Zadeki

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Interview with Zadeki

Welcome Zadeki

Jeanette: Zadeki, Welcome. We’re chuffed you could take time to fly into today to enlighten us a bit more about yourself. We’ve been following your adventures Under the Mountain and also across the ocean in the Lonely Isles. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun). Coughs Please, please pull up a seat and make yourself welcome.

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Zadeki:  My thanks, daughter of the pen. (Brushes a small feather from his hair, and jumps up onto a tree branch.) I’m glad you decided to have the interview outside. Sometimes I think I’ve been in more tunnels than anyone should in a life time.

Jeanette:  I can understand that. The last few days most have been particularly harrowing. Can you tell us a bit about how your association with the twins, Delvina and Retza, came about?

Zadeki: Ah, well, that’s a bit embarrassing. I wanted to prove to the Kinleader that I was ready to be a Pathfinder. So I decided to fly over the mountains to show my skill at shape-shifting. Instead, I ended up being caught in a snow storm and colliding with a mountain and breaking a wing … er arm. That’s when the twins found me and took me into the mountain caverns.

Jeanette: Your time with the twins and their people has been fraught with danger and difficulties. Even now things are in the balance, yet I’m sure the twins have been very glad of your help and that of your Kin.

Zadeki nods.

Jeanette: Lets talk a bit more about you. In our world, people are often divided between ‘cat’ people and ‘dog’ people.  Do you have a particular preference between the two?

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Crystals and Easter Eggs

What a busy couple of months it’s been.

Omega Writers Book Fair

I had a great time at the Omega Writers Book Fair with an exciting range of other authors, workshops and giveaways. Looking forward to the Book Fair next year.

Supernova Gold Coast

Young Adult Spec Fic authors Lynne Stringer, Adele Jones and I were at Gold Coast Supernova last weekend – under the Rendered Realms banner.

Lynne looked particularly dashing in her Verindon Overlord dress and tiara (the Verindon trilogy).  I went as Delvina (Under the Mountain series) and also as Kupanna Mara (Akrad’s Children).

I was excited to have Stone of the Sea the third book in the Under the Mountain series available. I also managed to snag an amethyst crystal that fits in nicely with my Under the Mountain series and hopefully enhances the display.  And Lynne had copies of Challenge Accepted available – a charity anthology for the Special Olympics with awesome speculative fiction stories, including one by me, Lynne and Adam Collings.

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New Release and Supernova

Stone of the Sea

Have you been wondering what the young shapeshifter, Zadeki, and the twins, Delvina and Retza are up to? At the end of October I released the next instalment, novella 3 of the Under the Mountain series. The Crystal Heart may be saved but the people under the mountain are running out of food, while strife and disaster bubble beneath the surface.

A desperate journey into the unknown

Food is scarce, the Glittering realms in chaos and solutions fast disappearing.  Twins Delvina and Retza have always stood shoulder to shoulder. Will new challenges pull the twins apart? Will they, and their shapeshifter friend, Zadeki, find food before the people under the mountain starve?

Join Delvina, Retza and Zadeki as once again they face their fears and rescue a realm.

Stone of the Sea is the third novella in the Under the Mountain series. It is set in the world of Nardva.

Start reading it today. Available at Amazon and other retailers.

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Blood Crystal Blog Tour

Unlikely Heroes

Superheroes are all the rage on the big screen. Super-heroes have super powers, snazzy suits, impressive physiques and side-kicks. They laugh in the face of danger, amaze us all with their stunts and tricks, and despite the super-villains they are pitted against, they always save the world – or the cosmos.

Do you remember Susan Boyle when she first walked on the stage. No one took her seriously, no one thought she could sing – until she opened her mouth and the world gaped. Often we are so fixated on image that we miss the substance. In real life – heroes come in all shapes and sizes. They don’t necessarily have perfect figures, flawless hairdos and the latest fashion sense or the coolest technology.

The twins, Delvina and Retza, may not look like your typical heroes – but I think they are. In Blood Crystal, they undertake an epic journey across a hostile landscape to save their realm. They dare to attempt what others are too afraid to, they have the grit to keep going and faith that they will find answers. They care what happens to each other and the people they know.

Can you think of some unlikely heroes? What do you admire about them? What can you learn from them?

YA Fantasy Adventure in the lost realm Under the Mountain – Book 2

The underground realm is under attack from mad Overseer Uzza and the Crystal Heart is failing. As things become desperate, Twins Delvina and Retza must brave a treacherous journey to seek help from Zadeki and his people.

Will they find the answers they seek before it’s too late? Is the blood of Uzza’s children the only way to restore the Crystal Heart? What are the twins prepared to do to save their realm and those they love from certain destruction?

Blood Crystal is the second novella in the Under the Mountain series. Like most of my fiction, it is set in the world of Nardva. Available from Amazon, or Kobo, Nook and other retailers.

Blog Tour

A few days ago, we launched Blood Crystal – sequel to Heart of the Mountain.  Over the next couple of weeks – Blood Crystal will be featured on a different blogs as part of the Blood Crystal blog tour.

There will be –

Reviews of Blood Crystal

Interviews of both me and maybe even a character

Reflections

Competitions &  Scavenger Hunt.

Opportunities to win:

Throughout the blog tour there will be many opportunities to win prizes.

