Kevin L. O'Brien's Blog: Songs of the Seanchaí, page 47

The Genetic Roots of the British Isles

Back in 2008 I listening to the audiobook version of Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland by Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at Oxford University. In it he described how he had created "genetic archaeology", which uses genetic sequences to trace the origins of modern humans, and how he and a number of other researchers performed a survey of the British Isles to determine the origins of the modern British, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish peoples.

He used two sources for his genetic sequences. One was mitochondrial DNA, or mDNA; the other was the Y-chromosome, or yDNA. Mitochondria are tiny organelles that live inside cells. They have their own DNA, which is inherited through sex like chromosome genes. However, mDNA is only inherited from the mother. This is because the egg is filled with mitochondria -- it has the most of any cell in the body -- while the sperm has very few. These are located in a collar behind the head where the tail attaches, and are usually discarded after the sperm penetrates the egg membrane. Even if the collar gets absorbed as well, those mitochondria are so few that their DNA barely registers compared to the overwhelmingly huge amount of egg mDNA. As such, we all inherited our mDNA from our mothers, who inherited it from their mothers, who inherited it from their mothers, all they way back unbroken into the depths of the past.

Unlike mitochondria, only men have the Y-chromosome, but like mDNA, men only inherit yDNA from their fathers. They in turn inherited it from their fathers, who inherited it from their fathers, once again in an unbroken line back through the mists of time.

In this way, Sykes and his colleagues are able to determine which matrilineal and/or patrilineal clan any individual belongs to throughout the world. This also allowed them to establish the true genetic origins of modern Europeans and the peoples of the British Isles. While much of what they learned supports modern archaeology and anthropology, some surprises did spring up.

Perhaps the most profound discovery was that the mDNA demonstrated that all modern Europeans were descended from eight matrilineal clans. These clans are ancient; one is as old as 45,000 years, and all save one is older than 12,000 years. This in turn indicates that 88% of modern Europeans are descended from Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunter/gatherers. Up until then, archaeologists and anthropologists assumed that modern Europeans were descended from Neolithic farmers migrating out of the Middle East, and that they had overwhelmed and forced out the hunters. However, the genetic results indicate that only 12% of Europeans are directly descended from the farmers. This establishes that the farmers and the hunters co-existed peacefully for much of prehistory, and rather than being supplanted by farmers, the hunters adopted farming techniques.

This same pattern is seen in the British Isles, where the matrilineal clans demonstrate that the genetic roots of the modern British, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish peoples were established by 10,000 years ago at least, but there the big surprise was that Celtic ancestry forms the genetic bedrock of the islands.

At this point we need to be careful about what we mean by Celt. Genetics can tell us nothing about culture, so Sykes is not saying that these early people had the same language and culture as the Iron Age Celts. What he is saying, however, is that the same matrilineal clans that make up the genetic roots of the Irish and the Welsh also form the basis for the genetic roots of the British. With two exceptions, you can go anywhere in the British Isles and be virtually certain that the matrilineal ancestry of any person is Celtic.

The exceptions are the northern islands like the Shetlands and the Orkneys, and eastern Britain. There you have almost a fifty percent chance, give or take, of finding people who are descended from Scandinavian women. It is virtually impossible to distinguish between Vikings, Danes, and Normans by looking at genetic sequences; however, history and archaeology support the speculation that the Danes and the Normans did not import large enough numbers of their women to displace the native Celtic women, while the Vikings did.

Particularly surprising, however, is that there is no evidence of Saxon ancestry in the mDNA. This suggests that the legendary history of Britain is true, that the Saxons did not colonize Britain as many scholars have thought, but rather conquered it and then took local women for wives. Another surprise is that the Picts of Scotland, rather than being an isolated ancient people with nothing in common with the native islanders as some people have speculated, are in fact virtually indistinguishable from the Celts.

The genetic sequences of the founding clans of the British Isles indicate that most of the people came through the Mediterranean up the Atlantic seaboard through Ireland and Scotland, while others came across from northern Europe into southeastern Britain. There is no evidence for an influx of people from central Europe, then or later. What this seems to tell us is that the prevailing theory for how the Celts reached the British Isles, as a migration from central Europe between 500 and 200 B.C.E., is incorrect. Instead, what seems to have migrated was the language and the culture, possibly through trade. The genetic evidence cannot rule out the possibility of small migrational movements, but it can rule out a huge migration or conquest that would have displaced the older matrilineal clans. If there was any kind of migration, it left no traces in the genetic sequences of the modern people of the British Isles.

