A Guest Post & Cover Reveal
by Melissa McPhail
Having been a fantasy reader for more years than any
southern-bred lady should ever admit, I’ve encountered some excellent fantasy
novels. Over the decades, I’ve watched many wonderful books rise to a height of
popularity, enjoy the thrill of riding that wave of reader buzz, and then bob
away to take their place on a shelf with others of like fame. With so many
outstanding fantasies rising and ebbing across the years, it’s easy for newer
readers to overlook some classics. Since I’ve been swimming this sea for a
while, I thought I would share a few favorites you might’ve missed.
All of these novels have inspired my work in some important way.
Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles
of Amber
“Amber is the one true realm, casting infinite shadows of
itself.” Only the royal family of Amber have the innate talent to
navigate the shadow realms of Amber, of which Earth is one such shadow. At the
beginning of Nine Princes
in Amber, the first book in the series, Corwin wakes in a hospital
with no memory of his identity. As he learns that he’s a prince of the royal
family of Amber, so also is he pulled back into his brothers’ and sisters’
perpetual treacherous vies for their father’s abandoned throne.
Corwin moves from one near-catastrophe to another, each one
often devised by a different family member, but his wit and his wry, cynical
view make all of his misadventures—and indeed, this series as a whole—a joy to
read.
The patterning described in my series is nothing like the
pattern the royal family of Amber must walk in order to manipulate the shadow
realms of Amber, yet Zelazny’s novels did provide a spark of inspiration for my
own realm of Alorin, where “all things are formed of patterns.”
Anne McCaffrey’s The Rowan
The Rowan is a
beautiful blending of science fiction and fantasy. The story follows The
Rowan’s life from a traumatic disaster on a far colonized planet through her
training as a telepathic and telekinetic adept with a powerful gift. Adepts
such as The Rowan form the foundation of space travel in McCaffrey’s tale,
which is part adventure, part coming of age, and part love-story. Ultimately,
in trying to save her true love, The Rowan births a gift that may be the key to
saving all of humanity.
The way McCaffrey described The Rowan made an indelible
impression on me. The Rowan provided the early inspiration for the Healer
Alyneri in my series.
C.S. Friedman’s Coldfire
Trilogy
This is one of those series that never really loses that
popularity wave. But in case you missed hearing about it the last time it
crested, the Coldfire Trilogy, starting with Black Sun Rising, is a must.
Gerald Tarrant is one of the most memorable anti-heroes ever
written. More admirable still when you realize Friedman wrote him long before
Mark Lawrence made the villainous blackguard interesting. In Gerald Tarrant,
Friedman presents a man of cold arrogance and bold evil—and makes you fall in
love with him, hook, line and sinker.
The artful way she crafted Tarrant inspired me to explore virtue
and vice in my own story’s cast of personalities. Some of my more alarmingly
compelling characters have Gerald Tarrant as their distant grandsire.
The Cover Reveal & Giveaway
Are you ready for the reveal of the new Cephrael’s Hand cover?
Because here it is!
What do you think? Does it do a good job conveying the
fantasy genre? Is it a book you’d be attracted to in the store? Does it make
you want to learn more?
Thank you for helping us celebrate! If you’d like to see the new
covers for books 2 and 3 in the series stop by www.MelissaMcPhail.com, and check them out.
Guess what else? The author is offering a special giveaway as
part of this grand event. Check out the Rafflecopter form below (it’s also
available at www.novelpublicity.com/cephrael-cover-reveal/) to find
out how you can win a Kindle Fire. Hooray!
Oh, and don’t miss learning more about Cephrael’s Hand and where you can pick up a copy—that’s below
too.
“All things are composed of patterns…” And
within the pattern of the realm of Alorin, three strands must cross:
In Alorin… three
hundred years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed
Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline:
Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three
centuries past earned him a traitor’s brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine
D’Lacourte’s mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his
race. But first he’ll have to find him.
In the kingdom of Dannym… the young
Prince Ean val Lorian faces a tenuous future as the last living heir to the
coveted Eagle Throne. When his blood-brother is slain during a failed
assassination, Ean embarks on a desperate hunt for the man responsible. Yet his
advisors have their own agendas, and his quest for vengeance leads him ever
deeper into a sinuous plot masterminded by a mysterious and powerful man, the
one they call First Lord.
In the Nadori desert…tormented
by the missing pieces of his life, a soldier named Trell heads off to uncover
the truth of his shadowed past. But when disaster places him in the debt of
Wildlings sworn to the First Lord, Trell begins to suspect a deadlier, darker
secret motivating them. Honor-bound to serve the First Lord in return for his
life, Trell continues on his appointed path, yet each day unveils new and
stranger secrets that eventually call into question everything he knows.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
No, wait, what? I didn't cross post my review to my blog?
Okay, check out the review tomorrow!
