Books for Christmas: A Celebration of Story

Giveaway Winners!

And  the draw winners are:

•  SandyG265 ~ 'The Heir of Night'
• Llehn ~ 'Thornspell'
• JacquiR ~ JAAM 26

Congratulations to the winners and my thanks to everyone who commented---remember to stay posted for the 'Grand Supernatural Underground Draw' on the 30th. And of course I'll be back on the 1st for my regular slot and with something I hope you'll agree is special ...

Book recipients---please contact me on contact[at]helenlowe[dot]info so I can arrange to send you your 'loot'. :)

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As a writer, it’s perhaps not surprising that books form one of the major landmarks of my Christmases past—not least, I suspect, because the gift of a book was always ‘sure to please’ me on the gift front. So I thought I’d share some of the brightest of those Christmas book memories today.

One of the earliest and most enduringly successful of those book gifts—possibly because it has always spoken to both the poet and prose writer in me, as well as to the lover of gorgeous illustrations—was Twas the Night Before Christmas (believed to be the work of Clement Clarke Moore, 1779-1863):

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse …”

I have always loved the story this book tells, and the way it captures the anticipation and enchantment of Christmas Eve, a time when the young child feels as though the whole world is poised and waiting … for something magical to happen. And in Twas the Night Before Christmas it does!

I was 10 when I received the second of those very influential Christmas books—Roger Lancelyn Green’s Tales of Troy and Greece. (I suspect my book is a compilation from two publications: The Tales of Troy and Tales of the Greek Heroes, both first published in 1958.) I was already an enthusiast for both Greek and Norse myths and legends, but there was something particularly real and compelling in Green’s retelling, and all his characters came alive for me on the page. I have read many versions of those same stories, and many other classical works and reworkings since then. But I still feel that Tales of Troy and Greece was the signpost that set me firmly on the path to short stories such as The Brother King and Ithaca, and to poems like my Ithaca Conversations sequence, as well as establishing the strong mytho-heroic influences on my novels, Thornspell and The Heir of Night.

My father died when I was twenty two, and money and good cheer were both in short supply on the Christmas following his death. But we still came together as a family and my mother gave each of us a book, a trade paperback from the stationers near her work. My gift was Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon—and I loved it. Although I was subsequently to read a huge number of retellings of the Arthurian legends (too many in fact!) The Mists of Avalon was the very first such retelling I encountered and I was enthralled by its interweaving of Celtic myth and real history, and the combination of politics and battles and magic, romantic and sexual relationships—but most of all that the entire story was told from the perspective of the women in the Arthurian cycle. That was definitely a first for me in my Fantasy reading and one I liked, opening up the notion that women’s history and women’s voices in and through storytelling had something to say: something that mattered.

My mother, like my father, passed away too young. But they left me a legacy beyond price, one bound inextricably into my Christmas memories—the gift of books, and through the books, of the magic that is both story and storytelling. So it is no accident, or mere observance of convention, that The Heir of Night, the first book in my Wall of Night series, is dedicated to my parents. 

Giveaways Galore:

As part of this countdown to Christmas, each Supernatural Underground author who posts in the "Christmas Memories" series is doing a giveaway—and there’s also a Grand Supernatural Underground Giveaway at the end of the series, I believe to be drawn on 30 December. There’ll be a copy of The Heir of Night in that Grand Giveaway—plus in the soldiers' gift package—but I am also giving away a copy of both Thornspell and The Heir of Night today, the recipients to be drawn from commenters on this post.

Plus for those who already have both Thornspell and Heir (yes, Sharon, I’m looking at you! :) ) I’m adding in a copy of JAAM 26, which contains my short story Ithaca and two poems from the Ithaca Conversations sequence—amongst very many other fine stories and poems from other writers.

Just post a comment here, telling me about a “landmark” gift you've received (it doesn't have to be for Christmas), and be in to win.

Eligibility will close at midnight, US Eastern Standard Time, December 26th—I will then post the result here on the 27th so don’t forget to check back.

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Supernatural Underground author Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet and interviewer. Her latest novel, The Heir of Night, the first of THE WALL OF NIGHT quartet, is published in the USA, UK, and internationally and won the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2011 for Best Novel. Her first novel, Thornspell, is published in the US by Knopf. Helen blogs every day on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really site and on the first day of every month right here on the Supernatural Underground.