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Judith Sterling

~ Award-winning Author

Judith Sterling

Monthly Archives: April 2017

The Drew in the Dreams

29 Saturday Apr 2017

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dreams, Guardians of Erin, Judith Sterling, mystery, Nancy Drew, The Novels of Ravenwood, writing

Yesterday, Nancy Drew turned 87.  Tomorrow, I turn 49, but many memories from my childhood are clear and indelible.  I’ll never forget the thrill of reading my first Nancy Drew book, The Haunted Bridge, when I was 10.  I’d found a kindred spirit, albeit fictional.  We both welcomed adventure and felt driven to solve the mysteries that confronted us.

Some puzzles I solved while awake; others, while asleep.  I had a number of lucid dreams (when one is conscious of dreaming while the dreams are still in progress, thereby allowing one to control them).  I also experienced what could only be called “serial dreaming” over a two-week period.  On the first night, a mystery worthy of Nancy Drew began to unfold.  I was the detective, but Nancy and her friends, Bess and George, were right by my side, investigating a haunted house.  Each successive night, I dreamed the next “chapter” of the story.  By the end of the fortnight, I’d solved the mystery.

Some of what I write today—whether medieval romance (The Novels of Ravenwood) or young adult fantasy (Guardians of Erin)—is inspired by dreams.  Sometimes the opposite occurs, and the characters I create wend their way into my nights.  But I’ll never forget the magic of those serial dreams which brought excitement and intrigue closer than fiction and made my favorite girl detective proud.

 

A Healing in Wales

16 Sunday Apr 2017

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Flight of the Raven, Healing, Judith Sterling, medieval romance, Shadow of the Swan, Soul of the Wolf, The Novels of Ravenwood, Wales


Today is my parents’ 51st wedding anniversary.  In their honor, I’d like to tell you about a curious experience we shared in Wales when I was twenty-eight.  Six months before, I developed pleural bruising of the chest wall, which turned breathing into an exercise in torture.  Even after I recovered, I wasn’t up to par.  Trifling colds became bronchitis overnight.

During the flight overseas, I caught another cold.  Two days later, my voice dropped nearly an octave, and my chest burned with the slightest cough.  Not to be outdone, my dad hurt his right knee just before the trip, and after two days of climbing castle stairs, it wasn’t happy.  Clearly, our vacation had begun on a poor note.

The night we settled into our Pembrokeshire bed-and-breakfast, he and I fell into deep sleeps.  My mom, however, did not.  She fretted about my health and feared my lungs would never recover from the effects of pleural bruising.  All night, she lay awake praying for my healing, and ultimately, my life.

Unaware of her long vigil, I woke the following morning to an image—a mere flash—of her as a nun in another life, kneeling on a cold stone floor with hands folded in prayer.  Perplexed, I brushed the vision aside and hacked my way to the bathroom.

Even as we set out for St. David’s Cathedral, Dad and I remained ignorant of Mom’s fervent prayers.  But I was quite aware we approached a sacred site of pilgrimage and miraculous healings—in pagan times and in Christian—and a purported intersection of ley lines.

Once inside the cathedral, Dad went off to explore on his own.  Mom and I remained in the nave, but I veered a few yards away from her and gazed up at what seemed a massive time machine to the High Middle Ages.  The Transitional Norman architecture was a masterwork of carving with its great, rounded arches and intricate, wooden ceiling.

All at once, heat poured through me.  My flesh tingled.  The next instant, I felt as if something pulled me downward and rooted me to the spot where I stood.  I remained upright, but the bizarre suction held me fast.

Mom hastened toward me.  “Jude, are you all right?  You look faint.”

Suddenly, I could move again.  I found the nearest pew and dropped onto it.  Little by little, normality returned, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something powerful had occurred.

When we met up with my dad, he mentioned an odd sensation of heat in his right knee.  By that evening, both of us felt remarkably better.  The next morning, I was completely well, and my lungs have functioned beautifully ever since.

At one time or another, all of us need healing.  Often, it goes deeper than the physical.  My characters in The Novels of Ravenwood need it too, whether they’re a tortured warrior (Lord Ravenwood), a haunted magician (Lord Nihtscua), or the would-be nun with a secret, Lady Constance, in the upcoming Book 3, Shadow of the Swan.

If I could have one superpower, it would be the ability to heal anyone, anywhere of whatever ails him/her.  I hope in some small way my books do that.  I can’t lessen readers’ pain, but maybe I can lighten their load, show them they’re not alone, and give them an alternate reality into which they can escape…if only for a while.

Worldwide Release

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by Judith Sterling in Uncategorized

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historical romance, Judith Sterling, medieval, Soul of the Wolf, The Novels of Ravenwood, worldwide release

Today’s the day!  It’s the release of Soul of the Wolf, the second of The Novels of Ravenwood.  Hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!https://amzn.com/B06WP4GSCR

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