, fiction, but I am hoping that people will enjoy the story and maybe think “huh. I never thought of it that way.”
Does this book fit into a series?
My novels are not really a series. Each can be read individually, but two of the characters appear in both Stone Cottage and my new novel Murder at Mother’s.
How did you prepare to write about the book’s specific area or field of study?
For Stone Cottage, I did a lot of research. The setting for the story is Toronto, Canada. One of the time periods is the 1850’s, so I went to museums, libraries and various historical places to get a feel for the area at that time and to get an accurate description of habits, dress, speech etc. Also, I investigated past life regression by having a session myself to accurately get questions asked and to get a feel for the experience.
What are you working on right now?
I have just completed the first draft of a new novel, Murder at Mother’s. It is a good old fashioned murder/mystery told from the ghost’s point of view. It deals with a soul’s unfinished business, what could happen after death and gives a different paradigm of what on earth is called hell.
