A Wise Choice

A little freaked out being deep underground, surrounded by Fae? A wise choice. The next two chapters of Shadows to Stars will arrive in your inbox shortly.  Until then, enjoy this outdoor concert.

Yes, yes, I know they don't look entirely human. You are in Portland.  Weird is a feature, not a bug. It's probably just latex ears and LED lights. I'm absolutely sure the lilting fiddle music won't put you in a trance or anything nefarious like that.

 

P.S. Hi again!

As a kid I loved to walk in the woods or in a new town on vacation and imagine some invisible, vibrant world lay just beyond that curious door or in the hollow of a stately tree.

Some things never change.  It's why I love fantasy set in modern "real" world settings.

Portland, Oregon is my absolute favorite city on earth, and it brims with magical possibilities. The fact that a gigantic, wild park that's 8 miles long exists right in the city is fuel for the literary imagination. 

Deep inside Forest Park is a decaying structure known as the Witch's Castle. It's the real world location for Fògradh Lodge. The Witch's Castle is the entrance to the literal underground Lodge that sprawls for over a square mile beneath the City of Portland.

I turned this photo I took the last time I hiked Forest Park into the illustration for Fògradh Lodge in The Last Battle of Moytura series (with the help of Photoshop, Procreate, and a tad of gen AI).