The book is titled Old Blood and it was published in 2015.
What’s the book’s first line?
“They walked hand in hand down the misty tunnel, the slimy rocks slippery beneath their feet. For Briana, it was a wary homecoming.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Old Blood is about the love affair between a Banshee and a mortal and the chaos that ensues when their worlds collide. Aiden, the mortal, is sent by the leaders of the Tuatha De Danann (the court of the Irish fey) into Greenland to find and retrieve the Muse and her cauldron. After his trip begins, the group that he is with goes missing in the Greenland National Park. His lover, Briana, collects a group of allies, her mortal adopted daughter and Aiden’s tortured son among them, to go find Aiden. Their only clues are a fragmented phone call, and a horde of fear maddened sled dogs from the first team.
As the journey continues, Briana’s group reveals deep emotional traumas, complicated pasts, and tangled ropes of love that can twist them into a web of pain and despair. As they reach the point of no return, they find something. A house. A house on the side of a mountain… with a lawn in front of it. They turn to the house as shelter and find it a sentient, dangerous, and ultimately haunting experience.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
The house is actually what inspired the whole book. I had a nightmare about a house that was two levels, with a library that was dropped down so that it was halfway between the upper and lower levels, in between them. The house had a lawn in front of it, but it was on a mountain and just beyond the grass, it was snowing.
In my dream, the house was a trap, and it was killing people off. It was hunting us. I woke up terrified (I have frequent nightmares, so I have lots and lots of future book fodder), and grateful as well. I had a setting that I felt a deep, albeit perverse, connection with. Then all I needed were characters who would feel that same connection, and a country where that house would never have been found by modern scientists.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
This book is ultimately about the power of love and sacrifice. As much as my characters are supernatural creatures, they are all very human. They each have their own loves, hates, desires and quirks. It is about the blurring of the lines between good and evil, between love and hate, and between selfishness and self-sacrifice.
Also, if you’re looking for some bloodshed, some dark laughter, and a tiny smidge of cannibalism… come play with me.