BAD
SPELLING (Book 1) - FREE January 13th - 17th
A klutzy witch, a
shaman's curse, a quest to save her family. Can Kat find her magic in
time?
The entire Witches of
Galdorheim series has a few characters featured in all the books. I
thought introducing the stars of the series a good setup for the
Witch Extravaganza month of October. Oh, yeah, it's BIG!
Trolls in the Witches of Galdorheim
Trolls. What do you imagine? Maybe
something like the big ugly pictured here. In my Witches of
Galdorheim series, I wanted a cave-dwelling bunch of uglies, but
dwarves didn’t seem right for my book. Then I started hearing music
inside my head. You know how that goes, right? It builds and builds
until it has you screaming in frustration, willing to even listen to
some other music to at least swamp the tormenting sound.
But before I could find a MP3 file of
"Henry the VIIIth" by Herman’s Hermits, I stopped and
listened. My muse was whacking me in the head via earworm. The music
was Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt Suite.
Duh. Trolls.
Despite the canards on trolls from the
likes of Artemis Fowl or Pratchett’s Discworld, I thought they
could be heroic if given sufficient ale.
From the Free Dictionary/Encyclopedia:
A troll is a fearsome member of a
mythical race from Norse mythology. Originally more or less the
Nordic equivalents of giants, although often smaller in size, the
different depictions have come to range from the fiendish giants –
similar to the ogres of England – to a devious, more human-like
folk of the wilderness, living underground in hills, caves or mounds.
Hey! They’re not all flesh-eating
giants who turn to stone in the sunlight. Some are devious little
guys who live in wilderness areas (no doubt protecting endangered
magical species).
In Bad Spelling, Kat
and her smart-aleck half-brother, Rune, (also happens to be a
vampire, but has absolutely no resemblance to the Twilight guy except
they’re both cute as hell) are directed by Kat’s flash-frozen dad
(Rune calls him a pop-sicle) to visit the Troll King. At the Hall,
she requests assistance from King Ole, the Norwegian Troll King. He
arranges for her and Rune to ride the Trollercoaster, which starts in
Norway and ends up in the Ural Mountains. From there Kat, Rune, and a
changeling troll named Andy travel to Siberia to find Kat's family.
Clearly, trolls are good. They are
nice, helpful, cheerful, and sing fairly well too. Yet aspersions
continue to be cast upon these misunderstood creatures. Shame on all
of you for making them the bad guys all these years!
Excerpt from Bad Spelling - Chapter Fifteen - Three Trolls on a
Bridge
Kat ran to where her brother and the
three trolls faced each other. The trolls stood shoulder to shoulder,
their big, splayed feet firmly planted in front of the footbridge.
They bared their chunky yellow teeth and growled at Rune. Although
hardly reaching Rune’s shoulder, they each outweighed him. Clearly,
the trolls did not intend to let him cross. Looking up and down the
streamlet, Kat wondered at their careful guarding of the bridge. Kind
of silly, she thought, since anyone could easily step across the
rivulet without even getting wet feet. She wondered if these were
children, given their short stature. However, their long knives
looked very grown-up.
Enunciating each word, Rune held his
hands out to show they were empty. Kat had no idea what her brother
was saying since Rune was speaking Old Runish. Except for a few
spell words, Kat didn’t understand the ancient tongue.
Evidently, neither did the trolls. Rune
spoke again, louder this time, and took one slow step forward. At
this move, the troll on the left lunged at them, jabbing at Rune with
his knife. Rune sidestepped the rush, and the troll, taken off
balance, stumbled and fell flat on his face. Kat stepped over the
troll and grasped his arm but only caught hold of his sleeve. He
screamed and pushed her away. The other two trolls ran at her with
their knives raised, yelling as they advanced.
Rune stuck out his foot and tripped the
middle troll. The last troll standing went after Rune. The young
warlock threw up his hands, arms crossed to fend off the attack. A
bright red light arced from his hands to hit the charging troll in
the face. The troll dropped his knife and fell to the ground,
screaming and rolling around with his hands pressed over his eyes.
Rune snatched up the knife and held it to the middle troll’s neck.
Kat sat on the one she grabbed, pulling the knife from his flailing
hand. The recipient of Rune’s flash attack kept his hands over his
eyes.
Rune spoke again in Old Runish,
shouting to make himself heard. It didn’t do any good; the trolls
all continued screaming and squealing at the top of their lungs.
Kat jumped up from the troll’s back
and grabbed Rune’s hand, pulling the knife away from the troll’s
neck. “Rune,” she yelled, “tell them we won’t hurt them!”
The thrashing troll froze then turned
his cumbersome head toward her.
“You can speak our language!” He
slapped the troll nearest to him, who abruptly stopped screaming. The
one whose neck Rune held the knife to spread his fingers to peek at
Rune and Kat.
Rune released the troll and stood up,
looking a little sheepish. “I just assumed—” He stopped then
shook his head.
Kat crouched on her knees next to one
of the trolls lying on the ground and patted him on the shoulder. “We
mean you no harm. We’re Wiccans from Galdorheim. Maybe you’ve
heard of it?”
Slowly, the trolls climbed to their
feet, looked at Kat, then at each other. The three trolls huddled,
conferring together. Kat heard a murmur but couldn’t make out what
they said.
Kat continued, searching for something to say. “My Aunt
Thordis…” Three pairs of troll eyes turned to her and opened
wide. They stared at Kat. The middle troll elbowed the one on his
left, who giggled. The troll on the right gave a great whoop of
laughter then slapped the middle troll on the back. All three trolls
broke into huge guffaws and ended up leaning on each other, wiping
tears from their eyes. Rune and Kat stared open-mouthed.
*
* *
BAD
SPELLING
- Book 1 of The Witches of Galdorheim SeriesA klutzy witch, a shaman's curse, a
quest to save her family. Can Kat find her magic in time?
Can Kat find her magic in time? If
you’re a witch living on a remote arctic island, and the entire
island runs on magic, lacking magical skills is not just an
inconvenience, it can be a matter of life and death–or, at least, a
darn good reason to run away from home. Katrina’s spells don’t
just fizzle; they backfire with spectacular results, oftentimes
involving green goo. A failure as a witch, Kat decides to run away
and find her dead father’s non-magical family. But before she can,
she stumbles onto why her magic is out of whack: a curse from a
Siberian shaman. The young witch, accompanied by her half-vampire
brother, must travel to the Hall of the Mountain King and the
farthest reaches of Siberia to regain her magic, dodging attacks by
the shaman along the way.
