Appendix of Names

During the earliest development of The Valley of Decision, I established this pattern of naming: of Gaelic origin, unusual enough that the names would not be common in our own world, but not too unusual. I avoided names like Ruairidh because it just looks too foreign. Who would care to guess how to pronounce it? So I ended with names like Torradan and Artek and Belenus – different, but easy enough.

I made various exceptions to this pattern – none without rhyme or reason, except perhaps naming the capital city of Alamir Ataroth. The rhyme and reason of the other exceptions will become clear.

This appendix is not a dramatis personae, listing the characters of the drama, but a compilation of the origins and meanings of many names in the book. Because of this, and how I began the naming process, there are some notable omissions. Neither Caél nor Keiran, the book’s heroes, appear in this appendix; absent with them are other lesser (but still important!) characters – among them all three lieutenants of the Hosts.

The reason for their absence is this: As part of my preliminary research, I made lists of Gaelic names that struck me as fitting the story. With the exception of the Fays (Fays are always an exception), the earliest-existing characters were named from this list without regard for the name’s meaning. Keiran, Caél, Torradan, Artek, Lachann: the cream of those lists.

Other patterns emerged. A majority of the Fays share names with Celtic deities, and several place-names are just two words with the space between them deleted: the Coldlands, the Wildheath, the Northwood. A few names, such as My’ra, have neither a particular origin nor a particular meaning, but the longer I worked on the story the more I rejected these. Even minor characters like Emain and Labras have names of Gaelic origin, and so of a certain flavor.


Appendix of Names
to
The Valley of Decision


Achadh: A Gaelic place-name meaning ‘field’

Ailill: ‘Elf’; the name of several Irish High Kings

Alaunos: The Celtic god of healing

Ataroth: An obscure Canaanite city conquered by Joshua and Israel

Brandr: A Norse name, meaning sword; Brandr was, after all, an earl of the northern Coldlands

Belenus: ‘Bright, shining one;’ the Celtic god of the sun

Dochraitay: A slightly more phonetic rendering of dochraite, a Gaelic word meaning ‘friendless, oppressed’

Droheda:: A slight alteration of Drogheda, an Irish city cruelly subdued by the English under Oliver Cromwell

Glahs (Forest): Glahs is Gaelic for ‘green’

Hrolfr: Norse, meaning sword

Jarmith: An alteration of the Gaelic name Jarmin, which means German – a foreigner in Ireland, as Jarmith was among the Dochraitay

Kobuld: This elder blacksmith of the Trow was named after the Kobold, a race in German folklore who were said to live in mines and be expert metalworkers

Morrigan: The Celtic goddess of, among other things, war

Muireach: A diminutive form of the Gaelic name Muireadhach, meaning ‘lord, master’; this is the least majestic name owned by a Fay

The Northmen: An old name for the Vikings, on whom the Men of the Coldlands were loosely based

Nuadha: ‘Protector’; the Celtic god of the sea

Sgrios: Gaelic word meaning ‘ruin’

Tullach: A Gaelic place-name meaning ‘little hill’

Volund: Of Norse origin; in legend, the name of a great smith

The Northmen

I am bringing down hobgoblins from the mountains, Men from the Coldlands. The Valley of Decision


The Men of the Coldlands were barbarians. That is the first thing to understand. They wore animal skins, sang of their war gods, and knew nothing of letters or runes. They forged bronze rather than iron into weapons, and decorated their chiefs’ tents with colored cloth and animal skulls.

And they were light-haired and light-eyed and fair-skinned, true children of the cold North.

The Men of the Coldlands are loosely based on the pre-Christian Scandinavians. The Roman Empire had conquered the British Isles, bringing civilization by the edge of the sword; many centuries later, long after the Roman Empire had turned to ashes, Winston Churchill declared, “We owe London to Rome.” In time, Christianity followed Rome, and it, too, taught and civilized.

But not in Scandinavia – at least not for centuries yet. The Viking Age began when the Vikings attacked the Holy Island, off the coast of England, from which missionaries had gone into Europe. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that “the ravaging of wretched heathen people destroyed God’s church at Lindisfarne.” At Charlemagne’s court, the scholar Alcuin lamented, “The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God.”

Heathen and wretched are minor insults compared to the judgment given by the Muslim scholar Masudi in the tenth century. After describing “the people of the northern quadrant”, with their “excessively white” coloring, he wrote: “The farther they are to the north the more stupid, gross and brutish they are.” Those in the “sixth climate .. are reckoned among the beasts.” (source: Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe)

In L.P. Hartley’s immortally wise words: “The past is a foreign country.”

