Last of His Kind

I get people who ask me where I come up with the ideas for my novels and stories in my Portals Series.

Since I already wrote a blog post on The Keeper of the Key when I last offered it for free, I figured this time around, I would write about the next book in the series, Last of His Kind:

Here’s the book on Kindle (but it’s also in paperback, keep reading to find the link):

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Backstory On This Novel

Like the first novel in my series, The Keeper of the Key, this book started out as a dream I had. I always try to write down the dreams that I remember as a result! But lately, they have not been story material.

Anyways, once upon a time ago, I dreamt I was in a house that was falling apart, but still enchanted so that it could not be destroyed. This story took THE longest to write, as I started it in 2010 or so as a rough sequel to The Keeper of the Key but didn’t finish writing it until late 2019. I was going through some tough issues during those years that made me actually quit writing altogether for a good long chunk of time.

I also had a hard time working a part of the story. This was the novel that taught me to WRITE whatever comes to mind, even if it is part of what I see as the end, instead of start at the beginning and work my way all the way through. Before this, I tried to write stories from beginning to end, but I kept on seeing the end of the story instead of the middle, so I wrote that and worked backwards.

If you are able to do write from beginning to end, props to you….. I have learned that I can’t force certain things, so I write what flows!

This was also the first book to be released simultaneously on e-book and paperback.

Sooooo, now that the storyline ideas have been discussed, on to my character’s names. Often I get asked, “where do you get your names?”

For this story, I borrowed heavily from European names, mostly odd names in England, but also around the western part of the continent. Some, like Sophia (“wisdom”), were chosen because I really thought the meaning suited the character.

Robert Taylor Templeton was the name IN the dream… so it made it easy to name the characters in the main family line that. Temp was what the character I dreamed up wanted to be called, so I kept that. His father went by Robert, so I kept that as well. I knew they were the second and third to be called that as well, so I went with it.

The name John Malchus was one I had created for a character in a story that went nowhere, so I pulled the name into this novel. Malchus comes from the Bible…. It was the name of the servant whose ear is cut off by Peter when Jesus was arrested. Something about the name struck a chord in me and I kept it in a back burner in my mind. It just suited the antagonist on this story.

Neriah means light – since she is related to Phoebe from the first book, I wanted a name that meant something similar. (And I kept a trend from the first book going when I named Neriah’s elder sister Mopsa, from Mopsus, who was Manto’s son. By the way, Mopsa is the protagonist in the novella Keeper of Stories.)

Ambarre is pronounced “ember”…. she’s a magister who prefers fire spells. So it fit.

Solilune (Sol – Lee – Lune) was named for a very good friend of mine whom I have lost contact with who went by the nickname of Soli (Sol-EE)….. but also in thinking of the name, I came up with Sol i Lune, “Sun and Moon”… since he is, quite literally, a holder of both light magic and dark magic. I didn’t realize just how big a character he would become in my mind when I first wrote him either, but that’s a subject for a future blog post.

I once read an article about someone named Elphinstone…. and thought that it was a cool name. Darice was made up to be a companion to the surname. Ebonhart of course means “black heart” and Percival was chosen because it rolled off the tongue well with the surname.

Most of the other characters in Marihone were named almost at random or because I thought the name suited.

Haecatun was made up with scrabble tiles again (I like doing that too!)

So there you have it.

If you have a Kindle, consider downloading and reading the book – it’s also available in paperback form if that. If you liked it, please think of leaving a review too!

Stay magical! Write your own story!

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This is post 3 of 13 for the Name Your Number Writing Challenge I am partaking in this month. Want to know more, just click the hyperlink!

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