Author name: Sayling@@Away

This piece was published in Deep South Magazine in 2012, but I dug it out of the archives because of the ice storm last night. Southerners flinch at a snow flake, close schools and businesses and run to the grocery store for milk and bread. It’s a fact.   The South seemed like a nice place to put down roots, and those travel magazines can be pretty convincing. My husband and I first thought about moving to North Carolina thirty years ago after looking at pictures of the eye-popping fall colors in the mountains and the crystalline sandy beaches and cerulean blue waters off the Outer Banks, plus we were told that the weather was nice, but mostly we came because we both found jobs here. During my first week in North Carolina, temperatures hovered around 100o, with humidity that made it feel like a blast furnace, and I dreaded going outside. But gradually over the years, and with the help of whole house air-conditioning, I’ve come to welcome the heat and found it’s the perfect topic to open a conversation. “It’s a scorcher outside today.” “Yep, even the flies aren’t buzzin’.” Shortly after learning to begin conversations this way, I became aware there is a distinctive way of speaking in the South. Part of my transition as a North Carolinian was a gradual discovery that the Southern lilt is soothing to my ears, and some of the more unique terms are downright enjoyable. I’ve even found myself using “y’all” from time to time. But in the beginning, some translation was involved. Telephone calls, for example. When I called anyone, the immediate answer was, “Hey. What can I do for you?” What happened to hello? I thought. I discovered that the Civil War was really the Wahr between the States, that when you go to get your North Carolina driver’s license, you have to bring cash money, and that at the supermarket they sell a fish called sal-mon.   When a student once fainted in class, another student came to tell me that her friend had done fell out, and I thought she had fallen down some stairs. At some point, I bought a book called Speaking Southern, thinking to get a leg up on this new language, but the book really didn’t help for ordinary conversation. My first lab technician, a lovely girl named Laura, spoke Southern. One morning she came in with her hair looking like a hornet’s nest. “What happened to you?” I asked. “You look like something the cat dragged in.” “I came in a sod cah,” she replied. “Mmmmm,” I said and went off to think about a translation. It turned out to be “side car”. I once called a physician’s office to make an appointment, before the curse of depersonalized, automated answering services. A receptionist answered my call in a honeyed Southern accent: “Hey, this is Dr. Winslow’s office. What can ah do for you?” To which I politely responded. “Hello, this is Noelle Granger. I’d like to make an appointment.” There was a distinct pause on the other end of the line. Then she said, “Dr. Granjah? Is there an ahr at the end of your name, darlin’?” Before long, I found myself starting almost all of my phone calls with Hey, and it sounds just fine to me. Local sports were also transformative. We were now living in a gigantic hot bed of exciting competition. Betting that Northwestern would be behind by 50 points at half time in a football game with Ohio State was about the most excitement we had had in Chicago. So for the last 30 years, we have been like possums eating honey. But there’s one thing we’ve never gotten used to, and that’s the fact that racing cars is considered a national sport in this part of the country. Whipping your head from side to side as cars scream by at unimaginable speeds has never appealed to me because it does a number on my neck muscles, but a lot of people do seem to enjoy it. I am proud to admit that I have become, and always will be, a Tar Heel. When we ventured out to the seething mayhem and bonfires at the corner of Franklin and South Columbia, on a night when UNC won a national basketball championship, and I got my leather coat painted blue and didn’t mind, I knew I was home. As a former Northerner, I know snow. We had ninety-six inches our first winter in Chicago and had to carve a tunnel to get to our garage. All in all, winters in North Carolina are mild by comparison, and I would never move back north. I figured I had become a North Carolinian when I found myself heading to the supermarket after just the prediction of a snowfall. A few years after we moved in, we experienced our very first bad winter weather and discovered that the electricity is never guaranteed, especially if there is any sort of frozen precipitation. Our serious first ice storm left us without electricity for 10 days. Because we didn’t happen to have a generator, which seems to be a standard piece of equipment in every North Carolina garage, we resorted to stoking wood fires in our two fireplaces 24/7 and with some luck, located a kerosene heater. The kerosene smoked belligerently when we lighted it and layered the ceiling in the family room with a coating of soot. We took it back. As we entered the store, the clerk gave us a strange look. “It’s defective,” he stated wrinkling his nose. Even with a working kerosene heater finally installed, it was still cold in the house, and particularly upstairs in the bedrooms. So naturally, we all slept in one bed. The kids took the middle and snuggled in. Once my husband and I got in on the edges and covered up, our cats, determined not to be left out, inserted their bodies under the