When I wrote The Valley of Decision, this notion of the pale barbarians from the north guided my characterization of the Men from the Coldlands. I called them the Northmen, an old name for the Vikings, and gave the three chiefs Norse names: Volund (in legend, the name of a great smith), Brandr (meaning sword), and Hrolfr (meaning wolf).

Volund was the leader, and he called Brandr and Hrolfr his earls – a detail inspired, I admit, by the Viking earls of Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse. These names were also a kind of inside joke: Hrolfr was the earl who draped himself in the pelt and fangs of a wolf, and when Volund passes the iron sword to Brandr … yes, that was a deliberate pun.

The Northmen had little presence in The Valley of Decision, being the coming stormclouds of the story: growing nearer, darkening the landscape, but not yet here. When I finally made their acquaintance at the end of the book, I wished they had arrived sooner. There was no space left in the story to do justice to the pale barbarians and their collision with the more sophisticated – but still so fallibly human – southern people.

But such unexplored side-paths are what sequels are for.

A Little Thing

When I was writing one of the earliest scenes of The Valley of Decision, I came – while hastening to the main point, which was the introduction of Keiran, the Captain of the Hosts – to a bit moment where an officer clears the way for the army’s highest commanders: “Way for the …”

For the what? My first thought was lords of the army; I added to the notebook masters of the army. In the end I chose the latter title. True, both words mean essentially the same thing, but master seemed the less-used. Better, it seemed more visceral; in America, at least, our strongest cultural memory of addressing men as “Master” is of the slave-holding South.

So they – the five highest officers of the military, my principal heroes among them – were masters. I soon extended this principle of address to their society as a whole. I knew the Dochraitay, ruled for as long as they could remember by Belenus, would be a strongly hierarchical society, well inculcated with the idea of mastery. People could be owned. Didn’t Belenus own them?

When you read The Valley of Decision, you can learn a great deal about the characters’ relationships, and their estimation of each other, by what titles they use. Master was not a mere honorific in Dochraitay mouths, but a recognition of the speaker’s inferiority and a pledge of submission. Hence Keiran addressed the Fays, but only the Fays, as master. All the soldiers, even the three lieutenants of the army, called him master in turn. The lesser soldiers called the lieutenants master, and in their own turn assumed their absolute superiority over the Alamiri captive, and so the hierarchy went …

Caél, as the Captain’s right hand, was second in command of the army. It’s telling of his closeness to Keiran that he alone of all the Dochraitay never called him master. It’s telling of his subordinate rank that he frequently addressed Keiran as Captain. By contrast, Keiran never addressed Caél by his own title, though he might refer to him by it when speaking with others.

When dealing with foreign rulers – such as the leaders of Alamir, and even the King of the Others – the Dochraitay used the honorific lord, as their way of paying respect while subtly declaring their own freedom. The Sovereign and the King of the Others were lords because the Dochraitay did not have to obey them.

Even the fact that the Dochraitay incessantly call Jarmith Alamiri or the Alamiri tells its own tale. That was the most salient fact about him. When they referred to him as our Alamiri, it was wholly without sentiment: They meant only “our Alamiri, to keep and to do with as we like”.

My decision, in the beginning, to use masters of the army instead of lords was a little thing; I did not foresee then that I was sounding a note to be sounded again and again, throughout the book. But of such little things stories are made.

In the Beginning …

This (nearly) past year saw the publication of my second novel The Valley of Decision – the culmination of a long process that began six years ago. At that time, I had finished the manuscript that became The Last Heir and I needed a new project. I had never written fantasy, had never planned or even particularly wanted to write fantasy. But there were three influences coming together to lead me there.

First, there was Steven Curtis Chapman’s song “Burn the Ships”, in which he re-told the tale of how Cortes, well, burned his ships. (I should note here I’m listing the influences in reverse order of importance.) What captivated me in this song was the sense of radical commitment, the blazing will to never go back, even if only death lay ahead. This roosted in my imagination for a long while, before coming home in Keiran, the chief character of The Valley of Decision. (The burning of the ships also directly inspired Keiran’s destruction of Dokrait.)

