Today we've got a special treat: a snack-sized portion of Cathy Hird's new book, Moon of the Goddess.
Over to Cathy...
I have never liked Helen of Troy. She seems so helpless. Homer and others portray her as
beautiful, yes, but to me she seems egotistical, self-centered and weak. So when it occurred
to me that a kidnapped princess was a good place to begin a story, I set out to describe a very
different young woman than Helen.
Yes Thalassai, the heroine of my novel Moon of the Goddess, is pampered and lives sheltered in
a palace, but when she is plunged into danger, she faces her fears and her kidnappers. She finds
there is strength in her, and smarts. Thalassai becomes an instrument of her own rescue.
Sure there is a hero, her brother Melanion, who sets out to free her. He has an important role,
and a dangerous journey to make. But when he gets to the kidnappers city, he finds that the
goddess has been helping his sister, and Thalassai has grown stronger. Still, the god Poseidon is
against them, and the situation is tangled. They both have to dig deep to gain her freedom.
Thalassai, pampered princess of ancient Tiryns, wakes from a dream and discovers she has been
kidnapped. Her fear grows to terror when she realizes her kidnappers intemd to use her as a
pawn to gain Poseidon’s aid for their valley. The mother goddess, who in the past sustained the
valley, calls a bloodred harvest moon into the spring sky. She will challenge Poseidon for the
allegiance of her people and assist the princess.
Thalassai’s brother Melanion rides north to rescue her, and finds allies among the servants of
the goddess. Slowed by bandits, Melanion is forced to take a tunnel under the mountains even
though earthquakes have rendered it hazardous. He skirts the edge of Hades’ kingdom as he
races to reach his sister in time. Caught between the mother goddess and the rising power of
Olympus, will Thalassai break under the strain or find the strength she needs to stand up to her
captors?
Set in the days of Helen of Troy and the great heroes of Greece, this story takes the reader on a
fast paced journey across the sun-drenched landscape of Homer and deep into darkness.
This is how the story begins:
Thalassai floated in a small boat among fragrant lilies. She reached out to touch one of the
delicate white blossoms and saw the reflection of her face on the mirror-like water of the pond.
One strand of hair had escaped her braid. She pushed it back, then trailed slender fingers through
the sun-warmed water. The ripples grew, and the pond became a river. Water tumbled around a
rock, making the boat bounce. She grabbed for the gunnel and could not reach it. The boat tilted
sideways, threatening to throw her into the now rushing river. Water poured over her face, filling
her nose and choking her. She awoke.
“Diakonia, I just had the worst dream,” she said to her maid as she opened her eyes. Darkness
pressed down on her.
Thalassai pinched her eyes closed. She must still be dreaming. The lamp could not have gone
out. She counted to five, extending one tight finger after another, working to control the panic
that crept into her throat. “The lamp is burning, and Diakonia is still sleeping,” she whispered.
She opened her eyes. Darkness enveloped her like a blanket. She raised her hand to her face to
push the dark away. She struggled to breathe.
“Diakonia, the oil,” Thalassai whispered. “You let it run out. Come!” There was no answer
from her maid. She moved to sit up, and her head swirled. Thalassai lay back and waited for
the spinning to stop. Her chest heaved as she drew quick breaths. Too quick. She would faint
if she kept this up. She strained to see the shape of the lamp, the chest by the wall of her room,
something. “Diakonia,” she called, trying to push her voice through the impenetrable darkness.
Thalassai told herself she was too old for this, that the darkness would not smother her. She tried
to draw in air slowly, but her throat seized. She needed help just as she had when she was small.
She could recite the litany her nurse had taught her so many years before to calm her fear. She
did not need to panic.
“With each breath in, I lift the night away with my chest. Now, I blow the darkness away with
my breath.” Thalassai felt tears running across her temples. “Again, I push the dark away with
my chest, then with my outgoing breath.” She forced herself to continue. “The dark will not
smother me. I will breathe in and with the air; I take in a piece of darkness and make it part of
me.”
Thalassai did not want the darkness inside of her. She held her breath. Nurse used to remind her
that she could not do that for long. Soon, she would have to breathe, let in the dark. “I am an
adult now. I am not afraid of the dark,” she whispered. She did not believe her own words.
“So taste the dark; see what it teaches you.” It was her brother Melanion, who had told her that.
Her brother always told her she was stronger than she thought.
More tears fell, wetting her cheeks. She opened her mouth to taste the air. There was a hint of
salt, like the sea she was named after, but this salt came from her fear-filled tears. “That did not
help,” she whispered to her brother who was not there. “I already knew I was afraid.”
Melanion would laugh if she said that. He would tell her a story about something fearful he had
faced. “Even you, Thalassai, facing such a moment, you would discover strength and courage,”
he said so many times. Thalassai held on to the picture of her brother laughing beside her bed.
She would be strong. She would figure out what had gone wrong with the lamp. She pulled
herself to a sitting position and curled her legs beneath her.
Little lights swirled in front of her eyes. Her head spun, and the bed seemed to move up and
down like the boat in the dream. She put her hands down to steady herself and pulled them back
as if they burned. This could not be. These were not the silken sheets of her bed! She reached
down with her right hand. The bed linens were rough like the ones on the ship when she traveled
with her father to visit Athens and Corinth. But she was in the palace at Tiryns, wasn’t she?
“Diakonia,” she whispered, though she knew now that her maid could not hear her. She placed
her hands on her lap so she would not have to feel the bedclothes, but she could not escape the
gentle up and down, the rocking motion of a ship at anchor. How had she gotten onto a boat!
To get a copy of the book, just go to
http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=83&products_id=4071
Do keep in touch by checking out my blog at
openonemore.com or follow me on facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/cathyhirdwriter.