The Last Dragon Slayer by Martyn Stanley is the tale of a quest, book one of the Deathsworn Arc series. I’ll confess I do like fantasy, along the lines of The Game of Thrones (I’ve read every volume), The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. This story has the some of the same basic elements of Lord of the Rings:: a quest, in this case given by the Empress of the land, to slay a Noble Dragon which threatens the northern border of her kingdom, in return for a reward of gold. The band of questers include Saul Karza, a wizard, whose pointed hat doesn’t emerge until facing the dragon; Korhan, son of Brian, a sellsword (sword for hire, if you are not into fantasy); Harald, son of Korvak, another a sellsword; a dwarf, Vortex, who is homeless, having been unable to reenter his home beneath the earth because of magic; Silus Mendelson, an old soldier who was the last man to slay a dragon; a dark elf called Brael the Truthseeker, who was bound by magic not to tell the truth; and the Lady Vashni, a mysterious elf who joins them on their way to the dragon’s lair. The cover of this book is very evocative, and there are lovely illustrations at the end of the book of the  characters, with a brief description of each. I would suggest placing them at the beginning to help the reader identify them. The story begins rather slowly, and I must admit it took me a bit before I got into the read, largely through the descriptions of the country as the band began its journey. There are the usual roadblocks along the way and you eventually get to know the characters, who are well limned. What changed the story for me was the appearance of Vashni, who has the ability to whisper, that is, to change the mind of the person to whom she whispers. Korhan finds himself enthralled with her beauty and her abilities, and agrees to be her Risine (here I use an s for an elvish rune; the author explains how to pronounce it). A Risine is the cross between an abject slave and a student, and Korhan finds himself not only serving her but being made to do demeaning things such as kissing her boot, while she teaches him how to strengthen his mind and improve his swordsmanship. It’s an interesting relationship, especially when she blinds and deafens him for period and then turns him into a vegetarian! Their relationship is strange and wondrous. You do learn more about each character during the course of their journey, and their confrontation with the noble dragon is quite exciting. And there’s a twist at the end: did the Empress want them to slay the dragon just because it threatened the kingdom or is something else at play? Of course there is a sequel. If there was one problem I found with the book, and I know this sounds picky, it was the lack of punctuation. I found myself having to reread sentences because I couldn’t figure out where one ended and the next began, if they did, or where to take a breath. Anytime I have to stop in a read for something like this, it takes me out of time and place. In any event, it became a rollicking tale with enough swordplay and magic to keep younger readers enthralled. I did enjoy it, and I think this book will have wide appeal and develop a good following with the subsequent books. Martyn Stanley lives near the Staffordshire/Cheshire border in England, with, according to his bio, his long suffering wife and two small children. He’s always enjoyed epic fantasy novels, so it seems natural that he would write them. His Deathsworn Arc was written to be more than a hack and slash, swords and sorcery series; it examines, faith, companionship, morality, pragmatism and more. He writes that if the characters of The Deathsworn Arc come across as strange, it’s partly because they’re intended to. I wish him the best with this series. 0 0

  The news about my second book is beginning. Here is the link to my interview with the Chapel Hill Magazine: http://www.chapelhillmagazine.com/blogs/chapel-hill-magazine-blog/q%26a%3A-noelle-granger/   0 0

