Candle Iron

Candle Iron  (2001 Post 300)

Candle Iron is one of my favourites among my books. I like the cover, but it is curiously difficult to photograph clearly, because to render the left-bottom diagonal visible, I always end up washing out the top right diagonal. 

Candle Iron started life as a short story. One was called Master of Time. I wrote it for a collection, but also sent others, one of which was chosen. At some point, I wrote one or two other stories that linked to it. I liked the situation and world so much, I ended up writing a novel which I eventually called Candle Iron. 
Allyso Tormblood is the young heir of Castle Torm. When her uncle and guardian Merritt rashly invites a soulbinder and her page to stay, disaster comes to Torm. Surrounded by dead and dying friends, Allyso has just one chance to put things right, but only if she is brave enough to do it. Along with Allyso, who ends up a year older than she seems, major characters include:
Scholar Ankooria, who helps to besiege the castle. He meets Allyso after her terrifying escape and instead of turning her in, he entrusts her with the only thing he loves, his spellhound, Tace.
Tollerman of Musson is the soulbinder's mute page. He reaches the end of his road high in the Shrouded Mountains.
Leonard Gates had run away from another world. She arrives at Connors' Hall twice over, but that's not the end of her story.
Tegwen Hasselsjo is murdered by invaders. She was only fifteen, but she might have another chance yet.
All five of these characters face the challenge of their lives- or deaths.
The names of these and others are derived from a group of online writing friends I had at the time. Some of them are dead now, but I remember them fondly. They all gave permission for me to use their names. I planned to call one of my characters Farren, derived from my own maiden name but quite by chance I discovered two other writers I knew were using Faren and Farron as character names, so I changed to Allyso which is a kind of anagram.
The plot of Candle Iron is complex and I had a difficult time juggling time-lines. I loved writing it, though. It won the Aurealis Award for children's fantasy, which was an honour, but a change of editorial policy meant the two sequels were never produced. They would have been called Candle Stone and Candle Way. I think Candle Iron is still in print, at least as an e-book. I have a lot of affection for it, not least because a friend made me a model of the gemdrake (the character you see on the cover). Loosely speaking, this is part of the series that began with Amy Amaryllis and continued with Shadowdancers and Wintersong. If you're interested in seeing the website I made for Candle Iron way back then, check it out at http://sallyodgers.50megs.com/candleiron.htm

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service.