The yDNA sequences for the most part support the conclusions based on the mDNA sequences. Five patrilineal clans dominate the ancestry of modern Europeans, with three making up virtually all of the ancestry of the British Isles. Again, the Celtic clan predominates, though this time the Scandinavian clan and a Germanic clan form higher percentages, particularly in Scotland and eastern Britain. Here is where we find Saxon ancestry, though we still cannot distinguish between Viking, Dane, and Norman yDNA.

However, we can trace family names, and here the evidence compliments the genetic sequences beautifully: wherever you find a preponderance of Norman, Norse, or Danish family names, you find a preponderance of Scandinavian yDNA, and where you find Saxon family names, you tend to find Germanic yDNA (though the Saxons also have some Scandinavian ancestry as well).

The one major surprise to come out of the yDNA data, though, is that there is very little variation in local paternal sequences. This is in sharp contrast to the mDNA, which often has large variation in local maternal sequences. The variations come from mutations, and it is a truism that the longer a DNA sequence exists, the more mutations it will acquire and thus the greater the variation it will display within a local population.

yDNA does not violate this truism; in fact, it mutates even faster than mDNA, so at first Sykes and his people thought the patrilineal clans were very young, at best only a few thousand years old. Then they realized that what they were seeing was the Genghis Effect. This phenomenon is named after the Genghis Khan, who, when he invaded a new territory, killed as many men as he could catch and impregnated as many women as he could find. As a result, his unique yDNA sequence tended to predominate within that territory's male population, at the expense of the local, more varied yDNA sequences.

Sykes realized that the same thing had happened in the British Isles, that the low variation in the yDNA sequences indicated the success of a few powerful men in spreading their own yDNA widely throughout a local population. A classic example is the yDNA sequence that dominates the O'Neill clan and its offshoots. A significantly large number of men with O'Neill family names all over the world have this sequence; only the sequence attributed to the original Genghis effect occurs in more men. The one exception to this is the male population of the area of central Scotland called Pictland. There the yDNA is almost as varied as the mDNA, but this is explained by the fact that inheritance among the Picts was matrilineal, including chiefdoms and kingships. As such, there was never a chance for one male lineage to dominate.

As fascinating as all this is, it's main impact as far as the Medb hErenn universe is concerned is that it establishes a scientific basis for my fictional idea that the modern Irish are descended from a stock of ancient people who absorbed various invaders over the millennia without being drastically changed. I will explain more about this on the website when I post my page on the Hibernians.

Next eBook: A fidus Aranea

The next story in my schedule to be published through Smashwords will be:

A fidus Aranea

Wendy Stroud seeks help from Atlach-Nacha, the Spider Lord, to protect her family from her mother's abusive boyfriend.

This will be another sale ebook.

New eBook: Man Friday

I have just published my latest ebook:

Man Friday

Dame Differel Van Helsing has survived the attempted coup by her aunt, Miranda Pendragon, and has released Vlad Tepes Drakulya and claimed him as her quasi-slave. She is now ready to take over the directorship of the Caerleon Order and defend the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations from all paranormal threats.

Unfortunately, she is not yet out of danger. There are other forces that seek to destroy her before she can consolidate her position, and Aunt Mandy almost certainly had confederates. Any one of them could strike at any moment.

On top of all that, she knows very little about the capabilities and skills of her own staff. Though her father trusted and relied on them, she can't know if they would be a help or a hindrance in a crisis. Even Aelfraed her butler, his sister Mrs. Widget, and her bodyguard Mr. Holt, despite the risk to their own lives, would have arrived too late to save her from her treacherous aunt. Can she truly depend upon them?

And then there is Vlad. Potentially her most powerful asset, he could also be her most dangerous liability. Nothing short of divine intervention could stop him from destroying her and the Order if he so chose. Can she fully trust him? If she cannot, should she re-imprison him or destroy him? And if the latter, how?

This is a free ebook. It can be downloaded from Smashwords.

My eBooks Are DRM-Free

No, this isn't referring to some kind of adult-oriented content. DRM stands for "digital rights management". It's used to protect ebooks and other forms of software from being copied and redistributed. The idea is to prevent them from being pirated. (I'll say more about online "piracy" in another blog.)

