The Siren's Tale by Anne Carlisle is today's feature on One Thousand Worlds. Book two in the Home Schooling Series, The Siren's Tale can be read as a stand-alone book. Anne is offering a signed copy of Book 1, The Fire Night Ball for the winner of the giveaway, plus an ebook of Book 2, The Siren's Tale. But that's not all, there is also a runner up prize of ebook copies of both books.
Unfortunately not everyone can win, but if you're willing to review either book, copies are available for Read 2 Review, with expectation of a review within 2 months. You can find the email address in 'How To Submit' - please put R2R in the subject line.
The Siren's Tale-
Anne Carlisle, Ph. D., is an award-winning author. The Siren's Tale is the most recent release, from LazyDay Publishing and available on Amazon, B&N, and ARE. It is the second novel in her Home Schooling trilogy, paranormal-romance novels for New Adults which feature the sexual exploits of sirens in human form as they emerge into adulthood. Carlisle holds a doctorate in 19th Century British Literature from Case Western Reserve University. Currently Professor and Course Chair at the University of Maryland, she teaches college writing worldwide to U.S. military students. Formerly, while working as a newspaper columnist, magazine editor, and theatre reviewer, she authored a book on writing, wrote hundreds of articles, and was awarded prizes by the ANPA and the National Writer's Club. She also served as a dean for Golden Gate University in San Francisco. She works from her homes, in Seattle, Key West, and Wilmington, NC.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Unfortunately not everyone can win, but if you're willing to review either book, copies are available for Read 2 Review, with expectation of a review within 2 months. You can find the email address in 'How To Submit' - please put R2R in the subject line.
The Siren's Tale-
It's 1900 in remote Wyoming, where a smart young siren in human form falls into a trap. Because of a curse, her lover may die if she acts on her passionate instincts.
Blurb/Description: The novel is a new take on speculative fiction, treating real coming-of-age issues of choice for modern young women and meanwhile weaving a cautionary tale of paranormal romance and terror set in the distant past.
This is the story of a group of sirens, told in part by the ghost of the main character, Cassandra. The sirens are creatures who are part human but who have strange powers and skills. Cassandra's love life in the Old West results in a curse which passes down the generations.
A family of paranormal women, an ancient lineage of sirens in human form, are threatened by extinction, unless Marlena, the youngest, carries her pregnancy to term in 1977. Cassandra, the siren ghost, tells Marlena her own story, how back in 1900 in Wyoming, she followed her passion rather than a code of human values. Falling into a trap, she brought on the family curse and disaster. Now the men loved by the sirens face an untimely end.
Genre: paranormal historical-romance
Age Group: 16+ NA-Adult
Blurb/Description: The novel is a new take on speculative fiction, treating real coming-of-age issues of choice for modern young women and meanwhile weaving a cautionary tale of paranormal romance and terror set in the distant past.
This is the story of a group of sirens, told in part by the ghost of the main character, Cassandra. The sirens are creatures who are part human but who have strange powers and skills. Cassandra's love life in the Old West results in a curse which passes down the generations.
A family of paranormal women, an ancient lineage of sirens in human form, are threatened by extinction, unless Marlena, the youngest, carries her pregnancy to term in 1977. Cassandra, the siren ghost, tells Marlena her own story, how back in 1900 in Wyoming, she followed her passion rather than a code of human values. Falling into a trap, she brought on the family curse and disaster. Now the men loved by the sirens face an untimely end.
Genre: paranormal historical-romance
Age Group: 16+ NA-Adult
About the author-
PREFACE
My name is Zoe
Augusta Drake, but I go by Zaddie. Today is supposed to be the end of the world
according to the Mayan calendar, but so far, so good.
The winter
solstice is a special day in our family. Cassandra, our most controversial
ancestress, was born on December 21, 1880. She died at age ninety-six on
December 21, 1976, on the same day as her only son. On the solstice of 1977,
during a rare family reunion, Marlena Bellum, our mother, was told Cassandra's
secret story and ultimately decided to continue with her unexpected pregnancy.