Second, I was in those days repeatedly reading G. K. Chesterton’s poem The Song of the Wheels, whose phrases and lines recurred in my mind like a song. I eventually memorized it, and that was pure efficiency, as I no longer needed to go fishing up the written form. The Song of the Wheels is the song of “the little things” – “only men”, “a gasp is all their breath” – and how they broke free of King Dives and his hives “full of thunder, where the lightning leaps and kills”. I think I understand the poem better now, but I fully felt it even then, the oppression of the weak and the freedom they gained when they finally grew bold enough to choose.

My final inspiration was Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I had already read the books years before, but a new thought struck me regarding the story: Why were the Men enslaved to Sauron and Sauraman always enemies – usually to be defeated, occasionally to be pitied, but still only enemies? Why couldn’t they ever be heroes? I thought a rebellion of the slaves against their Dark Lord would have been tremendous. In my imagination, I could see some sort of captain of the slaves making a direct assault on the Dark Lord. While quoting Chesterton’s Song of the Wheels.

With this scene playing in my head, I began to consider writing the story of the slave rebellion against the dark lord. I took up the work of all writers, even writers who tell stories about imaginary people in non-existent worlds: research. I began exploring European folklore, and I grew intrigued by what I found.

The neat divisions of our modern culture – beautiful fairies, benevolent elves, mean goblins, grumpy dwarves – are wholly upended in the old stories. I was impressed, too, by how alien and sinister Faerie was to mankind in old-fashioned fairytales. Tolkien, I came to see, had rather glorified the Elves; certainly, in the old world where the tales of Faerie were first told, no right-thinking mortal was ever off his guard around faeries of any description.

These realizations came to impact deeply The Valley of Decision, which existed then as only the germ of an idea. I hope, in the weeks and months ahead, to explore how. With this post, I open a new series – “Through the Valley (of Decision)”.

Two Announcements

Golden Daughter, the newest novel in Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s Tales of Goldstone Wood, has been released to Kindle. In celebration, she has put her novella Goddess Tithe on sale for 99 cents until the end of this week. (Which is, sheesh, coming up.) Purchase Goddess Tithe here, and Golden Daughter here.

Golden Daughter

Sairu vowed to protect her mistress from all harm. But when assassins and deadly phantoms set out to hunt down Lady Hariawan, can one young bodyguard protect against enemies she can neither see nor touch? With only a Faerie cat and a handsome slave to help her, Sairu’s skills and loyalty will be tested to the limit.


Goddess Tithe

When a stowaway is discovered aboard the merchant ship Kulap Kanya, Munny, a cabin boy on his first voyage, knows what must be done. All stowaways are sacrificed to Risafeth, the evil goddess of the sea. But Captain Sunan vows instead to protect the stowaway . . . and a curse falls upon the ship.



In addition, I am running a giveaway of The Valley of Decision on LibraryThing until November 22. Check that out here.


The Valley of Decision

Far away, beyond the Northwood and the Black Mountains, Belenus rules the kingdom of the north.

How many centuries, how many thousands of years, he has held the north, no one knows. But when our distant fathers came over the mountains, he was there.

The Dochraitay are his servants – mortal Men, who live and die in the grasp of their undying master. They till and harvest Belenus’ fields, fight his wars, and bear children for his use.

When Belenus sends them over the mountains to destroy us, they will fear him, and we will fear them. But when the moment of choice comes in the valley of decision, hearts will be exposed.

Lives will shatter.

The world will change.

What no one ever guessed will happen.

– a wisewoman of Alamir

A Brief Fairy Tale

This brief fairy tale, originally written for the Prism Book Tour, is based on the story world of The Valley of Decision. One deep night, a mother of Alamir tells her child the story of another night, long, long ago …


One more tale? All right, my love; just one.

Long ago, the great father Athair led the first Alamiri up into the Rhugarch Pass. They were men of his clan, relatives loyal and strong. When they scaled the mountain to the Rhugarch Gap, they stopped for the night.

The men settled down to their rest; the fire sank into embers; the watchman grew drowsy. And a soft, soft pattering murmured into the camp.

Athair, great warrior that he was, woke and listened. Was it the wind? Was a fox slinking among the rocks?

A small, dark figure crept into the light of the dying fire. It stopped beside a sleeping man, and a stone dagger was in its hand.

With a roar, Athair hurled his knife and dropped the strange attacker dead. At his shout all his relatives leapt up from their slumber, drawing out weapons.

At that same moment, scores of small, fierce creatures swarmed into the camp. Athair commanded his men, and they stood back to back, in a circle around the fire. So standing together, they held the creatures at bay.

But the night was long, and their enemies were implacable, and the men grew weary. In the second watch, one cried out, “Athair, father of our clan, how long must we fight?”

