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The Child of the Erinyes #8
Swimming in the Rainbow
***THE SERIES IS FINISHED!***
EVERY INSTALLMENT IN THE CHILD OF THE ERINYES IS NOW AVAILABLE, SEPARATELY OR In BOXED SETS!
Book Nine, the stand-alone finale of The Child of the Erinyes series. An epic reincarnation fantasy inspired by Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur.
AWARD HONOREE OF THE B.R.A.G. MEDALLION FOR OUTSTANDING FICTION.
***************************
Power-hungry dictators have broken the world and placed humanity’s future at risk.
Twelve-year-old Zoë knows nothing of these upheavals and political struggles. She has lived a solitary, fantasy-filled life in pastoral Germany, and is completely unprepared when a sudden, devastating attack destroys her peaceful existence.
With help from an extraordinary companion, she flees, barely a step ahead of those who pursue her.
Zoë’s odyssey challenges every perception of reality she has ever known, and she is brought face to face…
With the most important question of all.
***************************
THE END.
Swimming in the Rainbow brings The Child of the Erinyes to a close.
A note to readers from the This is Book Nine of an interconnected reincarnation series. The first three books, set in the Bronze Age Mediterranean, tell the story of Aridela and the two Mycenaean brothers in three main while arc one is completed in Book One, arc two is completed in Book Two, and arc three is completed in Book Three, many secondary arcs and nuances of the overall series plot are NOT resolved, but carry on from book to book. I liken it to the weaving of a tapestry, wherein I gradually add colors, patterns, and intricacy as the work progresses.
Those who prefer a story to be completely told and resolved in one volume will probably want to pass on The Child of the Erinyes, with the exception of Swimming in the Rainbow, which can be read as a standalone even as it provides closure to the series.
i invite you to check out the boxed sets, each containing three books in one purchase.
Happy Reading!
EVERY INSTALLMENT IN THE CHILD OF THE ERINYES IS NOW AVAILABLE, SEPARATELY OR In BOXED SETS!
Book Nine, the stand-alone finale of The Child of the Erinyes series. An epic reincarnation fantasy inspired by Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur.
AWARD HONOREE OF THE B.R.A.G. MEDALLION FOR OUTSTANDING FICTION.
***************************
Power-hungry dictators have broken the world and placed humanity’s future at risk.
Twelve-year-old Zoë knows nothing of these upheavals and political struggles. She has lived a solitary, fantasy-filled life in pastoral Germany, and is completely unprepared when a sudden, devastating attack destroys her peaceful existence.
With help from an extraordinary companion, she flees, barely a step ahead of those who pursue her.
Zoë’s odyssey challenges every perception of reality she has ever known, and she is brought face to face…
With the most important question of all.
***************************
THE END.
Swimming in the Rainbow brings The Child of the Erinyes to a close.
A note to readers from the This is Book Nine of an interconnected reincarnation series. The first three books, set in the Bronze Age Mediterranean, tell the story of Aridela and the two Mycenaean brothers in three main while arc one is completed in Book One, arc two is completed in Book Two, and arc three is completed in Book Three, many secondary arcs and nuances of the overall series plot are NOT resolved, but carry on from book to book. I liken it to the weaving of a tapestry, wherein I gradually add colors, patterns, and intricacy as the work progresses.
Those who prefer a story to be completely told and resolved in one volume will probably want to pass on The Child of the Erinyes, with the exception of Swimming in the Rainbow, which can be read as a standalone even as it provides closure to the series.
i invite you to check out the boxed sets, each containing three books in one purchase.
Happy Reading!
381 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 1, 2022
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Lochlann
15 books61 followersThe series is complete! All nine books (and some boxed sets) are published and available, including a box set of the entire series.
The Child of the Erinyes is a nine-book journey (Goodreads calls it 8, but it's actually 9) spanning nearly 4000 years: beginning in the Mediterranean Bronze Age, it follows the lives of a woman and two men as they are reborn seven times through history.
The author envisions her epic story as a new kind of myth, one built upon the foundation of the Greek classics, and continuing through the centuries right up to now and the future.
