By Jenny Brigalow
Look Between The Lines
My Dears,
It is time to talk. Be seated. Fill your glass with rich red wine. Caste away your cares, settle down to listen.
There have always been the Children. I know, fore I walked with them through the Mist. My mother, and her father, and his father before him walked with them too. We were the keepers of the secrets and the tellers of the tales. Many names we have had, bard and jester, mage and madman.
Times change and those that walk this world must adapt or perish. The Children flourished. Until one day a new force arose. A magic of great might that threatened to extinguish the Olde. But the Children are nothing if not resourceful. They came to me and begged me to write their story into the realms of myth.
Hide us, they said, between the lines of a book. They made me an offer I could not refuse. Do this, they said, and you will be rich beyond measure and will live forever in the hearts and minds of mortals. Well, I ask you, what writer could resist? And so I did. That which was once a fact has become a fiction.
One such tale you will know well. The Count that was Dracula. Ring a bell? A monster. A sucker of blood. A stealer of souls. The stuff of nightmares.
Ew, you cry, but he’s so ugly! I chuckle. After all, my dears, the public gets what the public wants. “But that’s so old fashioned”, I hear you cry. And that, I would reply, is my point. This gothic tale was simply the seed. I sit back and watch the forest grow.
And such fine saplings shoot up. Such beautiful “paranormal” people. Subtle, sinuous and shapely. No longer the monster, but tortured souls, torn by inner tension. You sigh. Your pulse beats a wild tattoo against your breast bone. You know what I mean. You should. They are your creation. A product of your darkest dreams and desires.
So, next time you encounter a stranger with an acre of chest and cheek bones to die for, take a moment. Ask yourself, is he man? Is he a myth? Or is he something else entirely?
Of course, there’s only one way to find out. Are you game?
But the night grows old and so I bid you a fond farewell. But we will meet again – between the lines.
Yours truly,
The Mythmaker
Jenny Brigalow mixes myth, magic, monsters and men in her YA/NA series, Children of the Mist.
An original paranormal YA about an unconventional girl, an unconventional boy, their extraordinary transformations, and the secrets of the Scottish Highlands.
When skater girl Morven Smith turns sixteen, she develops boobs, acute appendicitis…and a pair of pointy teeth. While she is stunned by her metamorphosis into vampire, her best mate, the enigmatic Zest, is not. For the young werewolf, Morven’s transformation is an answer to his lonely prayers.
But they are unable to celebrate their mutual paranormalcy for long — there are too many dangers, too much suspicion, and too many questions. It’s only in Scotland that Morven can learn the truth about her past. But she discovers more than she bargained for when she meets her birth family — an ancient feud between vampires and werewolves. They may both be Children of the Mist, but only one species can survive.
In Children of the Mist, we discovered the secret history of the Children. Now, in the wilds of Scotland, one of them has come of age…
Megan MacGregor has lived her life off the grid, in complete secrecy. Now she’s all grown up, and needs what every female werewolf before her has needed: a mate.
Tracking one down in the lonely wilds of Argyll will be no easy task, but Megan is no ordinary woman. When she finds Sean Duncan, she’ll do anything to keep him. But Sean has secrets and a past of his own, and Megan might get more than she bargained for in a mate.