Dermot is a fifteen-year-old boy living in a remote village in the land of Denú. He has always longed for something more in his life. Now, everything changes after he sees a renowned creature–a gryphon–in the sky, and then crosses paths with a reclusive healer who harbors a secret.
Soon, he and his brother have no choice but to leave the only home they’ve ever known. They travel with new friends across the land through several great forests, along the way meeting an old man, a family of unicorns, and witnessing an important birth. They must evade fire-breathing dragons and dark-armored soldiers hunting them down, all serving an evil sorcerer determined to subjugate the kingdom, and who will stop at nothing to destroy them.
Denú’s only hope is if a renowned coven returns to face the enemy after years in hiding. Dermot, however, suspects their own role may be more significant than he thought, as he slowly discovers a power which exists amongst the trees and creatures of every greenwood. Can they save those they hold dear? Will Dermot find what he has sought? Or will all that’s free and good be consumed by darkness?
My review
Andrew McDowell has written an extraordinary fantasy tale which centres around the guardians of nature and the Greenwood, called driadors. The plot follows a typical good versus evil path, but the overlay of the protection versus the destruction of the natural environment was unusual, topical, and really fantastic.
Dermot and his brother, Brian, do not get on. Brian is the son who always does as he is asked by his parents and fits the mould of a pleaser, while Dermot is a dreamer and has always felt he was intended for more than his life as an apprentice blacksmith to his father. The rivalry between the two boys comes to a head when Dermot is carried away by a hunting gryphon. Dermot persuades the gryphon to drop him but he is injured during his fall. He wakes up in the care of a healer called Saershe, and her grandson, Ruairi. Dermot realises that they are not ordinary forest dwellers and, following his return home, he becomes obsessed with finding them again.
Brian becomes aware that Dermot has had some sort of unusual experience during his absence and uses this knowledge to stir up trouble for Dermot with their parents. Meanwhile, an evil force in the shape of a fallen driador called Taranis, is lurking just beyond the village, waiting for an opportunity to wreak havoc and destruction and restart an old battle against the driadors. Dermot and Brian will have to learn to trust and rely on each other, and harness the power of nature if they want to save the Greenwood, their friends, family, and themselves.
This is an unusual and well paced story with interesting characters, and these elements more than makes up for the odd moments in the book when Dermot and Brian’s emotional reactions to situations seem slightly lacking in depth or incongruent to the circumstances.
The author has great potential as a writer and I would love to read the next book in this series and find out what happens next in the battle for control between Taranis and the driadors.
I used a combination of these techniques to create the animated video of my Sir Chocolate characters below. I didn’t add the music on a slide by slide basis though, I added the music in video editor which is much easier. If you type video editor into your computer’s search bar, it should come up. You can create your video in video editor and add the music. I downloaded the music I used from YouTube free music downloads which meant that when I uploaded the video to YT, it was quickly approved with no copywrite issues.
I was pleased with this effort, but I wanted to add some live readings from my books. To this end, I set about finding out how to do that in PowerPoint.
I found the Recording button in PP fairly easily. When I clicked on Recording, it came up with the Record Slide Show button which gives you options: 1. Record from current slide, 2. Record from beginning. I selected Record from current slide each time so I recorded each slide’s reading separately.
When you click on Record from current slide, you get the screen above. You can see me in the bottom right-hand corner. When you press Record, you have 3 seconds before recording starts. Stop obviously ends the recording.
If you make a mistake, and I did, you can click the X button and it allows you to clear the Recordings on the current slide.
That all went relatively well, but when I tried to add music to the slides with no recordings, things went pear-shaped. The music recorded over my video sound track.
What to do? What to do?
Not give up, obviously.
How I solved this problem was to save two separate videos, one that had the animated design show that I wanted to set to music, and the other with the recordings. I added the music in PowerPoint to slide show 1.
I used the Audio button to add Audio from my PC. I had already downloaded the sound track I wanted.
I then selected Play in Background and the music was added across the 8 slides.
I then converted Video 1 to an MP4. I separately converted slide show 2 to an MP4.
I put the two videos together in video editor, as follows:
I created a new project called Sir Chocolate Books introduction. I then added the two separate videos in order. I then pressed Finish video and, wallah! video editor put the two videos together for me.