It has become her life's work to complete the series, though she didn't exactly intend it to be that way when she began.
Lochlann categorizes The Child of the Erinyes series as mythic fantasy, inspired by the myth of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur.
The Year-god's Daughter, book one of the series, is followed by The Thinara King, which precedes book three, In the Moon of Asterion. The series doesn't end there. Book four, a novella, The Moon Casts a Spell, is next; it introduces book five, The Sixth Labyrinth. Falcon Blue jumps back in time again to the magical Arthurian age. When the Moon Whispers, told in two books, and Swimming in the Rainbow take the reader forward in time to an uneasy dystopian future.
Thank you to everyone who has read my books and left their thoughts. It is much appreciated.
Lochlann believes that certain individuals, either blessed or tortured, voluntarily or involuntarily, are woven by fate (or the Immortals) into the labyrinth of time, and that deities sometimes speak to us through dreams and visions, gently prompting us to tell their lost stories.
Who knows? It could make a difference.
The Child of the Erinyes is a nine-book journey (Goodreads calls it 8, but it's actually 9) spanning nearly 4000 years: beginning in the Mediterranean Bronze Age, it follows the lives of a woman and two men as they are reborn seven times through history.
The author envisions her epic story as a new kind of myth, one built upon the foundation of the Greek classics, and continuing through the centuries right up to now and the future.
It has become her life's work to complete the series, though she didn't exactly intend it to be that way when she began.
Lochlann categorizes The Child of the Erinyes series as mythic fantasy, inspired by the myth of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur.
The Year-god's Daughter, book one of the series, is followed by The Thinara King, which precedes book three, In the Moon of Asterion. The series doesn't end there. Book four, a novella, The Moon Casts a Spell, is next; it introduces book five, The Sixth Labyrinth. Falcon Blue jumps back in time again to the magical Arthurian age. When the Moon Whispers, told in two books, and Swimming in the Rainbow take the reader forward in time to an uneasy dystopian future.
Thank you to everyone who has read my books and left their thoughts. It is much appreciated.
Lochlann believes that certain individuals, either blessed or tortured, voluntarily or involuntarily, are woven by fate (or the Immortals) into the labyrinth of time, and that deities sometimes speak to us through dreams and visions, gently prompting us to tell their lost stories.
Who knows? It could make a difference.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 2, 2022
As always when I sit down to write a review of one of Rebecca Lochlann’s books, I flounder. My intent is to convince readers that her writing is worthy of their time, but since my writing abilities don’t quite compare to hers, how do I craft a review that adequately describes her work? It’s a conundrum, but all I can do is try.
Within moments after beginning the book, I was transported to the world Lochlann envisioned and immersed in the narrative as if being enveloped within a lucid dream. Lochlann’s masterful description effortlessly conjures exotic, dystopian locales and her storyline ebbs and flows, ascending emotional heights and plunging into tragic depths like a hauntingly familiar melody, as all the while, plot twists are revealed like meticulously dealt tarot cards. The finale is a crashing crescendo, followed by a deep, satisfying sigh.
Swimming in the Rainbow is now my favorite of the Erinyes series. I will never understand how, as an author, Lochlann isn’t a household name.
Within moments after beginning the book, I was transported to the world Lochlann envisioned and immersed in the narrative as if being enveloped within a lucid dream. Lochlann’s masterful description effortlessly conjures exotic, dystopian locales and her storyline ebbs and flows, ascending emotional heights and plunging into tragic depths like a hauntingly familiar melody, as all the while, plot twists are revealed like meticulously dealt tarot cards. The finale is a crashing crescendo, followed by a deep, satisfying sigh.
Swimming in the Rainbow is now my favorite of the Erinyes series. I will never understand how, as an author, Lochlann isn’t a household name.
July 9, 2022
I thought that the fireworks and thunderclaps of the climatic end to the former theme of this series would make it a hard act to follow.
I was happy to find myself proved wrong.