And he said, “Until the morning comes.”

In the third watch, another cried out, “Athair, elder of our tribe, how long can we endure?”

He said, “Until the morning comes.”

When dawn broke over the mountains, sending pale rays of light shooting at the battle-torn camp, the attackers scattered and fled. But for one moment, Athair saw them in the light, and he knew them for what they were – the hobgoblins, the darkness-dwellers. And they, like the darkness and all dark things, fled with the coming of day.

Are hobgoblins real? I think so; don’t you?

Ah, but the candle is burning low, and now it is time for you to sleep. The morning comes, as Athair said, and it will be bright and good.

So sleep, my child; sleep.

Odds and Ends

So is it time for a news-and-updates blog post, a I-didn’t-have-much-planned-and-this-is-easy post? Yes, I think so.

At the end of May, I joined SpeculativeFaith as a regular contributor, posting every other Wednesday. In June I made my first two posts, and I’m scheduled to post my third this Wednesday. (Sneak preview: It will be about why Christian fiction is predominantly romance novels.)

Today, Anne Elisabeth Stengl graciously hosted me on her blog. There is an interview, a snippet from The Valley of Decision, and a giveaway.

The Prism Book Tour of The Valley of Decision has come to an end. In addition to the interviews and guest posts, I got a few good reviews. Melanie, at her blog Mel’s Shelves, wrote kindly about the ending: “There are lots of moving parts that came together in the end for a satisfying conclusion. I’m glad I had the opportunity to read this, and I look forward to reading more from this author!”

Tina at Mommynificent commented, “The characters were definitely my favorite part of the book. I really enjoyed coming to understand the complexities of the three main characters, who interestingly are all male. I also really enjoyed the unfolding mystery of who the Fay are and why they are a part of this world.”

Sara, writing on Platypire Reviews, also remarked on the characters: “Keiran, the Captain of the Hosts, was an interesting character. From the beginning of the book, I wasn’t quite sure what direction the story was going to go in, and I didn’t know what to think of him at first. As things were revealed and I got further in the story, I found myself rooting for him as a reader and enjoyed his character development.”

Which is just the sort of thing an author likes to hear.

Prism Tour Grand Finale: The Valley of Decision (mine!)


A themed book tour through Prism Book Tours.

It’s the Grand Finale for
The Valley of Decision
by Shannon McDermott

“A solid fantasy that wears its spirituality lightly yet effectively.”
~Kirkus Reviews (read the entire review
here)

We hope you enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about the characters and the story-book world of The Valley of Decision. Did you miss any of the stops? You can check them out below:

Colorimetry – The Mountains, the Moors, and the Hills
If you ever travel north beyond the Black Mountains, into the kingdom of Belenus, you will find yourself in a vast and varied land, a country of laws unwritten, unspoken, and scrupulously obeyed…

Katie’s Clean Book Collection – The Trow
Deep in the mountain Anuin, the smithies of the Trow house mighty fires. Those crimson flames imbue the stony heart of the mountain with heat, fill it with a pulsing red glow like living rubies.

Bookworm Lisa – The Fays
Belenus, the master of the North, does not often leave his glittering palace or his green hills. You are not likely, even if you roam his kingdom, to ever see him…

Distractions of Grandeur – Review
“The best story element involved the Fay, an elvish race who for once felt truly alien. She went beyond current stereotypes and really brought out the danger of these beings, even those one might count as allies. There were echoes of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, elevating the stakes and the narrative itself.”

Finding the True Fairy Tale – Interview
Which of the characters from The Valley of Decision was your favorite to write?
The main character, Keiran the Captain of the Hosts. To even attempt what he did, a person would have to be either very desperate or very confident of his own abilities. Keiran is the second, and he has an extreme self-assurance, and sometimes conceit, that I enjoyed using. He’s also bold, another fun characteristic for a writer to work with. And because he is a very able man, and has reason to be confident, his occasional conceit adds texture to his character and makes him more interesting.

I Love to Read and Review Books 🙂 – Ten Fun Things to Know About Shannon
(1) I was born in California but grew up on the East Coast.
(2) I have seven little sisters.
(3) I like sweet potatoes baked or boiled, with butter or with sugar, made into fries and made into pies. But I cannot stand them canned.

Wishful Endings – Dokrait and the Black Mountains
The Black Mountains are high and treacherous – so many sheer, soaring cliffs, so many monstrous boulders dangerously perched. Wolves teem on the mountains, spilling into the lowlands when the winters are long. Bears and the great cats prowl those hazardous slopes, too.