It isn’t perfect, but I think it’s not bad for a homemade YT video.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). You can join in here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/09/15/the-road-to-preston/
Here are a few more doors pictures from our stay at Tau Game Lodge
Door to the bar – we never went insideDoor of the bathroom. It looked onto an outdoor shower. If you look carefully you will see it was actually open on one sideOur chalet from the road. Can you see our three visitors?
The second night of our stay at Tau, the temperatures dropped significantly overnight. It was really cold when we left for our early morning drive at 5.30am. The game ranger game us heat packs for our laps and hands as well as blankets. Here we are wrapped up in our winter woolies:
It was worth going out in the cold as we saw a leopard on the prowl. I got a few good pictures and we saw her trying to take down a small klipspringer antelope. It was exciting to watch but way to fast for me to film.
We also saw rhino, but the game ranger was obsessed with following the cheetah so I only go one picture and a short video.
Lastly, we saw baby giraffes, my favourite.
Oh, and a zebra scratching his side and bottom. It was quite amusing to watch.
During the German occupation of France, nestled in the lush, verdant countryside in the Haute-Vienne department of central France was the peaceful village of Oradour-sur-Glane. It was a community where villagers woke to the medley of nature’s songs, roosters crowing, birds chirping, cats purring, and cows plodding on their way out to pasture. The people who lived there loved the tranquil nature of their beautiful home, a tranquility that existed year-round. Even with the German occupation, Oradour-sur-Glane – the village with cafés, shops, and a commuter tram to Limoges – remained relatively untouched by the stress of the occupation.
While Oradour-sur-Glane enjoyed the lack of German presence, twenty-two kilometers to the northwest in Limoges, the Germans were reacting with increasing cruelty to organized attacks on their soldiers by the armed resistance organization Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP). Headed by Amédé Fauré, the Limoges FTP was considered the most effective of the French Resistance groups. Fauré’s missions prompted the German military to kill and incarcerate in concentration camps anyone perceived as supporters or sympathizers of the Resistance.
Up until the middle of 1944, the German anti-partisan actions in France never rose to the level of brutality or number of civilian casualties that had occurred in eastern Europe. A little before the Allies landed in Normandy, all that changed, when German troops, and in particular the Waffen-SS, stationed on the Eastern Front were transferred to France. It was then that FTP’s increasing efforts to disrupt German communications and supply lines were met with disproportionate counter attacks, involving civilians. Fauré’s response was to target German officers. When he set his sights on two particular German officers, all hell broke loose.
Based on actual events as told by survivors, The Peaceful Village is the fictionalized story of the unfolding of the events that led up to one of the biggest World War II massacres on French soil. Much more than an account of Nazi brutality and the futility of war, this is a story of love.The love of family. The love of neighbor. The love of country. Compassion and courage burn from the pages as the villagers’ stories come alive. Written by the international bestselling author of The Seven Year Dress, Paulette Mahurin, this book pays homage to the villagers who lived and loved in Oradour-sur-Glane.
My review
I reviewed this book in my capacity as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team. If you would like your book reviewed, you can contact Rosie Amber here: http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/.
I enjoy reading books about World War II and I’ve read and enjoyed another book by this author, so when I saw The Peaceful Village, I knew I had to read it. I knew it would be a tough read before I started but I must admit that this particular event shocked me to my core. It seems beyond comprehension that any normal human being with a soul can behave in such a callous and brutal way towards civilians.
This book is historical fiction and based on a real event so I knew the ending before I began. Reading a couple of paragraphs about a tragedy of this nature is, however, quite a different experience to reading a fictionalized account of it. The author’s great strength with this book is the detailed manner in which she depicted the main characters and the specifics of their lives and how she made the reader care about them. Even the supporting characters feel like neighbours and friends.
Francoise is one of the main characters. The wife of a French carrot farmer, she is worn down from years of working the land and her spirit is ailing due to the German occupation. Francoise is given an opportunity of a job at the local church in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, which leads to her becoming involved in a small way with the French resistance and their efforts to hide Jewish families. Francoise blossoms in her new role and becomes the reader’s measure of normality and representation of the comfortable and peaceful lifestyles of the villagers.
The story moves between life in the village, largely told through the eyes of Francoise, and the activities of the French resistance who are using terrorist tactics to fight the occupying German forces. This tactic works well as the reader knows more about what is happening with the French resistance and the Nazi occupiers than the villagers of Oradour. It creates a lot of tension as the reader can see how the events are likely to unfold as the villagers go about their daily lives.
