Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, and the forging of Excalibur - there's a cost to making a King.
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There are three books in my series Rise of the King – so far. The first one, Call of the King, is about Tom entering the Other with his cousin Beansprout and finding he has to wake King Arthur to fight a powerful enemy. The Silver Tower is about Nimue and Merlin, and a bit of a twist on the old legend about what happened to Merlin. It also develops the Otherworld, introduces new characters and develops existing ones. For The Cursed Sword, (previously called Galatine’s Curse), I really wanted to show some growth in Tom and Beansprout as well as explore back-story.
I always do research on Arthurian characters, places and weapons, and incorporate several into my books. Like many other Arthurian writers, we keep the parts we love and grow them. According to the myths and legends about King Arthur, Excalibur was created by a faerie forger on Avalon and given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake. Galatine was the name of Gawain’s sword, but I couldn’t find any history to Galatine, other than it was again given by the Lady of the Lake, so this gave me lots of license!
In The Silver Tower we find out that it’s the Forger of Light who made Excalibur, but there’s a bit of a mystery about what he did to upset the Sylphs who live in the Realm of Air. I thought that might be interesting to explore. Also Tom is given Galatine, and I thought it would be great to give that some back-story. I ended up combining the two to form the plot for The Cursed Sword. If the Forger of Light made Excalibur, why not Galatine? And what if Galatine originally belonged to someone else?
Having his own famous sword has spurred Tom on too, so he’s learning lots of new skills which he puts to use at Arthur’s tournament. And of course Arthur has a castle now, so it had to be New Camelot.
What else happens in The Cursed Sword ? The gang is back together – my core characters and Tom’s friends. Tom goes to a Realm he’s never been to before – The Realm of Fire, Beansprout is exploring magic with Nimue, Granddad is back, and so is Bloodmoon! He’s lots of fun too.
I can’t give too much away, but the story is action packed. I hope you enjoy reading it. I’ve already got a few ideas for book 4. The Lady of the Lake is back!
When are you going to add another book to Arthur and Tom I just binges read all three very good written books
Hi Randi, thank you! I’d love to do another one, so I think I’m going to try and squeeze one in this year! Fingers crossed… 🙂