Blog Tour: A FABLE OF WOOD AND STRING

A FABLE OF WOOD AND STRING

L.T. Getty

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GENRE:  Young Adult High Fantasy

 

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BLURB:

 

Would it hurt you to just do as you’re told?

 

The O’Connell siblings live in the shadow of their parent’s past, held back by obligation to keep the people of Stagmil safe when their father has to lead the non-hunters of their village to drive off a wyvern.

 

Lily doesn’t trust the stranger who calls herself Madeline when she staggers into the pastoral lands. The puppeteer seems to take an interest in Lily’s talent with the family mandoline, and she teaches Lily new music. Lily’s had songs stuck in her head before, but nothing like this.

 

Twins Seth and Tiffany however can’t wait for their father to return so they can get on with the shearing. Seth should at least be helping hunt the wyvern, and Tiffany wants to take her best friend Molly and head to the nearest city and see the world.

 

The twins and several other villagers are lured by song into the woods and transformed into marionettes: Seth breaking free before he can be strung, and Lily tainted in a way she doesn’t understand. They have the skills to track the woman down, but to restore Seth to his body, and rescue Tiffany and the others?

 

Tracking the woman takes them far from the familiar woodlands they know, across the sea to an enchanted castle, where in an effort to rescue their sister they’ll learn something much more sinister than turning folk into puppets is going on. They’ll get help, of course, but not from who they expected.

 

After all, last Seth checked, foxes are only supposed to have the one tail.

 

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Excerpt One:

The figure in black started to play something else, and the other’s eyes widened. Tiffany shouted something, and they all reached for the soft wax of the candle but didn’t know what they were doing. In the haste of grabbing the candle, it was knocked to the ground.

Seth ignored his companions and nocked his bow. “Stop what you’re doing or I’ll shoot!”

The figure seemed undeterred. Seth knew he was about to commit murder, but he didn’t care and he wouldn’t leave Louis or any of them to whatever that doppelganger was, and this thing was obviously part of this plot. He loosed the arrow, and the figure only stopped playing to bat it away with the sword hidden under the cloak. Impossible, Seth thought, nocking another with a second between his fingers for quick redraw. He might not be the finest archer—but at this range he didn’t have to be, and no one could deflect arrows in succession for long.

Someone screamed. It looked like Rebecca was caught in a web when she tried to bolt from the glen between two trees. Seth unsheathed his long knife and went to help her, but the figure of Not-Lily appeared, taking off her face and standing near Rebecca. The face was completely blank underneath; Seth let out a surprised gasp before she replaced that face with something with six red eyes, two in the normal place with another four running up her forehead.

Then he saw it—her—grow. The lower half of her body swelled and became massive, bulbous, like the back half of a centaur; her body remained about the same size, but rather than fur and four legs, shimmering black hair and eight legs protruded from the torso, longer at the bend than Dale was tall. She towered over Rebecca. A giant spider . . .  woman? There was something eerily feminine about it, a sort of terrible beauty that froze him when his instincts told him to move. She stepped over Rebecca, barrelling down on Seth. He loosed another arrow at her head, but she dodged and shot out webbing from her hands that knocked him backwards, pinning him to the grass. More spider silk flew and pinned his arm to the grass.

Seth tried to wriggle free the monster chased after Dale, and to Seth’s horror, caught him with long strands at his wrists, and wrangled him like a marionette. Dale wriggled against the webbing and she dragged him back, and it seemed that he was transforming in the shadow, shrinking and becoming . . .  something else. Seth unbuttoned his over shirt to try to free himself.

Dale was reduced to the size of a doll, and the spider had shifted him to a web in the canopy before going after Tiffany. Brigid flailed between two trees, seemingly stuck in a giant web.      

Louis cut Seth free and thrust the bow into Seth’s hand. He shouted something and Seth realized that if he got her attention, there wouldn’t be another time. Louis released his sling in the dark. Seth couldn’t see the rock’s trajectory but the spider reeled, leaving Tiffany and moved with intent on the pair of them. They darted in opposite directions, and by luck the creature honed in on Louis, giving Seth enough time to fire. The arrow bounced off the creature’s bulbous body.

Out of the corner of his eye, Seth thought he saw a fox or coyote dart from the bush and bound through the grass. It ran behind the mandolin-playing creature and bit it in the butt. Suddenly there were two people, but Seth couldn’t watch them.

