The Dark of Noon and other stuff

I just finished Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King. I enjoyed it. Her Gruach was an interesting amalgamation of brash young girl with mature young woman well aware of her value as a political pawn in the game of kings. The use of the name Rue was a bit of a stretch but didn't distract me from the story. I found Dunnett's depiction of Gruoch more subtle and more powerful, but King's version is still impressive.

My favorite part of the book was the exploration into the Celtic ideals of Dark Age Scotland and the complexities of tanistry.

I'd recommend Lady Macbeth to anyone wanting another, more sympathetic viewpoint on this mysterious historical figure beyond the tortured, manipulative creature as portrayed in Shakespeare's play.

The Dark of Noon - a short story

A friend once asked me how I came up with book ideas. The stuff comes from all over the place. A piece of music, a cool sounding title, a documentary on TV. Anything.

My latest work which I'm scheduling to go up by the end of this month (unless something craters in the formatting--gawd, I hate Kindle uploads with the hatred of a thousand fiery suns) is a short story called The Dark of Noon. I got the idea for it from watching a documentary about the Ajanta Caves in India. I encourage anyone with even a smidgen of interest in ancient history to check out articles about Ajanta. It really is amazing.

While my story has nothing to do with these particular caves, they were the spin-off for all the ideas I tied to it - a gold mine of inspiration.

The blurb:

The dark of noon falls on haunted Anjanra, City of the Silent. The mercenary Sula will bring her wounded lover here in a desperate bid to save his life. Gods don't always answer prayers, but they sometimes make bargains, and Sula will trade anything for her beloved's deliverance--even her freedom and the right to die.

A tale of love and sacrifice.

This will also go on the thing that's eating my brain my website once it finally goes live (hopefully next week).