This is a beautifully written and heart rending book which has been well researched and presented. Anyone who is interested in WW2 and the effect of the Nazi regime on the local population in France will appreciate this book.
Purchase The Peaceful Village
Profits from Paulette Mahurin’s books go to help rescue dogs from kill shelters.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/09/08/clay-hill-leftovers/
The first morning at Tau Game Lodge started at 5.30am. Michael didn’t want to go out so early so Terence and I went on our own. We left our room just as the sky was turning dark gray and walked down to the lounge cum dining area.
Leaving our roomArriving at the lounge cum dining areaInside the dining area from outside
The first animals we saw were buffalo; a whole herd. This is one picture of a buffalo with the dawn behind him.
A huge thank you to talented author, Judith Barrow, for hosting my article in her Places in our Memories series. I have shared some of my memories about the births of my three sisters which obviously changed my life significantly. You can find out more about Judith’s excellent books here: https://www.amazon.com/Judith-Barrow/e/B0043RZJV6 and read my review of The Heart Stone here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RI9RUUVY8XUGF
There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.
Today I’m welcomingRobbie Cheadle, someone I’ve known and admired as an online friend for many years.
Thank you, Judith, for inviting me to talk about my memories.
As a little girl I was quiet and self-contained. The oldest of four daughters, my mom was often busy with a new baby and so I spent a lot of time alone. I do believe I was a lonely child and passed my time reading, listening to Broadway musicals on my mother’s record player, and doing numerous artistic projects.
By the time I was eighteen, I’d lived in twenty-one houses and attended fourteen schools. Twelve of my school changes occurred before I was twelve and once, I changed schools twice during the same academic year.
I never developed lasting and strong friendships with other girls which may have been a consequence of all these disruptions. Instead, my sisters and I played together. Their births were the highlight moments of my younger years.
A typical picture of me as a child
My time as a baby and a toddler are grey mist to me, but the first powerful memory I have is of the entrance of my sister, Catherine, into my life. She displaced me as the only one and I wasn’t pleased about it at the time.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
We recently visited Tau Game Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve. We happened to arrive on an unusually hot day for August and were treated to an amazing show of animals who all came to drink and swim in the watering hole. We walked up to the viewing point at the other side of the grounds and saw elephants so close you could reach out and touch them (which, of course, we didn’t because that would be dangerous and disrespectful to the animals who are not remotely tame or trained).
I love this video of the animals coming to the water hole to drink. It was simply amazing to watch.
Side door to the bar at the viewing pointA discussion at the watering holeMud bathThis elephant didn’t fancy me and stared me down
One of the elephants reversed right up close to me standing near the fence.
We went out for a game drive in the afternoon on the first day. We saw lions and buffalo.
Our Safari vehicle with its high doors that latch closedOne of two male lionsHere he is waking up in the late afternoon
Here is a short video of the lion rolling over:
My blogging friend, Wayne, from Tofino Photography (if you don’t know Wayne and his amazing wildlife photographs, I suggest you go over and take a look around https://tofinophotography.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/rendezvous-spot/) made a comment about animals heads on the walls of game lodges. I have never visited a game lodge that displays heads of animals as we go to places dedicated to conservation of wildlife, but such lodges do exist where they do canned hunting (which I abhor). Anyhow, Wayne’s comment inspired this poem which will be included in the poetry book I’m working on called Lion Scream which is about the plight of animals in Africa. Thank you, Wayne, for the obscure inspiration.
Horny Burden
The lead buffalo stands
Majestic, on guard
Surrounded by cows, their calves, and lessor bulls
Responsibility
Weighing heavily
***
A formidable pair
of horns deck his head
A natural defence, also a burden
In this fake man-made world
Where greed dominates
***
The hunter lines him up
Prepares for his shot
Bang! The bullet strikes, animal slumps forward
His magnificent horns
Will soon grace a wall
Before I depart, I must share this song by Flanders & Swann called The Gnu. It is about the head of a Gnu (which we call Wildebeeste) on the wall:
I must admit that I love Flanders & Swann and always have. I was a mighty odd little thing my grandma said.
John Finbow, a successful writer, and his wife Kay move into Southcombe Rectory, a large Victorian house that has been empty since the 1960s. It had previously been owned by the Cuthbertson family who had lived there for generations. Their marriage is under strain, as John, 39 would like children before he gets too old, but Kay, 34, does not.
