Tag Archives: Etta Jean

Guardians of our Lives ~ in Fiction and in Thought

It is time, dear readers, to return to the world of “Humanities Unbound.” Although there will always be a place in my writing and my life for my husband and for the caregiver in all of us, there is a time when we must return to the world at large. For this gentle shift back into that world, I have chosen to invite a friend to tell us about her book. It is a book about angels.  Not just any angels! Angels as something different and apart from demands placed on them by human legend and religion.

Please welcome, Etta Jean as she tells us about her new release, Shadow on the Sea.

SotS Cover

The concept of angels has always fascinated me. Even for those who are non-religious or unorthodox in religion, angels are an interesting concept that permeates our everyday society and culture. Coming at this from a more unorthodox point-of-view, I started wondering what sorts of beings might angels be if they were not religious in overtone. What if they were just a different race? Better, what if that race had somehow inspired our mythos around angels to begin with?

And, thus, Shadow on the Sea was born.

Scattered through my Lightling and Darkling races are plenty of tips of the hat to the legends they inspired and were inspired by. To fit such a rich history of a new race into a novelette is not easy, and I came at it by deciding to follow the life of a very special angel as she goes from birth, to her stages of evolution, to her final maturity. She brings you on her journey of growth, and I think you might just find yourself growing along with her.

Ceres is a world of angels, and love is their greatest heaven of all. We should all be so lucky.

The world of Ceres has been ruled for millennia by the winged race known as Lightlings. When the Chalice Kingdom celebrates the birth of the next crown princess, they have no idea just what events have been set into motion. The beautiful angel has a special, shadowy, gift, and only by learning to control it will she be able to claim the lover rightfully hers by destiny, and save her world from an evil bent on consuming them all.

Shadow on the Sea can be found on Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WDEMR6Q and http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00WDEMR6Q

Etta Jean was made in England but born in Sacramento, California. Her destiny as a bard was somewhat inevitable. Little else can explain how she constantly told her mother tall tales so outlandish that she couldn’t even get grounded for them. A love of worlds created by others eventually brought out the desire to create her own, and she has never looked back. She has seen both good and evil in her life, and her stories, like life, have no half measures. Her happy endings never come without cost, though, for she truly believes we can’t appreciate the good and the joy without the bad and the pain along the way.

Her current haunt is a comfy house in her beloved Sacramento where she wrangles three feline fur-kids and consumes peppermints like mana in order to balance a calendar filled with more creative venues than a sane person should realistically undertake. If she’s not chained to her desk, she’s stomping through the scenery in search of equally fantastical photographs.

Etta Jean can be located on the web at: http://www.ettajeanfantasy.com/ and ettajeanfantasy.wordpress.com

2 Comments

Filed under My Bookshelf ~ Fiction

An Interview ~ With Etta Jean on Chronicles of Summer

summerFrequently in the Alcove, we take the time to wander off into the world of fiction to see what the process of telling a tale does to enlighten the many facets of learning, thinking, exploring the universe.  Both the one we find within and the one we find without. A fundamental question in the quest relates to creativity.  Who does, what is it, how does it contribute to the history and future of the universe and to us as human beings.  From our most ancient legends and faiths, we hear that we were created in the image of one of more gods. That what sets us apart from all other life on this planet is the ability, the skill, the imagination to create.

One of my new friends from the world of writing and publishing is Etta Jean. Other than being a just plan delightful person to know, I find her artistic eye fascinating.  She will be releasing Chronicle of Summer, the second volume in her series this month.  I wanted to know how the heart and eye of the artist impacted her writing, her characters, and special kind of storytelling.  Here is Etta Jean on Chronicle of Summer, due out on Amazon on February 14, 2014.  (Such symmetry in that date; that should mean something very special)!

Etta Jean:

The ability to create is something that is deeply treasured by me. I’m the person who has to be careful trying new outlets because I’m sure to love it enough to want to keep doing it, and I have too much on my plate already. (There are only so many hours in a day.) That longing to create, I think, is something that often sloughs over into most any character I write. In SUMMER alone, there are three master artisans and there are others who are mentioned to love art as well.

Kelsey. Well, what can I say about Kelsey? She is a Master Weaponsmith who creates weapons so beautiful that they are works of art. She’ll stand over a forge for hours upon hours until she is satisfied, and like her surrogate brothers, she often forgets about time entirely. To me, the creation of weapons—despite their eventual use for bloody acts—is still an art. If you research old-school smithing techniques online, you will see people who have dedicated their entire lives to learning what machines cannot do—and that is an art.

C.J. is a weaver, and unlike his brethren in SUMMER, his power is only of the arts. Where Kelsey can use her fire to forge or fight, C.J. at best can create quakes to disrupt balance. Where he truly shines is when he takes sand into his hands and weaves clothworks of color and light. Blankets that keep a family warm. Tapestries so stunning they hang in a palace. His art is how he shares his heart with others when he simply can’t bear a city comfortably in person.

Roman is the most like me, I think. His art is not his career; he is a farmer who runs a windmill. Instead, he uses his art as an escape from the mundane. He etches glass with lightning to bring the tiniest details to brilliant life. He wakes in the morning and goes to his mill and then he returns to craft. It is his sanctuary.

That isn’t to say their artistic side has their downfalls. Poor C.J. is left without defenses short of throwing cloth at people, and Roman’s temperamental nature means he isn’t a happy Air Chronicle when one of his works gets smashed. Kelsey gets herself into the stickiest mess of all when her skills have her working for the Militia right as everything is going to hell. Their ability to create makes them, I think, more real, and it has a way to reach out universally so that a human on Earth can look at these Chronicles on another world and think ‘I get you. I know how you feel.’

Art is the great communicator in the end.

Bio:

Etta Jean was born in Sacramento, California and destined from birth to be a bard. She told tall tales while devouring the creative worlds of others until she finally had to create her own. She has seen both good and evil in her life, and her stories, like life, have no half measures. Her happy endings never come without cost, though, for she truly believes we can’t appreciate the good and the joy without the bad and the pain along the way. Her current haunt is a comfy house in her beloved hometown where she wrangles three feline fur-kids while constantly overbooking her calendar. If she’s not chained to her desk, she’s stomping through the scenery in search of equally fantastical photographs.

Info:

CHRONICLE OF SUMMER will be available from Amazon on February 14, 2014. Etta’s Summer Fest blog tour continues through February, and there are prizes to be won by commenting on the stops along the way.

CHRONICLE OF DESTINY, the original Chronicle tale, can be purchased from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Chronicle-Destiny-Book/dp/1940938104/

Stop by and check out her fascinating website. www.ettajeanfantasy.com

 

8 Comments

Filed under Humanties for the Unbound Mind, My Bookshelf ~ Fiction