D. Wallace Peach – Fiction Favorites

Today I am on the last stop of The Last Drive tour. I’m so pleased to be with Diana Peach. You can go HERE to connect to her post.

Diana is one of those amazing authors who is able to write wonderful books and attract readers to them no matter the reader’s preferred genre. She does this because all her books are so well written that they draw the reader in until the end. Diana has written twenty books, and you can check them out on her Amazon Author’s Page.

Here is more in her words.

I didn’t care for reading as a child – I preferred Bonanza and Beverly Hillbillies reruns, Saturday morning cartoons and the Ed Sullivan show. Then one day, I opened a book titled The Hobbit.

Tolkien … literally changed my life.

I love to write. It’s a luxury I never expected I’d have time for – life got in the way. You know how that goes – kids, work, chores… sleep. I worked for 18 years in business where amassing coin was the all-consuming objective. It required huge amounts of time and mental energy. And for me personally, it was soul-slaying.

Then on September 11, 2001 two planes flew into the World Trade Center. I was working in Connecticut, about 2 hours from ground zero, and remember sitting in a conference room, watching the second tower fall. That tragedy initiated a process of redefinition for me, an evaluation of what was vital and important. Life felt short and precarious, and I started to wonder if it was time to do something that actually mattered.

In a moment of loving kindness, my husband suggested that I quit my job and go back to school (he still wonders what he could possibly have been thinking). I graduated with a Masters in Counseling and a mountain of debt. Oh well. I worked in Burlington, Vermont for peanuts – but, oh, they were chocolate covered! The human experience was sweet and rich. I had the pleasure of working with people who cared deeply about the challenges facing children and families, and I came to understand how the power of relationship, in all its myriad forms, can change the world. In Myths of the Mirror it is called the Belonging.

Then life got in the way again, and Randy and I made a move to the lush, wet, green wilderness of the Oregon rainforest. We live on a mountain a half-hour beyond the edge of civilization in a wonderful community where, once again, I encountered the Belonging. In another regrettable moment of loving kindness, he suggested that I write a book rather than work, and Myths of the Mirror poured onto the keyboard. Fast forward a decade and more than twenty books line my Amazon shelf. They have each been labors of love and I hope you enjoy them.

Thank you so much, Diana for helping spread the word about The Last Drive

I have closed comments so you can be brillant at Diana’s place

I am so pleased to welcome a fellow Story Empire participant and fabulous writer Diana Peach to Fiction Favorites. She is here to tell you about her latest book The Necromancer’s Daughter.

Diana the post is yours.

Greetings John. Thanks for hosting me today at your blog. I thought I’d do a spin-off of one of your features—Views of the Neighborhood. But instead of a Texan tour, we’re going to tour the fantasy world of The Necromancer’s Daughter.

You always start your tours with a gourmet meal. We’re starting this one with soup. My main characters usually don’t have much in the way of resources, and they have to cook on a fire. The soup of the day is a vegetable fish soup seasoned with garden parsley.

The “neighborhood” spans two kingdoms: the lush seaside lowlands of Verdane and the cold mountains of Blackrock. Verdane has a wealth of croplands and harbors. Blackrock has none of those, but they do have dragons and those scary, hungry beasts guarantee a lot of leverage.

Between them, flanked on both sides by palisade walls, is the wilderness known as Catticut, the Forest of Silvern Cats. It’s a place of huge trees, white panthers, and tribes of warriors. In a world dominated by men, the Catticut chiefs are all women, and they’re as tough as their weathered skin. There’s only one road through the untamed forest, and it makes for a risky trek.

One of the first things I do as I start to write is create a map. That way I have a good “view of the neighborhood.” Here’s the map of the world in The Necromancer’s Daughter. All aboard for what I hope is a fantastical ride!

***

Blurb:

A healer and dabbler in the dark arts of life and death, Barus is as gnarled as an ancient tree. Forgotten in the chaos of the dying queen’s chamber, he spirits away her stillborn infant, and in a hovel at the meadow’s edge, he breathes life into the wisp of a child. He names her Aster for the lea’s white flowers. Raised as his daughter, she learns to heal death.

Then the day arrives when the widowed king, his own life nearing its end, defies the Red Order’s warning. He summons the necromancer’s daughter, his only heir, and for his boldness, he falls to an assassin’s blade.

While Barus hides from the Order’s soldiers, Aster leads their masters beyond the wall into the Forest of Silvern Cats, a land of dragons and barbarian tribes. She seeks her mother’s people, the powerful rulers of Blackrock, uncertain whether she will find sanctuary or face a gallows’ noose.

Unprepared for a world rife with danger, a world divided by those who practice magic and those who hunt them, she must choose whether to trust the one man offering her aid, the one man most likely to betray her—her enemy’s son.

A healer with the talent to unravel death, a child reborn, a father lusting for vengeance, and a son torn between justice, faith, and love. Caught in a chase spanning kingdoms, each must decide the nature of good and evil, the lengths they will go to survive, and what they are willing to lose.

***

This is John again.

I just finished The Necromancer’s Daughter last night. I will be posting a review, but for now, I have to say that this is one of the best fantasy books I have read. The story is compelling and the characters are extremely well-developed. Diana has a unique way of writing that compels the reader to go forth until the very end. Speaking of end this tale ends exactly where I wanted it to end. No spoilers here but after spending time with these characters I needed a surprise ending exactly the way Diana crafted it. Needless to say, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes beautiful world-building, action, adventure, moving scenes, and an escape from the real world.

Bio:

A long-time reader, best-selling author D. Wallace Peach started writing later in life when years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books. She was instantly hooked.

In addition to fantasy books, Peach’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of the arts in her local community, organizing and publishing annual anthologies of Oregon prose, poetry, and photography.

Peach lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes.