BEST FRIENDS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

Erin says  . . .

Now that you know me and Seth a bit better, I thought I’d introduce you to some of our friends from Shenaya. The weird thing is, that although they lived a thousand years ago, we all knew each other before we were born. There, in the world of spirits, we promised to help each other break Reuel’s Curse when we were born into mortality. Although their mortal bodies died long, long ago, their spirits are still alive and well  . . . as you will discover when you read Cursed.

Because I love them so much, I wanted to show you what they look liked while still mortal. But, obviously, there were no cameras in Shenaya, and no paintings of them have survived, so to help you imagine what they looked like, I've posted some pictures that best represent them.

Drum roll as I present . . .

 

LADY SOPHIA OF NORIN

If you think I’m fiery you haven’t met Sophia! She’s a girl who could stare down a knife-wielding thug without breaking a sweat.

Shadow Lord Caleb summed her up best when he said: “Cobras can also hypnotise with their eyes. They can make their prey walk straight into their mouths. Just like I’m doing with her.”

As you can gather, Caleb’s and Sophia’s relationship was somewhat fraught. Although they were betrothed, Jared is Sophia’s soul mate, her one true love. 

JARED, WARLORD OF SHENAYA

Jared was a soldier, a brilliant strategist who, by the age of eighteen, was commanding the Shenayan army. Sarcastic, mocking and arrogant, he knew how to charm. But as much as Sophia loved him, she was under no illusions about him either, as you can see if you eavesdrop into their conversation:

“How could I forget, Sophia? In your view, we’re all savages and rats. Snakes too, as I recall.

Sophia laughed quietly. “And you’re the most outrageous rat of all, Jared.”

CALEB, SHADOW LORD OF SHENAYA

He was heir to the Shenayan throne. Talitha, his soul mate, best described him when she said Caleb was:  

“Fearless. Aggressive. Attacks the underbelly. Not afraid of lions. Not afraid of much, in fact.”

She’s right. Even Caleb’s father, the feared Marlthas, Overlord of Shenaya, was so wary of Caleb he would go nowhere without his trusted bodyguard . . . a cheetah named Terah.

But don't let that fool you about Caleb. He was a real hero.

TALITHA, OF AMMAROD

                                                 

She was my BFF before we were born. And although she and Caleb loved each other madly, she was an untitled commoner from a place called Ammarod. And her father was one of Marlthas’s greatest enemies. That did not make for an uncomplicated love. But, as special as Talitha is to me, part of her problem was that she was stubborn and naive. 

Seth and I had other friends there too, but this is enough to get started. I think Seth is excited to share more about them with you in the coming weeks. (Seth excited to blog? Yes, you heard right! If I can say one thing about Seth, he is utterly loyal to his friends)

And hey, what do you think of the pictures I chose to represent them? In case you’re wondering, they’re the faces of Marion Cotillard, Ben Barnes, Orlando Bloom and Elle Fanning.

SHENAYA - THE LOST CITY OF THE KALAHARI?

Seth writes . . .

Apparently it’s my turn to write again. Jeez, they do come up quickly. It’s worse than having to write essays for school. But what can a guy do when the girl in his life says ‘you will’?  

So, I thought I’d do something a bit different today. I’m going to tell you more about Shenaya. After all, it’s a real place, and Erin and I aren’t the only people who’ve been there. (Obviously, seeing as a whole bunch of people lived there before it was destroyed over a thousand years ago.) But what I mean is, we weren’t the only modern people to visit.

The Great Farin

In 1886, acrobat and circus impresario, The Great Farini (you Canadians should know him) wrote a book about a Lost City he claimed to have found in the Kalahari Desert. So impressed were his readers that he was invited to present his findings to the Royal Geographic Society in London. But he was a wily bloke, our Farini. He was actually in the Kalahari looking for diamonds, and he wasn’t about to share the true location of the Lost City with anyone until he’d found them. So he falsified the compass coordinates in his book. Since then dozens of expeditions have looked for the Lost City of the Kalahari. Very few explorers even glimpsed the ruins. There were two notable exceptions, though – apart from Erin and me of course. An air force pilot saw the Lost City from the air, but never found it on the ground. And a group of policemen chasing bandits stumbled on it at nightfall. By morning a dust storm had come up, hiding all trace of the ruins. The Kalahari guards her secrets well. 

So what did Farini find? I quote from his book Through the Kalahari Desert . . .

