Indie Friday: Ours is the Storm

Guest post by D. Thourson Palmer

Ours Is the Storm is about Revik Lasivar, a very powerful young man trying to save his kingdom, and Ahi’rea of the plainsfolk, trying to destroy it. It’s about Ahi’rea’s quest to preserve her way of life and Revik’s task to end it. It’s about both of them facing their pasts, their parents, and their own people, as well as the enemies hounding them, and seeing all those things for what they are. It’s about deceit and redemption and identity. It’s about confronting the question who am I? and reaching beyond our names and cultures, our pasts and our dreams, for the answer.

I began writing Ours Is the Storm while I was teaching English in Japan. I was outside myself in many ways during that time, just as I was outside of the culture. Even though I was welcomed, I often felt alone, isolated by distance, language, even my name. Both Revik and Ahi’rea came from that experience. Moreover, due to the modality of the school year and vacations there, I had quite a lot of time during which I was required to be at the four high schools that I served, but had little to do. I started writing, not entirely certain where I would end up.

The journey to the end of a novel was a lot longer than I was prepared for. I wrote throughout my time in Japan and continued when I returned to the USA for graduate school. I started a PhD program and then quit, finding that I was as suited to the pursuit as a ferret is to neurosurgery. Around that time my wife and I got an awesome old dog and made the best of things while I was between jobs. We returned to the state of Ohio, where I grew up. The dog, Mephit, was big and protective and terrified of storms. When she heard thunder, she’d wake me up and I’d work on writing and editing. I finished Ours Is the Storm at last, and Mephit died soon after, between writing and publishing. As a much finer author than I wrote many times: so it goes. She was a friend, and the book’s dedication is to her.

I’ve always been a fantasy reader--Lord of the Rings, Discworld, American Gods, The Name of the Wind--and I also have a big love for many of the classics, like Crime and Punishment and 1984 and Frankenstein. If I want anything from my work, it’s that it could exist at the intersection of those genres and influences--classic feeling with a modern style. Ours Is the Storm is about identity but it’s also an adventure, an action story, and a mystery. There are plenty of plot twists and subverted tropes, some obvious and some less so, and they’re enough to throw even experienced fantasy readers off the trail and keep them interested. At the end, that’s what I want and what I hope for most from Ours Is the Storm--that it’s new and exciting to readers, and, maybe, that it might make them think about their own identity as well.

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Ours is the Storm by D. Thourson Palmer

 
Available on: Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iTunes 

Official website: www.dthoursonpalmer.com

Follow the Author on Twitter: @DThoursonPalmer