Nevermore – A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe by David Niall Wilson Guest Post & giveaway

. . . Bookshelf Tour {July 22 thru September 2, 2013} . . .

Nevermore – A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe by David Niall Wilson

{Dark Fantasy}

On the banks of Lake Drummond, on the edge of The Great Dismal Swamp, there is a tree in the shape of a woman.

One dark, moonlit night, two artists met at The Lake Drummond Hotel, built directly on the borderline of North Carolina and Virginia. One was a young woman with the ability to see spirits trapped in trees and stone, anchored to the earth beyond their years. Her gift was to draw them, and then to set them free. The other was a dark man, haunted by dreams and visions that brought him stories of sadness and pain, and trapped in a life between the powers he sensed all around him, and a mundane existence attended by failure. They were Eleanore MacReady, Lenore, to her friends, and a young poet named Edgar Allan Poe, who traveled with a crow that was his secret, and almost constant companion, a bird named Grimm for the talented brothers of fairy-tale fame.

Their meeting drew them together in vision, and legend, and pitted their strange powers and quick minds against the depths of the Dismal Swamp itself, ancient legends, and time.

Once, upon a shoreline dreary, there was a tree. This is her story.

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The Tour

July 22, 2013

Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews {Character Interview with Giveaway}
M.J. Schiller, Author {Character Interview with Giveaway (Paperback)}

 

July 23, 2013
Hywela Lyn – Romance That’s ‘Out Of This World’ {Author Interview with Giveaway}

 

July 24, 2013
Nancy’s Novels – Welcome to she said, he said {Guest Post / Review with Giveaway}

 

July 25, 2013
Melissa Keir- Sexy Between the Covers {Guest Post with Giveaway}
HBS Author’s Spotlight {Author Interview}

 

July 26, 2013
Authors’ Cafe {Guest Post with BTB Giveaway}

 

July 27, 2013
Open Book Society {Guest Post with Giveaway (Paperback)}

 

July 29, 2013
Jenna’s Journal {Guest Post with Giveaway}

 

July 30, 2013
Slave’s Erotic Reviews {Guest Post / Review}

 

August 1, 2013
Janna Shay’s Fair Play {Guest Post with Giveaway}

 

August 2, 2013
Just One More Chapter {Author Interview with Giveaway (Paperback)}

 

August 5, 2013
The Realm of Fantasy and Fiction {Guest Post / Review with BTB Giveaway}

 

August 6, 2013
Workaday Reads {Guest Post with Giveaway (Paperback)}

 

August 7, 2013
Christine’s Words {Guest Post with Giveaway}

 

August 8, 2013
FLY HIGH {Guest Post}

 

August 12, 2013
What Readers Want {Guest Post with BTB Giveaway}

 

August 14, 2013
Fierce Dolan – Words Without Limits {Guest Post with Giveaway}

 

August 17, 2013
Brooke Blogs {Guest Post / Review with Giveaway}

 

August 19, 2013
Paranormal Realms {Author Interview with BTB Giveaway}

 

August 22, 2013
Paranormal Book Club {Guest Post with Giveaway (Paperback)}

 

August 26, 2013
Rinn Reads {Guest Post with Giveaway}

 

August 27, 2013
Overflowing Bookshelves {Character Interview / Review}

 

August 30, 2013
Paranormal Dimensions {Guest Post with BTB Giveaway}

 

August 31, 2013
Deal Sharing Aunt {Author Interview with Giveaway (Paperback)}

 

September 2, 2013
A Chick Who Reads {Guest Post / Review with Giveaway}
Sun Mountain Reviews {Guest Post with Giveaway} 

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David Niall Wilson has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties.

An ordained minister, once President of the Horror Writer’s Association and multiple recipient of the Bram Stoker Award, his novels include Maelstrom, The Mote in Andrea’s Eye, Deep Blue, the Grails Covenant Trilogy, Star Trek Voyager: Chrysalis, Except You Go Through Shadow, This is My Blood, Ancient Eyes, On the Third Day, The Orffyreus Wheel, and Vintage Soul – Book One of the DeChance Chronicles. The Stargate Atlantis novel “Brimstone,” written with Patricia Lee Macomber is his most recent. He has over 150 short stories published in anthologies, magazines, and five collections, the most recent of which were “Defining Moments,” published in 2007 by WFC Award winning Sarob Press, and the currently available “Ennui & Other States of Madness,” from Dark Regions Press.His work has appeared in and is due out in various anthologies and magazines.

David lives and loves with Patricia Lee Macomber in the historic William R. White House in Hertford, NC with their children, Billy, Zach, Zane, and Katie, and occasionally their genius college daughter Stephanie.

DNW:  Today I have the distinct pleasure of interviewing one of America's most distinguished poets and authors.  I have to thank my friend and fellow dreamer, Donovan DeChance, for the introduction, and the remarkable circumstances that have brought me to a very singular room – not quite in, or out, of my own world and time – and into the presence of a personal idol.  My guest (or rather I am his) is none other than Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.  Edgar, you have no idea what an honor this is…

E.A.P:  The honor is mine, sir.  I have had the particular pleasure of reading your account of my adventures in the heart of The Great Dismal Swamp.  Though I believe you may have portrayed me as a bit more heroic than I felt, the details bring back so many memories.

DNW:  I have to ask – though I suspect I know the answer.  This room – this small library – this is the one you visited in my novel, Nevermore? I, of course, only know of it from Donovan's account.