Unfortunately, DRM goes beyond that. Once you download an ebook into a particular reader, you can only ever read that book on that reader. If you buy a new reader, you cannot transfer the book to the new reader, because the DRM interprets that as copying. It's a perfect example of smart software being incredibly dumb, though moronic might be a better word. DRM is smart enough to know when a file is being transferred from one device to another, but it's too stupid to understand that you aren't giving it to someone else but just placing it in a new library.

It would be as if your printed books refuse to go with you when you move into a new house.

In many ways, DRM is a solution looking for a problem. In my opinion, online piracy simply isn't the problem people claim it to be; certainly not to the extent that we should treat our own customers like criminals and penalize them for buying our product.

I mean, think about it. We ask people to buy our ebooks, then we restrict how, where, and when they can read them. On top of that, we put in statements threatening them with criminal or civil prosecution if they so much as copy it for a friend to read.

Does that make sense? We don't do that for paper books. True, even with a photocopier or a scanner and a computer, it would normally be too time consuming and expensive to make a copy that way, but people do do it. Besides, technically it's illegal for someone to resell a book, or even just give it away, but you don't hear frantic voices screaming for some way to protect authors from that.

Besides which, it's a solution that doesn't really work. DRMs can be hacked, so their ebooks can still be copied.

I would prefer to trust my readers. I offer my ebooks through as many retailers as I can manage, even providing links on my official website and my subsidiary author sites. I render them into as many different formats as I can manage, so they can be read on as many different types of readers as possible. I put in a reminder to support my work and the retailers who sell the books. And I don't prevent them from copying it if they so wish.

Taking a lesson from John McAfee, my ebooks are like apples, and if some of them get "stolen", I'll just grow more.

I didn't always think this way. Back in 2004 I tried to start a small print-on-demand publishing company that also offered ebooks of each title. I turned out PDF files burned onto CDs that were DRM protected. I even included the standard "copy this and we'll throw yer ass in jail, you @#$%^& scofflaw!" statement. My only excuse, other than ignorance, was that I was still under the delusion that traditional print publication, augmented by digital versions for nerds, was the only legitimate way to go, and traditionalists fear and loath the idea of losing control over how their books are distributed and used.

Whether my knew attitude is truly enlightened or just as delusional, only time will tell, but I am committed to this course of action.

For more information, see these articles:

Should Publishers Abolish DRM and Trust Customers Instead?

Protect eBooks Or Trust Customers To Do The Right Thing?

Readers, Authors and Librarians Against DRM

Coffee in the Dreamlands

I once wrote a story set in a pre-Industrial fantasy world (no, not the Dreamlands) in which I had a character put ground coffee in a cup and add hot water.

A friend who read it said, "Instant coffee?" So I changed it to tea.

But guess what? I was right the first time!

Turns out, if you're just talking about ordinary black coffee and not instant, decaffeinated, or Espresso, all four stages of coffee preparation have been going on for thousands of years.

So how do people in the Dreamlands prepare coffee? The same way.

Stage One -- Roasting: Roasting coffee beans is no different from roasting malt for beer or whiskey. In fact, the same people who roast malt will also roast beans.

Stage Two -- Grinding: Again, this is no different from grinding grain, except coffee is rarely milled as fine as say flour, and metal mills rend to be used instead of stone. But the same people who mill flour can also grind beans.

Stage Three -- Brewing: Extracting the aromatic oils using water. More on this below.

Stage Four -- Separation: Removing the brewed coffee from the used grounds. Child's play, or at least so simple I shouldn't even need to say it. Gauze, cheesecloth, and silk have been used as filters for hundreds, even thousands of years.

So, how do you brew coffee without electricity? That's actually quite simple, but it can be made very elaborate.

There are four basic methods of brewing, and of these, only pressure brewing is impossible in the Dreamlands. Actually, that's not strictly true, there are cafes that use manual pumps to force hot water through compacted coffee. It's not exactly Espresso, but it's close. And, there is a method that requires only heat; more about that below. But either of these require that the beans be ground almost as fine as flour.

Boiling is the most basic method, though this is actually a misnomer. You never want to boil coffee. That's because the aromatic oils are released some four degrees below boiling, but the bitter acids are released at the boiling point. Instead, the idea is to heat the water to boiling to kill off germs, then remove it from heat before adding the coffee.

You can put fine grounds in a cup, add hot water to them, and let them settle (just like in my story). This is called mud coffee, because the grounds form a fine "mud" at the bottom of the cup. Or, you can add course grounds to a pot, heat it to near boiling, let the grounds settle, and pour off the coffee. This is called cowboy coffee, though it could just as easily be called soldier or hobo coffee. Or, you can add super-fine grounded coffee to a narrow-topped pot called a cezve and bring the water briefly to a boil two or three time. This is called Turkish coffee, also Greek or Arabic coffee, and it is particularly strong and a little bitter.

