Welcome to Cate Masters

Welcome to our Friday Friend, Cate Masters.

Finding Magic in the Ordinary

Like any kid, I loved fairy tales, fables and legends. Their mystical magic became ingrained in my head, making the world seem full of possibilities invisible to the eye. But never to the imagination! I guess that’s why I love fantasies in real-world settings – at first, everything appears ordinary, then… surprise! Everything you thought to be plain and run-of-the-mill has a deeper underlying truth – or a secret. It makes you look twice at the world around you, and question reality. Is the woman who bought the inn just a lonely widow, or is she related to a goddess? Is the waitress at the diner just a poor girl in love with the wrong guy, or is she a demon?

Yes and yes. *grins* Another reason I love contemporary fantasies – real emotions and situations are layered within, so the characters are not only believable but you can relate to them.

In The Magic of Lavender, the heroine Jocelyn Gibson doesn’t become aware of her family ties to the realm of magic, or to the Goddess Iris, until she buys an old bed and breakfast. That single act, an everyday occurrence, breaks down the wall around she’s built up since childhood, shielding her memories about the fae. All she wants is a quiet life, preparing special dishes made with lavender, but before she can have it, she has to first deal with a few demons and goddesses. How could she know the inn sat atop powerful ley lines that would cause a battle to erupt between the forces of dark and light?

Even the secondary characters with roots in mythology can have very real feelings.  For instance, the guardian of the gates of Tartarus, which is just outside Hades proper, is one of the three Harpies, the Erinye named Tisiphone. Terrible to look upon, and even more terrible to smell, lol, Tisiphone must make sure no one escapes the outer boundaries of Hell. It’s a lonely job patrolling the gate, but someone has to do it. Still, a girl has feelings. She likes to be invited out once in awhile, or at least keep up with the gossip from the outside world. Or world above, as the case may be. So when the hero is kidnapped and trapped in Tartarus, and runs into Tisiphone at the gate, he unwittingly hurts her feelings by filling her in on the latest news: there’s a war between demons and fae in his hometown. No one told Tisiphone. So if she happens to let the gate slip so Eric can slip through, well… who can blame her?

The research for this novel led me deeper and deeper into mythology. I loved learning about the Goddess Iris – messenger to the gods, and also Goddess of the Rainbow, the bridge between the worlds.

The Magic of Lavender is the first book in The Goddess Connection series, which says: Every woman should embrace her inner goddess. What’s your connection?

I have several more novels in this series in mind to follow. In each, the heroine will be somehow connected to a goddess. Her lifelong quirks will become strengths once she finds her true place in the world, and accepts herself for who she really is.

Something we should all do! Every woman should be treated like a goddess, don’t you think? ;)

I'm sure we all agree with that, Cate!  Thanks so much for being our guest today, and we wish you every success with your intriguing fantasy books.

You can find out more about Cate at http://catemasters.blogspot.com/