This solstice is
a marker for me. Six months ago I published the first book in a trilogy, which
is collectively entitled HOME SCHOOLING. Today I finished the second book and am
beginning work on the third. The end is
in sight. Woo-hoo!
I began composing
the books as an adolescent, soon after I discovered mother's journals in a
folder entitled "The Pink House" at the bottom of an old trunk in our
attic. We were living exclusively in Alta, Wyoming then, and my idea was to memorialize
our family history for posterity. It was about the same time the trouble began
between mother and my twin brother, and after a while I put away the project.
I had formed the
writing habit at an early age. I began talking with the dead at two, writing
down their stories at three, and reciting them from memory at five. As a
result, I blush to say, our mother pronounced me "a prodigy with an old
soul." But Grammie Bellum said I was a fibber.
These days, it is
not that uncommon for teens to publish fan-based fiction, and I am no longer a
precocious redheaded adolescent (though I am still red-haired). On the first
book's publication date I turned thirty-four, along with my twin brother
Gordie, whom Grammie once described as "gloomy, grand, and damned
peculiar."
Grammie Bellum is
dead serious in her opinions, and I love her too much ever to contradict her. I
would give an arm for her. I love everyone in my family that way. Sometimes it
is a chore to love them so deeply, but when I think about the alternatives,
they are not so good. There is too much hate in the world and lots of room for
unconditional love. I often give my readers that advice, but I wonder if they
take it.
My day job is
writing an advice column for young women. "Rules of engagement for the
chick lit generation," the New York Times Book
Review has called it. My
monthly column first appeared a decade ago as a hoax. Here is how that went
down.
I wrote a private
letter containing heartfelt advice to a desperate friend back in Wyoming, that
was filched by my prankster brother from the mailbox at Sally Honeywell's
mansion in Key West, where we were staying. Gordie typed its content into a
"Dear Abby" format, falsely attributed authorship to local psychic
Sioux May, and sent it to the city desk editor of the Key
West Citizen. The editor was
on deadline, and she published the column without checking with Sioux May.
Even after the
hoax was disclosed, the readership refused to go away. Now the audience for
"Ghost Orchid" is worldwide, from South America to the South Bronx.
My column is named after a tropical plant that derives its nourishment from
air.
Full disclosure:
my books are not derived from thin air. That trick is seriously difficult to
pull off. They stem from my home schooling and are indirectly related to a
seminal work published in 1978, Home Schooling: How to
Build a Happy Home/life. It
was co-authored by our mother and her mentor, our dearest old cousin, Dr. Chloe
Vye. They wrote their book while Gordie and I were in
utero. It is part psychology
and part home-building advice; a must-read for architects, who spend as much
time handholding their clients as they do designing rooms for them, according
to mother.
My books are part
family history and part bildungsroman. "Educational journeys undertaken by
women to fathom the power and responsibility of sexual allure," in the
words of one reviewer. In plain English, I write for women who are trying to
navigate the hookup culture with the Bible in one hand and Fifty Shades of Grey
in the other.
All four works,
mother's and mine, focus on the importance of homes: building happy homes,
rescuing historic houses, and surviving homecomings. They also have to do with
schooling. But, there is no connection to the popular practice of keeping
children at home for their education. In Marlena Bellum's opinion, "that
kind of home schooling is too often aimed at conforming the young mind to the
principles of this or that religious system, thus defeating the purpose of
education, which is to lead the mind away from narrow indoctrination."
With the notable
exception of Grammie Bellum (her first name is Faith!), the women in our family
do not go in for organized religion. Mother says we are "unrepentant pagan
spirits, attracting that which is unexpected and unsanctioned." I believe
she is referring to events in the family history that cannot be explained
either by traditional religion or traditional science. You see, I come from a
long line of non-conformist women with voracious sexual appetites and gifted with
paranormal powers.