Kelly P’s Blog – Interview
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Pretty much. I was eight when I first decided (and declared) my ambition to write a book. Of course, it was years later when this desire to write took on the adult dimension of “This is what I want to do with my life, this is how I want to earn my living”.

Mythical Books – The Dochraitay
The Dochraitay possess the unhappy distinction of being the foremost servants of Belenus. They fight his campaigns against Alamir and the Islemen, they grow the crops and hunt the animals eaten by the Fays, they give up their children for the mines and the army and the palace of Muireach.

Brooke Blogs – Interview
2) What is your favorite part of the writing process?
When I take my scenes, written longhand in my notebook, and transcribe them into the computer, revising and polishing as I go. It’s easier than the initial writing, and I finish with a feeling of satisfaction. The scene is done! Until my editor gets her hands on it, anyway.

Coffee Books & Art – Interview
How did you come up with the title? Names?
The title comes from a Bible verse found in the Book of Joel: “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!” For the names, I established this pattern: of Gaelic origin, unusual enough that the names would not be common in our own world, but not too unusual. I avoided names like Ruairidh because it just looks too foreign. Who would care to guess how to pronounce it? So I ended with names like Torradan and Artek and Belenus – different, but easy enough.

Mel’s Shelves – Review
“There are lots of moving parts that came together in the end for a satisfying conclusion. I’m glad I had the opportunity to read this, and I look forward to reading more from this author!”

The Wonderings of One Person – The Alamiri
Long ago, the Alamiri tribes came from the distant sunrise lands – climbing nameless mountains, fording forgotten rivers. Their wanderings ended here, among the forests south of the Black Mountains.

The Written Adventure – Interview
3) What gave you the idea for The Valley of Decision?
The Lord of the Rings, much as it pains me to admit it. In those books, Sauron had legions of human slaves whose only purpose in the story was to fight the good guys (and get beaten). It’s not that Tolkien was heartless in his use of these characters – remember Sam witnessing one of them being killed and sadly wondering what his name was and if he even wanted to fight – but I came to think how good it would have been if Sauron’s slaves had staged a revolt. Why should all the heroes come from the free nations fighting Sauron? Why not from the enslaved nations oppressed by him?

Mommynificent – Review
“The characters were definitely my favorite part of the book. I really enjoyed coming to understand the complexities of the three main characters, who interestingly are all male. I also really enjoyed the unfolding mystery of who the Fay are and why they are a part of this world.”

Deal Sharing Aunt – Interview
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
If there is one message in The Valley of Decision, it’s that we all have choices to make, and we can’t escape it. Not making the choice is itself a choice. My principal character, Keiran, faces the ultimate choice: Rebellion or obedience, God’s way or his? But all the characters have to choose, and their choices mean risk and sacrifice and (sometimes) reward – just as our choices do.

Platypire Reviews – Review
“Keiran, the Captain of the Hosts, was an interesting character. From the beginning of the book, I wasn’t quite sure what direction the story was going to go in, and I didn’t know what to think of him at first. As things were revealed and I got further in the story, I found myself rooting for him as a reader and enjoyed his character development.”

Letters from Annie Douglass Lima – The Northmen
In the uttermost north, beyond even the kingdom of Belenus, icy mountain peaks look down on the Coldlands. The Coldlands are not on our maps, not even the borders. The Alamiri do not venture even to Belenus’ home, let alone past it. But rumors come to us – from foreigners, adventurers, and far-travelers, brave, reckless, wild men.

My Devotional Thoughts – The Hobgoblins
One more tale? All right, my love; just one.
Long ago, the great father Athair led the first Alamiri up into the Rhugarch Pass. They were men of his clan, relatives loyal and strong. When they scaled the mountain to the Rhugarch Gap, they stopped for the night.
The men settled down to their rest; the fire sank into embers; the watchman grew drowsy. And a soft, soft pattering murmured into the camp.

Christy’s Cozy Corners – Interview
What do you hope people take away from your books?
I hope that whenever someone finishes one of my books, they feel like they’ve been on a journey and it has ended well. Every story is about a character’s struggle for something, and I hope my readers will be able to feel that in my stories and be encouraged.

The Bookish Fairy – This or That
Chocolaty or fruity candy?
Chocolaty. Hands-down, 100%, all the time.
Get out of the house or stay at home?
Stay at home.
Winter or summer?
Can I pick spring or fall? I’ll go with summer.

