Alastair Rosie's Blog, page 5
July 3, 2014
Angel of Mercy is Available Now
Angel of Mercy Cover image.
Well the big day has finally arrived. Angel of Mercy, the first book in my Chronicles of the Grey Raven series is finally available for purchase on Smashwords and Amazon. The book can also be found on Kobo, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, and Scribd as well. At $0.99 or £0.74 for UK residents it’s a bargain!
The book has taken a good ten months to write two drafts. Along the way there have been many discussions with my beta reader and number one cheerleader, Aileen Chapman who acted as my sounding board whenever I strayed into swampy ground. On more than one occasion she’s pulled me up and asked why am I taking it in that direction? Sometimes she backed down and other times she stood her ground and forced me to re-evaluate.
Angel of Mercy started out as Catriona’s Story, which was shortened to Cat’s Story. It was a short story that came to me after a day spent digging with the local archaeological group on the Castle Craig in Stirling. The hill is best known for the Wallace Monument that was built in the 1860s to commemorate Wallace’s victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. He watched the English troops crossing the river from the top of the hill and from that vantage point I found myself going back in time with a character I’d created recently, Catriona. I imagined she had been there, not at the battle but in the aftermath she was rescued by my vampires.
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July 1, 2014
Smashwords – Angel of Mercy – a book by Alastair Rosie
Angel of Mercy is now online!
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/446628
Now available on Smashwords. $0.99 in multiple formats. Want to review it? Email me on alastair.rosie@gmail.com for your free copy. Please include the link to your blog or website in the email. All contact details kept private. I hate spam as much as you!
Cheers.
Alastair Rosie
How Real is Angel of Mercy?
The events of the late thirteenth century actually happened. The Wallace of Braveheart is a rather badly constructed version of the real William Wallace and I’ve tried to the best of my ability to give a sense of what the world must have looked like back then. There may be errors in the book and if so then they are solely mine. Having said that there really was a place called Westertoun about where Tillicoultry is now found although I’ve yet to narrow it down to the thirteenth century, but we know there was a great swamp that extended along the sides of the Ochil Hills. I know there was an old Pictish fort at the old quarry because its existence was recorded, now nothing remains. My portrayal of women as being a little more outspoken than is usually thought is turning out to be a little more accurate thanks to revised interpretations.
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June 29, 2014
Vampires vs Ravens
Why call your vampires the Children of the Raven and not vampires?
Basically I wanted to separate myself from traditional vampire literature and create something entirely new and hopefully fresh. The raven was chosen as their totem because the raven was associated with battle. The Norsemen venerated the raven and the Black Morrigan of Celtic mythology is visualised as a raven. The Norse sagas refer to the two ravens that sit on Odin’s shoulders and gives them names, Thought and Memory, which I thought was a very apt description of my vampires because they are deep thinkers and have long memories. However the concept of the Black Morrigan also intrigued me because my vampires are warriors in the classic sense of the word.
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Who Are The Grey Ravens?
Who are the Grey Ravens?
For want of a better word they’re vampires although any comparison between the Children of the Raven and mainstream vampires is venturing onto shaky ground. Yes they do need a regular supply of blood to maintain their strength, they find too much sun dehydrates them, and they are vulnerable to sharp silver objects. But apart from that they look like us, work alongside us in their day to day lives and even marry mortals, usually for the purposes of maintaining their current identity. You could be married to one and never know it. The doctor you find so helpful could be a Child of the Raven. The detective who investigates a burglary at your house could also be a Child of the Raven and you will be none the wiser unless they deem it in their interests to reveal their true nature to you. The Children of the Raven are divided into ten clans, which take their names from various colours, blue, black, white etc. Clan Grey Raven is the tenth clan and the only clan founded by a woman. All the Firstborn clan heads are dead although there is some doubt as to Amalthea, the head of the Grey Ravens as no body was ever found. I’ve used the term Clan Grey Raven instead of Grey Raven Clan as the former is the correct order of words in Scotland. The Scots put ‘clan’ before the clan name as in Clan MacGregor or Clan MacDonald although you can use either form.
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June 28, 2014
Jana’s Account
Jana Ivanovich works for the Latvian Consulate in Edinburgh where her official title is Security Coordinator. Unofficially, she is attached to the Latvian Intelligence but refuses to divulge any information that might compromise Latvian national security. She agreed to speak with me on the proviso that certain questions be removed from my list. She did however agree to talk about her vampirism and certain aspects of her official role here in Britain.
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June 23, 2014
Angel of Mercy will be released on July 1st
…”You’re doin...