Seth let loose another arrow, narrowly missing the torso, and shouted at the others to run—he wasn’t sure who it had now, was it Rebecca or Molly? The light was too poor for him to be certain, but whoever the spider held she was shrinking fast.

The creature turned, six red and black eyes focused on Seth, and came down on him with full force. Seth found his limbs caught by two bands of silk and forced above his head, and he was hoisted into the air. He locked eyes with Louis who was looking not only smaller, but . . .  wooden. Against his control, Seth raised his hands to his ears and removed the wax, and sound same rushing back.

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Interview:

Tell us about your book? How did it get started?

A Fable of Wood and String is a high fantasy adventure about a pair of siblings leaving their small village to rescue their sister. It is the first novel in a planned duology, book 2 is mostly written as I was writing parts of it while I was still working on book 1. 

The story starts out with a wyvern stealing sheep from the O’Connells, the only family in the area who are remotely equipped to deal with the threat, but the wyvern retreats into the woods and remains at large. This being the obvious threat to their neighbours and the other villages nearby, most of the men in the village go after it, leaving frustrated Lily behind to help protect those who can’t help themselves. Seth, the other major viewpoint character, is initially allowed to go but is promptly returned because his impulsive nature is throwing off his father’s focus. 

A stranger arrives requesting help, so the people of Stagmil take her in with the intent for someone to take her to a nearby larger city as soon as they can spare the people. The stranger, Madeline, takes interest in Lily’s musical abilities and has her learn strange music, which entraps Lily in a way she doesn’t understand. Madeline uses Lily to put most of the village into an enchanted slumber before luring out several teens into the woods where they’re transformed into living marionettes and promptly kidnapped, Seth being the only one who manages to escape but still be in an ensorcelled form.  

The puppeteer made a serious miscalculation: she attacked in the territory of a kitsune, a celestial fox, who took the offense of trapping Lily and kidnapping her villagers personally. She helps free Lily from her initial bondage and soon gives the O’Connells a means to resist her spells, staying behind to protect her village in case Madeline returns.

 They set out to find their people and bring them home, and end up following their sister to an enchanted castle where the marionettes are forced to go along with a fake world for an unknown but sinister purpose. 

This got started when I wrote a novel for my niece called, The Mermaid and the Unicorns and one of the characters was transformed and almost kidnapped, but our plucky protagonist Daphne was already under a spell so the puppeteer met with some resistance and Daphne was able to thwart her. My niece wanted to know what was going on with that scene, which I was happy to oblige but then she made suggestions. 

So if you like duologies or wanted to know more about “The Client across the sea”, it was my niece Scarlet Cianflone who gave me some initial launching points. There were things we clashed on, and it was thanks to her that one of the major characters survived. Books are revised and I sometimes will deviate from an initial good idea to better suit the story, but in the end A Fable of Wood and String is for my nieces.

 

How do you create your characters?

 

In the aforementioned The Mermaid and the Unicorns, the titular mermaid Daphne gets into her mess because she’s jealous of her best friend being the rare elemental. She’s very brave and spunky, but I didn’t want to rehash the same character.

When I created Lily O’Connell I came up with the idea of a character who had powers they didn’t want – and this isn’t being cursed with awesome, this would be a character who was being used as a conduit for a nefarious scheme she didn’t want to be a part of.

Both Lily and Daphne are brave and clever, but Lily’s booksmarts are noted by several characters. Lily’s dutiful and hard working, but among her flaws are that she’s a little judgemental looks down on other people  – not because she is snotty so much as she feels held back and like she’s not reaching her potential in her sleepy little shire. Her lack of gratitude and humility cause undo rifts with others, later on in the book she clashes with people she’s helped rescue and she realizes there’s a world of information she doesn’t know, and to not get hung up on how she’s perceived by others. I found as a young woman a lot of people were trying to control me, so I wanted her to feel relatable in that people were projecting their hang ups and a realistic push back from her wanting to be in charge of her life. Towards the very end of the book, this all comes to a head when someone is making a decision she doesn’t agree with, but she accepts his choice. Ultimately, Lily’s character arc is initially about her feeling held back and wanting to make her own choices and seeing herself as knowing better than others, her realizing she doesn’t (and cannot) know everything, and she needs to let other people have the same autonomy she desires for herself. People aren’t deserving of her help because they’re good or bad or because she’s amazing, but because helping people is the right thing to do, and she doesn’t need puppeteer magic to do that. 

