If We Shadows Have Offended
I love that monologue. Puck is by far one of my all time favorite fairies, and the speech is doubly appropriate for The Changeling Race. The series features fairies, yes, but there is also an underlying theme about shadows throughout the books. Not so much Peter Pan type shadows, as in those we cast, but more Jungian shadows, as in the things we bury deep inside.
Like most secrets, our shadows have a great deal of power—both for good and ill. But it is the ones that we deny the loudest, that we bury and forget that have the most potential to cause havoc when eventually they sneak out…and they do sneak out. No matter what, they always leak a little.
So in the trilogy, I found my elves really needing a dose of shadow therapy. The whole bloody race needed serious counseling, in fact. I’m not sure where the idea came from. Maybe I had left over angst from old school RPG’s (you know the ones with paper and dice that don’t plug into anything.) I never did like how special the elves were, how much better than humans, how everyone wanted to play the elf. Whatever it was, when I translated my version of “elfishness” onto paper, they came off a bit, shall we say, arrogant?
Conceited? Haughty? Stuck-up? Pick an adjective. The elves that showed up to play in The Changeling Race had a major superiority complex, and I took great pleasure in showing them their shadow.
I’m mean that way.
Still, once the shadow is out and looking you in the face, you can deal with it, right? So I opened up my Elvin past and showed the perfect little buggers just how many flaws they actually had. I enjoyed it a great deal more than they did, you can imagine. A few of them took it better than I’d expected, but the majority pretty much went to pieces. That’s good in a novel. Chaos like that makes for some great plot.
It really was for their own good. I mean, who could live with that kind of pressure? Maybe a great deal of their stiff, Elvin arrogance came from having to live up to our expectations of perfection. I like to think that they’ll be happier in the future, that their attitudes will adjust and the elves of tomorrow—at least in the world of The Changeling Race--might have a softer side.
I can think of a few that will. Those were my favorites, the ones that stood up, dusted off and got over themselves. So maybe, while I was doling out the therapy, some of it leaked over onto me as well. Maybe I got over my elf discrimination as much as they got over their humans are beneath us attitude. That works for me. Because, after all is said and done, I really love them—stuck up or not—and I think we managed to end the series as friends.
Or as Puck would say… “Think but this, and all is mended.”
Thank you so much for hosting a stop on the tour. I am offering a free pdf of any book from my backlist to one commenter today, and for each stop on the tour that you comment on, you will earn one entry into the final drawing for print copies of all three books. Follow along and enter to win!
Bio:
Frances Pauli writes speculative fiction with romantic touches. Her books are published through Mundania Press LLC, Awe-Struck, and Devine Destinies, and her short stories are featured in various anthologies. More information on her worlds and writing can be found on her website and blog, and she offers free online stories, web serials, podcasts there as well.
Book Blurbs:
A Moth in Darkness
The boundaries between the worlds have fallen. Forced to integrate the creatures of fantasy into real life, humanity struggles against its disillusionment, prejudice and an inevitable feeling of inadequacy.
Once an agent for the embassy that mediates between the worlds, Elizabeth Larson has abandoned her past and slipped into a world of nostalgic addiction to fairy revels, dancing, and the dark lure of her own memories. But when Lockland Sheen, her former partner and lover, goes missing, she is pulled reluctantly back into service. She must venture once more across the borders, into the land that haunts her, facing a string of gruesome murders, the imposing Sidhe rulers and her own addiction in the process.
While the Embassy’s agents attempt to soothe tensions between the races, Liz and her new partner search the fairy realm for Lockland. Fighting the constant temptation of the revels, they piece together the trail of an unknown enemy. But the longer they follow it, the more it appears that the man they came to rescue is more villain than victim. And the more they rely on Elizabeth’s ties to the fairies, the closer she inches toward the madness that lurks behind her fantasies.
The Fly in Paradise
Something’s rotten in the Fey lands. While Marcus Bramble tracks the lunatic who started it all, Elizabeth and the crew at the Embassy sort through the evidence he left behind. With Lockland back, and the revels behind her, Liz’s world is slowly returning to normal. But on both sides of the borders, shadow creatures spring out of nowhere, and the dark legends surrounding the fey take on a whole new meaning.
Now time is against them. On the mortal side of things, protesters rally to close the borders, politicians descend on the Embassy, and something that shouldn’t exist stalks Elizabeth through the city.
Spiders From Memory
The Seelie court is gone, and the Tower has fallen into darker hands. Now nightmare creatures terrorize the Fey races, and the whole Fey world turns to frost and shadow.
Liz Larson holds the last remnant of the Seelie Sidhe's power. The elves look to her for guidance, but all she has to offer them is the disturbing story of their origin, the final truth that will turn many of them against her. With her dwindling number of allies, Liz needs to reopen the borders, to find the missing Marcus Bramble, and to avoid the sudden, terrifiying attention of the new Fey ruler, the Unseelie Speaker and new master of the Sidhe Tower.
While her friends in Mundanity race to pry open the gates, and Marcus searches for the answer to a puzzle that could save or damn them all, the Unseelie Speaker marches north, bringing his army and his wrath to focus on Elizabeth. What can one, fairy-touched human do in the face of the Unseelie court's full fury? How can she fight when the enemy's anger is only partly blind, when she can see all too clearly the traces of justice behind it?
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