Thank you for joining us for something a little bit different today as we support authors Virginia Crow and Olga Wojtas in their appearance at the Cymera 2020 goes digital festival, which is taking place this week-end! Cymera is Scotland's first book festival for readers and writers of Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and it debuted last year in Edinburgh.
This year, due to COVID-19, all events are taking place online, with a mixture of live and recorded ones, which will be premiering on Cymera's YouTube Channel.
All events, except the writing workshops, will be free to access online, do support the festival by tuning into their channel, enjoying their fabulous events and discovering something amazing!!
So, without further ado, here are Victoria Crow and Olga Wojtas, talking about writing fantasy in an historical setting.
Ancient powers battle it out in the novels of these two authors. Virginia Crow awakes an ancient Scottish evil for her novel Caledon, set in the wake of the battle of Culloden. In fin-de-siècle France, author Olga Wojtas pits her heroine against evil with a bite in Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace.
Have you enjoyed this event?
Please consider supporting the authors:
- Buy their books
- Pay what you can for a ticket for the event - even if it’s pre-recorded. The full amount raised via ticket sales for each event will go to the speakers. Usually Cymera pay their authors a fee through a mixture of external funding and ticket sales; unfortunately, neither of those things are available to them this year.
- Donate to the whole #Cymera2020 experience
Find out more about Virginia's and Olga's latest releases!
|| Caledon || Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace || About the Authors ||Caledon by Virginia Crow
"Go out and tell all those you meet, Caledon has risen. Caledon will be protected and defended. And to you who would cause her harm, be prepared. A new fight has come."
After the destruction of the Jacobite forces at Culloden, Scotland is divided, vulnerable and leaderless, with survivors from both sides seeking to make sense of the battles they have fought against their fellow Scots.
James Og flees Drumossie, seeking the protection of his uncle's house in Sutherland. It is here James learns that the Northern Highlands hold a secret power only he can wield: Caledon. When Ensign John Mackay begins hunting Og's family, James realises he must harness this power to defeat the enemies of Scotland.
But, as the ageless Caledon awakes, so too does an ancient evil. When it allies with Mackay, the small Clan of Caledon faces enemies at every turn, discovering that even those closest to them may seek to destroy them.
[21 January 2020, Crowvus, 238 pages. This is the first book in the Caledon series.]
Caledon
Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace by Olga Wojtas
The intrepid librarian Shona McMonagle, erstwhile Marcia Blaine Academy prefect and an accomplished linguist and martial artist, finds herself in an isolated French mountain village, Sans-Soleil, which has no sunlight because of its topography. It’s reeling from a spate of unexplained deaths, and Shona has once again travelled back in time to help out.
Forging an uneasy alliance with newly widowed Madeleine, Shona is soon drawn into a full-blown vampire hunt, involving several notable villagers, the world-renowned soprano Mary Garden – and even Count Dracula himself. Will Shona solve the mystery, secure justice for the murder victims and make it through a deathly denouement in the hall of mirrors to return to present-day Morningside Library?
[13 February 2020, Contraband, 247 pages. This is the second book in the Miss Blaine's Prefect series.]
Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace
About the Authors
|| Virginia Crow || Olga Wojtas ||
Virginia grew up in Orkney, using the breath-taking scenery to fuel her imagination and the writing fire within her. Her favourite genres to write are fantasy and historical fiction, sometimes mixing the two together such as her newly-published book "Caledon". She enjoys swashbuckling stories such as the Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and is still waiting for a screen adaption that lives up to the film!
When she's not writing, Virginia is a music teacher in Caithness. She believes wholeheartedly in the power of music, especially as a tool of inspiration. She also helps out with the John o' Groats Book Festival which has just celebrated its 2nd year. Hopefully they'll be plenty more to come!
Follow Virginia Crow:
Olga Wojtas is an unconventional – and very witty – writer of postmodern crime fiction whose surrealist humour has been compared to the likes of PG Wodehouse, Jasper Fforde and the Marx Brothers. Her debut novel, Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar, has been published in the UK and US to great critical acclaim – being longlisted for the inaugural Comedy Women in Print Prize 2019, shortlisted for a CrimeFest Award, and named as one of the best mysteries and thrillers of the year by Kirkus.
Follow Olga Wojtas:
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