Seth O’Connell on the other hand I knew was turning into a living marionette and be my catalyst for action from the get go. Seth is Lily’s younger brother and while on the fly they appear to have similar skill sets, Seth is very observant and inquisitive but with very poor impulse control. That isn’t to say that he isn’t clever, just less mature than either of his sisters. In the story, it’s hinted he’s read the same journals and material as Lily, but downplays his booksmarts. If Seth was at the Council of Elrond, and was told, “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” Seth would be like, “Well, I got two good legs watch me pointy-ears.” I wouldn’t trust him to be a ring bearer, he’d be like Tom Bombadil and get distracted. He’d put the ring around a chicken he’d lead but then eat the corrupted chicken the next day and deviate the wrong direction to get a donkey. I initially wanted to give Seth a big character arc like Lily, but then I thought it would be funnier if he doesn’t learn a darn thing but appears to have levelled up and this is now everyone else’s (mostly his parents’) problem. 

Seth and Lily serve as the co-protagonists of the story, with their sister Tiffany and one of the squires they meet in Castle Mirador becoming viewpoint characters as the story progresses. It’s a large cast so we can’t get to everyone, but let’s just say because we’re going to different locations, you don’t have to necessarily remember a character from back in Stagmil while we’re exploring Castle Mirador.

 

What inspires and what got you started in writing?

I think what inspired me to start writing was that there were a lot of stories I really enjoyed but they were almost always seen as ‘for boys’. The girl toys were meant to be more about fashion as opposed to adventure. Science fiction and fantasy has a history of female characters who adventured and were heroines in their own right, so I think it was a good fit for me.

Now I’m older and studied plenty so I find myself asking questions about the themes when I’m writing. Speaking specifically on A Fable of Wood and String, I’d say several of the themes are Obedience vs Duty, The Nature of Bonds (family, friendship, romantic), and Identity. 

 

How do you get your ideas for writing?

It depends on the stage of writing, early development I wanted to take what was established and expand, as opposed to retcon. I mentioned before that I didn’t want a cookie-cutter heroine, so I jotted down ideas and did my best to try to give these ideas form.

Puppets imply a stage, I knew music could play an integral role early on. Like many others, I enjoy how sometimes songs can be bigger or have a larger cultural impact than the product itself. Several years ago, I remember making a joke and suddenly I had three teen boys singing, “Toss a coin to your Witcher” – and I know at least one of them wasn’t allowed to watch the show because of the mature content. I listened to traditional ballads and jigs and reels, and tried to get an idea of how powerful music could be.

I learned more about how stories used to be told, like through dance and the use of theatre masks.  I was also inspired by a video game I never played but my niece loved called Cameo gave me an idea. Again, never played it, but you play a faerie who takes on the form of various mythical creatures to progress through the levels, as they have different powers. I used the ideas of puppeteers stealing faces to mimic others, and then to use the faces of humanoid creatures to transform and obtain their abilities. More of that will be in Book 2, so far all we really saw was the Jorogumo and the Centaur with Madeline.

What do you like to read?

I tend to read a lot of small/indie books and I like to support fellow Canadians, but it’s a big country so if I have to pick I’d probably say that I will read Manitoban or support authors from the West but it depends. If someone from the Maritimes is writing military science fiction I’d prefer that over a local romantasy. I was behind on my reading challenge last year but I don’t sweat it. 

For nonfiction, I tend to read something along the line of Christian Apologetics. For the Paramedic College con-ed, I’ve been reading more articles on how the mind works and mental health, not always books but articles and podcasts and such. I may switch it up and switch from the brain to cardiac soon but it’s a fascinating field.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

L.T. Getty is a Manitoba Paramedic. She received her degree in English in 2006 from the University of Winnipeg, and has gone on to write several novels. Her latest title, Titan’s Ascent, is a sword and sorcery forthcoming from Champagne Books for 2025.

 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6479207.L_T_Getty

Twitter/X: http://www.twitter.com/getty_lt

Blog: http://www.ltgetty.ca

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/leiagetty

 

Buy Links:

Amazon (US): https://www.amazon.com/Fable-Wood-String-Getty-ebook/dp/B0DDDQZ2LF?ref_=ast_author_dp

Amazon (Canada): https://www.amazon.ca/Fable-Wood-String-L-Getty/dp/1777698073

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/it/it/ebook/a-fable-of-wood-and-string

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-fable-of-wood-and-string-l-t-getty/1145983492

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

L.T. Getty will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway