Dear Denise, What a lovely acknowledgement awaiting me in my email this morning. Thank you! Since you’ve been to my website, you’ve probably seen some of my other artwork and my novel. I hope to have another art show upstairs in the coffee shop next summer. Perhaps we’ll meet at some point in person. Thanks again for your sweet message. Blessings on your journey!

MASTERFULLY EXECUTED, HARD TO CLASSIFY
New Moons: The Seed Songs is described as “eco sci-fi,” but this doesn’t completely convey the scope of this hard-to-classify work. Yes, ecology and the Earth are predominant themes, but so too is spirituality — a sort of mysticism reminiscent of Native American cultures. The navigation of inner dream-worlds and even a sort of magic bring the novel into the realm of some fantasy genres.

Yet with all its fantasy, the book succeeds in making sense on its own terms. Within its own universe, it has its own coherent logic. Optimally, fantasy fiction should contain a series of fantastic events and describe fantastic things, but in such a way that the reader feels a satisfying sense that there is a truth being revealed, that a moral, poetic or esoteric correctness is being observed in the tale’s telling. New Moons has this. It succeeds in creating its own authenticity.

Ashmead shows an especially strong ability to create and vividly describe dream experiences and weave them into an engrossing narrative. Her crafty combination of outer and inner space, and the explorations taking place in both, invites insightful parallels. There is an expansive feel, not only of a great odyssey, but of forces at work over vast distances of time and space.

The story of how the separate pieces of the Prophecy come together is suspenseful and entertainingly intricate. Throughout the book the author creates a sense of constant growth, discovery, learning and enlightenment as the story unfolds with ever-present magic and adventure.

The saga is slated to continue in book 2 of the series, as Mellinar and her posse seek spiritually to find a way to re-indigenize the troubled off-planet orphans, a storyline sure to remind us how much we ourselves all need to land back on Earth.

The featured image is the painting of the three women dancing. Their colored skirts are the aspects: the Creative (orange), the Encourager (gold), and the Critic (the blue one).