A warm Love Bytes welcome to author Parker Foye joining us today to talk about new release “Hart of Winter”, part of the Dreamspun Beyond series.
Welcome Parker 🙂
Hart of Winter is a winter holiday romance, and the most important day of the season for the characters is winter solstice; while winter solstice/midwinter is important in pagan traditions (Yule is a key festival), I chose to focus on the solstice as a separate event in its own right. This is because I wanted to write a cosy winter book with an inclusive theme, and everyone is affected by the longest night! Therefore, in Hart of Winter, the most magical/important days of the year are (Winter) Solstice and Midsummer. During these days, anything can happen—especially when it comes to unpredictable magic, like Luc’s curse…
Of course, as with every winter holiday, there are certain things needed to make it seem truly complete. Different people have different traditions; for example, with my family, the most important part of the season is a walk on the beach on Boxing Day. Yes, it might be blowing a gale. Yes, it might be pouring with rain. Occasionally, there’s snow on the ground. But off we go, bundled up in the car, to look at the big grey wet thing and think our thoughts.
(Do we ever get out of the car while we’re there? Well. That’s a different question, isn’t it!)
So, when it came to Hart of Winter, I thought about traditions the characters might have around midwinter. One of my favourite parts of writing became finding ways to incorporate things a reader might expect to find in a holiday story, only with a magical twist.
Luc’s sister, Eloise, for example, loves—and I mean loves—ugly sweaters. Luc is convinced she finds the worst available just to see the expression on his face. Sure, Eloise has one sweater with a gurning snowman, but she also has one with a triskele (a triple spiral) on the front, and each spiral wears a little bobble hat on top. This image so delighted me I was sad to realise I couldn’t actually purchase the sweater!
Luc and Rob also drink copious amounts of hot chocolate, go ice-skating, exchange gifts, and attend a tree-lighting ceremony—which you can read a little of below…
The village hummed with preparation for the festival season, with different groups readying the elements of their particular celebrations. A small village with a strong craft community, Les Menuires focused most of their activities on Solstice, but hotels with a high number of visitors had different services and facilities for those of other faiths and cultures and they decorated accordingly. Like always, though, the biggest event in the municipal calendar would be the lighting of the tree, and it had grown to become the signal for the most important holiday activity in resort: late-night opening hours in the tourist shops.
To which end Luc had been tasked to hand deliver himself to the team finalizing the preparation on the tree. Eloise had laughed and called it “voluntold,” and Luc left her to explain the word to Amandine. He’d been given Amandine’s official card from Dufour Chalets, which would be added to the bonfire before the tree was “lit” with decorative lights. Amandine explained what an honor it was to be invited to give a token, but Luc heard “bonfire” and tuned out. Luc loved bonfires.
When he followed the hubbub in the village and talked his way past the cordons—no bureaucracy quite like French bureaucracy—Luc had to stand and stare for a minute. The tree seemed almost tall enough to ski down. It dominated the otherwise-quiet corner of the village in a way photographs didnt convey and Luc’s memory didn’t appreciate. The sight humbled him.
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Feeling cosy yet? Hart of Winter is out now!
Hart of Winter
Magic-using winter sports enthusiasts find love on the slopes.
Luc Marling is cursed to transform into a stag from sunset to sunrise, making him vulnerable to black-hearted collectors. Thanks to a family heirloom, Luc can contain the change—but the magic is starting to fade. Luc intends to live fast while he can and doesn’t care who he hurts along the way… until he meets Rob.
Rob Lentowicz accidentally broke the curse on a famous singer and became a magical reality-TV star. Tired of having to lie to protect his bank balance, and unwilling to destroy his family reputation with the truth, Rob runs away to France—and straight into Luc.
They navigate slopes, secrets, and each other. But are the feelings between them real—or just magic?
Links for Hart of Winter
Parker Foye writes speculative-flavoured romance under the QUILTBAG umbrella and believes in happily ever after, although sometimes their characters make achieving this difficult.
An education in Classics nurtured a love of heroes, swords, monsters, and beautiful people doing stupid things while wearing only scraps of leather. You’ll find those things in various guises in Parker’s stories, along with kissing (very important) and explosions (very messy). And more shifters than you can shake a stick at.
Parker lives in the UK but travels regularly via planes, trains, and an ever-growing library.
twitter @parkerfoye | facebook /parkerfoye | parkerfoye.com