Ednah Walters: Guest Post and Giveaway

Welcome to the kickoff of the very first Spencer Hill Press Giveaway Week! For those of you that don't know about Spencer Hill Press, here's a little background. Spencer Hill Press is an independent publishing house that specializes in science fiction, paranormal romance and urban fantasy for the Young Adult audience. 

With a host of talented authors and dozens of fantastic titles under its belt, Spencer Hill Press has become a veritable powerhouse. And, as luck would have it, yours truly is hosting the fantastic crowd with a whole bunch of goodies for all of you! Be sure to follow the week (through Sunday), and check out the great features and giveaways!

Welcome, Ednah Walters, Author of the Guardian Legacy Series! 

Find Ednah: Twitter. Blog. Website. Google+. Facebook. YouTube.

The story behind the Guardian Legacy The Guardians’ background is a blend of various mythologies and Judeo-Christian beliefs. Before I started writing Awakened, I came across the kris dagger, an Indonesian weapon believed to be forged from an element from the heavens and one from the earth. The Indonesians/Malays believed that the kris has a spirit attached to it, which could be good or bad. So when owned by an evil person, it did evil things. It did good things when owned by a good person. The kris could protect the wielder from an attack or warn them if there was going to be harmed. 

The Kris Dagger became my Excalibur. I wanted a young man to wield it and even started plotting it from his POV, but I kept hearing a girl’s voice in my head—an outsider, someone who wasn’t part of the in-crowd. Intrigued, I decided to focus on the girl, who she was and her story. To do that, I went back to her background, her people. She had to be special, have the right to wield the dagger, so I focused on who might have forged the dagger and why. 

I chose the fallen angel who taught humans the art of war—Azazel. Fallen angels had children with humans-Nephilim, so it was easy to come up the Guardians’ lineage from there, making my heroine part angel and part human. Weaving in the powers of the fallen angels—from the ability to teleport, clairvoyance, see into the future, control all elements (air, fire, water and earth), manipulate what people see and felt, and change shape into other beings—made everything come together. 

Once I had the people in place, I researched the Nephilim in details, read books about them and scoured online resources. Comparing their abilities to those of deities from different mythologies-from the Titans to Hindu Devas, it’s easy to see why people, me included, believe most of these gods and goddesses were all Nephilim. Incorporating this into the Guardians background made sense, so was giving them names like Bran, the famous son of Sea-god Llyr from Celtic mythology. Making him have water powers just made sense. 

Then there’s the biblical connection: Genesis 6:4 “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” According to the bible, a horde of angels was sent to destroy the Nephilim because they were corrupting and enslaving humans, setting themselves as gods and goddesses so humans could worship them. But after the angels annihilated the Nephilim, some were left behind. Combining the biblical aspect with mythologies made the Guardians real in my mind and so the series was born.

Ednah has graciously offered a Guardians Legacy T-Shirt and Mug, pictured to the left!

This giveaway is US ONLY, and it will end promptly at midnight EST on February 5, 2012.

As always, you do not have to be a follower to enter, but it is always appreciated!

Still want to enter? Click HERE to fill out the form!