Angel of Mercy will be released on July 1st
…”You’re doing the interview,” she gives me one of those steely-eyed looks I’ve come to expect, “no argument.” Not from me but I’m wanting to know of her life before she became a vampire and Tabitha is quite happy to fill me in on the gory details and it was a messy business no matter which way you slice and dice it.
“Six men died the night the witch finder came for me,” she’s standing behind Jodie with a comb and for a moment as she stares into the mirror she looks as cold as ice.
“They put me in a witches bridle, it had four prongs that stuck into my mouth, two prongs held my tongue down and the other two were embedded in my cheeks so I couldn’t put a hex on them and then they suspended Iseabail with her arms behind her so that her shoulders were dislocated. They had already bound Siusaidh and made her watch as they pricked us both with a knife heated over the fire. They wanted to know the names of the other witches and to save us she gave them name after name after name. Some of them I’d never heard of but she told me later she just rattled off names to make them stop.”
She flicks the comb through Jodie’s hair as she continues her story… Read more…
June 22, 2014
Memories of 1297
Angel of Mercy will be released on July 1st.
In retrospect, how does the Wars of Independence impact on the debate over the referendum today?
Catriona: (frowns) Without reciting old poems or singing the old songs I would say it still has quite a big impact. Cressingham’s treatment of the Scots influenced English attitudes towards the Scots. The Highland Clearances, the ban on wearing the tartan, the cultural vandalism of the English when they suppressed the Scots way of life, our language was driven to the point of extinction. The prejudice is still carried on today, I saw echoes of Cressingham’s evil in Thatcher’s poll tax that was levied only on the Scots. Like the fat tax collector, she nursed a desire to crush the Scots for no reason than the fact they spoke a different dialect. The No campaign is based largely on fear and the casual racism that is part and parcel of the Westminster elites. These people have never had to find money for rent, food and shelter. Read more…
Tabitha’s Tale
TABITHA’S TALE
Of witch hunts, vampires and hair salons.
My editor was impressed with my last interview with DS Tom McIntyre but upon seeing a photograph of Tom beside Tabitha, the woman who cut his hair she winced. “Why can’t I look more like her.” That comment led to a phone call to Tabitha and a week later I broached my editor with the story idea. Tabitha would style her hair for free while I interviewed her and my editor. Up until now of course my editor, Jodie Green hasn’t met a vampire and it took all my powers of persuasion to get her into the salon. I think however the idea of a free makeover swung it for me.
Tabitha McLean was born Seonag Donaldson in 1590, her oldest sister, Siusaidh was born two years earlier and the youngest child, Iseabail was born in 1594. Their mother, Marjorie however, died in childbirth leaving their father, Duncan to raise three daughters. Duncan was a tenant farmer but when he died in 1605 it was left to Siusaidh to continue raising her two sisters.
“It was the way it was done back then. We had no living relatives nearby but my father had left instructions that if anything should happen to him then Siusaidh was to mail a letter to a woman called Morganna who was living in France. He left the address of a man in Leith who would see to it that the letter got to her.” We’re sitting in her newest salon located in Stirling and she’s hung a sign on the door and closed the salon to customers while she attends to Jodie’s hair. My editor has her head hanging over a basin while Tabitha massages shampoo through her hair. Jodie opens one eye gingerly and looks at her for a moment as she does the calculations.
“You look good for four hundred and twenty four.”
“Four hundred and twenty three,” she corrects her, “I was born in November, but thanks.”
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June 21, 2014
Excerpt From Chapter 29
To celebrate the summer solstice and to help promote my upcoming novel, Angel of Mercy, I’m posting an excerpt from Chapter Twenty Nine of Angel of Mercy, which will be released on July 1st, on Smashwords.
…We lit fires on the summer solstice and amazingly, Mairi seemed quite intrigued by the pagan rites. That interest abated swiftly in July when Pietro Angelerio was finally elected as pope after a two year impasse, he took the name Celestine V. Six months later he resigned and died a few months later under odd circumstances in prison. It wasn’t for another seven hundred years or so that a pope would resign his office.
At the midsummer festival I played my first solo piece on the fiddle, it was the tune I’d first heard Andraste playing months ago on the same instrument and it got a standing ovation from Sir Richard.
Well that’s enough for today. I’d better get back downstairs. Sammie bought herself a DVD of Titanic and wants me to sit and watch it with her. I told her a month or two back that I once bought a ticket for Titanic when I was living in America. I was to have boarded the ship when it reached New York. She was disappointed I never kept my ticket and I agree it would be worth quite a bit of money nowadays but back then what did you do with a ticket you couldn’t use? I threw it out and never asked for a refund, it seemed a little crass in my opinion.
In my next chapter I will talk more of 1294 and the role we played in bringing about the Auld Alliance but until then you’ll have to be content with this chapter…
Read more about the world of Angel of Mercy…
