Today, I am delighted to featured D. Wallace Peach, fantasy author extraordinaire, with her new book, Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver.
Take it away, Diana
About two years ago, I was inspired to write a story different from my usual fare. Not a story confined by one supernatural artifact or talent, but one steeped in magic and folklore.
The first thing I did after deciding on the premise of my winter tale was research winter-themed folklore for my characters. I knew I’d have a weaver, a prince, and a king, but I needed magical creatures and persons to flesh out the story.
What I quickly discovered is that our snowy northern hemisphere is rich in lore, and my imagination was captured, not by one folklore tradition, but by multiple stories that spanned the globe. I also discovered that no single tradition met all my needs. I wanted to draw from Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian, Swiss, and Slavic folklore, as well as the rich lore of the Arctic, Japan, Greece, and Native American cultures.
Two challenges stared me in the face. One, how could I logically combine all these different characters into one cohesive lore? And two, could I respectfully deviate from the original tales to fit my story and let my characters be themselves.
My solution was to build my own folklore, drawn from the globe’s varying magical traditions, to give everyone new names, and let them be themselves. As the tour progresses, I’ll be sharing the original traditions that led to the creation of my characters—the persons, magical creatures, and monsters—and an excerpt showing the result.
Today, we’re starting with the “un-magical” humans who make a very poor decision and kick off the story.
Excerpt: Prolog
A silver stag, antlers wide enough to cradle the moon, bounded through the meadow, its cloven hooves kicking up fountains of blowing snow. Lothar stood firm, bowstring taut, knuckle to his chin. His exhales billowed into ghostly clouds that curled and vanished into the squall’s biting cold. He whispered a prayer for mercy and, squinting through winter’s falling shroud, loosed his arrow.
In a blast of bitter wind, a white wraith swept from the charmed wilderness, screaming like a banshee. Her frozen breath slashed the rising storm with the keenness of a blade, casting splinters of frost into Lothar’s face. They crusted on his eyebrows and dangled in clattering icicles from his gray beard.
His oaken arrow, true when it left his bow, halted in mid-flight and would have tumbled into the mounding drifts had the spirit not flung it free. The quarrel drove, cruel and swift, into the stag’s ribs. The doomed animal bellowed as it collided with a thicket of brambles marking the meadow’s edge. It thrashed in the thorns, great antlers tangling, and with a final heave, it broke through into the darkness beneath the forest’s enchanted trees. Branches shuddered and swept closed, powdering the frigid air as they concealed the giant beast’s fate.
“We should chase it down.” Connovir tramped ahead of the other men, his boots crunching through the icy pack buried under the blizzard’s softer blanket. He wiped his nose on a coat sleeve as he joined his father. “Your aim was true. If not for the charmed, the stag would be ours.”
“Hunting here was a gamble.” Lothar narrowed his eyes at the shadows creeping between the snow-laden boughs. He knew well the whispered warnings of the elders, tales of ancient boundaries and charmed creatures that lurked in the deep places no man dared enter.
Nonetheless, his youngest boy had spoken the truth. On human land, the animal was fairly won. Whatever the wind’s nature, ordinary or magical, it had robbed the village of much-needed food.
Petrar, looking formidable in his shaggy bearskin coat, trudged down the meadow’s slope in Connovir’s prints. Midwinter reddened his cheeks and ruffled the fur trimming his woolen hat. “Connovir speaks sense, Lothar. We cannot return to our families empty-handed. Not in this winter.”
Three other hunters gathered around him. Niklas, a long-toothed grandfather, exhaled into his cupped hands. Twin brothers, Arne and Baldir, had young ones at home, and though Lothar’s family also suffered from hollow bellies, Petrar’s challenge bristled his nerves.
“We will hunt tomorrow,” he said. “I will leave an offering for the Winter King on the border stone from my own stores.”
“That does nothing.” Connovir’s chin tucked into his collar. “I say we take what is ours.”
Lothar’s eyes thinned into gray fissures, his son’s recklessness encouraging the others. “No. This is not your decision. We’ll not tempt fate for the price of a meal. The charmed are forces of nature who will steal a fool’s life without conscience. We do not trespass where their shadows fall.”
Petrar scraped a mitten down his face. “I do not wish to argue, Lothar, but the stag is gravely wounded. Let us follow the blood to the meadow’s edge. If the beast is within reach, we drag it out. If it’s run off, I agree that we abandon the hunt and turn back.”
Lothar frowned at the forest. The trees stood silent. Watching, waiting. Snow whispered through the branches, and he tasted magic in the air. The wind-wraith keened her omen of death.
Blurb
“Already the animals starve. Soon the bonemen will follow, the Moss Folk and woodlings, the watermaids and humans. Then the charmed will fade. And all who will roam a dead world are dead things. Until they too vanish for lack of remembering. Still, Weaver, it is not too late.”
In the frost-kissed cottage where the changing seasons are spun, Erith wears the Weaver’s mantle, a title that tests her mortal, halfling magic. As the equinox looms, her first tapestry nears completion—a breathtaking ode to spring. She journeys to the charmed isle of Innishold to release the beauty of nature’s awakening across the land.
But human hunters have defiled the enchanted forest and slaughtered winter’s white wolves. Enraged by the trespass, the Winter King seizes Erith’s tapestry and locks her within his ice-bound palace. Here, where comfort and warmth are mere glamours, she may weave only winter until every mortal village succumbs to starvation, ice, and the gray wraiths haunting the snow.
With humanity’s fate on a perilous edge, Erith must break free of the king’s grasp and unravel a legacy of secrets. In a charmed court where illusions hold sway, allies matter, foremost among them, the Autumn Prince. Immortal and beguiling, he offers a tantalizing future she has only imagined, one she will never possess—unless she claims her extraordinary power to weave life from the brink of death.
My review
If I were to summarise this book in one sentence, I would say it was like reading a picture. The author has a wonderfully imaginative mind and an ability to capture beauty as well as death and destruction in detailed and graphic word pictures. In the manner of C.S. Lewis, the author has created a beautiful frozen world that traverses both the fantasy realm of the Charmed in the everyday world of humans. Due to the inflated ego and anger issue of the King of Winter, both worlds are in danger of destruction as he decides to maintain an eternal winter. This story line differs from the frozen world of Narnia in that winter cannot be maintained indefinately without all life being destroyed due to the non-event of spring.
Erith is the new Season’s Weaver having assumed the mantle from her Charmed mother who decided to follow her human father into death. Erith lacks confidence in her powers and abilities as she is a halfling and identifies more with humans than with the Charmed. Despite her reservations, she takes on the responsibilities of the Weaver and is sadly deceived and disappointed by the actions of the Winter King who kidnaps her and attempts to force her to weave an eternal winter. I would classify this book equally as a fantasy and a coming of age story as Erith is forced to take the unwanted responsibility of saving the world from the Winter King despite her inexperience and fears. Fortunately for Erith, she has a number of wonderful allies to help her along the road, in particular, the Prince of Autumn.
Tale of the Season’s Weaver is an enthralling tale spun in delightful words of beauty with a lot of subtle symbolism and themes of morality, the nature of life, both mortal and immortal, friendship, and internal strength.
Lovers of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien will revel in this delightful and intriguing story.
About D. Wallace Peach
Peach started writing later in life when years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books. She was instantly hooked.
In addition to fantasy books, Peach’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of the arts in her local community, organizing and publishing annual anthologies of Oregon prose, poetry, and photography.
Peach lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes.
Links
roberta-writes.com 