When John is working in his study soon after moving in, he is disturbed by the sight of a young woman who appears out of the blue on his sofa. Emily Cuthbertson, whose old bedroom is now John’s study, was 25 at the time of her death and the youngest of 8 offspring of the late Reverend Arthur Cuthbertson and his wife Delia. Emily had died in 1868 but is now unwilling to leave behind her old life on earth, due to having missed out on a family of her own whilst being a companion to her widowed mother. Emily is still desperate for a husband and children, and John is the answer to her dreams.
One hundred and thirty years separate them. Will Emily and John’s love survive time’s relentless march?
My review
I have read a few of Stevie Turner’s books and found them to be interesting and well-written reads. I was of the view that her biggest writing strength was her ability to convert current topical issues into an engaging story, examples are child pornography and pedophilia (For the Sake of a Child), kidnapping and holding captive of women (A House Without Windows), cancer and its treatment (A Rather Unusual Romance), and the social problems facing transgender people (His Ladyship). Due to this thinking I was a little reserved about embarking on a paranormal read by this author. I am also an avid reader of well-known paranormal novels and I was concerned I’d make unfavourable comparisons to other authors and books I’ve read. I started small with Ms Turner’s paranormal novella, Finding David, and enjoyed it very much. I then decided to give Partners in Time a try. I am very glad I did as this is one of the most unique and enjoyable paranormal novels I’ve read in a long time.
John and Kay Finbow both grew up on a council estate in the UK and both are ambitious to improve their lot in life through hard work. When John’s writing of screenplays results in unexpected and significant financial success, he aspires to live in a country mansion and leave the familiar council estate. Right from the beginning, Kay has some reservations about the move and leaving behind her familiar environment although she is not close to her four sisters all of whom have busy family lives with their children.
Following their move into the newly renovated mansion, John reveals his strong desire for a child. He is surprised and taken aback by Kay’s revelation that she does not want children. The resultant discord between the couple give Emily, a woman who died childless in 1868 at the age of 25, the opportunity she has been waiting for to connect with a living man. John starts having visions of a young woman asleep in his office and he becomes quite distracted by her. Gradually, his interest enables Emily to become less ghostly and more of a physical apparition and he becomes romantically involved with her. This may sound like a fairly common story line, but what happens next is certainly unlike anything I have ever read before. It was most ingenious and I really take my hat off to the author’s cleverness with this story.
None of the characters in this book were particularly endearing people although Kay does soften over time and decides that having a child wouldn’t be that bad or destroy her life. I had sympathy for Kay because she had seen her own mother worn out with pregnancies and looking after children and she didn’t want to experience the same fate. She overlooked the happiness experienced by her sisters in their child filled lives because she associated children with financial struggles and worry. She had to work through her negative perceptions in this regard and I thought it was the right choice not to embark on something as life changing as a baby while she was uncertain. Kay’s character embodied a lot of the conflict I imagine women might feel having grown up in circumstances where keeping food on the table was a daily struggle. This aspect of the story was true to the author’s usual style of unveiling of social issues and I enjoyed it. The paranormal element was above and beyond and, for me as a reader, it elevated this book into a most unique story.
In the beginning, Emily seemed rather needy and devious as she was prepared to steal another woman’s husband to get what she wanted. As the novel progressed she evolved into one of the creepiest ghosts I’ve encountered to date and I found some parts of this book incredibly eerie.
If you enjoy a dark paranormal read with a side-dish of social commentary, then this book will be right up your street.
Friday – August 26 – Zigler’s News – Review & Guest Post – Lyndsay Elizabeth Gilbert
Saturday – August 27 – Closing Post – Writing to be Read – Guest Post – A.E. Lanier
Digital Giveaway
For a chance to win a free digital copy of Once Upon an Ever After, just leave a comment to show you were here. Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win. Three copies will be given away in a random drawing. (Yep. I literally draw the names out of a hat.)
Interview with compiler and editor, Kaye Lynne Booth
Please tell us a bit about yourself and your background in writing, editing, and publishing
I’ve been writing since 1996, when I sold my first poem, but I didn’t get really serious about it until after the introduction of the internet in 2008. I started out as the Southern Colorado Literature Examiner for Examiner.com, and from there moved into blogging on Writing to be Read. I was able to get my first book, a western novel, published through Dusty Saddle Publishing, and I even taught a semester of English Composition, before founding Write it Right Editing & WordCrafter Press. I currently hold both an M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a dual emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in Publishing, which I was just awarded last month.
