Blog Archives
Child of the Erinyes
July 7, 2022
Crete: where magic & mystery meet courage and hope. Aridela: an extraordinary princess who dances with bulls. Two brothers plot Crete’s overthrow, but desire for this woman will propel all three into an unimaginable future, and spark the immortal rage of the Erinyes.
“Lochlann has translated words, ideas, poetry, character, myth into an alchemical wonder, a dazzling novel of the ancient world. She is a fit heir to the great mantle of such writers as Scott O’Dell and Robert Graves, and even, dare I say it, the goddess herself.” MM Bennetts
Discover The Child of the Erinyes,
a myth with meat
inspired by Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur!
LINKS:
https://books2read.com/u/3nXr54 The links on this page take you directly and automatically to your own country’s retail site.
OR CHOOSE YOUR PREFERRED LINK DIRECTLY:
Amazon Kindle US
Amazon Kindle UK
Barnes & Noble Nook
Kobo
Apple/iBooks
Thalia
Indigo
Angus and Robertson
To read more about the overall series, see my article “The Evolution of The Child of the Erinyes.”
Happy reading!
A Myth with Meat: Child of the Erinyes
July 19, 2018
A woman of keen instinct and unshakable loyalty. A proud warrior prince and his wounded half-brother. Glory, passion, treachery and conspiracy on the grandest scale.
As I prepare to release Falcon Blue, Book Six of The Child of the Erinyes, I’m putting the boxed set containing full-length versions of books 1, 2, and 3 on a 99 cent sale from July 19 through July 22. I want to provide new readers an easy way to begin at the beginning with little financial pain and get nearly caught up. This three book bundle takes place in ancient Greece and Crete, and I sometimes refer to it as magical historic fantasy.
Myths, both well known and intriguingly esoteric, the supernatural, my own vision, and real history are all entwined in these stories. Beginning in the Bronze Age, a matriarchal society on the island of Crete walks a fine line with its opposite on the mainland. The Year-god’s Daughter introduces Aridela of Crete and two brothers—Chrysaleon and Menoetius of Mycenae. It builds the world of ancient Crete, sets the stage for a tragic love triangle, and ignites the contest for ultimate power that will span millennia. Unforeseen consequences follow the eruption of the Santorini volcano in The Thinara King. This was a super volcano, the worst of the worst. In the Moon of Asterion is my interpretation of the famous myth of the Minotaur and the final struggle as the once-insulated Cretan culture collides with the changing world. All three books revolve around the king-sacrifice, a controversial custom in some ancient societies, which was at times replicated in ancient Britain.
After their sometimes selfish, sometimes misguided actions draws the wrath of the gods, (where would storytellers be without “the wrath of the gods!”) this trio is cursed to live seven times in order to satisfy their moera, or fate. The planned eight-book series follows them through their various lives.
At its heart, the series is a story of the clash of cultures: the matriarchal culture on Crete versus the rising power of patriarchy on the mainland of Greece, and how history was defined by it.
The boxed set includes an excerpt from Book Five, The Sixth Labyrinth, and teasers from Falcon Blue and Swimming in the Rainbow (Book 8, the finale of the series.)
Five books in The Child of the Erinyes series are currently available, with the digital version of book number six, Falcon Blue, oh-so-close: it’s up for preorder at Amazon, B&N, iTunes, & Kobo and is also 99 cents until publication day. It will go live on August 4, 2018, at which point I will begin work on book seven, When the Moon Whispers—the climax of the series. The denouement is coming at last!
The middle trilogy of the series takes place in Britain, which is not as completely off the wall as one might think. There was a lively trade of tin, silver, bronze, and other goods between ancient Crete and ancient Britain, plus Menoetius’s mother was a priestess of Avalon—a woman gifted with a life of ten thousand years.
Each book in the middle trilogy is a completely-told story or “life,” and each is set in a different era: The Moon Casts a Spell takes place in the 1850s during the potato famines, and leads into The Sixth Labyrinth, set in the 1870s in the aftermath of the Clearances in Scotland. Falcon Blue goes back in time to the Cape Wrath area, and tells the story of the first reincarnation after Crete. It is set in the year 502 AD.
