A Beltane Bulletin....an Interview with Elise Harries

Lucky Wizard that I am, I met Sue Lobo, the brilliant expatriate poet last year, and every day, she brightens my timeline with a range of short poems on every topic from love to death. I noticed that a mutual friend of Sue's kept Liking the poems and to cut a very long story short, it was through this that I met Elise Harries, native of Essex and a writer of an interesting mix of crime fiction and Paganism.  I'm interested in both topics, so I picked up the Wizphone...and here's what she had to say.

The Tor: From the Somerset levels arises the famous Glastonbury Tor with the remains of a Church tower on top.  The Tor is an ancient Pagan site and is said in myth to be the Isle of Avalon of Arthurian mythology.  Many people regard the Tor is one of the most important spiritual powerspots in the world. 
FROM: http://www.themysteryexperience.com/mystery-experience-summer-holiday-5-day-retreat-31-july-2013-the-abbey-house-glastonbury-somerset-uk/

Hi Elise, welcome to the show.

Hi Wiz. Pleased to meet you at last.

The feeling is mutual. Tell us all about yourself, Elise?

I am a retired teacher  and was a dogsbody for my family, especially until 2005,when I finally plucked up the courage to divorce my ex husband of 20 years, during which time I had my confidence severally battered by verbal abuse and it was only my children who made life worthwhile.  I live in Essex and secretly wish to return to my origins somewhere in the Celtic Fringe, maybe near Glastonbury. (See above)

I started writing at the ripe old age of 4 with a story about 'A Fiers Old Man'. And have scribbled ever since when time allowed.  I started the book as a cathartic response to my divorce, which was painful, and centred it around my daughter and her friends they were my muse for the characters

Did your book fruit from your lifelong interest in literature? Or are you a professional writer?

Being born before T.V, I was surrounded by books. Before I could read my mother would quote Shakespeare to me and I soaked it up!  I have a passionate love of books which I believe I have passed on to my children. 

Vintage (and rare) Playbox annual
from Elise's collection

I still have some very old books which I won't be parted from, including the early PlayBox Annuals of the 1900's. Until my novel, I had never written professionally.

Describe your book, Elise. What are its critical elements?

My book began as a  crime story because I find that I am mostly watching crime programmes on the television. Before the murder had been committed I was looking around for characters and because my daughter, Louise was going through a tough time at school I wrote her into it for fun, but it soon took over and from then on I found my story was almost writing itself. There is murder, a whodunnit, Pagans, and Detectives. It's all in there.

Debut novel

I notice your book is an Authorhouse.  Tell us about this secretive and unusual publisher.

Whilst I was writing it The Daily Mail held a Book Fair, which I went along to thinking that it would help me break through this impossible barrier, that publishers don't want to read your book until you have an agent, but the agents don't want you unless you have a publisher.  

Authorhouse was one aspect of the fair and being innocent I believed all the Hype and came away to contact Authorhouse.  I spent a lot of money on the package and believed that I would get the printing done, a slot with Waterstones for book signing and 10 free copies.  What they didn't say was that the proof reading was down to me and paid per word and without any consultation about the various phases.  

Then when it came to choosing the cover, Americans do not understand the concept of a beacon, being a large bonfire and a pitchfork being a fork with two tines! 

My book signing never came about and even though my daughter contacted friends to encourage them to buy my book the price set was so high they weren't able to help promote in their circle.

That sounds horrible. Don't forget to consider Createspace for your next one, love. Print on demand, and all free.

For information only: Other Print on Demand publishers are available...

Thanks, Wiz!

You're welcome, Elise. Your tome has Pagan overtones and elements of witchcraft. How much is this from your experience and how much is from research?

             

My daughter Louise had developed a deep interest in Witchcraft and  I found myself drawing on my encyclopaedic memory dredging up the dimly remembered expose' stories of 'The People' and 'The News of the World' about witched covens and sex orgies from the 1960's.  Since my reading throughout my life had been wideranging I had had a Dennis Wheatley phase and remembered how he, a white witch, dealt with his scenerios and used a similar idea..

