The Crows of Beara by Julie Christine Johnson + a Giveaway

Annie Crowe has hit rock bottom. Her husband has kicked her out and her company has given her an ultimatum: one final job to prove she can get back on her feet and stay sober. 

The job, doing PR for a mining company that wants to bring copper mining back to Ireland, won't be easy. The locals need the money and the jobs but the threat to their land is something they aren't going to compromise on. At the center of the efforts is the red-billed chough, a rare bird that happens to have one if its last nesting grounds in an area that would be impacted by the mines. 

Annie is entranced by the beauty of the village and its coast. But failing would mean the end of her career. As she fights not to fall prey to her own personal demons, she finds a guiding force in Beara. But can she decipher the meaning of the words whispered on the wind before she loses everything?

The Crows of Beara isn't a long book, and yet it feels sweeping nonetheless. Epic in its hints of mythology and its approach on the magic of Ireland - literal and figurative. Though one could say the magic of nature is literal...

Annie is out of rehab and fighting to stay sober, one day at a time, when the story begins. But the fall out from her mistakes hasn't ended. And that's when she decides that maybe a trip to Ireland, while potentially hiding many dangers to a newly sober and struggling person, might instead be exactly what she needs.

We learn that Annie has a lot of baggage. A lot of things she's still trying to work out, tracing all the way back to an injury that crushed her leg and her then athletic dreams. But none has been as crushing as the loss of her brother. And her crutch, that of alcohol, not only allowed her not to confront these things, but obviously made it worse.

At the same time, Annie isn't alone. Daniel, who turns out to be not only her neighbor in Ireland but the brother of the head of the conservation efforts, has his own demons as well. An accident landed him in prison and has kept him sober ever since, but he has never accepted the forgiveness offered by the family of his victim. As such, when his friends and family ask him to take more of a role in their efforts, becoming the face of their campaign, he resists.

But he finds it hard to resist Annie. And hears the same whispered words that she does.

Chapters alternate between Annie and Daniel as both their stories and that of Beara play out. How it ends for all of them is something you have to find out for yourself, but the journey is a beautiful one all around!

(Don't miss Julie Christine Johnson's fantastic guest post on Ireland and the seeds that would lead The Crows of Beara here.)

As promised last week, I do have one copy of The Crows of Beara to give away to one of you very lucky readers. To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below before Monday, September 25. Open US only and no PO boxes please.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Guest Post by Julie Christine Johnson

Good morning, readers! I've been quiet this week - I've had my agent hat on preparing for an upcoming conference and reading through manuscripts. But today I have a treat for you - two posts, starting with a guest post from Julie Christine Johnson, whose latest book, The Crows of Beara, released this week.

Before I hand things over to Julie, here's a bit about the book from Goodreads:

When Annie Crowe travels from Seattle to a small Irish village to promote a new copper mine, her public relations career is hanging in the balance. Struggling to overcome her troubled past and a failing marriage, Annie is eager for a chance to rebuild her life.

Yet when she arrives on the remote Beara Peninsula, Annie learns that the mine would encroach on the nesting ground of an endangered bird, the Red-billed Chough, and many in the community are fiercely protective of this wild place. Among them is Daniel Savage, a local artist battling demons of his own, who has been recruited to help block the mine.

Despite their differences, Annie and Daniel find themselves drawn toward each other, and, inexplicably, they begin to hear the same voice--a strange, distant whisper of Gaelic, like sorrow blowing in the wind.

Guided by ancient mythology and challenged by modern problems, Annie must confront the half-truths she has been sent to spread and the lies she has been telling herself. Most of all, she must open her heart to the healing power of this rugged land and its people.

Beautifully crafted with environmental themes, a lyrical Irish setting, and a touch of magical realism, The Crows of Beara is a breathtaking novel of how the nature of place encompasses everything that we are.

And now, over to Julie!

A Writer’s Ireland

May 2002. My first trip to Ireland. Alone, I join a small group of strangers to hike the Beara peninsula, West Cork. I fall deeply in love with a land of impossible greens, peaches-and-cream sunrises and salmon-flesh sunsets, lashing rain and wind, always wind.

On the flight home two weeks later, I turn my face to the window, sobbing. I am as if torn from a lover, forever. Ireland has changed me. Beara has given me a sense of peace and wholeness I have never before experienced.

The years pass and I return to Ireland several times, hiking the Wicklow Way, Connemara, the Dingle and Kerry peninsulas; exploring Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Kenmare, Tralee. But Beara remains a dream crystallized in photographs and memories.

I dream of a land of poetry and legends, of An Cailleach, Clan Ó Súilleabháin, St. Caitighearn; a land of sky and water where battles were fought on gorse-cloaked mountains and warriors marked their Ogham runes on tall pillars. Where the ruined shadows of famine houses pale against the shadows of history cast by circles of ancient altars—slabs of stone sculpted by Bronze Age hands now scratching posts for the russet and inky-black flanks of Angus and Friesian.

