BeWrite Books announce the release of Hunter Taylor's debut novel Insatiate Archer
In the mists of time, when the line between fact and fantasy had not been drawn, war raged between the new religion and the old - and Hunter Taylor calls on her own rich heritage to bring to life that era of bloodstained reality and magical legend in her remarkable debut novel, Insatiate Archer.
[USPRwire, Thu Mar 15 2007] Taylor's family history is steeped in ages old Celtic and Native American tradition and a store of folklore and intimacy with nature helped create the book's unforgettable heroine, Susanna.
Susanna, whose startling, differently coloured eyes mark her as a witch, is a high priestess of the secret and sacred druidic groves, struggling to embrace the best of Christianity. But the monstrous Yellow Curate will stop at no evil to rid the world of her and her ancient beliefs.
Taylor seamlessly joins 14th Century fact, myth and magic to take her reader on a breathtaking odyssey through a land in the birth pangs of change, where Susanna is never more than a footstep ahead of the sadistic cleric obsessed with her destruction.
Taylor's immaculate research and magical writing style make for a dazzling novel of harsh truths in the most cruel of times, sometimes hard to bear as you tear through its pages. But the book's sheer realism is not the result of painstaking academic research alone; much is instinctive and drawn from the author's inherited feeling for the times and people recreated in Insatiate Archer.
As a former military journalist, Taylor - who is now a full-time author and lives with her husband in Texas - also weaves into her work personal experience of far flung places, and of her years as a US soldier.
She said: "I am on every page in my own right, but I am also there in the presence of everyone who nourished or influenced me. My grandmothers are there with their store of homegrown remedies and old family tales. My Celtic father, with his never-ending humor and great creativity, is there. The people with whom I trained in the Army are there. My travels around the country and the globe are there. All the experiences of a lifetime - and the lifetimes of those close to me - come together.
"My childhood was filled with the kind of history in which the story is set, with a strong oral tradition in tales of adventure. My father was Celtic Scots, and family lineage also includes direct ancestors who were Native American as well as old Germanic and Irish blood lines
"This heritage of folklore and harmony with nature was a tremendous source of inspiration as I wrote of times shrouded in myth and of people close to the earth, independent in their ancient beliefs and facing a changing world. Although my story is set six hundred years in the past, the circumstances and characters felt very close to home. I could feel part of them."
The result is that Insatiate Archer's mystic heroine, Susanna, is a flesh-and-blood woman of her time, but one who readers can understand and identify with in the materialistic 21st Century.
"Susanna first came to me in the early 1980s while I was serving with the Army in Germany," said Taylor. "Through the years, she evolved from a slightly fairy-tale being into a real presence, strong-willed and adventurous.
"In the early 1990s, while living in New York City, I saw a revival of the musical, Camelot. It occurred to me then that of all the people in the Arthurian legends, the character of Nimue was largely unexplored. She is usually portrayed as conniving, a thief of Merlin's magic who seals him in a cave and leaves him there. She did not seem so to me. I saw her as a highly intelligent young woman, assertive and independent. She became the ancestor of Susanna.
"So the character of Susanna is original, although it has been said that all writing, no matter how the author may deny it, is to some degree autobiographical. I confess I did not see this as I was writing the novel. When it was completed and had sat the shelf for a time, I took it down and read it again. And it was there - me and my family ghosts."
Taylor's title is taken from poet Edward Young's 18th Century Night Thoughts: "Insatiate Archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain."
She said: "When I saw the quote on an old gravestone in Norfolk, Virginia, marking the resting place of a mother and her two children, it seemed to sum up the losses suffered by Susanna in the book; The harsh impersonal randomness of life itself."
But although Taylor's Insatiate Archer is firmly rooted in reality, she does exercise her right as its creator to introduce occasional touches of magical fantasy.
She explained: "The intertwining of historical fiction and setting with elements of fantasy came about as a result of my reading King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the King James Bible, and Playboy magazine. These may appear to be wildly divergent sources, but they all played a role in the conceptualization. Our lives tend to become bogged down in mundane details. I believe that real life is a combination of fact and fancy, of the ordinary and the supernatural. In this way, the touches of fantasy make this a more accurate mirror of life; especially in the medieval times of which I write.
"I have been interested for some time in the idea and the history of the manner in which women were persecuted as witches. This goes hand-in-glove with the struggle between the old religions and Christianity.
"The unicorn has a part to play in the book; a creature that's been associated with Christ and the early Christian church, the older nature-based religions, and belief in gods and goddesses. The image of the unicorn has been found in such widely divergent localities as ancient China and on the royal seal of England.
"But to ensure historical correctness I researched histories of religions, witchcraft, ancient myths and legends. For instance, one seemingly fantastic episode in my book is based on a legendary event actually documented in Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain.
"As between forms of religion, there's often a very blurred line between fact and fantasy in history. I feel that recognizing this in a novel accurately reflects the mindset of those who populated our world in olden days. I'm sure my ancestors would agree."
Insatiate Archer is the first in a trilogy of linked novels. Taylor is currently at work on book two, set two centuries later with a descendent of Susanna's as protagonist. Again deeply researched hard fact and documented myth and magic will be interwoven to recreate a lost age in which reality had a less rigidly defined definition.
Title: Insatiate Archer
Author: Hunter Taylor
Print ISBN: 978-1-905202-34-8
eBook ISBN: 978-1-905202-35-5
Release Date: 15th March 2007
Page count: 280
Distributors: Bertram Books, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, Ingrams
For further information and review copies, please contact: Cait Myers at BeWrite Books
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