I love a good faerie tale, don't you?
I'm pleased to turn the blog over to Shea McIntosh Ford, author of
The Stone of Kings
Thanks so much, Ariella, for hosting me today! I’m thrilled
to introduce The Stone of Kings to
everyone! I’m one of those quirky folks who actually like to write research
papers. After I finished college, I would get cravings to be assigned a
research project. TSOK is a blending
of my love of research and history with my love of fiction. I hope you guys
enjoy reading it as much I did writing it.
Just open the book…
Blurb:
Twelve
year old Ardan is hopelessly distracted because he wants to meet a real faerie.
But when he gets his hands on a mysterious red book loaded with faerie spells and
accidentally sends himself three hundred years into Ireland’s future, he soon
learns that there are more important things on which to focus his attention.
Throw in some immortal druids, fun storytelling, a touch of forbidden romance,
along with the music and antics of the legendary Irish harper, Turlough
O’Carolan, and you’ll become swept up in a very real Irish mythological
adventure.
Excerpt 1:
Abandoning his work as he was so prone to do when he got
excited about something, Ardan led Thomas into the library, but not before
doing the forbidden—he opened its closed door.
Once inside the room, both of them forgot about looking for
a story book. On Bresal’s hand‑carved
writing desk was his curious little red book. The old scholar must have been
distracted by the sight of his musician friend nearing the cottage from the
library window and neglected to hide the book as usual. Its pages lay open, and
unmistakable magic hovered over the leaves. They heard light random notes, like
the sound of the tiniest of wind chimes played by a faint breeze. As they
gaped, they noticed each tinkling sound corresponded with a tiny point of light
which would burst and disappear above the book.
Thomas breathed out a gasp of surprise. “Who is this Bresal
fellow anyway?”
Ardan could not answer. He began to wonder the same thing.
His pulse quickened as he neared the book.
“What are you doing?” Thomas dropped his voice to a whisper
as he grabbed onto the boy’s shoulder. The color in his face had drained away.
“I merely want to read it,” Ardan said. He shrugged away
Thomas’s hand.
“I do not think we should go near it.”
But Ardan continued nearing. Despite his own warnings,
Thomas followed closely behind. Ardan picked up the book and began to turn the
pages. He expected to hear more sounds and see the lights dance quicker, but
instead, these features decreased until the pages settled again.
“What does it say?” whispered Thomas.
“Some is in Irish and some English.” Ardan’s gaze, as
expected, went for the Irish text. He read aloud, “Solas agus airy biedh tú, Leabhar na mianach mo lámha chun saor in aisle.”
Right away, the tinkling noise intensified as did the
lights. But what shocked Ardan was the book lifted from his fingers and hovered
in front of him.
“Saints be blessed,” said Thomas and he let out a burst of
high‑pitched laughter.
They both stared in awe a moment
until Ardan saw Bresal and Turlough advancing toward the house from their walk
in the garden. “No,” he gasped. His heart hammered at the trouble he would be
in if Bresal found them out.
“Does it say how to reverse it?” asked Thomas, his voice
raised in pitch.
Ardan’s gaze scanned the pages, desperate to avoid
punishment, but none of the lines written in Irish appeared to fit the need.
When Ardan reached for the book to try another page, it shied away from him.
Frantic, he read aloud one of the English lines without comprehending the
meaning.
“A need I have to mend a mistake, a new time please, for
lives are at stake.”
Nothing happened.
“This sounds like the right one,” said Thomas. “Perhaps you
should say it in Irish.”
Ardan could not find the Irish counterpart and so struggled
a moment with the translation then said, “Is
mór agam a cheartú botún, le do thoil A am nua a shaoradh ó na terror.”
The book filled the room with such a bright light, Ardan
could see nothing else.
Excerpt 2:
“I think the young boy has a gun.”
Hannah heard Stephen’s voice cry out to
the guards as she neared her car. While she smashed the button on her keyless
entry over and over, she wheeled Thomas’s chair around the oak tree and flung
open the passenger side door. Thomas pulled himself in the car remarkably fast
for someone with a wounded foot, and Ardan clambered in on his lap. Hannah
heard Thomas cry out in apparent pain as she closed the door and guessed Ardan
must have stepped on Thomas’s injured foot.
She ran around to the other side and
glanced up to see the guards were feet from her car. They would be able to stop
her from shutting her door. But she got in anyway, and was surprised she still
had time to turn on the engine. The guards should at least be at her window by
now. But when she took a quick look up, they were not there at all. She put the
car in reverse and ignored Ardan who cried out, “We are going backward,” in
Irish. She saw guards on the ground under the oak tree. One grasped an ankle,
the other clutched a knee. She also noticed, just before peeling away, the
roots of the oak tree had come up high out of the ground, and she was certain
the tree’s roots had been under the ground the last time she saw it. The boys
apparently noticed it too. They gaped as she sped away.
“Bless my soul,” Thomas breathed.
“’Twas as if the tree was helping us.”
Hannah let out a burst of nervous
laughter. She was jittery because of the excess adrenaline coursing through her
body, and she was incredulous at the scene her eyes had just shown her. Her
throat became tight and caused her next words to come out like a squeak. “It
isn’t possible.”
“But ‘tis possible. Ardan and I were
born over three hundred years ago,” Thomas stated.
Buy Links:
http://www.smashwords.com
Author Bio:
Shea McIntosh Ford is also the author of Harp Lessons and lives in Florida with her loving
husband of eleven years and two boys, ages four and six. Growing up, she
lived under the delusion that prejudice and bigotry were no longer being taught
to children. Oh, how much she has learned. After feeling powerless as a first
year teacher when one student adamantly said that Americans should send ALL
Mexican’s back to Mexico, Shea has found her voice through her writing. While
she knows that bigotry probably won’t be eradicated altogether, at least she’s
doing her part to help decrease it.
Social Media Links:
Twitter: @SheaFord1