Steeping is the same process as used for tea. The coffee can be placed in a French press, which uses a plunger to hold the grounds in place when the coffee is poured off. Coffee bags or "socks" can be used to hold ground coffee like teabags are used to hold tea. A vacuum brewer consists of a pot filled with water with a bowl fixed on top filled with coffee. A siphon connects the bowl with the pot with a filter between them. The brewer is placed on a heat source and as the water boils it is forced up the siphon into the bowl to mix with the coffee. When the pot is empty, the brewer is removed from heat, and as the air in the pot cools, it creates a partial vacuum that draws the coffee down through the filter into the pot, leaving the grounds behind.

Filtration is similar to steeping, except that the water passes through the coffee either more quickly or repeatedly rather than sitting mixed with the grounds for any length of time. The simplest method is known as Indian filter coffee. A two-chamber device is used with a filter between. Coffee is added to the top chamber and held in place by a pressing disc. Hot water is then poured over the grounds to seep through to the bottom chamber. Sometimes chicory is added to slow the passage of the water to create a stronger brew.

A similar but more elaborate method is known as Neapolitan flip coffee. A three chamber pot is used, the bottom full of water, the top left empty, and the middle filled with grounds and a filter. The water is boiled, then the whole device is flipped over to allow the water to flow through the grounds into the now bottom empty chamber.

A percolator consists of a pot with an inner basket sitting at the top of a tube. Water is placed in the pot and coffee in the basket with a filter. As the water heats up, it is forced up the tube into the basket and through the coffee to drip back down into the pot; this is called percolation. This continues until the water starts to boil, at which point the percolation stops and the pot is removed from heat. The basket and tube can then be removed and the coffee served right from the pot.

It's worth pointing out, however, that some Dreamers have created an ad hoc drip brewer using an alembic, retort, or pot still to allow the condensed steam to drip over coffee grounds into a pot. Though crude, it's based on the same principle as the modern Waking machine and gives good service.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The only pressure brewing method possible in the Dreamlands (other than the ad hoc manual devices mentioned above) is the moka pot. This is a three chamber-design like the Neapolitan flip pot, except the vapor pressure of the boiling water in the bottom chamber forces the water up through the grounds to collect in the top pot. This coffee is nearly as strong as Espresso, but has no froth.

10 Questions for Sir Differel Van Helsing

1. What's your guilty pleasure?
Cherry amaretto ice cream

2. Do you sing often?
I've been told my singing can wake the dead. I doubt that sincerely, but I have broken mirrors.

3. Have you ever taken a self defense or dance class?
Dancing, no, though Maggot and Team Girl have taught me a few moves. Most of my childhood and young adult life was spent in self-defense training.

4. If so, how'd it go?
I can now kill without drawing a breath.

5. If you could be any historical figure, who would it be?
Hmph. I'd rather just be the girl next door, but I suppose Elizabeth Tudor. Except I would tour Europe as a swachbuckling mercenary, then sail the Caribbean as a pirate.

6. Why?
Much more fun than ruling a country. Oh, you meant why Elizabeth. Because she was the one woman of history who most likely would have done those things.

7. Would you ever cross dress?
Too many people think I'm a man as it is.

8. Do you have a best friend that's the opposite sex?
Yes, Sir Gordon Bond Clayton of MI5. We dated a few times, but decided to be just plain friends.

9. What's one thing you can't live without?
Cigarillos. Though I suspect Team Girl may try to make me quit cold turkey.

10. Can I put bows in your hair?
Only if you have a death wish.

40 Questions For Team Girl

1. What's your name?
Eile Chica and Sunny Hiver. Together we're Team Girl!

2. Do you know why you were named that?
Sure. Whaddya think, we're dumb or somethin'? We're cognate characters to Otra & Winter from Girly. Eile Chica means "other girl" in Irish/Spanish, and Sunny's last name means "winter".

3. Are you single or taken?
Definitely taken! With each other.

4. Have any abilities or powers?
By ourselves, we're just sad, useless, incompetent girls, but together, we can accomplish anything! Our motto is, we'll go anywhere, we'll do anything!