The reader doesn’t need to worry. Though the action in this concluding instalment starts on a minor key, the dramatic tension and emotional intensity steadily build up piece by piece, like an orchestra readying for the dramatic finale of a symphony. The action here is excellently paced, the tensions exploding into a drama every bit as gripping as the story arc in the earlier books.
Zoë lives in an isolated castle or fortified manor house in the forested mountains Germany of the year 2090. This is approximately eighteen years after the dramatic conclusion of the epic struggle between the reincarnated personalities of the former Aridela, Menoetius and Chrysaleon of the Bronze Age.
In this era, after the upheavals, violence, war, catastrophic depopulation and environmental destruction of the previous age, outside the domed cities, the world has largely reverted to the technology – and to some extent, the class structure– of a former age. The population seems to be in terminal decline.
Deprived of the company of other young people, raised by a mother with some nervous problem, a loutish and unfeeling father, a remote tutor and a group of servants, the girl takes refuge in a world of fantasy centred about a friend who lives secretly in the Schloss. She calls this friend Teófilo, and confides all her thoughts to him.
He communicates to her a magic world, and she shared with him her passionate, precocious love of her favourite Victorian era author. She has a book of his poems with a photograph, and he is her idol.
Teófilo is protective of her. The advice he gives her is often strangely wise, if it has been made up only by herself. Other parts of it are mixed with her fantasy world:
“Blow the bubbles,” he whispered. “One of these days, one will—” “Yes, yes, wrap round you without breaking. I’ve heard this before.” “Transform me into the one who can grant your every desire.”
Zoë instinctively communicates with nature as well, particularly with trees. She is soothed by their ancient wisdom.
Then, one day, this life is shattered by an armed attack. Cannon damages the castle. Far worse, it ends Zoë’s childhood and destroys her only friend Teófilo.
She soon learns from her brutally indifferent father and rambling mother that although she is only twelve, she must leave home and entrust her future to a man she has never met before, a man of whom her parents are terrified. This is all part of the price of some arrangement that she never heard of.
It is, however, a relief to her that he reminds her irresistibly of her favourite poet.
They travel by horseback through a Germany largely reverting to a pastoral landscape. They are always pursued by their enemies:
‘We slipped through the dark like wolves, stealthily, our guards’ knives intermittently catching the gleam of moonlight like a wolf’s teeth.’
Somewhere near the borders they come on the ruins of one of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany:
‘Because the trees on the west side of this clearing were thinner and leafless, and a lot of the grey wall toppled into low piles of rubble, I could see almost all of the area it once contained. Wind keened softly as it blew through an inner fence made of solid posts and barbed wire. Two fences. Had they kept something in, or out?’
Zoë is only later to understand that this is the ruined remains of a concentration camp. This past genocide the ruin represents are symbolic of the later slaughter in the time so much closer to Zoë’s, and the horrors that the future might yet hold, if the wrong choices are made.
It is only when they reach her final refuge that Zoë gradually begins to understand how she is a key part of the future of the world
Zoë realises how her own story links with that of the struggle of the Erinyes, of the story of Erin Aragon. The struggle the Erinyes initiated is still incomplete: the forces controlling women’s destiny have yet to be overcome.
I was delighted not to be disappointed with this concluding episode to the Erinyes Series. It is as cohesive, as flowing in style, as page turning as the previous episodes, and if anything, the word pictures are even more evocative. There is, as others say, a poetic feel to the prose.
The new set of characters – I won’t write a spoiler and say if any of the old ones make an appearance – are as gripping and complex as the former ones.
If I have a complaint, it is an unreasonable one: I did miss the comic evil of Harpalycus. But his role in the epic, like that of the former Aridela, Menoetius and Chrysaleon, is complete.
Besides, and there is a pretty impressive villain.
I was happy to find myself proved wrong.
The reader doesn’t need to worry. Though the action in this concluding instalment starts on a minor key, the dramatic tension and emotional intensity steadily build up piece by piece, like an orchestra readying for the dramatic finale of a symphony. The action here is excellently paced, the tensions exploding into a drama every bit as gripping as the story arc in the earlier books.