Every life lived by my triad builds to the climax of When the Moon Whispers, which manifests in the future—but not too far in the future. I admit I’m looking forward to using modern language and slang for a change. It will be nice not to have to ponder what word is acceptable for “toilet.”
Because I’ve structured the series so that each book occurs in a different era, with characters who look different and are always on a new learning path, it never gets boring for me. I hope that’s true for the readers as well. My wish is that the series carry the reader away from cares and problems for a little while, provide an escape to another place and time, with characters who can be identified with, rooted for, and in some cases reviled, as they stumble, fall, and rise again.
my copy
And to think it all began with D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, which I devoured at about the age of seven. It was out of print for many years but I think it’s been re-released, for all the parents out there…
Many of my writing compatriots have talked about how becoming an author changed their lives, about the importance of writing, and how they are always writing, even when they’re not sitting at a computer but fixing dinner, running errands, toiling at a paying job or showering. (Showering especially.) How everything is seen through the lens of a story. Some authors liken writing to a lifeline. That’s sort of how I feel about it. I was under ten when I started writing and let me tell you, I had to deal with active ridicule and intense attacks. I could have given it up, but I didn’t. If anything, I affixed myself to it with every fiber of my being.
And while I wouldn’t exactly recommend my parents’ child rearing style, when I look back, I realize how seamlessly it formed me for this career. I spent so much time alone that I learned to love solitude. My imagination became my best friend…and there was an amazing forest behind my house where I wrote one tale after another, tales that eventually, thought by thought, word by word, year by year, evolved into The Child of the Erinyes.
Though the actual story of The Child of the Erinyes is purely fictional, invisibly woven through every line is my history—the world I have witnessed, lived, and dreamed, the world I, and many others, have had to grapple with over and over again.
Priestesses and Prostitutes
March 27, 2016
Priestesses and Prostitutes
Have you read The Sekhmet Bed, by Libbie Hawker?
The Whore, by Stephanie Dray?
Artemis Rising, by Cheri Lasota?
What about The Year-god’s Daughter, by yours truly?
If you’ve missed any of these great stories, then I encourage you to pick them ALL up together in the four-novel bundle, Priestesses and Prostitutes, which can be had for the amazing price of 99 cents, right now, through Thursday, March 31, at the following places:
Amazon Kindle / Barnes & Noble Nook / Kobo / iTunes / Scribd / Page Foundry
This exclusive box set will only be available for a limited time, then it goes poof! into the ether.
Giveaway, The Year-god’s Daughter
September 10, 2014
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Grab a free Kindle copy of The Year-god’s Daughter all day Monday, September 15, 2014! I hope you enjoy the read.
Click HERE for the multi-region Amazon link
I also invite you to check out my new boxed set, which includes the first three books, bundled together: The Year-god’s Daughter, The Thinara King, and In the Moon of Asterion. Over 900 pages, the complete Bronze Age portion of The Child of the Erinyes series, and sneak peaks at upcoming books.
For a short time, the boxed set will be discounted to $5.99, which is $2 off its regular price–all three stories, at a savings of $6.00 when compared to buying each book separately.
Click HERE for the multi-region Amazon link to the box set
And, please download the free (I hope Amazon makes it free in time) 114 page novelette, The Moon Casts a Spell. This story is a short prequel to the next book in the series, The Sixth Labyrinth.
The Child of the Erinyes is a projected six book series, with three currently available. I’m working hard on Book Four, The Sixth Labyrinth, and the other companion novella.
Happy reading!
Indie BRAG interview
April 22, 2014
The Year-god’s Daughter was recently awarded the IndieB.R.A.G. Medallion. If you aren’t familiar with Indie BRAG, check it out HERE. It’s not easy to win the coveted Medallion, so I was thrilled beyond description when it happened.