5. Stop being a Mary-sue!
No way! We have too much fun playing in other people's fictional universes.

6. Uh...if you were in a fight with a strong wrestler, do you think you'd win?
Of course! Eile can beat anyone!
Umm, let's not get carried away here.

7. Riiiiight...have any family members?
I've got an Uncle and Sunny's got her parents, but we're only children. But Medb's our mentor and surrogate mother, and we've got lots of friends.

8. Oh? How about pets?
We've got Snowshoe Kitty, our mascot, though she's really part of the team.

9. Cool, I guess. Tell me something that you don't like.
That's easy! Housework. Yuck!!

10. Something that you do like.
Adventure!

11. Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do?
Adventure! Oh, and shopping, going to spas, eating out, making love like rutting weasels --- OW!! Stop hitting!

12. Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before?
We try not to, but sometimes we can't help it. We gotta protect ourselves, after all.

13. Ever killed anyone before?
Nobody human, thank goodness, but we've killed a few monsters.

14. What kind of animal are ya?
In the Dark Wood in the Dreamlands, Eile's known as Little Brown Weasel and I'm called Golden Kitten.

15. Name your worst habits.
Sunny drools in her sleep.
Eile calls me names when she gets mad.

16. Do you look up to anyone at all?
Medb hErenn, of course. Also we admire Sir Differel Van Helsing, and Pastor Sjauken.

17. Do you go to school?
I graduated with an MBA, and Sunny spent a coupla years in college, but we're not goin' ta school currently.

19. Ever wanna marry and have kids one day?
Sunny and I would like ta have a family, but we're not sure how ta make that happen.

20. Do you have any fangirls/fanboys?
Everyone who likes to read our stories!

21. What are you afraid of? I promise I won't laugh.
Eile's afraid of being alone and unloved.
And Sunny's afraid of being unable ta have adventures.

22..*snicker* Ok,ok. What color is your hair?
Eile's is seal brown, and mine is gamboge.

23. Eyes?
Sunny's are azure blue, while mine are more indigo.

24. What do you usually wear?
Clothes, of course silly!
Well, Sunny's a bit of an exhibitionist. You oughta see her bikini, when she wears one --- OW!! Stop hitting!

25. Ok. What's your religion?
We don't belong ta any organized religion. We do believe in God, but we're not sure which one, or even if he's a person.

26. Do you wish this quiz was over?
Is it?

27. Well it's not over!!
Cripes!

28. Anyways, where do you live?
In a three story private home, in a gated community in Denver, Colorado.
It's actually Medb's home, but she lets us live there and decorate it.

29. What class are you? (low class, middle class, high class)
I guess you could say we're middle class.

30. How many friends do you have?
Geeze, I can't remember. At last count I'd say 17, of which 6 are our best friends.

31. Wow. If you could change anything about you, what would you change?
Eile would like to have parents.
And Sunny wishes she knew me all her life.

32. If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? And I don't want no cheap answer, ya hear?
Throw a wild party for our friends, buy our own home, contribute to Pastor Sjauken's homeless shelter, and have adventures forever!

33. What are your thoughts on pie?
Delicious! Especially when eaten off of Eile's tummy. Yumm!!
I particularly love a slice of Sunny Cream pie.

34. Alright. What's your favorite food?
[together] Anything we can lick off each other!

35. Favorite drink?
Nothing in particular, though we are partial to port, and Irish Cream, and we celebrate with bourbon.

36. What is your favorite place?
Eile loves home. And posh hotels and spas.
And Sunny loves any place where we can have adventures.

37. Least favorite?
Eile doesn't like roughing it in the wild, or nudist camps.
Sunny doesn't like being shut in when the weather's storming outside.

38. Are you still wanting this quiz to end?
Promises, promises.

39. Yeah, well it's over.
Oh, poo!

40. Tag some people.
We don't know how. Sorry about that.

Interview with Medb hErenn

I, Medb hErenn, do forgive you ahead of time for any inappropriate question you may ask, and I do give my word of honor not to take offense, or kill you for the insult.

1) What gender are you?
[chuckles] Female, or is it not obvious?

2) What is your age?
I stopped counting at 3000.

3) Do you want a hug?
[licks her lips] Maybe later, and I will want more than a hug.

4) Do you have any bad habits?
A few...[places foot on interviewer's crotch]

5) What is your favorite food?
[laughs] Irish stew! What else?

6) What is your favorite ice-cream flavor?
Ach! Mint chocolate chip, with mead.

7) Are you a virgin?
[laughs] Fadó, fadó, fadó a bhí ann...

