Sneak Peek: Serafina’s Flame by J.C. Hart
Serafina’s Flame
is a tale about three women, and their relationships with each other and their near
forgotten goddess.
About the author
I started telling stories from a very young age, in fact I sometimes think most of my childhood was a fiction, a fantasy. Living under the mountain was magical. You can find doorways to other worlds just about anywhere and I was often drawn into them, along with my brother and any cousins available. We would spend hours exploring the worlds I painted with my words.
It was obvious that I’d never want to give that up.
Natural that I would be a writer. Inevitable that I would be drawn to continually explore the
other. And that’s why I write what I write; I just can’t help myself.
Excerpt from Serafina’s Flame
Carmel walked down the central aisle of the church towards her dying son. The thick blue carpet beneath her feet was soft like grass. She wanted to sink into it, to lie down and avoid what lay ahead on the polished stone floor by the altar. This couldn’t be real. It wasn’t meant to end like this. She’d fought so hard to keep him safe for all those years and now…
She kept moving, passing her baby grandson to the priestess, Iraja, as she got close and dropped to her knees beside Landon.
He reached for her hands, grimacing as he did.
“My boy,” Carmel said, her breath stirring his pale blond hair. “Can you speak?”
He nodded in response, licked his lips and opened them. A thin rasp came out, she leaned down until they were nose to nose, forehead to forehead.
“Tell me about the flames, Mother.” His voice was a whisper. “Tell me the story of what happens when the dead are burned.”
Carmel’s chest jerked as though all the air had been sucked from her lungs. She glanced around, but the priestess paced the aisle with Romane, leaving her alone with Landon.
“We’re not meant to—”
“I want to hear it, one more time. I wish…”
“Shh, shh. I’ll tell you.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead and checked that Iraja was still out of earshot.
A shiver began in Carmel’s body. She hadn’t spoken of the flames in years. Hadn’t told him this story since he was a little boy and they were newly arrived in the city of their captors. To tell these tales would bring down the wrath of the All Mother; Carmel had never met that goddess in the flesh, but her eyes peered down at them from every window in this room.
She watched the dust motes dance as she opened her mouth and began to speak.
Join J. C. Hart and six other Kiwi authors at Meow Cafe in Wellington on Feb 18th for a celebration of seven spectacular new books!
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