Today I’m being interviewed by Stephanie Hopkins, blogger extraordinaire for Indie BRAG. Please pop over and join us for questions, answers, thoughts, conjecture, and maybe some cake. Who knows?
Stephanie: “Hello, Rebecca! Thank you for chatting with me today and congrats on the B.R.A.G. Medallion. Please tell me a little about your book, The Year-God’s Daughter.”
Lochlann: “Gladly, Stephanie, and let me thank you for this opportunity. I was over the moon to be awarded the B.R.A.G. Medallion. What an honor! The Year-god’s Daughter kicks off my Child of the Erinyes series, a story that begins in the Bronze Age, on Crete and the Greek mainland, and ends in the near future. It follows the lives of the three main protagonists, along with their supporting characters, through time, as they experience history—not
as queens, kings, and other VIPs, but common people like most of us, doing their best to survive and thrive with history happening around them.
In book one, the reader is introduced to Aridela, a younger princess on Crete, living a life of luxury in the great Knossos palace. We also meet two men from Mycenae who are seeking a way to overthrow this wealthy culture. All three think they know how their lives will unfold. They think they can manipulate the future to their own ends. They are very wrong.”
Click HERE for the entire interview. Thank you Indie BRAG! Thank you Stephanie! And thank you to generous readers!
Lion hunting Mycenae: see below for attribution
Photo: “Hunting Mycenaean Dagger” by Unknown – Athens, Historical Museum. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hunting_Mycenaean_Dagger.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Hunting_Mycenaean_Dagger.jpg
Discounted!
November 30, 2013
Psyche Revived: see below for attribution
Discounted until December 4th, 2013! Enjoy!
“Psyche revived Louvre MR1777” by Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757–1822) – Jastrow (2007). Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psyche_revived_Louvre_MR1777.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Psyche_revived_Louvre_MR1777.jpg
Color, cropped
The Year-god’s Daughter as required reading
The Priest King: Shutterstock
An author, once she or he publishes that debut novel, imagines, expects, and hopes for many things. I am no different. Something I never anticipated, however, was becoming a college assignment.
A professor at the university in question happened upon The Year-god’s Daughter. She read it and contacted me to let me know she was assigning it to her spring 2013 semester class. They’ll be writing up essays on the culture and ideologies covered in the book.
She asked me to provide a statement about my research, which I was happy to do and which was fun to write, though it taxed my memory. Eight pages later, I felt like I was back in class myself!
To those students in the class who dislike historical fantasy, love stories, and/or class assignments, I’m sorry you’re being dragged through this, (and I do remember some of my own university assignments…. some better loved than others….)
First and foremost, I sincerely hope the tale is enjoyed!
Featured this month: my book
I’m thrilled to be featured at:
THE HISTORICAL FICTION eBOOKS WEBSITE!
Please come over and read a very short blurb about what inspired me to write my very long series….
and while you’re there, I invite you to check out the other historical novels and novelists collected and on display.
Here are a few… just a taste… of all the wonderful authors who get together here:
Suzanne Adair Martha Marks Suzanne Tyrpak N. Gemini Sasson M. Louisa Locke David Gaughran Lloyd Lofthouse Elisabeth Storrs Alistair Forrrest
A Few Reviews: The Year-god’s Daughter
Judith Starkston, author of Hand of Fire and Priestess of Ishana:
Lochlann takes her reader into the mythic, mystical world of Minoan Crete with vibrancy and power. On the island of Crete, known as Kaphtor, a long line of women rule. Their male consorts “rule” for only a year as the Year-god and then are sacrificed to bring fertility to the land. On the mainland, the Mycenaean kingdoms fight among themselves and look with envy at Crete’s greater power and civilization. Rival kings yearn to overthrow the Cretan queen and win for themselves Crete’s preeminent position in trade and wealth. They also worship a male god and hold in distain the goddess who has guarded Crete for generations beyond memory. Thus Lochlann sets the central conflict in her opening novel of her Child of the Erinyes series, which in its eight books spans 4000 years from the Bronze Age to modern times as it follows the lives of two men and a woman who are reborn seven times through history.
