Ennara and the Fallen Druid [Ennara #1]

A Note from Angela

If this story seems short (which it is), I'll explain why here and now. In the early spring of 2012, my twins were four months old. I was sleep deprived, taking naps whenever the two babies happened to coordinate their sleeping arrangements (which was infrequent). I was recovering physically from giving natural birth to two babies at once, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, is uncommon in this day and age. Despite being tired and busier than I'd ever been before, I needed to use the opportunity maternity leave presented me with to do something I've always wanted to do—write novels.

Needless to say, when I wasn't exhausted or famished, I wrote in every stolen moment when the babes were peaceful. This book was written in ten to twenty-minute increments over the course of nine months.

Several bits of life, myth, and history influenced this story. Most of all, my early experiences of Dungeons and Dragons, which I played as a kid during long cold winters in Canada. Later experiences of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, which I happily used to blow off steam when working as a technical writer, came into the story in terms of setting and Ennara's "team". (She's the only caster, Smoos I think of as a druid tank, Gevin perhaps a Paladin DPS/tank, and Kithe the DPS sword fighter. Hah. How I'd love to run some dungeons with them!)

The language of Ennara's spellwork came from my miniscule understanding of the power of language in mystical religious traditions. The more powerful the prayers, it seemed to me, the older the language. From Latin to Sanskrit, ancient mystical traditions incorporate ancient language. And to me, it's a short step from mystical to magical. So, Ennara's spellwork was based on the oldest language that I knew of: the Indoeuropean language. Older than Latin, older than Sanskrit, older even than Babylonian.

The monsters in Ennara's stories all came from world myth, but I learned of many of them through D&D or WOW.

And the story itself was a basic study in the Hero's Journey, of Mythic Structure. So if you think you've heard this story before—or many like it—that isn't by mistake. You have. It's a story as old as time itself. You'll likely hear it many times again.

Lastly, I featured the ancient Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tong-Len at the end of the story. It's considered, at least by the Tibetans, to be one of the most powerful spiritual practices in existence, and it seemed to me that for a magic to be truly powerful, it would have to be working on spiritual levels as well. Our hero Ennara defeats her greatest foe only by taking on the suffering of her enemy and exposing it to truth.

I hope you enjoyed Ennara and the Fallen Druid. It was my first book, written in a hurry between two feeding and napping and crying babies. It was a dream to win a silver medal at the Moonbeam Children's Book Awards for the story, and I'm thrilled to be able to share it with you here. Since publishing Ennara and the Fallen Druid, my stories have become longer, and better (I hope).

I continue to write fantasy under the pen name Angela Myron, and hope to have a new YA fantasy out next year called The Flying White Horse, and the third Ennara book, Ennara and the Silver Throne, out later in 2016. Under the pen name Chase Theroux, I hope to have the New Adult paranormal mystery Lapse out in 2016, as well. 

Thanks again for reading.

Angela