Meet Aedan Byrnes, author of 'Through the Oracle's Mist'

What was the inspiration behind this book?

This started as a filler story I was working on for a character that I portray for another author in role-play. As it grew, it just got too big and too different from the original work to fit anymore. It also began to spin off fillers of its own to the storyline and that’s when it had to become something else.

What kind of research did you have to do?

Research for me is a lazy afternoon reading. I am a history fan so I basically got to sit down and visit some of my favorite times and places and then search out others that would fill the timeline of the story.

Which character spoke to you the most?

The Oracle. There is something about the aloof but sketchy Pythian Scrolls and the inferences into the tale that appeal to me. I knew the Delphic Oracle piece from early on, but I did not actually feel out the idea of using the scrolls and the prophecies to move the tale until after it was nearly complete. It gave me a whole new perspective for the story arc.

What was one of your favorite scenes?

Tynan on the rocks by the pool just outside Loulan is a favorite. That scene was painful to write but just flowed out, and thus I knew I was conveying the emotionality of the moment correctly. When a scene knifes me through the gut, I know I have it right…so few scenes do that to me the first crack out.

This is the first book in the series. How many more do you anticipate? Do you have any kind of timeline?

Originally, when Drake asked me about the series, I knew three stories. They read the manuscript and came back counter-proposing, saying that they could see eight to eleven books based on what I have in Oracle. As the three stories I knew have morphed, I would guess that the series will morph too and end up between three and eleven. (lol) The release timelines are fluid at this point. Originally the books were to come out one a year, about twelve months apart…the timeline for the second book has already moved up, so I am going to speculate that the others will as well.

May we have a preview of what is to come?

Warrior’s Watchtower, Vengelys Book II is coming out later this year:

Tynan

The long moments when no one speaks are my undoing. Cyrenna calls to me then. She is everywhere I look, but nowhere I can see. Through the floors, from the world beyond the lone window, through the spot in the wall that should be a door, she beckons me to leave this place and come to her. I cannot.

Would that I could, I would tear down this tower to reach her, to be with her, to claim her as my own once and for all. The thought alone of her in my arms at long last is a balm to my soul and a warm blanket to hide in away from the centuries of madness and self-loathing at the thoughts of what I failed to see for so long. Her siren song calls. It elicits no judgment, no condemnation…just longing. I want to answer her. I want to bray my frustration so that all who inhabit the Aradian lands far below would know the pain and sorrow I bear for the loss. That too has been taken from me.

She is everywhere. She is nowhere. I want to see her, but I fight not to see her. I cannot say which is worse; the long hours wishing with my eyes open that she will be before me, or the endless hours of dreaming where she is fully present but only as we once were through the portal where I see her demise over and over again.

Her words to me from the ring of stones in the stand behind the church that last lifetime beyond this plane lull me to sleep only to draw me once again to places I wish we had never been. Her words are a sensual brush against the frayed parts of me until the nightmares wipe away her gentle touch and replace them with razor-wire against my still ravaged nerves. Her memory, however painful, I cannot shake and will not ignore, even knowing it is once again the precipice to the abyss of a new torment from the past.

To the deepest recesses of my mind she pulls me to follow her. In some ways this recurring nightmare is a fitting penance as I feel like it is her and I so long ago in a tent in the sands. This time however, we have traded places. I am the one tethered to do her bidding. I am the one brought for her inspection. I am the one proffered for her satisfaction, her pleasure, her wrath, or her dismissal.

The scene that taunts me is true to the history that cannot change, though opposite. I am the one who is afraid. I am the one who is running, and I am the one who hits the wall.

~~~~~

Cyrenna

The ceremony begins like everything here, with chimes. They are complex and lulling but ominous too. So many stand in place waiting for their turn to return from whence we came and begin anew. One by one I watch them fall as I wait for my turn.

The words of the Oracle play through my mind once again and I cannot help but question, deny, and grieve. He chose. He came. Yet, here I stand and wait for this time to end.

~~~~~

Jondre

After so many ages by her side, I know her better than anyone I think. Her façade is just that. She wears the blank mask of disinterest and calm to hide the storm that rages beneath the placid face she shows us all.

The whispered word is that the attack was brutal, more so than others and that he was alone when they came. No one knows or has said where the other brothers were, they usually fought together. He made his stand and makes this journey now, alone. Word is also, that he is dead. Proper committal is required and dictates any opportunity to return to another existence beyond this one, so we wait for the arrival.

They are bringing the body here. I do not wish to see it. Evidence of the Eupion bloodlust is not required for me for this. I am able to know without seeing. The choice however is not mine to make and so I sit with her and wait for him to be brought in.

What happens now is anyone’s guess.

Do you have any other published works?

I have written for years under different pseudonyms, and while much of that work is still out…as Aedan, this is the first.

Are you currently working on any other projects, outside of this series?

I am always building ideas and working on something…actually compiling another work to a place that it would be publishable or ready for the public? No, not at this time.

You love to travel and to spend time outside. What are some of your favorite destinations?

That’s a huge question. I have tried very hard in recent years to realign my life to a stance of ‘anywhere I am is my favorite’…which is code for ‘I’m appreciating each moment as I get to have it’. I enjoy the unsullied paths and the out of the way places that still show beauty as it became without the interference of man…whether that’s the view from the mountain top, the pristine unattended beach, the deep cave, or some days…just the back yard with the birds fighting at the feeder.

How do your adventures contribute to your writing?