           

 “We came across an irregular pile of stones that seemed in places to assume the shape of a wall, and on closer examination, we traced what had evidently once been a huge walled enclosure, elliptical in form and about a mile in length. The masonry was of a cyclopean character. In the middle was a kind of pavement of long, narrow, square blocks neatly fitted together, forming a Maltese cross, in the centre of which at one time must have stood an altar . . .”

            This is pretty close to what Erin and I saw in Shenaya. The Fortress was a formidable structure, overlooking a huge lake that once covered much of Botswana. In its day, the Fortress was protected by high cliffs and massive rock walls. And the altar was definitely there too. I can attest to that. 

Sadly, I didn’t have a camera with me in Shenaya – I was lucky to get there with my skin intact – but I did take some photos of Farini’s modern-day ruins. How did I find them? That’s all thanks to the diamond Farini was looking for, but never found – the diamond Seer-Stone that took Erin and me back in time to Shenaya.

The remains of the Fortress perimeter rock wall. Makgadikadi Salt Pan, Botswana

For more info on Farini check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_City_of_the_Kalahari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Hunt

http://porthopetourism.ca/farini.html

Are you a two cow wife, or three?

Erin writes . . .

How much is that doggy in the window? The one with the waggily tail . . .

Okay, I haven’t lost it. Well, not entirely at least. That was a song my Dad used to sing to me at bedtime. I think it dates from some time back in the Dark Ages. But it brings to mind how marriages were conducted after mankind moved away from the classic fling-her-over-my-shoulder-and-haul-her-off-to-my-cave approach so favoured in earlier times. http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.com/2012/03/shove-off-while-i-grab-myself-wife.html

Civilized man now bought their wives.  And thus the dowry and bride price systems were born. What’s the difference? The dowry is what the bride’s family gave to her and her new husband at the time of marriage. It was to be used to set up a new home, and as an insurance policy for the girl against the death of her husband or divorce. Obviously, the bigger the dowry, the better the catch. Remember how the dying Henry Dashwood, in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, pleaded with his rotten son, John, to take care of his two step-sister, Elinor and Marianne, because they had no dowry, and thus no chance of decent marriages? Such was the fickleness of love . . . Marriage was often regarded as a commodity to be traded to better the financial position and status of the whole family, not to pander to the emotional needs of two individuals. Thankfully, dowries are now thing of the past in most parts of the world.

But, where I come from, in Southern Africa, bride price – or Lobola, as it is commonly known – is alive and well. Lobola – either cows or cash – has to be paid by the groom to the bride’s family before a marriage can be performed. The Lobola is supposed to strengthen the bond between the two families. But it also compensates the bride’s parents for the loss of their daughter . . . her affection? her attractive demeanour? Not a chance. Her hands and her back, used for labour in the workplace, the fields, or at home. It really puts the romance back into marriage, doesn’t it?

Like many South Africans, my mother employs a domestic worker to help in our house. Lizzie is wonderful, and she helped bring me up. She and Simon had two children together, but they were not married. Not because they didn’t want to be, but because it would have taken Simon’s entire life, working as a casual labourer, to earn the Lobola  - the equivalent of $2000 - her parents wanted before they would allow them to be married. So why didn’t Lizzie and Simon just elope? That would have made Lizzie an outcast, never to be welcomed back into the arms of her family. Too high a price for her to pay. In the end my Mom paid their Lobola. It was a good lesson for me. And it prepared me for marriage in Shenaya

SHOVE OFF WHILE I GRAB MYSELF A WIFE

Erin writes…

Nicholas Poussin: Capture of the Sabines

My mom is divorced. Twice.  And my dad is now living in Australia with his new, improved family. Yes, I know, I sound bitter. No doubt about it. As a result, the whole concept of marriage didn’t excite me at all. In fact, I was so cynical I believed the wedding reception should only be held after twenty years of successful marriage. After all, why spend money on a dress that looks like a pastry, a mile-long limousine, and a flash rock if it’s all going to implode in a few years?

Then I met Seth - and the lights went on. He’s my other half, the one who I want to spend eternity with. But for that to happen, my logic tells me we have to be married. (And definitely not in a pastry dress!) And Seth? Does he believe this too? Deep inside I think he knows we’re destined for each other. The trouble is, Seth doesn’t like having his choices dictated to him. But then, who does?