Zoë lives in an isolated castle or fortified manor house in the forested mountains Germany of the year 2090. This is approximately eighteen years after the dramatic conclusion of the epic struggle between the reincarnated personalities of the former Aridela, Menoetius and Chrysaleon of the Bronze Age.
In this era, after the upheavals, violence, war, catastrophic depopulation and environmental destruction of the previous age, outside the domed cities, the world has largely reverted to the technology – and to some extent, the class structure– of a former age. The population seems to be in terminal decline.
Deprived of the company of other young people, raised by a mother with some nervous problem, a loutish and unfeeling father, a remote tutor and a group of servants, the girl takes refuge in a world of fantasy centred about a friend who lives secretly in the Schloss. She calls this friend Teófilo, and confides all her thoughts to him.
He communicates to her a magic world, and she shared with him her passionate, precocious love of her favourite Victorian era author. She has a book of his poems with a photograph, and he is her idol.
Teófilo is protective of her. The advice he gives her is often strangely wise, if it has been made up only by herself. Other parts of it are mixed with her fantasy world:
“Blow the bubbles,” he whispered. “One of these days, one will—” “Yes, yes, wrap round you without breaking. I’ve heard this before.” “Transform me into the one who can grant your every desire.”
Zoë instinctively communicates with nature as well, particularly with trees. She is soothed by their ancient wisdom.
Then, one day, this life is shattered by an armed attack. Cannon damages the castle. Far worse, it ends Zoë’s childhood and destroys her only friend Teófilo.
She soon learns from her brutally indifferent father and rambling mother that although she is only twelve, she must leave home and entrust her future to a man she has never met before, a man of whom her parents are terrified. This is all part of the price of some arrangement that she never heard of.
It is, however, a relief to her that he reminds her irresistibly of her favourite poet.
They travel by horseback through a Germany largely reverting to a pastoral landscape. They are always pursued by their enemies:
‘We slipped through the dark like wolves, stealthily, our guards’ knives intermittently catching the gleam of moonlight like a wolf’s teeth.’
Somewhere near the borders they come on the ruins of one of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany:
‘Because the trees on the west side of this clearing were thinner and leafless, and a lot of the grey wall toppled into low piles of rubble, I could see almost all of the area it once contained. Wind keened softly as it blew through an inner fence made of solid posts and barbed wire. Two fences. Had they kept something in, or out?’
Zoë is only later to understand that this is the ruined remains of a concentration camp. This past genocide the ruin represents are symbolic of the later slaughter in the time so much closer to Zoë’s, and the horrors that the future might yet hold, if the wrong choices are made.
It is only when they reach her final refuge that Zoë gradually begins to understand how she is a key part of the future of the world
Zoë realises how her own story links with that of the struggle of the Erinyes, of the story of Erin Aragon. The struggle the Erinyes initiated is still incomplete: the forces controlling women’s destiny have yet to be overcome.
I was delighted not to be disappointed with this concluding episode to the Erinyes Series. It is as cohesive, as flowing in style, as page turning as the previous episodes, and if anything, the word pictures are even more evocative. There is, as others say, a poetic feel to the prose.
The new set of characters – I won’t write a spoiler and say if any of the old ones make an appearance – are as gripping and complex as the former ones.
If I have a complaint, it is an unreasonable one: I did miss the comic evil of Harpalycus. But his role in the epic, like that of the former Aridela, Menoetius and Chrysaleon, is complete.
Besides, and there is a pretty impressive villain.
July 31, 2023
We are proud to announce that SWIMMING IN THE RAINBOW by Rebecca Lochlann has been honored with the B.R.A.G.Medallion (Book Readers Appreciation Group). It now joins the very select award-winning, reader-recommended books at indieBRAG.
June 18, 2022
Gorgeously written, and satisfying conclusion to the series. I’m a bit heartbroken for it to come to an end after all this time.
January 4, 2023
This was pure magic. A girl. A companion. A journey. Danger, heartbreak, and triumph. Simply everything.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews