The Wind-Up Forest


I’ve always loved Arthurian legends, from an early age, and that love stayed with me well into adulthood. I’ve been wanting to write a novel involving those legends in some way. I had loved Douglas Clegg’s novel, the terrific “Mordred: Bastard Son.” And I had also loved the Mary Stewart novels focusing on Merlin as the main character. The ’80s shiny armored movie, “Excalibur” is still a firm favorite, despite the cheesiness, and a lot of the music I listen to focuses on Arthurian myth and legend—the Matter of Britain—bands like local group Spiral Dance and UK artist, Damh the Bard.

So I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to use the mythos without focusing on the characters. I wanted that mythos and the most important artefact within it that was not Excalibur to play an important role. And as I still felt I had stories to tell in my “Archangel Chronicles” universe, it struck me as being a perfect fit for the Holy Grail to be at the core of the three book story arc. The pieces fell even more firmly into place when I was doing some reading on the subject of the Grail and saw that there were actually Grail angels in the mythos—Michael, Gabriel, Tzadkiel and Raziel.

Michael and Gabriel are together now, after the first three books, they’ve become bonded/mated and Gabriel particularly wants nothing more than to enjoy some alone time (and sexy time!) with Michael. But matters being what they are, which can be put down to the author deciding that no, they weren’t getting that quite yet, crisis arise and so the second trilogy of the “Archangel Chronicles” takes off with book four, “The Wind-up Forest,” which is new out from Dreamspinner Press. I was also inspired by the artistic and musical installation of the Clockwork Forest in England (https://www.rojaksite.com/clockwork-forest/) and so part of the story in this book involves trees with keys in the trunks which, when turned, play music.

History, legend and music play large roles in the background of the story arc in this book, and I had a lot of fun writing it and exploring all the new relationships and revisiting the old, established ones too. I hope that readers enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.


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