I am a huge fan of historical fiction and looked forward to reading this book. I was not disappointed. Two Rivers, by Zoe Saadia, is the beginning of the Peacemaker series of historical fiction. It creates the world in which five sister nations of Native American came together to form the great Iroquois confederation that lasted for centuries. According to history, a Great Peacemaker came from the Wyandot (Huron) people and crossed Lake Ontario to southeastern Canada. There he encountered what he had experienced with his own people, a vicious cycle of warring and retribution, which drained the tribes of their young men and their resources. Without their men, the people had less plentiful crops, meat, and other things they needed to  survive the harsh winters. It was the work of the Peacemaker to join the nations, and formation of this confederation lead to the creation of a well-defined constitution, in pictographic form, which would serve in part as the basis of the US Constitution. In this first book of the series, the reader meets Two Rivers, a man supposedly the product of a virgin birth, whose life is overshadowed by the prophesy accompanying his birth: that he is destined to achieve great things. Two Rivers is a thinker, and he is frustrated by the Elders of the tribe when he makes observations and logical suggestions for change. The tribe also has an adopted young man, Teneka, captured when his tribe raided the tribe of Two Rivers. He is now seventeen, brash, willful and outspoken, and easy to take offense and not well-liked, even by the clan which adopted him to replace one of their young men who had died. Action begins in the first chapter, when, during a game of lacrosse, Teneka gets into a fight and seriously injures Yeentso, an older warrior and a bully from another clan. Two Rivers stands up for Teneka and the tribal council decides that Teneka must make amends for the injury by providing Yeensto’s clan with the hide of a grizzly bear. Two Rivers goes with him to kill the bear, advising but not participating. Teneka also falls in love with Seketa, a beautiful young woman from another clan who is nearly as outspoken and headstrong as she is. Things come to a head when the Chief is killed in a raiding party and Two Rivers is blamed for not having joined in the raid but instead helping Teneka. The author is a dedicated researcher of the early Native American peoples and her knowledge enriches this story in the everyday details of life in a village, the customs, the celebrations, their food and its sources. Her character development is wonderful and the reader is easily lost in this story, which artfully mixes fact and fiction. I have already downloaded the second book in this story, since I did not wish to lose the characters who had made such an impression. I recommend this book without reservation. A great read!   When Zoe Saadia first recognized that both Americas have an extremely rich, diverse, fascinating history long before they were discovered by other civilizations, she also noted that this large part of history was completely overlooked, by historical fiction most of all. After years of research and creative writing, she has written two trilogies and one series, 11 full-length novels, all covering the turbulent history of Mesoamerica when the Aztecs were busy coming to power. The Peacemaker Series of four books, of which Two Rivers is the first, deals with the creation of the famous Iroquois Confederacy, one of the oldest democracies on earth. 0 0

In response to a request from Barb Taub, I am reposting this article from 2015. I raised the insects for the Silence of the Lambs. How that happened is sort of interesting…     I got a phone call one day in my lab from a colleague at the USDA in Maryland, where there was an active entomology group. The first thing I heard was “How would you like to get involved in a movie?” Being the attention hog that I am, I replied, “Tell me more.” “Well, it’s a horror movie.” “A horror movie? I don’t think so. They’re so shlocky.”     “Even one with Jodie Foster starring?”      “Well…” “How about Anthony Hopkins?” “Okay, sign me up. What do I have to do?” He explained to me that they needed Death’s Head Moths for the movie. I wasn’t raising these moths, and besides, they were indigenous to Europe and Asia, and there was no question of the government allowing me to import them. However, the adult of moth I did work with, Manduca sexta (otherwise known as the tobacco hornworm), did look a great deal like the adult Death’s Head. Soon after that, I received a call from the “insect wrangler” for the movie, who told me roughly how many of each stage they would need (larva, pupa and adult) and when. He also asked me a lot about how to get them to “act” – move around, be still, fly. So I got to work. We bought a trunk to transport them in and separated it into three compartments for the three stages, equipped with lights and a self-contained fan. I beefed up my colony to fit their time line, and bit actors from the movie came twice to collect the trunk and the insects. The trunk flew back to Pittsburg first class. I don’t know about the actor. The second time an actor visited, I pumped him about the movie. He told me the scene in which the policemen come into the room where Dr. Hannibal Lector is caged, only to find him gone but a dead detective mounted on the cage, was not rehearsed. In order to get a real reaction from the actors, they did one take. He said it was indeed horrifying. I also learned the pupa extracted from the young woman’s throat in the morgue scene was actually a Tootsie Roll. The scene in the basement with all of my lovely Manduca flying or crawling around was wonderful , at least to my eye. The adults were made to look like a Death’s Head moths with the addition of clear false fingernails, painted with the skull, glued to their thoraces. I didn’t see the picture when it was first released. As I said, I am not a fan of horror and dislike being scared to death. I did see it when it was released as a video. From the comfort of my living room, I realized it was a darned good movie. One thing I should have done, though, is visit the set. I could have, although I would have had to pay my way. Opportunity missed… 0 0