Comment below

Comment below on this post (and on any of the posts in the Blood Crystal Blog Tour) – the best comment (imo) will win a copy of Heart of the Mountain: a short novella.

Heart of the Mountain on Amazon

Scavenger Hunt

Blood Crystal Scavenger Hunt will run throughout the  Blood Crystal Blog Tour.  Each blog will have a reflection or memory related to themes within Blood Crystal – and a related question. The first person to answer all NINE questions  right will win a $50 Amazon voucher. The runner up will receive copies of both Heart of the Mountain and the sequel Blood Crystal.

Follow each post on the blog tour to find the questions & list your answers in the comments on the final blog post of the tour on 28 July. There will also opportunities to win prizes at each blogspot.

Glow Worm Caves

In my twenties I stayed at Lune River Youth Hostel south-west of Hobart. Apart from a pet possum that would scamper up guests’ legs to reach their heads, the Youth Hostel was close to some famous glow worm caves (in the Hastings caves area).

Getting to the caves involved driving into the bush on dusk, stopping at the side of the road as the sun set behind the horizon and them hiking in 20 minutes to an abandoned site, using old railway lines as a guide for part of the way. As the light faded, we secured our miners lamps and jumped down to a creek (or small stream) and followed it as it disappeared under the hill into the spacious caverns. We walked some distance in, staying in the main cave, and switched off our lights. Slowly above us the cave roof filled with bright stars in swirls and clusters denser than the milky way in the middle of the outback – glowing lights produced by a colony of insect larvae. Did you know that glow worms only found in Australia and New Zealand?

After we had enjoyed the wonder and beauty of their magical lights, we clambered out from under the mountain, up from the creek bed and walked back through the bush to the road in the dark. Glow worms are small, seemingly insignificant – yet produce inspiring beauty as they shine in the dark – perhaps unlikely heroes.

It was an amazing experience, one which I drew, on along with a visit to the deep underground mines in Mt Isa, when writing Heart of the Mountain and Blood Crystal.

Question for the Scavenger Hunt:

Where do Glow Worms live – and what kind of animal are they?

Next Stop

The next stop on the blog tour – is Paula Vince. She will be giving her review of Blood Crystal  If you haven’t discovered it yet. Paul gives thoughtful, entertaining and intriguing reviews – including a fresh look at our favourite books through lists – in the Vince Review. Check it out here.

Blog Tour Schedule

 

Jeanette

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Heart of the Mountain is here.

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Heart of the Mountain: a short novella.

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Count down to Launch

I hosting an E-launch of Heart of the Mountain on Facebook

2-4pm Australian EST, Saturday 30th July 2016.

Join in the fun on the FB event page for competitions, prizes, and release details. https://www.facebook.com/events/596826930491016/

Love you to join the event if you’re a lover of fantasy or fantastic adventures 🙂.

Heart of the Mountain: A Short Novella

Twins Delvina and Retza’s greatest desire is to be accepted as prentices by their parents’ old crew when they stumble across a stranger. Trapped under the mountain, young Zadeki’s only thought is to escape home to his kin. Peril awaits all three youngsters. Will they pull apart or work together to save the underground realm?

YA Fantasy Adventure in the lost realm deep under the mountain.

The adventure continues with Blood Crystal, Story 2 in the Under the Mountain series.

Heart of the Mountain now set up on Goodreads 🙂
https://www.goodreads.com/…/…/31276257-heart-of-the-mountain

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Reflections

I originally wrote Heart of the Mountain for the Glimpses of Light anthology, but it soon took on a life of its own and grew too big for the designated word limit. I loved the story and have developed it into a short novella (or long short story).

It is the first in the adventurous tales of young Zadeki. The events of this story occur many years after ‘Ruhanna’s Flight’ (my eventual successful submission for Glimpses of Light) but a few centuries before the events of the Akrad’s Legacy series and the other Tamrin Tales (such as ‘Fever’, ‘The Herbalist’s Daughter’ and ‘Lakwi’s Lament’).

The story, in part, is inspired by other great story tellers such as J R R Tolkien, Jeanne DuPrau’s City of Ember, Frances Hardinge’s A Face Like Glass, Christopher Paolini’s Eragon and my own vivid memories of descending into the depths in an Underground tour of Mt Isa Mines, Mt Isa. I have endeavoured to make this story my own.

My heartfelt thanks to my wonderful editors, Nola Passmore (of The Write Flourish), Paula Vince and to my redoubtable critique partners and beta readers Nicole Nugent, Kathleen Hillenberg, Suzanne Hay-Bartlem, Raelene Purtill, Julian Green.

I also had fun with the cover design and appreciate the tough and truthful critiques of my young artists in residence, as well as suggestions from Suzanne Hay-Bartlem, Kathleen Hillenberg, Christina Aitken, the Swinburne Creative Writing Critical Friends and the Omega Writers Science-Fiction and Fantasy Groups.

I’m especially grateful for my family—my loving husband Tony, my precious children, my parents Tom and Jean Curtis—who instilled in me a love of faith and fantasy—and siblings, Tom Curtis, Frank Curtis and Kathleen Hillenberg, whom I’ve shared many wonderful adventures.

Most of all, I’m grateful to my Maker in whose creative footsteps I can only hope to follow.

 Jeanette O’Hagan  July 2016