I think that learning to appreciate the details has made me a better writer. I have come to appreciate simple beauty, but only because it is so complex an accomplishment. Seeing beyond what is presented to me, to us, is a learned behavior that I’m learning better every day…it gives my writing a feel of reality, but fantasy at the same time. It’s not enough to walk about with our eyes open if we are not willing to see what is there…there is so much there to see and nuance is everything. I hope that came out in Oracle as we saw the different sides of the same scene and how they could be so differently perceived.

You call yourself a ‘reader’s writer’. What does that mean? How do you achieve this?

When I read I want to experience the words not just comprehend what was written. Being a ‘reader’s writer’, I therefore try to create stories and images that are felt, experienced, and lived for those who will one day read it. At the end of a book I want to be emotionally devastated by the journey. Not the sorrow kind of devastation, the wrought out, emotionally drained devastation… I want to viscerally know I read a book, but emotionally feel like I was there. That is the goal of storytelling for me…not the conclusion of the tale, but the experience of living the story. That is what I want to give my readers. As a ‘reader’s writer’ I write for their experience and revise until the betas come back and are crying or throwing the book at me for the tale they just lived.

What is your favorite book?

You have no idea how difficult it was to narrow down to 10 favorites for a recent post on this tour…See the post on Book Bliss 3/20/14. You can check the list out there…but honest; I don’t think I could possibly choose one book above so many greats.

What is something readers may be surprised to learn about you?

I am insanely logic-driven…it is a huge stumbling block for fantasy writing to craft a tale that is fantasy, but that doesn’t drive me up the walls for missing logic.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

When I signed up for this tour, it wasn’t up yet, but there is a website now for fans that is likely missing from your jump links: www.aedanbyrnes.com

Thank you so much for your time!

Thanks so much for hosting me here!

Book Info-
Title- Through The Oracle’s Mist
Series- Vengelys Series #1
By- Aedan Byrnes
Genre- Historical Paranormal Romance
Published By- Drake Valley Press USA

Blurb-

In the blackest night, with the moon and stars to guide him, she would always be there waiting…

Cyrenna thought she died the day she watched Tynan and his brothers jump through the banishment portal in an act of solidarity with Rigor. Little did she know, it would be the first of many deaths she would experience in her quest to claim his heart. She would surrender not only her immortal soul, but a mortal one repeatedly. Through a deal with the great Oracle, she has multiple mortal lifetimes to change the direction of her future and have a chance with Tynan.

Her journey spans the ages from the GenPei War in Japan and the Silk Road west, to Cromwell, the Three Kingdoms and modern times, bringing her one step closer to forever until she makes a misstep. Then, the burden falls to Tynan. The only thing that is absolute is her fervent hope that he will come, but there’s one big problem.

Through it all, he doesn’t so much as know her name.

Read an excerpt:

That single word coupled with the tangling and untangling fragrance of her, become a vortex in my mind. Rational thought collides with irrational thought, wants, and needs. All of them together, do battle with my better self. Standing up, my feet are unsteady; my head is a carnival ride of haphazard motion, and my inner wild is desperately cleaving for release. I can hear her heaving for breath as quietly as she is able and can smell the palatable desperation to remain in control and calm. I have to back away or it will be over before I can form a thought to stop it. I am too close to losing the battle with my other self and I have less ability to restrain him of late. I am not master of myself right now. I’m too close. Mistakes made years ago will not be repeated. It is a hard reminder in the back of my mind. I have to back away or risk destroying another who might finally, so many years after Ite, be worth the challenge to learn. 

Backing up, I find myself stumbling backwards, the mad tumbling bramble in my mind cluttering all rational thoughts and abilities. Lights flash against darkness in my mind, leaving momentary blindness in their wake and confusion. Images slideshow with lightning quickness; her standing in the moonlight, then it isn’t her at all but another who looks at me with sorrow, courage and compassion. More images come of her shivering to maintain control as I stroked an ice cube down her cheek; back to the other her, shivering from a different kind of stroking. The back and forth are disorienting and I find myself ass-planted on the floor with a ‘whump’ grabbing for my temples to stop the onslaught of the ensuing madness. The back and forth comparisons will not be still. 

Kneading my eyes with the heels of my hands I shake my head to clear the fog from my addled brain. I am aware that she is not able to see me and that is a small mercy, though as I settle I can smell the cloying damp earth smell of her sobbing in confusion. The smell of her tears is nearly my complete undoing as my other self surges forward to rage at memories. I clamp down hard on the past and the storming emotions to wait. I am rewarded with the low tone of her breath hitching across her vocal chords as she rights herself and regains her composure. Sadly, for both of us, it isn’t enough. I want more.

Book links

About the Author-

There is no simple description for Aedan Byrnes. Obsessive, dreamer, reclusive, compulsive, outdoorsman and wordsmith would be among the list if one were started. The displaced Gael lives in the upper Midwest with family between jaunts wherever the road takes him. A frequent traveler, he is as likely to be found rock climbing or spelunking as sitting fireside dreaming or aimlessly floating away.

A lifelong lover of words and writing, he claims a diverse reading appetite and his writing reflects the myriad influences. A self-proclaimed 'reader's writer', he looks for the emotional and the sensory in word combinations, not just the visceral comprehension of phrases in the stories he crafts and his love of all things literary shines through.

Links-
Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7397349.Aedan_Byrnes
Twitter- https://twitter.com/AedanByrnes
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/AedanByrnes

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