8) Have you killed anyone?
As many as the years I have lived, and more.

9) Do you hate anyone?
Yes, and most of them are dead.

10) Do you have any secrets?
[smiles] A few.

11) What is your favorite season?
Samhain. That would be Halloween to you, but it was far more to us.

12) Who is your best friend(s)?
I...do not make friends; it is a foreign concept to me. However, if any are, it would be Eile and Sunny.

13) What are your hobbies?
By which you mean activities undertaken for pure pleasure? Drinking, carousing, fighting, and sexual intercourse.

14) What is your favorite drink?
Mead. Though I am partial to anything alcoholic. My name can mean, "The Drunken Irishwoman".

15) When is your birthday?
That was never important, but I have been told I was born in the Spring.

16) What age did you die?
Well, technically I was not dead, but I suppose it was close; somewhere around 500. However, I came back to life again.

17) Are you nice or mean?
[grins] Nicely mean, thank you.

18) Are you social or shy?
Very social. [touches interviewer on crotch with foot]

19) What do you think of your parents?
I loved my mother, but she could be weak. I killed my father for what he did to her, but in the end he died with courage and honor.

20) What's your weakness?
Others would say it is my overconfidence.

21) How long can you stay under water?
I can go thirty minutes without air before I receive permanent brain damage.

22) What do you do on a regular daily basis?
[shrugs] The usual: eat, drink, fight, have sex.

23) Do you love someone?
Not recently.

24) When was the last time you wet your self.
[raises eyebrow] I beg your pardon?

25) What's your favorite band(s)?
None you would know.

26) Ever worn a dress?
Of course.

27) Willingly?
Of course.

28) What do you consider fun in the day-time?
Drinking, carousing, fighting, and sexual intercourse.

29) At night?
Drinking, carousing, fighting, sexual...how often do you expect me to repeat this?

30) Ever kissed anyone?
[smiles] Of course.

31) ...Of the same gender?
[grins] Of course.

32) If you could have any super power, what would it be?
I suppose, to have bullets bounce off my skin. I don't need any others; I already have them.

33) What's you're favorite thing to touch?
On a man, his bod; on a woman, her faighin.

34) Anyone loves you?
I doubt it.

35) What's your favorite colour(s)?
Green.

36) When was the last time you cried?
When was the last time it rained mead?

37) Do you have a pet?
Not currently, no.

38) What did you name your pet?
The question is pointless.

39) Are you crazy?
I must be, to have agreed to this interview.

40) What are you?
I am Medb hErenn, High Queen of the Fir Bholg and the Sons of Mileadh, champion of the Tuatha Dé Danann, protector of the Heidhbernigh, scourge of the Fomóraigh, and friend to the Daoine Sidhe; who stole the Brown Bull of Cúailnge from the men of Ulaidh and humbled the great Cú Chulainn. I am the shaman who is her own guardian spirit. I am the incarnation of drunkenness, lechery, and battlelust. I am the daughter of gods, the conqueror of demons, the consort of spirits, and the queen of men. I cannot be harmed by age, sickness, injury, or any weapon made by the hand of man. Any more foolish questions?

41) What's your nickname?
Ach! I have been called "Maeve of the Friendly Thighs".

42) Do you consider yourself a happy or a down person?
As happy as most, but not all.

43) If you were a superhero, you'd be...?
I was; I was called Macha.

44) Favorite movie?
There is not one that stands out.

45) What is your current occupation?
Mentor and surrogate mother to Team Girl. Believe me, that is a full-time occupation.

Next eBook: Man Friday

The next story in my schedule to be published through Smashwords will be:

Man Friday

Dame Differel Van Helsing has survived her aunt's attempted coup, and with Dracula as her quasi-slave she is now in a position to successfully defend Britain from paranormal threats. But will he be enough to protect her from other enemies who seek to destroy her before she can fully claim the directorship? And can she completely trust him?

This will be another free ebook.

New eBook: Post-Traumatic Redemption

I have just published my latest ebook:

Post-Traumatic Redemption

When Eile was turned into a vampire, her partner Sunny and their mentor Medb hErenn moved heaven and earth to find a cure, with the help of their nemesis, Dr. Mabuse. Unfortunately, that was not the end of her ordeal.

She must now come to terms with what she did, and find a way to assuage the terrible guilt she feels concerning what she did, despite the fact that she had no control over her actions.

This is a free ebook. It can be downloaded from Smashwords.