The Year-god’s daughter of the title is Aridela, the youngest daughter of Crete’s queen. She has been sheltered and pampered, and her rebellious streak has been allowed to flourish. Lochlann gives her coming of age story rich depth as Aridela confronts threats and challenges both from within her royal world and from the princes of the mainland who circle around her and her family as they try to deceive, seduce and attack their way into supremacy. Sometimes they become entangled in their own snares as Aridela seduces in return. Aridela has goddess-sent dreams and speaks prophecies that reveal the fate of herself and her culture, but they are hard to interpret and even harder to obey. Two half-brothers from the mainland will influence the course of her life and force her to make lethal choices. As each choice presents unintended consequences, Aridela must grow and adapt to them. Family members both on Crete and the mainland, love each other, but when fate does not dole out the talents and gifts in equal measure, and siblings must watch the least suited child take the place they covet, then deep and impossible jealousies and conflicts wrench apart these families. This mythic world is an ideal place to watch such dramatic family tensions play out.
Lochlann’s rich language draws her reader into the story from the first sentences, invoking all of the senses: “The bull was so much bigger than she expected. His pitiless eyes sucked her breath away. The musky stench of his body obliterated the stands, the screaming audience, even the crushing hammer of heat.”
Lochlann uses precise details in abundance to bring to life long ago Knossos. She puts us inside the palace in a variety of ways, such as revealing what decorated the walls, “Frescoes of flitting swallows, high marsh grasses, monkeys, ibex, lilies, and of course, grazing bulls, surrounded them on all sides. Here were hazy mountains with plumes of smoke at their summits, bees rising from carcasses, and peasants holding offerings. They passed painted seas and leaping fish. Even the ceiling of this fantastic place was part of the nature scene, the colors as fresh and bright as if created that morning.” We see and hear the women of the royal court, “Disks sewn into the women’s skirts chimed as they walked, a soothing sound mostly lost beneath giggling and gossip. . . . The women fluttering around her were curled, oiled, and gilded. Their tight bodices made their breasts protrude like proud trophies.”
The Year-God’s Daughter succeeds in bringing to life a very distant world and capturing a heady blend of archaeology, legend, myth and fantasy.
At Booksquawk:
The Year God’s Daughter is the first in author Rebecca Lochlann’s Child of the Erinyes series. Even without reading the bio on her website, it’s obvious from the first few pages that this is an author who did her research. She spent fifteen years acquainting herself with ancient Greece, and it shows. Authenticity is steeped into each chapter.
If you are not a fan of historical fiction, don’t let that stop you from reading this excellent book. The finely-honed characterization is such that even with a host of unfamiliar names, you will never lose track of who’s who. The narrative never gets boring – the author has produced a fine balance between description and action.
The story opens with the child Aridela, beloved princess on the island of Crete, recklessly attempting to fulfill her dream of becoming a bull dancer – she believes the goddess Athene has made it her destiny to accomplish the daring and difficult feat. Menoetius is a young foreigner, bastard son of the High King of Mycenae, tasked with finding any weakness in Crete’s defenses. They meet under dire circumstances, and thus begins “Glory, passion, treachery and conspiracy on the grandest scale.”
Divine destiny is a deep-seated theme throughout. Constant regional earthquakes are interpreted by the ruling priestesses as omens, and most everything is imbued with celestial meaning. The reader is immersed in a vivid culture of devoted spirituality. Athene must be appeased with violent sacrifice and every year that sacrifice is the queen’s latest consort – a man who bested all other competitors for the honor of living large for a year and then allowing his blood to consecrate Crete’s soil. Crete is a matrilineal society, but male-dominated kingdoms surround them, and contempt for Athene is spreading on the mainland. If the encroaching changes reach as far as Aridela’s peaceful, prosperous island, a long-prophesied catastrophe will befall them all. From the start, we know this story is headed for a spectacular, world-changing ending. I can’t wait for the rest of the series to see how it all plays out…
Rebecca Lochlann has produced a book of uncommon quality. Highly recommended.
