Welcome to my stop on the Fire in the Ann Gimpel promotional tour which has
been brought to you by Bewitching
Book Tours. Here you
can read Ann’s Guest post, a summary of the three books in the Transformation
series and learn a little more about the author. Don't forget to visit the other blogs on this
tour for more information about this book and the author.
Guest Post
The Magic of Storytelling
Storytelling
began around fires when we were still hunter gatherers. It continued in inns
and country houses through ancient and medieval times. The day a Bard came to
town was a major event. Everyone gathered to hear him sing and tell stories.
(Well, sometimes it was a “her” disguised as a “him”, but that’s because
women’s roles were pretty strictly defined until rather recently.)
Families
gathered around the radio until about the nineteen fifties when television came
into common use. Of course there were radio news shows, but there were also
lots of “story” shows. One of my favorites was Mystery Theater. I loved the sound effects: creaking doors,
whooshing wings, and heartrending screams. I’m actually a little too young to
remember sitting around a radio, but I bought tapes of Mystery Theater shows
and listened to them while I was in college.
Stories
have universal appeal. And not just for their entertainment value. Stories help
us reach beyond ourselves. Sometimes they help us figure out the answer to a
problem. Sometimes they give us hope when we’re at a low point. Sometimes they
give us new ideas. One of those “aha” moments when things suddenly click into
place and we see what’s laid out before us through fresh eyes.
One
of the questions blog interviewers always ask is, “When did you know you wanted
to be a writer?” It was never that black and white for me. I suppose you could
say the writing bug sort of crept up behind me and latched its little claws
into my soul. At the beginning of things, nearly everything I wrote had some
sort of ecological twist because that’s important to me.
Somewhere
along the line, I fell prey to my characters. Quite the hostage, in fact. I’d
have ideas about where I wanted a story to go and the little rascals would
simply thumb their noses at me and go their own way. Nothing like sitting at
the keyboard feeling like a medium. It’s a bit on the eerie side. But even I
had to admit my character driven stories were better, fuller, and more
satisfying than ones where I had more direct control over the end product.
I
suppose I’ve always been a storyteller. Back when I had a private practice, I’d
often tell stories to my clients. Sometimes it’s easier to hear something when
it’s part of a story rather than the therapist locking gazes with you and
asking, “Have you considered…” Those few steps of removal often give us the
courage to try something different. We may want different lives, but it’s
threatening to move into uncharted waters.
Circling
back to storytelling. Because of who we are, we’re attracted to certain things.
One book will resonate for me that absolutely fails to touch someone else. And
vice versa. So in much the same way I wasn’t the “right” therapist for
everyone, I don’t expect my books to be a good fit for everyone who picks them
up. No one’s are.
I’ve
always loved to read. Now that I’ve discovered the magic in weaving a tale
together, or sitting back and letting my characters talk “through “ me, I don’t
think I’ll ever look back. And I’m ever so grateful to my readers for every
scrap of feedback they’ve given me. I’ve learned so much from them. It sounds
hokey, but not a day goes by that a reader doesn’t teach me something. And make
me a better writer.
Thank you Ann for stopping at Nomi's Paranormal Palace today and for your fabulous post!! Check out her Transformation Series below.
Book One of the Transformation
Series
By Ann Gimpel
What if your psychotherapist could really
see into your soul? Picture all those
secrets lying hidden, perhaps squirming a bit, just out of view. Would you invite your analyst to take a peek
behind that gossamer curtain? Read your
aura? Scry your future…?
Classically trained at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Doctor Lara McInnis
has a special gift that helps her with her patients. Born with “the sight” she can read auras,
while flirting with a somewhat elusive ability to foretell the future. Lara becomes alarmed when several of her
patients—and a student or two—tell her about the same cataclysmic dream.
Reaching out to the Institute for answers, Lara’s paranormal ability
sounds a sharp warning and she runs up hard against a dead end. Her search for assistance leads her to a
Sidhe and ancient Celtic rituals blaze their way into her life. Complicating the picture is a deranged
patient who’s been hell bent on destroying Lara ever since she tried to help
his abused wife, a boyfriend with a long-buried secret and a society that’s
crumbling to dust as shortages of everything from electricity to food escalate.
Book Two of the
Transformation Series
Born with the sight, Laura McInnis is ambivalent about her paranormal
ability. Oh it’s useful enough some of the time with her psychotherapy
patients. But mostly it’s an embarrassment and an inconvenience—especially when
her visions drag her to other worlds. Or into Goblin dens. In spite of
escalating violence, incipient food shortages and frequent power blackouts,
Lara is still far too attached to the comfortable life she shares with her
boyfriend, Trevor, a flight attendant who lost his job when aviation fuel got
so expensive—and so scarce—his airline went out of business. Forced to seek
assistance to hone her unusual abilities in Psyche’s Prophecy, Book I of this
series, Lara is still quite the neophyte in terms of either summoning or
bending her magic to do much of anything.
Reluctantly roped into channeling her unpredictable psychic
talents to help a detective who saved her from a psychopathic killer, Lara soon
finds herself stranded in the murky underbelly of a world inhabited by
demons. The Sidhe offer hope, but they are
so high-handed Lara stubbornly resists their suggestions. Riots, death on all sides, a mysterious
accident and one particular demon targeting her, push Lara to make some hard
decisions. When all seems lost, the Dreaming, nestled in the heart of Celtic magic,
calls out to her.
Book
Three of the Transformation Series
The Transformation Series is about finding out who we truly are when the
chips are down. About what is real and what is illusory. About what matters and
what doesn’t. It’s easy to show our best side when everything is going well.
How about when the world is disintegrating around us? What happens then?
In this final book of the Transformation Series, Lara and Trevor’s
relationship undergoes stresses that threaten to annihilate them. Constantly
hungry, besieged by dark forces, they need every resource they’ve developed as
a couple to keep from ripping each other apart. With Lillian and Raven— two
ancient Celtic Sidhe— off fighting their own war against Goblin hordes, Lara
has only herself and her half-baked magic standing between survival and certain
death for herself, her love and their child.
The remote location that was supposed to solve all Lara and Trevor’s
problems has done anything but. Though she works diligently, Lara’s crash
course in magic proves woefully inadequate. When Trevor is captured by demons,
Lara curses her decision to leave Seattle. “If only I’d known,” she cries,
convinced she can’t go back. Or can she?
Short Bio:
Ann
Gimpel is a clinical psychologist, with a Jungian bent. Avocations
include mountaineering, skiing, wilderness photography and, of course,
writing. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing
speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared
in a number of webzines and anthologies and she has published three novels, Psyche’s
Prophecy, Psyche’s Search and Psyche’s Promise. A husband, grown children,
grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out her family.
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Schedule
Great guest post and i love when a tale blurs the lines of reality for me. This author and her books are new to me..thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by ... She is new to me too, but the books do sound interesting!!
ReplyDelete