Wot, no Vampires? Guest post by Linda Acaster

I mention that I’m writing a paranormal romance trilogy and people’s minds instinctively turn to vampires, werewolves and incubi. It’s enough to make me reach for the cross and garlic.

What many readers don’t realise is that today’s demons were yesterday’s gods, supplanted during the rise of Christianity. They were gradually demonised because the population refused to give them up.

In the Torc of Moonlight trilogy I’m writing about the resurrection of a Celtic water goddess, and not that long ago these ladies were thicker on the ground than might at first be supposed. In the UK the most prominent is Aqua Sulis, she of the golden waters of Roman Bath which are still visited by thousands of tourists every year.

Another is the spring at Walsingham, Norfolk, very much taken beneath the cloak of modern Christianity, where in 1513 Erasmus said that the waters were "efficacious in curing pains of the head and stomach." Notable to me, he also said that the shrine was surrounded by “gems, gold and silver”. A water goddess always had her hoard, from Beowulf’s mother of Grendel to King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake. After all, don’t you toss coins into pools and make a wish? So which deity is it that you think you’re invoking?

Just as with a consideration of Our Lady of Walsingham, subtexts are teased to the surface in Torc of Moonlight; not everything is as it seems.

Nick joins Alice in her quest to discover the shrine to a forgotten Celtic water goddess but Alice isn’t certain that opening her heart to him is a good idea. There have been too many coincidences in her life and none have been benign. Mesmerised by Alice, Nick is in denial - until he sees a jewelled sword fade in his hand and knows that he, or the thing that shadows him, has held it, and bloodied it, long ago. To tell Alice will make her flee him; to do nothing could kill her. Is his love strong enough to defend her against a force he doesn't understand?

As the unnamed goddess resurrects throughout the trilogy, she drags along the ghosts of previous eras. In The Bull At The Gate, Nick and Alice are in York, a city with history cramped within its mediaeval fortifications stretching back to the Roman legions, and where deep in modern cellars sacrificial victims strive for the light. 

Multi 5* Torc of Moonlight is available now as an ebook and paperback
Ebk: USA Kindle ¦ UK Kindle ¦ Nook ¦ Kobo ¦ iTunes
Pbk: Amazon USA ¦ Amazon UK ¦
Soon at B&N and Bk Depository

The Bull At The Gate is scheduled for publication in late summer 2013

Catch up with Linda Acaster: Blog ¦ Facebook ¦ Twitter ¦ Goodreads