Christopher Lee in Wheatley's groundbreaking "The Devil Rides Out".
A massive fan, Lee has spent the past few years trying to get the film remade

....but I altered it because there is a high degree of Druidry teaching in the book as well, since it was about then that I realised that all my life I had followed a druidic path without really realising it. Thus it was that witchcraft came upon the scene.  Once I had the characters and the method, the reason for the murder slowly slipped in and finally I needed the settings, so I drew on what I knew: where I was living at the time and the fact that my son had recently gone to Buckinghamshire Uni.

Magnificent Fire Dance sequence from 

pagan horror classic "The Wicker Man"

I was visiting High Wycombe fairly frequently and reading up about that area I discovered that, that was where the Hellfire Club began and so I couldn't resist writing  something along those lines as well. That in a nutshell is the book and why it got written, especially when you consider the bad press Paganism generally gets I felt it was time to bring it into the 21^st. Century and have it helping the police instead of always being the bad guy.

Another crime fighting magician: Stephen Strange

Why is a Yew tree significant in ritual?

Yew is important to Pagans, witches and Druids alike because it is one of the sacred trees.  Its berries are poisonous but to the Druid, it also means rebirth, which is why it is brought in to the house at Yule.  The Druids sacred springs and shrines always had yew trees near them.  The Christians appropriated their sites and built their churches near.  The Yew is also one of the longest living trees because it can regrow where its branches touch the ground.

Yew at the bottom of the garden

Always wanted to know that, thanks Elise.

Think nothing of it.

I have one in my garden. I've seen darkly dressed women in pointy hats stare at it lovingly.

Must be witches, Wiz! Watch out, you might find it gone in the morning.

I've got Zoltan looking after it, Elise! So, which are you more interested in: witchcraft or crime fiction?

I am interested in all knowledge, I think of my mind as a sponge soaking up and retaining any knowledge, so they are both eaually important as any other knowledge.

Who is your favourite crime fictionist? And your favourite novel by him/her?

I don't have a favourite; I've read, Conan Doyle, Christie, James Patterson, Steve Berry, Will Adams and a host of others and liked them all.  If a book captures my imagination then I enjoy it whether it is mystery, historical, romance or any other.

Rare Sir Arthur Conan Doyle daguerrotype 

Upset with something you wrote in your novel, a sect of humourless druids known as the Druidarium kidnap you outside the Post Office, take you to a secluded wood and lock you in a gloomy cabin. A kindly minion, Unus, feels his masters have overreacted and, after they have departed, clumsily throws a hemp sack of goodies into the cabin. Three books. Two cds and one dvd. What would you like them to be?

The books are easy, Kings Deception by Steve Berry, 

Hidden by P.C. Cast 

Working Stiff by Rachel Caine. 

Can I have a candle and matches if the cabin is gloomy? The CDs and DVD's are more difficult, will there be a battery operated machine or is there electricity?  

Either way I would want Swayze and Moore in 'Ghost 

and the Ultimate collection of Elvis 

and Bitter Tears by Johnny Cash.

What could participants on TV’s “Come Dine With Me” expect to be fed at Elise’s house?

My cooking like my other interests is wide ranging, I like to cook Italian, Chinese, and wholesome British food, none of your burgers etc.

All round to Elise's house for a roast this Sunday!!

 What do fans of Elise Harries have to look forward to in the rest of 2013 and beyond?

I am currently working on the second book in the set.  It is retrospective looking back to here it all began and starts the wheel of the year.  I began 'On Beltane's Eve' in April 2005, hence that was where I found the title. Beltane (May Day) and now I have return to the start of the year- Samhainn (All Hallows Eve) for the nest. I cannot wait!

All Hallow's Eve Classic - "The Dance of the Vampires"

And neither can we. Elise, it's been an absolute pleasure to meet you around the Cauldron and we wish you every success in the future, especially with your second book.

Wiz, thank you...I have really enjoyed being on the show.

Paperback: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beltanes-Eve-Elise-Harries/dp/1434336344/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374050227&sr=1-1&keywords=On+Beltane%27s+Eve

Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/On-Beltanes-Eve-ebook/dp/B006EL30BU/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374050227&sr=1-2&keywords=On+Beltane%27s+Eve

Page: https://www.facebook.com/onbeltaneseve?fref=ts

Sanguinary: The Review

In 2003, I was a member of a forum in America called The Nook. 

