SFR Brigade Midsummer Blog Hop - Circle Power

I LOVE stone circles. Probably the most famous one in the UK is Stonehenge, but I prefer Avebury. Here, an entire stone circle surrounds the village. There's something so silently powerful about them. The massive  effort that must have gone into creating them at a time when 'man-power' was the only way to get anything done is impressive in itself. How driven the creators must have been. No one can say for sure exactly what these places were used for, but the sheer scale and the placing of them means they clearly had great significance to the people of the time. And with many of them, certain stones mark special astronomical events - like the summer and winters solstices - which were probably seen as important mystical happenings in the Neolithic calendar.

I've always been fascinated by the myths that surround them, but particularly the one that suggests they are magical gateways to another dimension. Even fairy rings - a natural circle of toadstools - are believed to have the same power. So perhaps it isn't surprising that I used this as the seed to grow my stories from. The book that gave birth to Keir was originally a Doctor Who story I wrote two decades ago, where my main female character Quin encounters an alien in a stone circle that has travelled to her world via a temporal gateway. Quin herself is thrown back through the gateway, to wake on another world, in another time, with most of her memory missing. Bewildered by the strange people who look human but speak telepathically - and are red haired and green eyed, traits associated with the fae. She wonders if she's entered the fairy realm...only to learn that these are a far future society of humans who owe their origins to her.

By the time she meets Keir, travelling through temporal portals to other times and places has become a stroll in the park...albiet not always a reliable one. But she still uses a circle. On her hidden base on Lyagnius, she has a gateway room - a circular room with a powerful psi energy source beneath it that she uses to twist time and space for her pathways. Without these, she has no ability to travel - a weakness that leaves them both stranded on another world further into the story. But to find out how they get back, you'll have to read the book. :-P

Blurb:

Outcast. Cursed. Dying. Is Keir beyond redemption?

For Keirlan de Corizi--the legendary 'Blue Demon' of Adalucien--death seems the only escape from a world where his discolored skin marks him as an oddity and condemns him to life as a pariah. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise: Tarquin Secker, a young woman who can travel the stars with a wave of her hand.

But Quin has secrets of her own. She's spent eternity searching through space and time with a strange band of companions at her back. Defying her friends' counsel, Quin risks her apparent immortality to save Keir. She offers him sanctuary and a new life on her home world, Lyagnius.

When Keir mistakenly unleashes his dormant alien powers and earns instant exile from Quin's home world, will she risk everything to stand by him again?

I have a $15 Amazon Gift Card to give away to one lucky person who leaves their contact details in the comments below, and tells me their favourite magical place. And don't forget, there's TWO grand prizes!

1st Prize – a Kindle Touch or Nook Touch
2nd Prize - a library of science fiction romance titles from over 20 authors (these will be mostly ebooks with one print anthology), and an Anabanana Gift Card.

All you need to do to enter is pop along to the blogs listed below and comment on as many as you want (only ONE comment per site will count as an entry). Each time you comment at a stop, you’ll earn one entry into the grand prize – so the more sites you visit, the greater your chances of snagging the top prizes. The winners will be drawn at random on the 24th June and announced on the SFR Brigade site here. The list of participating authors can be found below this post. Spread the news and keep hopping!