At Historical Novel Review:
Set amongst the mystery of the Minoan Labyrinth and the heart-pounding thrill of the bull-dancing ring, The Year-God’s Daughter is the first volume of The Child of the Erinyes, a sweeping epic of a series spanning time from the Bronze Age to the near future.
In Rebecca Lochlann’s first novel, we are introduced to Aridela, a young priestess and princess – and to the mysteries of Athene, the inscrutable goddess whose hand guides Aridela’s fate. Aridela is the youngest daughter of the queen of Kaphtor (Crete). She was born under portentous circumstances and has grown up revered and pampered in her mother’s palace. She is headstrong and strangely wise for her age, seemingly born to rule – yet her meek elder sister Iphiboë is the heir to Kaphtor, and Aridela is pledged to a life of celibacy and service to the goddess Athene.
This novel, being the first in a long series, is largely set-up for events to come; yet The Year-God’s Daughter is packed with plenty of action. As the groundwork is being laid for the rest of the series, the reader follows Aridela through her coming-of-age – and follows, too, the lives of the people she touches, whose fates are altered by contact with this young woman chosen by Athene: Iphiboë, Themiste the high priestess, Selene the foreign warrior-woman, Lycus the bull-dancer, and more fascinating characters are subtly moved like pawns on a game board by Aridela’s unknowing influence.
Most notable on the list of characters entwined with Aridela are Menoetius and Chrysaleon, half-brothers and sons of the king of Mycenae. They are sent on a mission by their power-hungry father to discern Kaphtor’s weaknesses so that Mycenae might take control of the rich island nation. But both brothers soon find themselves in love with Aridela…and at one another’s throats.
The depth of historical information in this novel will delight fans of the genre. A surprising amount of history and archaeology has been slipped unobtrusively into the narrative. Lochlann has clearly done an astounding amount of research into her historical setting and culture, yet she never overwhelms the reader with specifics, nor does she lecture. The conveyance of historical facts and archaeological tidbits feels very natural, woven deftly into the dialogs and thoughts of her intriguing cast of characters.
The primary strength of this book is the writing itself, which I can only describe as sumptuous. Lochlann has a great flair for sensory detail and fills her novel with such a wealth of sights, sounds, smells, and flavors that the reader feels absolutely immersed in the world of ancient Crete from the first page. Reading The Year-God’s Daughter is a delicious experience – seldom have I read a historical novel with such a well-drawn setting, and the fact that this book is independently published makes the feat all the more remarkable. The rare grammatical gaffe occasionally pulled me out of the tale, but never for more than a moment – and while I often found myself wishing I understood some characters’ motives better, I have to assume that, since this is the first in a series with extreme scope, more will be made clear as the series progresses. In any case, the luscious sensory prose was more than enough to keep me reading, and has left me eagerly awaiting the next installment.
Cover copy: Crete: A place of magic, of mystery, where violence and sacrifice meet courage and hope.
Aridela: Wrapped in legend, beloved of the people. An extraordinary woman who dances with bulls.
The north wind brings a swift ship and two brothers who plot Crete’s overthrow. Desire for this woman will propel their long rivalry into hatred so murderous it hurtles all three into an unimaginable future, and sparks the immortal rage of the Erinyes.
A woman of keen instinct and unshakeable loyalty. A proud warrior prince and his wounded half-brother. Glory, passion, treachery and conspiracy on the grandest scale.
What seems the end is only the beginning.
Reviews At Amazon: read them all
She of Many Names
“There was a tendency in Minoan Crete to combine the goddesses into one deity.” Rodney Castleden, The Knossos Labyrinth
Athene is mentioned again and again on the tablets and records from Crete. Her name was spelled “a-ta-na,” and most agree this was an early form of Athene. On at least one
tablet, the name “a-ta-na” is combined with “po-ti-ni-ja,” which is thought to be Potnia. Thus in my book, you’ll see the declaration “Potnia Athene,” used several times. It simply meant “Lady,” or “Mistress.”