It was quite a social place at a time when social networking was just beginning. 

There, I met a librarian from Watford. 

She told me her name was Freya and wouldn't give her real name even in private messages, of which, over time, there were a great many. 

Toward the end of our interaction, I was beginning to get excited at the prospect of some local weekend action, when lo and behold, she invited me down to Watford.

Then she told me what she did at weekends.

Along with a posse of like minded others, she spent her nights dressing up as a vampire, sleeping in coffins and...
...drinking the blood of willing donors and/or supplies stolen from Watford General. 

She was very candid about it. And she thought I would enjoy it and she wanted my company.

And for my part, while fascinated, I declined the offer. Naturally, our friendship petered out.

As my life collapsed like a rack of dominos in the next eight years, I forgot this story, but when I encountered Emma Edwards and her bloody tome "Sanguinary", it came back to haunt me like a legion of demons breaking down my door for a quick word.

Emma Edwards

An Interview with Emma Edwards
Original Interview from July 2013

Synopsis: Set in Cardiff, mostly in a nightclub called Domain, among goths, emos, rockers, metalheads and similar outcasts, Emma writes a quite simple - yet strangely complex - morality tale.  

Angel, the symbolically named heroine of the piece (who is anything BUT an angel), is a cub reporter for the local rag and she is sent to investigate the nightclub following a spate of gruesome murders in which the corpse is found drained of blood. 

Desanguinated, in the parlance.

Angel, a dyed in the wool counter-culturalist, neo-goth, rock chick and sex crazed thrill seeker is considered by her editor to be the ideal choice infiltrate the club. 

He's heard rumours of Sanguinarians - human beings who drink the blood of willing others. 

Not vampires, but something like.

Angel takes the job and before long is watching the lead singer of hot Manson-style rock band Erebis strut his stuff. 

Muscular, chiselled, pale, tattooed, challenging, feminine, writhing, taboo-breaking, in your face, he cuts a fine figure on stage. She notices a gaggle of young girls gyrating to his every move and she realises she is similarly entranced.

After the show, in the spirit of good journalism, she offers to buy him a whisky. He accepts. His name is Ash. And Ash tells her quite openly that the whole band drink blood for kicks...and despite her job, despite her ethics, despite...

...she begins to fall in love with him.

That same night, another girl is found in Cardiff docks, pallid and very, very dead.
____

Sanguinary is well worth a read. I think its a very, very good book.

This conclusion might surprise you.

I'm not in my twenties. I'm male. I'm not a fan of vampire fiction. I've never been to a goth club. I've never met a goth or an emo, nor have I spoken to a man who habitually wears make up in twenty years.

Yet I had no difficulty reading Sanguinary.  

In fact for several hours afterwards, I went through it and thought about it in some detail. Engaging, challenging in parts, and completely absorbing, the novel kept my attention. 

It has many, many strengths. 

Strong characterisation which remains concrete from chapter to chapter, a solid sense of place and a deliberate restriction of environment (the club, Angels house, the vampire's "crypt"), ensured a feeling of creeping claustrophobia. 

Emma has clearly walked in the moccasins of the protagonist because the dialogue, in parts, crackles like a sparkler on bonfire night. 

She has an excellent ear for banter, natter, and the way people speak, yet avoids the trap of dialect and slang and the use of interlocutions. 

This ensures a rattling fast pace, a sense of transferability (it could take place anywhere), and character-led reading experience.

The anti-heroine, Angel, is sexy, captivating, vulnerable, a borderline alcoholic, constantly at war with her demons and under pressure from her scathingly pristine and successful family. She makes mistakes, sometimes bad ones. For example, her treatment of her plain, straight and loving ex-boyfriend after she falls for Ash is disgraceful and dilutes much of the sympathy bankroll the reader has saved for her. She drinks too much, she is caustic, cloying and vicious at times, but there is a goodness to her that comes across - even if you sometimes have to believe.

As a heroine, you root for her and that's not always what you would expect. Emma clearly knows her readers, particularly the relationship that develops between the reader's experience and the familiar character in society - she's the type of girl who would ignite the Galahad, the Lancelot, the Martel in every man she meets and, as she admits on three occasions, be immediately willing to spit her saviour into the gutter.