I recently reviewed Raven’s Choice, a book by Harper Swan, the premise of which is based on the discovery that at some point in time Neanderthal and Homo sapiens commingled and as a result, we all have Neanderthal DNA. I remembered reading about this in passing, and my interest became piqued while reading this book. So I did a little investigation… Some 200,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern man evolved in East Africa. They spread throughout the rest of the continent and then moved out into eastern Asia and western Europe. By the time modern humans arrived there, some 45,000 to 80,000 years ago, the Neanderthals had already been there for more than 100,000 years and established their own culture. As Homo sapiens journeyed though these regions, they encountered Neanderthals and at least once in a while, they had sex.  Neanderthals were not a hunched over, brutish people, hairy and with dark complexions. More recent have studies have concluded that Neanderthals were fair-skinned and probably with no more facial hair than modern man. They may have communicated by speech, made and used a diverse set of sophisticated tools, controlled fire, lived in shelters, made and wore clothing. They were skilled hunters of large animals and also ate plant foods, and occasionally made symbolic or ornamental objects. There is evidence that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead and occasionally even marked their graves with offerings, such as flowers. No other primates, and no earlier human species, had ever practiced this sophisticated and symbolic behavior. Nevertheless, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals did not merge into a single people, and Neanderthal culture and purebred Neanderthals died out 35,000-30,000 years ago. Hypotheses for the manner of their extinction include a failure or inability to adapt to climate change or competitive exclusion by encroaching Homo sapiens. However, there was enough interbreeding that around 2.5 percent of the DNA in Asians and Europeans is Neanderthal. The skeletal remains of an individual living in northern Italy 40,000-30,000 years ago are now believed to be that of a Homo sapiens/Neanderthal hybrid, according to a paper in PLOS ONE. Genetic analysis was done on the individual’s nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. The nuclear DNA was mainly Homo sapiens, but the DNA of the mitochondria, which is are cell organelles containing DNA transmitted only from the mother, was Neanderthal. It was concluded the individual was the product of a female Neanderthal who had mated with a male Homo sapiens. Anthropologists have long wondered why, if Neanderthal and Homo sapiens brains were the same size, did Homo sapiens dominate? A functional comparison has revealed it was a matter of allocation: Neanderthal brains focused more on vision and movement, leaving less room for cognition related to social networking. Homo sapiens evolved distinct genes related to cognitive functions, metabolism and the development of cranial features, the collarbone and the rib cage. So when I’m acting a little primitive (which my children used to accuse me of), I can blame it on my Neanderthal DNA!     0 0

I chose to read this book more or less as a challenge. I do not like the romance genre, but this book’s description intrigued me. A back and forth in time (I’m a time travel aficionado) along with some serious scuba diving off the coast of Ireland. I’m Irish, what more could I want? Bottom line, I really enjoyed this read. The story is character driven, with not a lot of sex and heaving bosoms, but a real feeling of love between the four main characters: Margaret O’Donnell and her true love, seaman James Gallagher from the 1850s and Catherine Fitzgerald and Daniel Costello from modern time. James returns to Margaret from a long voyage, just before her marriage to a truly dislikeable man, Barnaby Athol. They drown at sea on the day of the marriage, supposedly as the result of a curse Barnaby had put on them that day as revenge for being jilted. A century and a half later, Catherine Fitzgerald, well known underwater photographer, is pulled from her lavender farm in Provence, France by the lure of a deep sea dive on a Spanish treasure boat off the coast of Ireland. The National Geographic wants her to document the find and any treasure recovery because the leader of the dive, Kurt Hennesy, has been linked to scavenging of such finds previously; her