Who's next on my North of the Border guest blog series? Today we have Sharon Ashwood, author of Frostbound: the Dark Forgotten!
Where does Sharon get her inspiration? How is Canada part of her inspiration? Read on and see...
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Am I paranoid, or is that snowdrift staring at me?
When I took literature in university, the prevailing theory of my CanLit course was that nature was trying to kill us. At least, Canadian weather was—with a little help from our hungry four-footed neighbors.
Personally, I thought the early morning lecture time was far more likely to do me in, but that’s another story. For more on the death-by-cold-and-chipmunk issue, see Margaret Atwood’s Survival: a Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Yes, the same ever-cheery Atwood of The Handmaid’s Tale fame. Apparently when the patriarchy is done with us, Mother Earth gets a shot.
Once I graduated, I didn’t give that class much thought. After all, I now live on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, where there are palm trees and the most ambitious snowfall might reach the hem of my jeans. My herb garden is peaceable, the parsley free of murderous intent.
For the longest time, I believed my weather-induced paranoia was put to rest. But then I wrote Frostbound: the Dark Forgotten, which features that most Canadian of environmental moments, a freak blizzard. There’s a murder and a mystery, not to mention a host of paranormal goings-on, but the plot is deeply impacted by the paralyzing effect of ice and snow. While writing this story, I drew on my experience of growing up in real snow country. Memories came flooding back—including the one where I decided to live in a much warmer climate!
Footfalls in snow sound different when it’s really cold, when the air is so dry and frigid that the snow is more like salt than the sticky makings of a snowball. Voices carry differently, the silences between words profound. Stars are sharp and clear as gemstones and the crusted drifts like carpets of diamonds. I remember northern lights crackling over the house and snow piled up to the eaves. One winter the newspaper issued a certificate for survival because the daytime high temperature stayed well below zero degrees Fahrenheit for a month. It makes belief in a hostile environment far more reasonable once you’ve make it through that kind of winter. Did I mention I moved to a part of Canada that has palm trees?
But I was writing about Frostbound, which I’ve just re-edited and re-released in a brand new edition. As a writer, sense memories are pure gold, and I was able to fold many wintery details into my story. Besides the cold, there’s also the need for comfort and community, of neighbor helping neighbor, and the dull claustrophobia of being stuck indoors. Frostbound is my tribute to that experience and, even though it’s urban fantasy with shape-shifters and magic, the story is grounded in a lot of direct experience. The best fantasy is just an inch away from truth, after all. That’s what makes us believe in fairytales.
Giveaway
Comment on the blog and tell me your childhood weather memory—I’ll randomly draw a winner to receive a copy of the ebook Frostbound. Contest will close at midnight (Pacific Time) on February 10, 2019.
Every dog might have his day, but the hellhound guards the night …As a snowstorm locks down the city, more than the roads are getting iced. Someone’s beheaded the wrong girl, and vampire-on-the-lam Talia Rostova thinks it was meant to be her. Now she’s the prime suspect in her own botched murder—and the prisoner of her smoking-hot neighbor.
Lore is a hellhound, bred to serve and protect, so he’s not freeing Talia until he’s sure that she’s the prey and not the hunter. You’d think a beautiful woman in his bedroom would be a good thing, but trouble-prone Talia has run afoul of someone more sinister than your average lunatic killer. An ancient Undead is wreaking vengeance on the city—and on her—and Lore will have to go far beyond a stake to put him back in his grave …
BUY LINK: https://books2read.com/Frostbound
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USA Today Bestselling Author Sharon Ashwood is a novelist, desk jockey and enthusiast for the weird and spooky. She has an English literature degree but works as a finance geek. Interests include growing her to-be-read pile and playing with the toy graveyard on her desk. As a vegetarian, she freely admits the whole vampire/werewolf lifestyle would never work out, so she writes her adventures instead.Sharon is a winner of the RITA® Award for Paranormal Romance. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and is owned by the Demon Lord of Kitty Badness.
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Photo by Andy Falconer on Unsplash (Church)