Tell us a bit about your new anthology, Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales & Folklore
While earning my M.A. in Publishing at Western Colorado University, I studied under Kevin J. Anderson, and Draft2Digital offers them a grant each year, which is used to offer professional rates for story submissions so the students can get the hands-on editorial experience of working to compile the annual anthology. My cohort’s anthology attracted over 600 submissions, and not all of them were great, but they did receive enough exceptional stories to make the selection process very difficult. We couldn’t accept them all. My solution was to collect the contact information for the stories I liked that didn’t make it and create my own “By invitation only” anthology.
The only catch was that there were enough to fill three anthologies, so that’s what I did. Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales & Folklore includes stories which carried heavy fairy tale or folklore appeal on my list. While not all of the authors who I reached out to accepted my proposal, which offers royalty split instead of professional rates, I did end up with ten skilled and talented authors, and of course I included a story of my own. It’s available at many book distributors, including Amazon, through the Books2Read UBL link: https://books2read.com/u/mKdWGV
What do you think the benefits to writers are of having short stories included in anthologies?
Anthologies are a great way to add to your book catalog and offer additional projects to add to your resume, but they are more than that. All contributing authors benefit when the book sells, so it is in their best interest to pull together promotional efforts and extend their author reach through their co-author’s audiences. From the publisher’s point of view, I get to meet and work with some terrific authors will I increase the WordCrafter Press catalog of titles. They can be a win-win for all concerned.
Can you tell us a bit about the services WordCrafter Press offers writers and authors?
WordCrafter Press offers publishing services for authors who have a book they want published, (including editing services through Write it Right Editing Services), publication, and book promotion services, (through WordCrafter Book Blog Tours). I also compile and edit an annual writing contest and short fiction anthology, and an annual poetry anthology. WordCrafter Press can assist authors with their publishing needs at every stage.
What are your plans for WordCrafter Press going forward?
For the remainder of this year, WordCrafter Press has two more short fiction anthologies planned for release: Refracted
Reflections next month, and Visions in October. Each anthology will have a book blog tour during the week of release and I’m planning a big Facebook book event to celebrate all three launches for Halloween the end of October.
In the more distant future , I plan to add more of my own titles to the WordCrafter Press catalog, including a western series, which includes the re-release of my first western novel; a science fantasy series; a time travel romance; and continue with the annual anthologies, but I also hope to include more works by other authors as well.
About Once Upon an Ever After
Blurb
This unique and imaginative collection of eleven thought provoking fantasy stories will delight readers who enjoy stories of wishes gone awry.
What happens when…
A woman desires to carry on her family’s legacy, uncovering a long-buried curse?
A not so perfect witch casts a spell to defy age and preserve her relationship with her handsome shapeshifting familiar?
A time traveler longs to be the savior of knowledge lost?
An incompetent delivery boy becomes an unlikely savior of forgotten artifacts?
A magic mirror yearns for a different question?
A tiny story witch desires to share her stories with the world?
Spells are cast, unlikely alliances made, and wishes granted, sometimes with surprising outcomes. You’ll love this anthology of modern myths, lore, and fairy tales. Once you read these twisted tales, you’ll be sure to be careful what you wish for….
If you liked Gilded Glass, you’ll enjoy Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Myths & Fairy Tales, short stories with thought provoking themes, captivating characters and diverse cultures, from humorous to horrifying, from the legendary past to possible futures and back to the here and now.
Once Upon an Ever After is available for pre-order here:
I am over at Writing to be Read with this months Dark Origins post which features South Africa’s most famous ghost, the Uniondale ghost. Thanks for hosting, Kaye Lynne Booth.
Uniondale is a klein dorpie (small town) in the Little Karoo, Western Cape Province of South Africa. The town was formed in 1856 by the joining of two towns, Hopedale and Lyons. There is nothing remarkable about this agricultural town except its famous ghost story.
On the national road, not far from Uniondale, there is a turn-off that leads to Barendas. It is here that a young women hitchhiker is seen around Easter time. She is dressed in dark slacks and a shirt and has accepted many a lift from unsuspecting motorists. She travels with them for about 17 kilometres until the next turn-off to Barendas, and then she disappears.
The ghost is said to be Maria Charlotte Roux, an administrative clerk, who was travelling with her fiance, Giel Pretorius (some of the articles refer to him as Giel Oberholzer), an army corporal, from Pretoria to Riversdale. The couple were…
roberta-writes.com 