documentation will provide the basis for a special, while perhaps keeping Hennesy in line. Catherine is haunted by dreams from a near-death experience on a previous dive, but she convinces herself she needs to get back into the water. The adventure begins when she buys a very old Claddagh ring, a wedding ring, whom the outdoor market vendor got from a man who found it in a cod caught off the Irish coast. You can see where this is leading! It fits Catherine perfectly, but when she wears the ring to bed, her dreams become more intense, with a breaching sailboat and an old man with a white beard trying to save her. Then she meets Daniel Costello, a member of the crew and a nautical archeologist to whom she is relentlessly drawn. Unfortunately, Daniel is already engaged to an overbearing society woman. But wait! There’s more! Wonderful descriptions of colorful underwater life to which even this snorkeler could relate, a truly caring and perhaps still interested ex-husband, a daughter Catherine leaves with him while on the dive and worries about losing – perhaps to the ex-husband’s new girlfriend? – visions of a woman in a white dress who appears while Catherine is diving, and a very real elderly man with a white beard she meets while walking about the Irish village where the crew is staying- is he a ghost? Not to mention the growing feeling between Catherine and Daniel, complicated by his engagement, and the stealth of Captain Hennesy. There was enough tension to keep me reading as fast as I could. I recommend A Cry from the Deep. Give it a look! Diana Stevan is from Winnipeg, Canada. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Home Economics and a Master of Social Work.  Her career has been varied and interesting: she’s worked as a professional actress, model, family therapist and CBC television sports broadcaster. From all these experiences, she weaves her stories.  You can visit her at  www.dianastevan.com, https://www.facebook.com/dianastevan and on Twitter @DianaStevan           Welcome 0 0

I like books that travel back and forth in time, and this novella didn’t disappoint. The author uses the recent discovery that Neanderthal and Homo sapiens interbred and weaves just such a story. It begins in the present when Mark Hayek finds out from a company called Genetics and Me – which he had hoped would help him with Parkinson’s research – had actually tested his genome for Neanderthal DNA. And found it. The book then drops back in time to the Late Pleistocene era in western Asia, where a band of early modern humans, led by Bear and including Raven, a healer and sister to his wife, come upon a group of Neanderthals hunting bison. They drive off the Neanderthals and take the bison the group had killed for meat, but also take one who was injured in the attack as a prisoner. Raven takes a deep interest in the man, watching him closely. Bear throughout treats Raven, the new member of his family, with disdain, but nevertheless takes her as his mate, once the hunters have returned to their tribal home. Raven then uses what little hold she has over Bear to be allowed to reset the prisoner’s dislocated shoulder. As a former EMT, I found the description of this process to be spot on. Two things occur to confound Raven: her sister treats her coldly in response to Bear’s absence from the tent at night, and suddenly the prisoner is gone, freed to return to his own tribe. Intermingled with Raven’s adventure are details of early human life in tribal groups and wonderful descriptions of the tribal hierarchy, food, and hunting, creating a rich palette against which the story is told. You absolutely need to read this book to find out how Raven will handle her sister’s rebuke and whether Raven cares enough about the Neanderthal to follow him when he leaves. And what about Mark’s Neanderthal genes? This story is, to my untrained eyes, meticulously researched, and has a great premise. I am hooked and looking forward to the next novella. Harper Swan lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her husband and two sweet but very spoiled cats. She is the author of has Gas Heat, a story of family angst taking place in the Deep South, and is currently working on the next book of the Replacement Chronicle series. She has drawn on her interests in archaeology,genetics, ancient history and archaeological finds from Paleolithic sites to create the world of Raven’s Choice. You can find her on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10769023.Harper_Swan) Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Ravens-Choice-Replacement-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00QOGLFVM) and twitter (@HarperSwan1) 0 0

