The Healer's Shadow Trilogy

The Healer's Shadow Books

Girl in the Glass first in the series about the young healer, Judith. 
I will have to say it: 'I am Anya and I am nothing'. I will look down at the floor as I say it, so that I don't see the smile on my aunt's face, so she won't see the defiance in my eyes. She will get her victory. She always wins these battles. I know it, she knows it. But one day, one day she will not.

In this Cinderella story for adults there is no fairy godmother and no handsome prince, just a girl of spirit and her strange companion.

Orphaned at the age of 10 in circumstances that she refuses to explain, Anya grows up trapped in the house of her abusive aunt where she and Eva, her Shadow, are treated as slaves. As her aunt tries to break her and the punishments become increasingly life-threatening, Anya struggles to find affection and self-esteem. When the inevitable showdown arrives, where will Anya find the strength to survive and escape? And if she does escape, what then? An arduous walk across an unforgiving desert to a city where an even worse danger lies. 

Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IROBEE , Kobo, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.

"I had always felt most alive, when I was healing. Without healing I was a tin top spinning out of kilter soon to catch the ground. It took all my energy to hold myself from skidding into chaos."

But in the city of Pharsis traditional women healers are banned from practising and the penalty for breaking the law is death by hanging. After being arrested and interrogated twice Judith is careful to avoid suspicion, but then scarlet fever breaks over the city like a poisonous wave, leaving in its wake the small corpses of children. What will the young healer do?

Love of Shadows is the second novel in The Healer's Shadow trilogy. It is a study in grief, love and defiance.

Available on http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more about me on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Look out for the giveaway on my blog.

Traditional Perfumes and Medicines

Judith, the heroine of my book Love of Shadows, is a perfume-maker by profession and a healer by calling. One of the things I have really enjoyed about writing this book was finding about traditional perfumes and medicines, as I like to make my novels as accurate as possible.

In the book Judith and her Shadow, Sarah, go on several journeys looking for new recipes and raw materials, which they bring back to their home in the fictional city of Pharsis and transform into medicines and perfumes. Judith inherits her former employer's workshop where there is a large copper still. This is used to create the essential oils which Judith uses in both her medicines and perfumes. 

On one trip they come across a goatherd, whose flock browse among the wild rockroses. The rockrose produces a scented resin called labdanum, which sticks to the fleece and is gathered by shepherds and sold to perfume makers. On another Judith is inspired by the scents of the forest to design a perfume based around oakmoss. But their finds aren't just useful for making perfumes but for making medicines too - oakmoss is used for wounds and labdanum for coughs.

Love of Shadows by Zoe Brooks

"I had always felt most alive, when I was healing. Without healing I was a tin top spinning out of kilter soon to catch the ground. It took all my energy to hold myself from skidding into chaos."

But in the city of Pharsis traditional women healers are banned from practising and the penalty for breaking the law is death by hanging. After being arrested and interrogated twice Judith is careful to avoid suspicion, but then scarlet fever breaks over the city like a poisonous wave, leaving in its wake the small corpses of children. What will the young healer do?

Love of Shadows is the second novel in The Healer's Shadow trilogy, which began with Girl in the Glass, and follows the lives of Judith and her Shadow, Sarah. It is a study in grief, love and defiance.

Purchase Links

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more about me on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Love of Shadows will be touring with Goddess Fish to blogs every monday for the next two months.

Love of Shadows Excerpt 2

Earlier today I shared with you the first excerpt from my new book Love of Shadows. Here is the second excerpt. Having experienced an abusive relationship the young healer, Judith, resists getting involved with men. Despite this she falls for a good man called Bruno, but Judith's personal demons mean that the course of true love is not going well. 

Midnight. He wasn’t coming back. And who could blame him? Not me. Wasn’t that what I had wanted – to drive him away? I was so good at that.

Where was he?

I went to the window and looked out. The moon was full now, but scarred by thin clouds. The ship stood dark against the water. A wind had got up, the trees were tossing their heads. Down at the beach the shingle would be creaking under the weight of the waves. Where was he? This was a bad night to walk in.

What had he done to deserve this? Nothing. All he had done was fall in love with me and, worse, admit it. That was a terrible crime to be sure.

All night I sat by the window watching for his return, wanting it and dreading it. For what was there to say? If he had struck me, it might have been easier. I deserved that. I deserved a beating. And I had had so many I didn’t deserve. But he had done nothing, only looked at me and gone.

I was so tired. I leant my head against the window frame and looked out. The sea on its furthest edge was beginning to grow silver. Soon the barges would begin their journeys north. I hoped that he would be on one, going somewhere where people loved him. I was so tired of everything, of myself most of all. My eyes closed.