E.A.P:  One and the same.  I have come to call this place home, but how that came about, and the peculiar circumstances of a body on a bench in Philadelphia, would be far too long a story for today.  Perhaps I'll make some notes and have Donovan drop them off…

DNW: I would very much enjoy that.  I've been a fan of your writing since I was a boy.  I have so many questions … but for today, let's limit them to that time at The Lake Drummond Hotel.  A lot happened in a very short period of time there.  What brought you to the swamp?

E. A. P:  You have no doubt read of the troubles my poor wife Victoria suffered.  She was very ill, and though I would have carried her in my arms to the very ends of the earth to save her, it was not to be.  Even then, I had begun my research into subjects most men would consider better left alone.  I had found my companion, Grimm, who I thought at the time to be a very odd old crow.  As you know, there was more to his story as well.  (Interviewer's note:  At this point, there was a soft caw, and a ruffling of feathers.  I turned to see that Grimm, who had not been present when I entered the room, rested quietly atop a very large, very ornate globe, preening himself.  He was a magnificent bird, with very old, very bright eyes).

As my research delved deeper into alchemy and science – such as it was in those days – I came across a number of possible cures.  Each time, I grew excited, and brought the news to Victoria, but each time she refused me. She was a young woman born to a family of deep – if flawed – faith.  She would not let me try any of the potions or philters I discovered, and absolutely refused any sort of amulet.

I took to the road.  I traveled, and I wrote, and I consulted with doctors and specialists.  I had just been in Raleigh – where I met a man with the ridiculous notion that if Victoria's veins were opened, and she was to be bled, nearly to the death, that she might regain her health.  Discouraged, I had turned for home.  There is no explanation other than fate for how I ended up in the saloon of the Lake Drummond Hotel the same night as Lenore…

DNW:  You say that your writing is more of a purging – a way to get the dark images out of your mind.  Was this always the case?  Your earliest writings seem quite different from those following the publication of The Raven.

E.A.P.: You have me, young man.  When I first set out to put pen to paper, I was an arrogant, buffoon of a boy.  I was so sure of my talent I used fifty words when one would suffice, certain that each was trimmed in gold and that the world would soon fall at my feet.

Those stories did not do much for my career, though a few saw print.  I was frustrated by my lack of instant fame, and became obsessed with the notion of mortal men making deals with demons.  You are no doubt familiar with these?

DNW: I am.  I always wondered, given the shift in your prose…

E.A.P.: If I'd bartered my soul to the dark side? No – though I cannot say what might have happened had the offer been made in those bleak days.  So many of those I loved had been taken from me – my parents, girls and young women that I loved – mine was not an easy life.  The truth is that my studies in the occult led me to discover any number of early tales of demons and dark magic.  Much of what I studied hovered on the edge of fiction, held in place only by thin silver threads of doubt.  Were they real?  Had they happened, or were they the ravings of madmen?

It was not until one night, walking alone through an ancient graveyard in Richmond, land donated by a man named, Miller, whose land became the city in the 1700s, that my life changed.  I had stopped, studying the epitaph on a very old headstone.  The moon was high and full, and I was able to make out the text clearly.

“But trust thy spirit is resting now whare trubles never come."

I had reached out to run my finger along that inscription, when there was a rustling sound from the branches of an old tree nearby.  I turned and saw that – on a low branch – a crow sat perched, watching me with dark eyes.  With a quick flurry of wings, he launched, and a moment later landed on that ancient grave.  As the Lord is my witness, that bird, nodded his head, a proper bow, and raised his eyes to stare into mine.  Although I was startled, I did not back away.

Instead, I reached out a hand, and, with another quick flurry of wings, the bird hopped to my wrist, and climbed upward, until a moment later, before I had time even to think about what had happened, he stood upon my shoulder.

I turned, but could make out only the tip of his long, dark beak.  I thought to shoo him away, but could not bring myself to raise my arm.  There is no way to describe the experience other than that…the bird felt right, there beside my collar.  I turned away from that grave, and left that dark place, not glancing back, my new traveling companion gripping my shoulder firmly, but not painfully.

Not long after that, the dreams began, and I woke to a different place – a different life – finding myself in the mind of another man, a man filled with despair.  On the wall across from where he sat, the shadowed, ghastly image of a cat, hanged by the neck, filled my sight.

But you know that tale, I suspect, and I do not like returning to darkness I have cast aside.  I suspect, for now, that I have overstayed my welcome, and you must return to your world.  Stories await us both, I believe.

DNW: I thank you for your time.  I hope that we will meet again.

E. A. P.: I suspect we shall walk roads together, you and I.  A bit of advice, one writer to another… Listen to the crows – and the ravens.  They are wiser than we, and better companions than most.

DNW: - That was the end of my short interview with Edgar.  The last thing I heard was the flapping of wings; I assume that Grimm had dropped to the desk, or possibly even to Poe's shoulder.

If you would like to know the story of the time we spoke of – the day when Edgar Allan Poe met Lenore – the story of The Great Dismal Swamp, and a crow named Grimm, a swamp witch, and a fairy tale gone very, very bad… you can read it in my novel Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe.

You can keep up with my work at my website: http://www.davidniallwilson.com – or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/david_n_wilson  or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/david.niall.wilson .  Stop by and see me.  I'd like to tell you a story.

-David Niall Wilson