Which brings me to the second thing I learned in Shenaya about marriage…

The majority of us get to choose who we want to be bonded to. It isn’t like that in Shenaya. There they’ve taken the concept of arranged marriage to a new level, one almost as barbaric as man’s most primitive efforts at courtship…

Did you know that in ancient times (and even today in some of the more backward parts of the world) marriage was negotiated by conquest? Yes, conquest. One tribe would decide it was ‘wife-gathering’ time and would mount an attack on a neighbouring tribe, often slaying the men and older women before carrying off the maidens – no doubt kicking and screaming - as brides.

During these sorties, the wife hunters would always take their ‘best man’ along to watch their backs. If the girl and boy loved each other but had been forbidden to marry, he and his ‘best man’ would raid her home to kidnap her, leaving her family alive. Then the girl’s friends – her bride’s maids – did all in their power to help the lovebirds escape. Funny how traditions are born!

But, more often than not, it was just rape and carnage. In fact, the word ‘rape’ has his roots in Middle English, meaning the violent seizure of property, and in many cultures that is exactly what girls were – chattel.

For the girl the fun didn’t stop there. The groom spirited her away to a secret hiding place where the ‘marriage’ was consummated – usually by rape. Often this ‘honeymoon’ lasted a full month, thus ensuring she was pregnant by the time he risked bringing her back to civilization. After that there was no turning back… she was legally his.

(As an aside, the ‘honey’ in the ‘moon’ was added in later years when conquest ended. Now the groom and his bride spent a month in wedded bliss, sipping mead. Or so they’d like us to think. There’s the cynic in me again. But watch this space for my next post on Marriage by Purchase.)

Marriage by Conquest lasted for so long and was so common that just about every culture still has traces of it in their modern marriage ceremonies. For instance, in some parts of China the girl is taken to her marriage ceremony in a cage with her hands and feet bound together… a grim reminder of how life used to be.

I know, it makes my blood boil too. It was only after society moved away from these cruel practices that historians started calling us civilized. I wonder how history will one day judge us?

ERIN KNOWS SQUAT ABOUT FONTS

By now you all probably know that I’m NOT a blogger. I don’t like talking about myself and I’m hopeless at writing. For Erin it comes naturally, but then she’s kept a journal all her life. Although I’ll be the first to tell you how brilliant she is at everything she does, (did you know she can act? and she’s pretty much a walking encyclopaedia, thanks to all those books she’s read) but still, she doesn’t know squat about fonts.

I, on the other hand, do know about fonts and page designs. I’ve been drawing, taking photos, and Photoshopping since I was a kid. I even won a scholarship to the School of Art in New York where I’m going to be studying computer-generated imagery for movies.

That’s of course if I ever get out of Shenaya alive…

But rather than dwell on that gloomy thought, let me introduce you to our new blog layout.

The arms depicted in the graphic at the top of the page are Erin’s and mine. (You can see how beautiful she is just by looking at her hand.) We’re holding the diamond Seer-Stone that took us back in time to Shenaya. And that building is the Shenayan Fortress where most of the bad stuff happens. But you’ve got to read Cursed to find out more about that.

I also persuaded Erin to introduce some drop-down menus to the page. Check out the Soul Wars Saga and Torn Trousers links to find out more about our books.

Finally, please keep reading, commenting and following, because you’ve no idea how revved Erin gets when she knows you’ve been around.

Seth

Sit around for long enough... and you get tagged!

Erin writes . . .

Seth and I have been tagged by the Vivian from vivaciously-vivian.blogspot.com. To be honest, I was pretty clueless about what this meant (Seth even more so) but he applied his brain to the problem, sorted out the rules and now I think we’ve got it figured out. 

But for those who don’t know how this works… 

We have been sent a list of questions about ourselves which we have to answer. Once complete, we post our answers on our blog. And then we tag a whole bunch of other bloggers to answer a new set of questions devised by us.  

I think it’s a great way for you to get to know us better. Of course Seth doesn’t agree, but then he hates talking about himself. Anyway, he must just cope. 

Now for the rules:

The Rules:

1. Answer the questions that the tagger set in their post.

2. Create eleven more questions for the people you tag to answer.

3. Tag eleven people and link them to your post.

4. Let them know you tagged them.

5. Include these rules and the person who tagged you in your post.

Well, with the formalities understood, lets see what Vivian wants to know about us:

If there was a book (or series) that you wish had just one more book written that follows the first, what would it be?

Seth: Books? The only time I use books is to stop bits of paper blowing away. Okay, maybe not so bad. I’m looking forward to the next book in the Pathfinder series by Orson Scott Card. Travel travel is cool.

Erin: I would have loved Jane Austen to write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice.

Your favourite YA book cliche? What do you like about it? e.g. love triangles, vampires, etc.

Erin: I was very off fantasy for a long time (until I went to Shenaya, actually, where I discovered that the line between fantasy and reality is very thin) But even now I’m wary of fantasy – given that I’m caught up in my own miserable love triangle. 

Seth: A Jedi Knight. What else? And it hardly takes a genius to figure out why. After all, who wouldn’t want a light sabre?

Do you remember your very first book review? Which book was it for?

Erin: It was in Grade 7 and I had to do a review on The Diary of Ann Frank. I aced it, of course! I also got ten out of ten for modesty!

Seth: Jeez. How am I supposed to remember that?

How many hours do you spend blogging/reading blog posts per day?

Seth: I’ll handle that one… Erin spends WAY too much time on this thing. And WAY too much time trying to convince me to write too.

Erin: Thanks, Seth. I love you too.

Is there something in books that you absolutely do not tolerate? (for example, I don't tolerate excessive swearing)

Erin: I don’t like gratuitous violence, sex or swearing.

Seth: Slow, boring plotlines that go nowhere. Life is just too short…

A book that you'd like to see made into a movie! Any actors/actresses you wish would play certain characters?

Erin: I wouldn’t know where to start… give me time to think.

Seth: This could take a while. Erin might be my soul mate, but I’m under no illusions – she’s, the biggest bookaholic who ever drew breath. So while she’s thinking let me get in quickly… Ender’s Game. Also Orson Scott Card. The best coming of age story ever. And actors? Someone new and fresh to play Ender.

What is one of your peculiar fears or a pet peeve?

Erin: I’m embarrassed to say it, but I’m scared of the dark.

Seth: I take exception when people curse me.

In some of your favourite authors, what do you admire the most in them?

Erin: I love so many authors. I read so much, and not just fiction. In fact I think I prefer non-fiction because I love to know stuff…. Everything there is to know.

Seth: I told you. Don’t get her started on books because you’ll never stop her.

Your favourite ice-cream flavour is~?

Erin: Mint chocolate

Seth: Boring old vanilla. Sorry, but that’s just me.

If you were to magically appear in a book and aid the protagonist along with his/her journey through the book, which book would it be?

Erin: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, and I would have sorted out John Thornton’s  mother in no time.

Seth:  Thanks, but no thanks. My life is complicate enough without dropping into someone some other klutz’s story.

Would you see yourself blogging 5 years from now? 10?

Erin. Of course! I love it.

Seth: Not a chance. If I had my way I wouldn’t even be blogging now…

Erin: Please excuse Seth, but he doesn’t really mean that.

Now for our Eleven Questions

1. If you could be any character from any book for a day, who would you be?

2. If you could live in any age or time-frame, when would that be?

3. What physical feature would you change about yourself?

4. What movie stands out from your childhood?

5. What book made the greatest impression on you?

6. If you could take an inter-stellar trip, would you?

7. Is there a country or place you have to see before you die?

8. Do you believe in angels, and if so, why?

9.   What kind of music do you listen to?

10.  Which do you prefer, sweet or savoury?

11.  Which is your most romantic mode of travel? Train, boat, or plane?

And the lucky ones Erin and I are tagging are:

Kirtsin @ shewhirler.com

Sherri @ sherriwilsonjohnson.com

Melliane @ betweendandr.blogspot.com

Ursula @ readerscorner-ursula.

Zara @ zaraalexis.wordpress.com

Carol @ carolaspradling

Meredith @ meredithbond.com

Foundbetweenpages @ foundbetweenpages

Melissa @ harleybearbookblog

Emily @ hookedinabook

Angelya @ oakenbookcase

We got off with a bang... thanks to you

Erin writes . . .

I'm almost bouncing off the roof with excitement.

Yes, you guessed it. This is Erin writing. Seth is way too laid-back - guarded, actually - to ever bounce.

So why I am so hyped, you ask. Simple. Our blog had an AMAZING 822 page hits in February - and we only started it at the beginning of the month.  So a HUGE thank you to all of you who visited us. And an even bigger bouquet goes to those of you who stayed and come back for more. Seth and I really appreciate it.

So what do we have in store for you in March? Well, what follows logically from love - and curses? Marriage, obviously.

(There are many a married couple out there who would happily consider their marriage vows to be a curse... (Seth told me to add that))

But away with the cynicism.

Marriage in March. Watch this space as we delve into all the strange and wondrous marriage customs from the days when bedsheets were checked and offerings made to the gods.

And as the soothsayer said, "Beware the Ides of March."

Erin and Seth