Ramblings From This Chick: Guest Post with Author Lee Roland and Giveaway

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Guest Post with Author Lee Roland and Giveaway

Please welcome author Lee Roland to RFTC. Lee is celebrating the upcoming release of her book Vicious Moon and has stopped by to chat. Please give Lee a warm welcome.

Lee Roland began her writing career in middle school when she wrote a short story for her brother. He turned the story in to his teacher as his own work. To his amazement and terror, the teacher was so impressed that she read it aloud to the class—and asked him to write another one.

Lee notes that, other than motherhood, she's never had an exciting job. She might have dreamed of being a lawyer, nurse or police officer, but finding the right person to share her life with changed her plans. Her only credentials for writing are a terrific imagination, life experience and the love of words in a good story. She reads voraciously, but particularly loves Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance.

Lee lives in Florida and is a full-time writer. She is a member of RWA National and the Florida based First Coast Romance Writers.

Before being published, Lee won many RWA Chapter contests and garnered a Golden Heart nomination in 2008 with her post apocalyptic novel, LILITH'S CHILD.

Lee is the author of the Earth Witches series published by NAL, beginning with VIPER MOON in 2011.

Places to find Lee:

| Site | Facebook | Twitter |

The Earth Mother

One character readers often ask me about in the Earth Witches Series is the Earth Mother. She does not have many on-stage appearances, but it is her will that drives the stories. She is often arbitrary and contradictory, making plans and manipulating in ways that she only occasionally reveals to her servants. The witches are born with power to serve her by their magic. Others are chosen, not to wield magic, but still serve her cause.

The Earth Mother was the first deity of humanity. She has thousands of names in every time and place where men have lived. The universal giver of life, full of mystery, she received widespread worship by the first humans.

The priests of the patriarchal sky gods labored thousands of years, at least until the 12th or 13th centuries, to destroy the earth centric beliefs of those who worshiped her as their primary deity—or at least to drive them into hiding. They still exist today, often not with formal worship, but as stewards of the land, battling the destruction of her world.

Each of the heroines in the Earth Witches Series sees her a bit differently.

Cassandra the Huntress is not a witch herself, but serves nonetheless. In Viper Moon (2011), Cassandra says of her: The Earth Mother is powerful, contradictory, often ill-tempered, moving through her world, possibly with a purpose, possibly not. At times she seems absolutely archaic, as if dumbfounded by the changes time has brought. The Mother rarely explains anything to me.

Madeline, the bitter soul in Vengeance Moon (2012), is not a witch. She is, with reason, less charitable: My mother was an earth witch, and like all the witches I knew she had served the Earth Mother all her life. The holy bitch had deserted my mother, her faithful servant, the night she died.

Nyx the witch/warrior in Vicious Moon, (2013) says: As a witch, I had to place credence in the Earth Mother and her choices. I’d been taught that the world itself was the Earth Mother’s corporeal body. Her heart was at its molten core. The magic was the blood coursing through her veins.

The rise of the strong female warrior-protagonist in today’s literature is testament to the Earth Mother’s enduring presence her world.

“A powerful witch might live a long time, but a single well-placed bullet could change that. While my preferred weapon was magic, I was not averse to shooting anyone or anything offering my sister or me harm.”

Ex-soldier and earth witch Nyx Ianira is working as a PI in San Francisco when she sees the last thing she ever wants to see: the Sisters of Justice—the mysterious earth witch police force. A Triad of Sisters usually means an execution mission, but the Sisters’ only goal is to capture and escort Nyx across the country.

Nyx is badly needed back in Twitch Crossing, Georgia, the place she ran away from ten years ago to escape the stiff rules and duties of being a true witch. She wanted a life of her own. Now she’s being dragged back to her swampy hometown because another life is in danger: Her little sister is missing, and Nyx is the only one who can track her down in Duivel, Missouri.

But the key to finding her may lie with dark and tempting Etienne—a sinister criminal with a fearsome reputation, a ruthless attitude, and a total immunity to magic....

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