I dream of villages where rows of Crayon-bright houses march up narrow streets, lace curtains fluttering in open windows. Where breath-stealing laughter falls from open pub doors, chased by heart-stealing songs.

I dream of a hiker high on the Slieve Miskish, peering into the green and blue infinity, boots soaked through with bog, fingers wrapped around a trekking pole, pack cinched around her waist like a lover's arms. She is so happy she could explode from the very fullness of her heart.

I dream of a humped, ragged block of stone perched on hill overlooking Ballycrovane Harbor. One edge resembles the profile of a woman, her furrowed brow arched over a proud nose, her gaze fixed on the Atlantic Ocean. She is An Cailleach Bheara, the Hag of Beara, mother of Ireland. Her story is Ireland's story, her survival the enduring drama of a tortured land of legendary beauty.

January 2014. I set the first draft of my first novel aside to rest, exhausted by the effort to corral a 170,000-wordsoup into a 99,000-word manuscript. That novel becomes my 2016 debut In Another Life, recently awarded Gold Winner for Fantasy by FOREWORD Indies at the American Library Association Annual Conference in June 2017. I leave behind a timeslip of modern and medieval southwest France to enter the cool, scabrous beauty of southwest Ireland.

I create the story of a recovering alcoholic who has a marriage to repair and a career to salvage, and another of an artist who cannot forgive himself for the tragedy he caused. As my characters begin to take shape, I know the threads connecting them will be found in the presence of the Hag. Her voice filters through these characters’ pain to reveal their authentic selves.

June 2015. Thirteen years after that first trip to the Beara peninsula, I'm in a blue room at an artist’s retreat center outside Eyeries. Tucked in bed, I watch the sun sink behind distant hills until suddenly it is morning. And I set forth to revisit the land of my dreams, discovering it anew.

September 2017. Fifteen years after that first trip to the Beara peninsula, I celebrate the release of my second novel, The Crows of Beara, a work shaped by this place of incomparable beauty and spirit.

About the author:  Julie Christine Johnson is the author of In Another Life (Sourcebooks, 2016). Her short stories and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies, and she lives and writes in the seaside village of Port Townsend, Washington.  

Huge, huge thanks to Julie for being on the blog today! For more on Julie and her work, be sure to head over to her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

The Crows of Beara is on shelves now, so run out and buy a copy! And be sure to check back here for my review of The Crows of Beara (psst, I'll also be giving away a copy to one of you lucky readers!)

Guest Post by Julie Christine Johnson

Good morning, readers! I've got a two-fer for you today with a review of Julie Christine Johnson's In Another Life and a guest post from the author herself!

Before I hand things over to Julie, here's a bit about the book from the publisher:

It is January 1208 and in a village on the border between Provence and Languedoc, a monk whispers a benediction over the body of a slain papal emissary. The Cathars—followers of a heretical faith—are blamed for the assassination. The Pope declares a holy war and Languedoc is forever changed.

Eight hundred years later, historian Lia Carrer returns to southern France to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. Instead of finding solace in Languedoc’s quiet hills and medieval ruins, the woman trying to heal risks love, and loss, again.

Reincarnation is familiar ground for Lia—an expert in the mystical beliefs of the ancient Cathar faith—but to reconcile the truth of that long-ago assassination, the logical researcher must accept religious fantasy as historical fact. Three lost souls enter her life, each holding a key to the murder that launched a religious crusade in the heart of Europe.

And now, I am pleased to welcome Julie Christine Johnson to the blog!

Stumbling into Historical Fiction

by 

Julie Christine Johnson

The idea had been nattering away at me for months. More image than story, really: a woman standing on a cliff’s edge; below her stretches Corbières valley in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, laced with vineyards and studded with wind towers. Behind her, a man steps out from the ruins of a Cathar citadel. I was aching to find out who they were and to write their story, but I had no idea how to begin. I’d written and published a handful of short stories, but a novel? In June 2012, I went my first writers’ conference, searching for inspiration to launch me from intention to action.

Early in the conference, I attended a session on storyboarding and it all clicked. I’d been carrying around the knowledge that the Cathars—followers of medieval Christian sect—believed in reincarnation. That was my way into the story. I could see the narrative unfolding as a time slip between medieval and contemporary Languedoc. Romance. Adventure. Mystery. Reincarnation. Castle ruins. Knights Templar. Wine. What fun!

Two weeks later I opened the novel template in Scrivener and the cursor blinked back at me, a ceaseless ironic wink. What did I know of thirteenth century Languedoc? What have I done? What do I do now?

If I started with the research, if I explored everything I’d need to know to write credibly and convincingly about life during High Middle Ages in southern Europe, I feared I would never emerge to write the story. But I had no plan. I had no outline. No beginning, middle, or end. I had only a vision as fleeting as snowflakes on glass.