Part IV When they all returned to the living room, Mister, now ensconced in his special chair, asked them, “What in heaven are you three up to? You sounded like a herd of elephants going up the stairs!” “What’s an elephant?” Puss asked Willow, who had resumed his place on the end of the sofa and had extended his leg, licking it furiously. “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll tell us.” But no explanation was forthcoming. The next day, midmorning, Boots once again issued her challenge to Willow, who, although he was cleaning his rear end yet again, was ready for it. Once again the three cats raced out of the living room, slid into the far wall of the hallway as they tried to get a purchase on the wood floor, and galloped up the stairs. And once again, with a superfeline effort, Boots managed to be sitting on the edge tub when Willow ran into the bathroom, slid on the rug and hit the tub. “I’ll win tonight, I swear,” gasped Willow. Yes, you will, thought Boots. And none too soon. I don’t think I can do this again. *** At eight that night, Boots went quietly up stairs and found Mister running a bath. Perfect! She thought. I just have to wait until its half full. “Boots,” said Mister, as Boots stropped back and forth and around his legs. “What are you doing in here? You’re not going in my bath again.” And with that, he picked her up, deposited her in the hallway and shut the door. Boots sat on the floor like a Sphinx and looked at the bathroom door in despair. What do I do now? she thought. How can I get him to open the door? She thought some more. Of course, pretend I’m Puss! So she went to the door and pawed at it, meowing piteously. What a surprise!” she thought sarcastically when Mister opened the door, leaned down and petted her head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t want you in my bath, understand?” Boots darted down the stairs before he could turn and close the door. She didn’t hear it close, so the game was on, the only problem being the split second timing. Boots raced into the living room and hopped up on Mister’s chair next to Gracie, who was kneading away at an old sock. “Where’s Puss?” she whispered. “In the kitchen,” Gracie replied. “Where else?” “Time to start the diversion.” Gracie got up slowly, jumped down from the chair, and even more slowly hopped toward the kitchen “You owe me one,” she called back to Boots. Boots in the meantime had wandered over to just below the end of the couch where Willow was curled up. Ready, set… Just then the sound of hissing and yowling and food bowls clashing emerged from the kitchen. Missus got up from her end of the sofa and yelled to Mister, “Dear, get down here! Something’s wrong with Gracie and Puss.” Boots heard Mister’s steps in the upstairs hallway. “Ready to race?” she asked Willow, who was never interested in anything smacking of a real cat fight and was more than ready for the race. He leaped over Boots and ran straight for the hallway, sliding into the far wall with Boots on his tail. They encountered Mister coming down the stairs, while the howling and spitting continued from the kitchen. Gracie’s doing a good job of it, thought Boots. Willow hit Mister’s left leg, which elicited an exclamation Boots had never heard before, but he bounced off and continued up the stairs. Mister jumped and managed to avoid running into Boots, who arrived in the bathroom to find Willow sitting on the edge of the bathtub, looking down at him with thinly veiled contempt. “Told you so,” he said. Boots leapt, propelling Willow into the tub and landing on top of him in the warm water. A great thrashing ensued, as Willow struggled to get out, clawing at the side of the tub, howling and spitting water. Eventually he figured out he could put his feet down on the bottom and he jumped out and sat on the bathmat, dripping and shaking himself. Boots continued to sit in the bathwater up to her neck, enjoying the warmth. Mister could be heard running back up the stairs. “What’s going on in here?” he exclaimed, taking in the sight of a wet and pitiful Willow on the bathmat, and Boots sitting in the bathtub. “Bad cats! Bad cats! What has gotten into you all tonight?” With that, he wrapped a towel around Willow and called Missus to come upstairs and take him away to dry. Missus showed up a second later and burst into laughter when she saw Boots wallowing in the tub. “Here, take him,” said Mister with not a little irritation. “I’ve got to get that cat out of tub so I can run another bath.” He leaned over and picked up Boots with one hand, pulled the plug in the tub with the other, then wrapped the dripping cat in a towel. Mister and Missus went downstairs and dried both cats with a hair dryer. Finally, peace was restored. Mister went back upstairs to draw another bath and this time, shut the bathroom door firmly. Missus returned to her end of the sofa and resumed reading her book. Gracie was already curled up in Mister’s chair, apparently none the worse for her ruckus with Puss, while Puss, the hair on her tail still ballooned out, was sitting on the bottom level of the cat tree, glaring at Gracie. Willow took his place at the other end of the sofa and began licking himself clean in long strokes of his tongue. Occasionally he paused to lick his paw and run it over his face. Boots was already pretty dry and jumped up on the sofa, heading for Missus’ lap. She needed some cuddling after all the turmoil, but she