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Monday, March 5, 2012

Endangered Fae Series - by Angel Martinez

Angel Martinez kindly agreed to talk about her latest series.
By the way, if you haven't read Angel's erotic fairy tale "Boots," you really should.


The pooka is back! And just terribly pleased, I might add. Finn was preening under all the attention this weekend…

What’s that? What’s a pooka? (Sh, Finn, sit down. I’ll make sure they know you’re not a leprechaun.) Most folks of my generation probably remember the pooka in the Jimmy Stewart movie, Harvey, though Finn finds the giant rabbit thing rather bizarre and has called that pooka’s sanity into question several times. Some younger folks, especially on the east coast here in the US, may recall the pooka-horse from the Corkscrew Hill attraction at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. A much more handsome pooka in Finn’s estimation (and since he gets to play rescuer, that helps in Finn’s eyes.)

But none of that really answers the question of what the heck a pooka is.

The short answer is opinions vary. In folktales, the pooka takes numerous forms and his habits depend on the story and the teller. A few things we know:
  • The pooka is a uniquely Irish spirit or fae
  • He is a shapeshifter who has problems with plain, un-garnished truth
  • He is most often associated with mountaintops and streams

Most people familiar with the stories know about the pooka’s horse form but he also appears in different parts of Ireland as a big, black goat with curling horns, a black eagle with a massive wingspan, a deformed little goblin, or even as a human traveler.

He can be mischievous, even destructive if you tick him off. Forgetting to leave out offerings of grain or milk means the Irish farmer may find his fences knocked down, his livestock scattered, his hens too frightened to lay, and his cows’ milk curdled.

It’s important to note that the pooka never actually harms humans. His mischief may be malicious and frightening at times but he stops short of anything more serious than vandalism or a good scare. When treated with respect, he has been known to answer questions and give sound advice. He even seems to crave human company from time to time, appearing out of the dark as a weary traveler who will come in if invited and spin fantastic tales for his hosts before disappearing again into the night.

Our pooka? Finn’s the lovely male with the long hair on the covers below. He gets himself into heaps of trouble being curious to a fault, and both puzzled and fascinated by humans. Oh, and don’t worry too much about asking him questions. He does love to talk about himself.

Finn’s adventures, the Endangered Fae Series, begin in his eponymous debut novel:

(M/M Fantasy novel – 280 pp.)
Available Now at Silver Publishing!
When Diego rescues a naked man from the rail of the Brooklyn Bridge, he just wants to get the poor man out of traffic and to social services. He gets more than he bargained for when Finn turns out to be an ailing pooka, poisoned by the pollution of the city. To help him recover, Diego takes him north to New Brunswick where Finn inadvertently wakes an ancient, evil spirit, the wendigo.
While Diego and Finn struggle to find a way to destroy the wendigo before it can possess Diego or kill nearby innocents, Diego wrestles with his growing feelings for Finn. Can they succeed in killing the monster and in navigating a relationship between a modern man and a centuries-old fairy?

The boys get a (relatively) quiet interlude for the holidays in:

(M/M Fantasy/Holiday short story – 38pp.)
Coming 3/10/12 from Silver Publishing! (pre-order available now)
Winter in Canada can be a little tedious. The cold, the snow, the ever-darkening days, the hibernation… Finn's inability to stay awake has Diego worried sick and with Miriam visiting, he has a difficult time explaining his lover's sudden narcoleptic behavior.
Finn just wants to turn into a badger and burrow until the sun returns, but he also has his reasons for wanting to escape the long sleep this year. Agonizing over the perfect gift for Diego turns him in convoluted mental circles as he struggles with the concepts of gift giving and fidelity.
The perfect solution occurs to him in the middle of a snowy night, and he struggles to make it work before he turns into a permanently frozen pooka.

And then all heck and high water break loose in the full-length sequel:

(M/M Fantasy novel – est. about 400 pp.)
Coming 3/24/12 from Silver Publishing!
After defeating an evil wendigo, a man and his pooka lover deserve a little quiet, don't they? Unfortunately, Diego and Finn's hard-won peace is disturbed, their new life in Montana turned upside-down when Diego, in a jealous rage, unwittingly rips a hole in the impenetrable Veil to the Otherworld.

Separated, stuck on the other side of the Veil where Finn has to deal with old conflicts and Diego is the only human in a land of fae, the two of them are forced to navigate rocky waters between huge egos and ancient feuds. To make matters worse, some of the fae, in both the sidhe and Fomorian courts, are dying of a mysterious illness, and everyone believes Diego is the key to a cure. Things can't possibly get any worse, can they? Oh, yes--they can when the U.S. government gets involved.

Angel's Web Site

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