Let's call us
sirens.
An early siren in
our line was a young red-haired courtesan who was painted and bedded by the
great Tiziano Vecellio, more commonly known as Titian. Their love affair ended
with Titian's death in 1576. She carried on with tonsured members of the
clergy, only to have her temptress career cut short by a papal Inquisitor. He
pronounced her an agent of Satan and axed her in half to avoid looking her in
the eye.
At my second
birthday party, a beautiful, red-haired stranger appeared in Dr. Chloe's
vegetable garden. She and I had a short conversation. That was the start of my
home schooling. Mother acknowledged that the woman was the ghost of our
ancestress, Cassandra.
Two years ago,
after a rather long absence, the red-haired ghost appeared to me again. This
time, she introduced herself formally, beginning with these words: "In life, I was Cassandra Vye, born Cassandra Zanelli in 1880. I come
from a proud and ancient line of sirens in human form. Home base, the Italian
Alps." Her introduction
was a nice gesture, I thought. Mother taught us always to be polite, and though
Gordie has no use for etiquette, even he would have enjoyed her narrative.
As children, we
were told little about the controversial figure; only that she was the mother
of Dr. Chloe and had four names. She was born Cassandra Zanelli, then re-named
herself twice, taking the name of Cassandra Vye, in 1899, and eventually a nom de plume,
Nevada Carson. During the brief time she lived in Alta, she also had a married
name, Cassandra Brighton.
Eventually Mother
did admit Cassandra was controversial because of being a "bounder,"
which is an archaic but apt term for a runaway wife. Our siren ancestor was
"assertive" long before the term was invented by modern feminists,
and therefore she was grossly misunderstood. Cassandra was distinctive for
other reasons. For instance, she anonymously funded a number of cultural
institutions in Alta, including a large regional arts center where, as a
toddler, I played my baroque zither in a public concert.
Before we were
born, mother rattled some local cages by making facts known about Cassandra
Vye's anonymous generosity. This exposure was a controversial move in the
extended family, one that was hotly contested by Marlena’s mother. "Our
practice is to debate key issues. Afterward, your mother goes out and does
exactly as she pleases." That is what Grammie says, and I would agree
there is truth to her observation.
Because of mother
going public with Cassandra’s anonymous generosity and the inference we were
proud of her legacy rather than ashamed of her notoriety, we were obliged to
live somewhat reclusively in what mother has always called "the pink
house" - an old Victorian frame home dating from homesteading days. As the
Casper Star-News wrote, "Thanks to the persistent efforts of
architect Marlena Bellum and her powerful preservationist friends, Lila and
Bryce Scattergood, Alta has a higher percentage of rescued historic homes than
any other frontier town of the Old West."
Our beloved pink house is one of them.
According to
Cassandra's ghost, her good works were anonymous because the natives of her
time hated and feared her, dead or alive. This generalization brings me to the
most distinctive thing about her. In 1900, not long after arriving in Alta, she
was branded in church by a local witch-hunter as a force for evil. Later, she
was accused of being a murderess, even by her husband, and driven from town.
The ghost told me her version of the story, which is included in the pages that
follow. The villagers blamed her for four deaths between 1901 and 1917. She
said they were owing to a family curse that was "fiendishly devised to end
our siren line."
To this day, most
in Alta remember Cassandra as a common slut, and some believe she was an evil
witch. Elsewhere, she is star material. Under the pseudonym of Nevada Carson,
she prospered as an actress, writer, and producer for the film industry until
her death in San Francisco.
But all are
somewhat mistaken. Cassandra Vye was a true siren.
Cassandra says I
am a siren, too. "The green twig on a dying holly bush," she sings to
me in my dreams. Her lyrics are accompanied by the plink-plink-plink of a zither. I will be the last of our
siren line, unless I manage to do what my mother did and reproduce a siren
offspring.
No pressure
there. LOL.
December 21, 2012
Key West, Florida
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