And then there's Ash. If you are male - and this is a book suitable for both male and female - you are going to have strong feelings about Ash. That can go both ways...

Again, this is to Emma's credit.

Emma was originally drawn into the vampire genre by the lead character in "The Lost Boys".

Arrogant, offhand, cocksure, uncaring, dissuasive and unconcerned, Ash is every inch the Lestat symbol,  the sexual predator, the fanged beast of the night that trembles the heart and inspires the fevered breast.  He is written as a symbol of many things: There isn't much of a metaphysical leap between Ash gyrating on stage in his leather trousers, and the chilling pale-skulled Nosferatu sneaking up on the willing virgin in her chambers.

Emma writes him strongly, possibly the strongest written character in the book, sketched with a fine eye for detail.  

There are Heathcliff elements of him - the orphan, abandoned child, the dark presence - as well as the very definite danger of the ultimate Bad Boy - but Emma shows us slivers of light, explaining his blood drinking as every inch a curse, a circumstance, a quirk of medical fate and that there are other sides to him. 

I'm told women generally love Ash - and he's as good a reason as any to buy the book, because together, Angel and Ash are dynamite.

Dynamite. I'm not kidding: I mean, say what?!

The book exudes sex. It positively bleeds it. 

Some flowers are so productive, even their stems are fragrant; their stamen emitting pollen, their buds weeping copious juices as if the act of germination would be its very last.

If Sanguinary were a flower, and sex was it's fragrance, this novel would be one of these flowers.

The book has an unbelievable amount of sex per page. I mean truck halting amounts. The lovestruck duo never, ever stop bonking. 

If you like sex writing, you will love this book. 

Some good ones too. The  sex scenes that satisfy Ash's dark desire for bloodletting - the enthralling moment when Ash feasts on Angel's blood by opening an artery on her thigh, for example, an act which echoes Dracula, Prince of Darkness - are genuinely breathtaking and are worth the price alone. 

Obviously, Bad Boy symbol Ash is a tattooed sexual behemoth whose very presence inspires a cacophonous certainty of orgasm in all his women. Yet, Anne Rice wrote Lestat and his clan as asexual at best and impotent at worst and Dracula himself never showed much interest in sex, so he has to be human after all. Brilliant irony in the age of the vampiristic supermen. 

Emma is making a wry, social comment here - the good guy-bad guy sex angle - and indeed, there are three or four entertaining subplots to this affect, particularly the three cornered relationship between Jay, the lovestruck guitarist and friend of Ash, the vampiric singer, and Angel herself.

It's not a perfect book. 

Sometimes, you wish Emma would get to the point, the watchwords of today being space and economy. There are too many characters in the book and you end up not caring about two or three of them; they take up space. The murder scenes, written as vignettes, didn't convince me and I remember thinking I wish Angel and Ash would go down the Taj Mahal for a Bombay Duck and a big pot of Chicken Balti instead of going to that bloody nightclub again, but none of this stopped me enjoying the book. Nitpicking for balance.

It's a lovely typeset paperback with a beautiful, clean font and the whole thing inspires you to hold it in your hand.  It's now sitting proudly on my bookshelf.

Emma is a big talent that much is obvious. She has what it takes and she writes in the right genre. Its an innovative take on a traditional theme and she's pulled off the job - for a first novel, that takes a lot of moxy. 

I've already got the second book. Imbrued, (also featured on the Wizard's Cauldron). There is a third on the way and she'll complete it, no doubt. I'll be featuring on this too.

I heartily (and bloodily) recommend this book.  
Well done, Emma. Thumbs up from the Wizard.
_______________________________________

Incidentally, if you're a Kindlehound

Amazon UK   = 76p

Amazon US  = $1.23

You'd be crackers to ignore that. I mean, in Ali's newsagent, a Mars Bar is 70p and you wouldn't think twice.

Get your fangs in, your cloak on and download this to Kindle. You won't regret it.

And of course, no feature on vampire related topics would be complete without...

...the king of vampires himself...Zoltan: Hound of Dracula.

Merry Christmas.