I did have a few tools in my box that made setting a first novel in France a natural choice: a twenty-two-year love affair with French culture and history; a degree in French; a personal library of histories and novels. I spoke the language. I’d attended university in France and returned often to explore new places and visit familiar haunts. I had those April weeks in 2011 when my husband and I fell deeply under the spell of Languedoc’s haunting beauty and history. We spent our days clambering around medieval ruins and our evenings reading up on local history, while sharing a bottle of supple Languedoc wine. Unknowingly, I was setting the foundation of research for In Another Life.

Bird by bird, word by word, I would write this story.

In the two years it took to write In Another Life, I learned to layer my narrative with research. My library of materials on the Cathars, medieval France, art and architecture of the era grew and the scenes set in the past deepened. Writing a work of fantasy allowed me poetic license with the plot, but I wanted to honor the historical details of daily life.

Much of my research remained in earlier drafts or in my process notebook. I poured on the exposition and then slowly trimmed it back, until only those elements that created a sense of place and time and moved the plot forward remained (but ever so glad I saved every draft: my publishing editor came back wanting more backstory, more exposition and I was oh, so happy to oblige!).

My goal was to create as seamless a transition as possible between past and present, while retaining a sense of almost dream-like wonder between the two worlds. It’s a feeling I carry with me when I’m in France, where the past lives and breathes in concert with the present. The towns, streets, hills, vineyards, and many of the edifices within In Another Life are ones I’ve explored, wandered through, dreamed of.

In Another Life is a fantasy built on the scaffolding of history. One of my greatest delights was to etch the theme of history vs. the past into the narrative: history is what we know to be true—facts gleaned from primary sources and artifacts. The past is what we make a reasonable guess at. I hope to open the door of readers’ mind with history, but then extend a hand as they make a leap of imagination with me into the past.

About the author: Julie Christine Johnson’s short stories and essays have appeared in several journals, including Mud Season Review; Cirque: A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim; Cobalt, and the anthologies Stories for Sendai; Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers; and Three Minus One: Stories of Love and Loss. She holds undergraduate degrees in French and Psychology and a Master’s in International Affairs.

Her second novel, The Crows Of Beara, a finalist in the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature, has sold to Ashland Creek Press for publication in fall 2017. In this work of women's fiction, a struggling American PR executive and an enigmatic Irish artist face off over the development of a copper mine in rural Ireland, finding love and redemption amid the rugged, mystical land.

A runner, hiker, and wine geek, Julie makes her home on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State with her husband. In Another Life is her first novel.

Huge, huge thanks to Julie Christine Johnson for being here today and huge thanks to her publicist for setting up the stop!

To find out more about Julie Christine Johnson you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter. 

In Another Life by Julie Christine Johnson

Happy book birthday to Julie Christine Johnson whose debut, In Another Life, hits shelves today! I'm super excited to be taking part in the online book tour for the title and, as such, have two posts for you today. First up is my review of In Another Life. I've also got a post from the author herself going up just after this one, so be sure to hang around and check them both out.

In the year and a half since her husband died, Lia still hasn't recovered. It's not that she expects to get over him, or even that she hopes for that. But after losing her job thanks to an unfinished doctorate, a change of scenery is definitely in order. And so Lia picks up and moves into her friends' home in Languedoc. The open ended trip offers Lia two things - the chance to recover in a place she loves with the people she loves and a chance to finish the research for her doctorate. 

Lia's research on the Cathars hits a bit too close to home, though, when she begins to think there might just be merit to their belief in reincarnation. Especially when she meets and falls for Raoul Arango, a mysterious winemaker who reminds her of her husband. 

Raoul doesn't belong in Lia's time. And neither do two other acquaintances in Lia's life. But how and why they've traveled through the centuries to become entwined in her story is something even they don't know. And so it's up to Lia to figure it out. 

This may be Julie Christine Johnson's debut, but you'd never know it. She writes with an assuredness that makes In Another Life quite an enjoyable adventure!

Lia is sure to capture your heart pretty immediately. When the story begins it's been eighteen months since her husband Gabriel died in a tragic accident. In Languedoc. In spite of that, or because of it, France is still where she feels most comfortable. Plus, it's the heart of Cathar history and she's been understandably unable to focus on finishing her dissertation.

Cathar history is fascinating! I think it's been on the periphery of other things I've read but it's not something I know much about at all. It's a wonderful and somewhat unique element here considering the way Julie Christine Johnson uses it to tell her tale. She weaves that history into the story quite smoothly,  taking the reader back to 1208 with Roaul, Lucas, and Jordi's origins and the crusade against the Cathars. These flashbacks appear intermittently throughout the book, appearing more frequently as Lia learns or begins to suspect more and more about these three men, ramping up the intrigue and suspense.

In Another Life is the kind of romantic and mysterious read that gives you tingles even from the start. You know, that feeling that tells you you're embarking on a fabulous fictional journey.

Rating: 4/5