Photo: “P1010629 crop” by Aeleftherios – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P1010629_crop.png#mediaviewer/File:P1010629_crop.png — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
It’s important to remember when reading The Year-god’s Daughter (and the connecting books, The Thinara King and In the Moon of Asterion,) that what we know about these ancient, pre-Hellenic deities is sparse and fragmented. That Athene existed on Crete and was very important is pretty clear. That there were other goddesses is not so clear; the various names might well have been titles used for different aspects or roles of the same goddess. My story takes place before the familiar pantheon we all know from Classical Greece. Most experts agree that Athene existed long before they did, and that she came from somewhere else, not Greece. So I chose to use Athene almost exclusively, incorporating the various names as alternate names for her. Athene was The Great Goddess, basically, and all these other images or personalities were simply variations of her. Robert Graves also influenced my decision to use Athene this way. In The Greek Myths, he talks again and again about Athene being a pre-Hellenic goddess of vast importance, to whom the sacred kings were sacrificed, and he shares with his readers many of her Names and Titles.
Many mythologists call The Goddess “She of Many Names.” Here are a few titles and names I used in The Child of the Erinyes.
POTNIA: “Mistress,” or “Lady.”
“The Great Goddess or Mother Goddess held sway until the very end of the Minoan civilization and was even for a time in a dominant position in the Mycenean pantheon, until her position was supplanted by Zeus. The Great Goddess seems to have been called Potnia, at least in the final decades of the Labyrinth’s history. The name recurs in place after place, not just on Crete but throughout the Mycenean world. Meaning no more than ‘The Lady’ or ‘The Mistress’, it nevertheless carried powerful connotations and resonances: it was clearly the proper name of an important goddess.” Rodney Castleden, The Knossos Labyrinth
“Potnia had a domestic aspect as a guardian of households and cities. She was the wife and mother, the dependable figure of order and reason. In a sense she represented the conscious mind. Hers, probably, was the double-axe symbol that we find at so many Minoan sanctuaries on Crete, but possibly the pillar and the snake were her symbols too.” Rodney Castleden, The Knossos Labyrinth
BRITOMARTIS: “Lady of the Wild Things.”
“There were wild goddesses too, associated with untamed landscape and consorting with wild beasts. . . . A chaste and free wild goddess, who was a huntress and tamer of wild beasts, is now often referred to as the Mistress of Wild Animals or Queen of Wild Beasts. It seems that the Cretans called her Britomartis, said to mean ‘sweet virgin’, and she became the Artemis or Diana of the classical period.” Rodney Castleden, The Knossos Labyrinth
Eleuthia: Goddess of mothers and childbirth
“She was named in the temple records at Knossos and her nearest sanctuary, the Cave of Eileithyia as it is known today, is at Amnisos. The Cave of Eleuthia was an important centre of worship from neolithic times right through the bronze and iron ages, into the Roman period. It is even mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey, Book 19. Inside the Eleuthia Cave is a natural stalagmite protected by an artificial stone wall, the focus of the cave cult and probably regarded as the manifestation or dwelling of the goddess Eleuthia.
Dictynna: Goddess of fishermen, or “of the net.”
It appears that Dictynna, too, was later merged with Artemis. Imagine how important fishermen were on an island like Crete. It’s not surprising they would have their own special goddess, “She who cast the nets.”
Gorgopis:
“grim faced.” A title of Athene’s, according to Robert Graves. The fearsome aspect, the face of Athene at the moment of death.
Areia:
Meaning unknown, but this was one of Athene’s titles and/or names. If one types “definition of Areia” into Google search, what comes up are several sites describing Athene.
Laphria: “the goat goddess.”
Graves says that this was Athene’s title representing her as a “goat goddess.” He says that the word Laphria suggests that “the goddess was the pursuer, not the pursued.”
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