The Valley of Decision
by Shannon McDermott
Adult Fantasy
Paperback, 416 pages
May 31st 2014 by SALT Christian Press

Where the Black Mountains pierce the sky, they divide the south from the north, Alamir from the kingdom of Belenus. Belenus, the undying master of the north, commanded Keiran – the Captain of the Hosts – to conquer Alamir. But the Captain is deep in conspiracy, and he has his own plans.

The Valley of Decision is a fantasy novel, a saga of slavery, freedom, and choices.

AmazonSALT Christian Press

Shannon McDermott is a Christian author of speculative fiction, as well as a humorous detective series called “The Adventures of Christian Holmes”. She has written both fantasy and science fiction, and has yet to decide on which one to like better.

She was born to Wisconsin, expatriates in California, grew up on the East Coast, and now lives in the Midwest. Her principal hobbies are politics, history, novels, and coffee.

WebsiteBlogGoodreadsFacebook

Tour-Wide Giveaway

– Grand Prize: $25 Amazon gift card and ebooks of The Valley of Decision and The Sunrise Windows (open INT)
– 2 print copies of The Valley of Decision (US only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Finis

After years of writing and editing, months of graphic designing and formatting and printing …

The Valley of Decision is done.

It is now available on SALT Christian Press (order now for free shipping!), and on Amazon, in both print and Kindle editions; the Goodreads giveaway ends after today, and the Prism Tour begins in less than three weeks. The adventure of this new book is beginning.


The Valley of Decision

by Shannon McDermott

SALT Christian Press
softcover; 416 pages; map

Paperback: $11.99
Kindle edition: $4.99

Where the Black Mountains pierce the sky, they divide the south from the north, Alamir from the kingdom of Belenus. Belenus, the undying master of the north, commanded Keiran – the Captain of the Hosts – to conquer Alamir. But the Captain is deep in conspiracy, and he has his own plans.

The Valley of Decision is a fantasy novel, a saga of slavery, freedom, and choices.


Praise & Endorsements for The Valley of Decision

The prose also frequently achieves a gentle cleverness … A solid fantasy that wears its spirituality lightly yet effectively.  -Kirkus Reviews

The Valley of Decision transports its readers into a fantasy world as rich and authentic as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The novel is high fantasy with a neo-medieval setting. McDermott’s characters and storytelling are not only credible, they are totally enthralling, imaginative, and original. She has created a trio of men–Keiran, Caél, and Jarmith–who cannot possibly be any more different from the other, but they forge an alliance of friendship and championship that is then capable of delivering a host of people and other creatures from the oppressive grip of the evil Belenus. Through their struggle and battle for liberty comes the revelation that we all have to choose which master to serve. It will either be the one that steals, kills, and destroys; or else the Eternal One, who is good, restores, and can set us free. -Dr. Brenda Ayres, Director of Undergraduate Research and Creative Writing, Liberty University.

Valley of Decision is a masterful tale of fantasy, friendship, and redemption. It is sure to inspire as well as entertain all those who read it. ~ Sarah Holman, author of Adventures and Adversities

Shannon McDermott is a promising young author who has created an intriguing story with strong plotting and character relationships. Readers who enjoy thinking below the surface of a novel will find much to think about here. Janie B. Cheaney, Sr. Writer, WORLD Magazine

A Blog Tour and a Giveaway

With the release of The Valley of Decision less than four weeks away, I have two announcements regarding the book.

Prism Book Tours will be doing a themed tour of The Valley of Decision June 16-29. It will have a story-book theme, journeying through the fantasy world of The Valley of Decision. I am creating a series of guest posts to be featured by bloggers on the tour, writing about Trow and hobgoblins and Northmen. (“In the uttermost north, beyond even the kingdom of Belenus …”)

I’ve participated in Prism Tours as a blogger, and I’m excited to have a Prism Tour of my own book. You see that post directly below this one, the Grand Finale of The Weather Girl? That’s what I’m looking forward to, a virtual tour of reviews and guest posts and interviews. Any blogger who wants to jump in is welcome. Visit Prism Tours to learn the details and to sign up as a reviewer (receiving a copy of the book), or to sign up to feature a guest post or an interview.

I also have a Goodreads giveaway of The Valley of Decision running until May 30. Goodreads restricts its giveaways to its own members, but becoming a member is easy, and being one is fun. If you are interested in entering, drop by Goodreads’ Valley of Decision page; you’ll find the giveaway there.

And the release of The Valley of Decision grows closer … closer …