Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
You might recognise today’s featured fantastical novelist – as she’s appeared on Jorie Loves A Story a few times in the recent past! IF your a new visitor to my blog, you’ll find I hosted an interview with Ms Silverwood during a previous Borderlands Saga blog tour hosted by PRISM whilst this past Autumn, I read her original debut novel release STAY – featured during my newly minted weekend showcases #SaturdaysAreBookish whilst we conversed on topic during a live discussion via @SatBookChat (a monthly chat I host on Twitter). Meanwhile, for the rest of the particulars of how we first crossed paths & why we are bookishly happy for the serendipity of how our lives crossed this year, please refer to the following:
On my connection to Jennifer Silverwood:
When our paths first crossed, Ms Silverwood and I shared a mutual interest and connection; however, our friendship did not form for awhile afterwards. It was truly after the interview went live and after I noticed I was reading her blog as much as she was reading mine – where I realised we shared a lot of commonalities in our reading lives as well as our writely lives! We decided to stay in touch and it is an honour to find someone who understands the bridge between reader, blogger and writer.
I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Ms Silverwood through our respective love & passion of reading inside the twitterverse whilst I hosted her Silver Hollow blog tour and privately as well. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time or continuing to read their releases as they are available. This also applies to hosting a guest feature by the author I share a connection.
We both have the tendency of seeking out the same stories to be reading – one case in point are the collective works of Tolkien’s Middle Earth – a discussion point which emerged through my #FantasyForChristmas series of blog posts – as we were conversing in the *threads below the posts about our mutual love of Fantasy stories whilst expounding on my notes I supplied per post to explain why each author appealled to me to be a dearly happenstance #nextread!
I have been flying by the seat of my pants this #blogmas with this blog series – life & its tides have been keeping me on my toes, not to mention the fact I had to pull a few showcases due to the fact a few of the stories were not what I was expecting them to be whilst my Tuesday was also marked by a family emergency which I’ll explain during my forthcoming #TheSundayPost – a series I have been wanting to resume on my blog since July! Seems like the best time now, given the circumstances and the fact I’ve been struggling to get back into a groove befit of a girl who loves her readerly life! If you can’t tell – I’m truly thankful we have a new chapter of a New Year inking its way round the corner!
Not having a lot of lead-time to work on these posts & a few of them have been arriving rather later than projected – what was keenly surprising is how Tolkien having been broached earlier in the month between Ms Silverwood & I would take-on new meaning & definition now! Laughs with mirth. Of course, she might have felt I already knew the content of her guest post today (though I hadn’t!) and thereby, no surprise to be had! Interesting, as I’ve been a book blogger I’ve noticed these seemingly random connections & coincidences have the tendency of happening when you least expect them! Such as the better time to be reading a particular novel or the fact, one author you read helps introduce you to another author you hadn’t yet discovered, etc, etc. There are patterns in life and sometimes we are privy to seeing their connective threads – other times, we are blissful unaware of the patterns & get to smile at the random joys which alight in our lives.
For me today, I am thankful she picked this particular topic as it is one close to my own writerly heart as I’ll disclose underneath her words. And, for those of you who happen to fancy Middle Earth, I daresay this is a champion of a day for you! I look forward to seeing your reactions & takeaways in the comments whilst hoping some might reveal what their thoughts are about their own origin of ‘name’.
Sit back with your favourite cuppa & a hearty cosy comforting baked treat – as you get to know this intriguing world Ms Silverwood has cast an enchanting spell over for us to feel comfortable enough to seek out & enter!
POSTSCRIPT: for those readers trying to click on ANY rifflebooks.com links on my blog, I apologise for the inconvenience of those links not routing to a viable website. I am as flummoxed as you are to where the site went & of the content I’ve lost as a result of its sudden absence. I am hoping it will re-emerge but I’ve moved on without it for now. I’m in the process of deleting ALL Riffle links directly to book synopsises on my blog whilst the Riffle Lists embeds will take a bit longer to re-route into a newly developed list via my LibraryThing. I appreciate your patience.
Why I originally was keen on the writing styling of Ms Silverwood:
When I first discovered Silver Hollow, it was the genre-bending styling of the author which implored me the most to read the story. At the time, Silver Hollow was being re-released and the only version currently available back then in print was the older version. Sadly, despite my efforts to secure that copy by inter-library loan had failed. It still remains a story I want to read one day, however, what was interesting about moving inside Stay was finding the natural nuanced styling of a writer who takes cues straight out of the Mythological past!
As I hinted at during @SatBookChat today, there are moments within reading Stay where I could almost feel the presence of Poseidon and Zeus; except, I wasn’t naming them in my mind. There are enough elements of connection within the story itself to draw you closer towards naming them outright but it was the illusion of connection to these two which I appreciated even more because it deepened the suspense and the mythological proportions! If it could be them, what if it wasn’t? What if there are others out there who can behave and manipulate the elements just as cheekily and get away with it?
This bridge between the fantastical and the mythological is what made me keenly curious about Silverwood’s writing style. I wanted to see how she used the bridge itself, as generally speaking I do have a penchant for Urban Fantasy nowadays but each writer I read within that branch of literature has their own unique spin on how to make ‘modern’ settings warmly conducive to Fantasy realms.
Finding myself dearly enchanted by how she brokered a story out of the roots of Greek Mythos is only the tip of the iceberg I feel I shall be finding within her collective works! The joy of reading Stay and discussing it was finding out the sequel is arriving in 2019!
-as quoted from my review of STAY
Converse via: #FantasyForChristmas, #FantasyNerd, #DarkFantasy,
#UrbanFantasy and #BorderlandsSaga
Published by: Silverwood Sketches
Borrow from a Library (original edition*)
**Previously published in 2012.
This NEW EDITION has been FULLY REVISED AND EXPANDED.
The original novel is now no longer available (except at public libraries).**
The Borderlands series:
Silver Hollow (book one) | add to LibraryThing
Published: 31st May, 2018 | ISBN: 978-1718974586
Amie Wentworth trusts books more than people. After her parents’ deaths ten years before, she writes fiction to escape reality. A timely invitation from her long-lost uncle arrives, but she’s used to ignoring the mysterious surrounding her life.
Until she is stabbed in an alley and brought back to life by a handsome stranger. Soon Amie is dragged into the very sort of tale she is used to selling. To make matters worse, the man who saved her life keeps turning up and her would-be-murderer is still at large.
After crossing the Atlantic to her father’s homeland, she discovers a world beyond imagining. Silver Hollow is a place of ancient traditions and supernatural dangers, where everything is the opposite of what it seems and few escape sane. Faced with an impossible choice, Amie is forced to confront a deadly family legacy while remembering a life she soon wishes to forget.
