What's the first book in the Druids of Avalon series – The Grail King, or Celtic Fire?

» Good question! A lot of readers have asked this one. The short answer is...both!

The Grail King is the "official" Book #1 of the Druids of Avalon series, which chronicles the return of the Druids to their ancient home on the sacred isle of Avalon after having been driven out generations before by hostile conquerors. 

I consider Celtic Fire, which was released the year before The Grail King, to be a "prequel" to the Druids series. Set in the same time period as the Druids books, many of the characters in the Druids of Avalon series, including the heroes of The Grail King and Deep Magic (Owein and Marcus), were first introduced in Celtic Fire. Lucius and Rhiannon, the hero and heroine of Celtic Fire, also appear in the Druids of Avalon books.

How did you get involved with the Immortals series?

» I was approached by Alicia Condon, my editor at Dorchester for the Druids of Avalon series. Jennifer Ashley had pitched the concept of Immortals as a continuity series, and signed on to write Books 1 and 4, The Calling and The Gathering. Jennifer envisioned Book 2, The Darkening, as an urban vampire story, and Book 3, The Awakening, with a Scottish Celtic theme. The Druids series is historical paranormal, and Alicia thought I I'd do great with The Awakening, a Celtic contemporary paranormal. The series sounded very exciting, and a lot of fun, too, so I immediately said yes!

What was it like to work with the other authors of the Immortals Series? Did you have to interact with them a lot in order to make your story work? Do you enjoy working on connected books?

» As soon as the project got underway, Jennifer Ashley set up a Yahoo loop where she, Robin Popp and I could discuss everything to do with Immortals. We spent quite a lot of time on worldbuilding, the rules of magic in the Immortals world, characters (especially the villian characters common to all the books), and timeline continuity elements. The project was a lot of fun, since our creative energies clicked right away. We posted initial synopses and made sure elements of our plots didn't contradict what the other authors were doing. After that, we didn't critique each others' writing too closely, but conferred constantly on elements and timelines that needed to be consistent. Toward the end, we read each others' close-to-final drafts and teased out any details that needed to be revised for continuity among the books. Our wonderful editor, Leah Hultenschmidt of Dorchester Publishing, had the final task of spotting any minor consistency errors.

Besides your Immortal hero and witch heroine, you have a wide variety of Celtic secondary characters in Immortals: The Awakening -- Sidhe, Selkies, Demons, brownies, imps and sprites, to name a few! How did you think them up?

» Mythology is one of my hobbies, so it was really fun to delve into Celtic mythology to search for the perfect secondary characters in Immortals: The Awakening. The Scottish Sidhe feature prominently, of course. Leanna, one of my villains, is a leannan-sidhe, or love muse. These terrible, psychically vampiric creatures are the reason why so many brilliant artists die young. A leannan-sidhe's lover gains inspiration from the sex act, with which he produces magnificent masterpieces of art and music. The problem is, the artist pays for his inspiration with his life force, and soon ends up dead. Another favorite character is Pearl, Kalen's grumpy, ugly half-Halfling, half-Gnome housekeeper. The Unseelies goblins are Scottish nasties that tie right into the death magic surge in the Immortals world. And then, of course, there's Mac... So many readers have written to say they love Mac! I'm happy to report Mac will get his own book in October 2008, with Immortals: The Crossing.

Are your Celtic characters speaking Gaelic? Are they in Scotland?

» No. my Celtic characters aren't speaking Gaelic. The Gaelic language didn't exist during the time period of my books. Early Gaelic developed in the 5 th century, some three hundred years later. My Celtic characters are speaking Celtic, the dead language from which Scots and Irish Gaelic, as well as modern Welsh, Breton, and Cornish, are descended. Does my book take place in Scotland? Again, no. Celtic Fire takes place in Northern England, in the area of Hadrian's Wall, not far from the Scottish border. The Grail King takes place in South Wales and Southwest England.

Is the grail in The Grail King the real Holy Grail?

» This is a question I'm hearing over and over. The answer is YES! The Lost Grail of Avalon is "the" Holy Grail. In my own version of the Grail Legend, adapted from Celtic Legend, the cup from the Last Supper was brought to Avalon from the East by a woman the Druids knew only as The Lady. After The Lady disappeared into the swamp, leaving behind twin infant daughters, this plain wooden cup was found to have a direct link to the Deep Magic. When the Daughters reached adulthood, they encased their mother's cup in silver and added the magic of the Old Ones to the magic of the prophet from the East. They embossed the Grail with the Celtic/Christian symbol of the Druids of Avalon.

Will any of the minor characters in Celtic Fire get their own book?

» A resounding YES to that! Coming in August 2006 is The Grail King, Owein’s story. Owein, the teenaged brother of Rhiannon in Celtic Fire, is a Druid gifted – or cursed, some might say – with the Sight. Wearied of war with the Romans, who have taken everything he held dear, Owein wants only to be left alone in his solitary mountain dwelling. But when an vision leads him to Clara, a young Roman woman who, inexplicably, possesses magic known only to Druids, Owein’s life takes an unexpected turn.

Owein isn’t the only character from Celtic Fire who will take center stage with his own book. Marcus’s story is in the planning stages.

When did you make up your first fantasy world?

» As a child, to get back at my older sister. She often called me a pest, so I called her a...blurp! What’s a blurp, you might ask? It’s a big, hairy purple creature with a bulbous nose and skinny legs. Blurps live in Blurpland, on the shore of Lake Blurp, and they have the most interesting lives. Before long, I was so engrossed in writing and illustrating stories of Blurp adventure that I didn’t even notice my sister had stuck a masking tape line down the center of our room — until she informed me I would have to pay her a nickel every time I went on her side.  The only problem was, the door to the hallway was next to her bed...

I see from your bio that you’re an architect!  Why would an architect decide to become an author as well?  Aren’t designing buildings and writing books two completely different talents?

» Well, yes and no.  While it’s true an architect creates with space and form while a novelist creates with words and rhythm, the process they each follow is surprisingly similar.  The Big Messy Idea comes first, followed by refinement.  Multiple revisions, copious research, and minute attention to detail are important to both the architect and the author.  Another similarity?  Designing a building takes a long time — months and months.  So it doesn’t faze me to spend months and months writing a book.  I know I’ll eventually get to the happy ending.

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I see some of your releases are available as ebooks.  What is an ebook?  How do I read one?  Why would I want to? Do I need to buy special software? 

» An ebook is a text file of a book, usually downloaded instantly to your computer via the Internet.  Once you buy an ebook, there are several options for reading it.  You can print the book out and read it on paper, you can read the book on your computer screen, or you can transfer the book to a hand-held device like a PDA or to an ebook reader.  Ebooks come in various file formats, most of which are read with software you already have or can download for free.  HTML files can be read with any Internet browser.  PDF and MSReader formats are read with free Adobe or MS Reader software.  Other formats are read with the software that came with your PDA or ebook reader devices.

What are some advantages of ebooks?

» Price — ebooks are cheaper than their print counterparts.  Space — an ebook takes up no room on your bookshelf.  Portability — you can carry hundreds of books in your pocket!  Type size — with an ebook, words can be as big as you want them to be.  Instant gratification — in most cases, when you buy an ebook, you download it immediately. No schlepping to the bookstore or waiting for the UPS guy.

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