Inspiration - The Witch Hunts

Execution of alleged witches, 1587 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The main character of my Healer's Shadow trilogy is a woman healer. In Love of Shadows she has to decide whether to heal and risk being executed for being a healer. My books are fantasy/magic realism, nevertheless I am by training a historian and use stories from history as the inspiration for my books. For Love of Shadows I was inspired by the story of the persecution of women healers in witch-hunts.

For most of history the majority of the population had no access to any form of medicine other than that provided by the local wise-woman. Even if they had, the medicine taught in universities was closer to magic than the empirical approach of the wise-woman. But whether the wise-women were healing their patients was not a consideration, the very act of healing was a crime and that crime was witchcraft. As one English witch-hunter said: It were a thousand times better for the land if all Witches, but especially the blessing Witch, might suffer death.

On continental Europe the witch-hunts resulted in many thousand executions usually by burning. At Toulouse 400 were killed in one day, 1000 died in one year in the Como area, whilst in 1585 two villages in the Bishopric of Trier were left with only on female inhabitant each. Women healers were not alone (there were also some male healers although they make up approximately on 15% of the numbers killed), it is hard to credit now but midwives were also under attack: Midwives cause the greatest damage. Either killing children or sacrilegiously offering them to devils.

The witch-hunts lasted from the 14th to the 17th century. By the time they finished possibly over a million women had died, much of the knowledge that had been acquired by generations of women healers had been lost and women's roles in healing had been so denigrated that women had to fight even to be nurses.

Blurb for Love of Shadows by Zoe Brooks

"I had always felt most alive, when I was healing. Without healing I was a tin top spinning out of kilter soon to catch the ground. It took all my energy to hold myself from skidding into chaos."

But in the city of Pharsis traditional women healers are banned from practising and the penalty for breaking the law is death by hanging. After being arrested and interrogated twice Judith is careful to avoid suspicion, but then scarlet fever breaks over the city like a poisonous wave, leaving in its wake the small corpses of children. What will the young healer do?

Purchase Links

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more about me on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Love of Shadows will be touring with Goddess Fish to blogs every monday for the next two months.

Love of Shadows Excerpt

Hello Goddess Fish, thank you for allowing me to take part in today's party. Today I will be talking about my book Love of Shadows.

Love of Shadows is the second novel in The Healer's Shadow trilogy, which began with Girl in the Glass. Set in an unnamed country the story follows the life of Judith and her Shadow Sarah. Their mentor and employer has just died as the book opens and Judith is struggling with grief, when she is arrested:

“Your second accuser, as I’m sure you will have worked out, was your mistress’ nephew. He claimed that you murdered her deliberately to get her money. A simple case of murder in the eyes of law, no fudge there.

“Both your accusers are men who if they found someone dying in the street would not stop to help, or rather they would – they would help themselves to whatever was in the dying man’s pocket. No, I don’t like either of them, but that doesn’t make their accusations wrong.”

He sifted through the folder and produced Elma’s legal will and her real one – the letter to me. There were nicotine stains on his fingers as they unfolded the fine notepaper my mistress always used for special letters. Holding it in one hand and the cigarette in the other, he read in silence. I had planned to keep the letter forever to remind me of her, lest I forget some day that that fine singular old woman had loved me. I knew that was in part why she had written it, knowing how much I doubted myself and others. I treasured it more than any money Elma could have given me and here it was an object of little interest in a police file, to be stowed in some drawer perhaps or worse waved in court as evidence to condemn. That young interrogator was nothing compared to this man, the Rottweiler knew how to worm under the skin without stunts or threats.

About Me:I am Zoe Brooks, a British writer and poet. I spend half my life in a partly restored old farmhouse in the Czech Republic, where I write all my novels and poetry. I aim to write popular books, which have complex characters and themes that get under the reader's skin.

I was a successful published poet in my teens and twenties, (featuring in the Grandchildren of Albion anthology). My long poem for voices Fool's Paradise is a finalist in the forthcoming EPIC ebook awards. More recently I have begun writing novels: Girl In The Glass - the first novel in a trilogy about the woman and healer Judith was published on Amazon in March 2012, followed by Mother of Wolves and Love of Shadows.

To buy the book visit:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more about me on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Love of Shadows will be touring with Goddess Fish to blogs every monday for the next two months.

Love of Shadows - Excerpt Four

Here is the last excerpt from my book Love of Shadows. The book's central character, Judith, is a traditional female healer in a city traditional medicine is banned and the penalty for breaking the law is death by hanging. In this excerpt Judith is working in an underground hospital.

“Peter,” I say. “I don’t think I’ve changed that dressing for a while.”

The rumble is growing to thunder and there are voices. 

I pick up a clean dressing and a pot of ointment from the shelves and walk across the room. As I bend  over the bed, I try not to think of the light of flames moving along the house walls of the square. I try not to see the look of hatred on the faces of the torchbearers. I try not to listen. I try to focus only on Peter and my hand as it peels back the dressing. I try not to listen to the clamor.

Under my breath I say a prayer: “Angels who are blessed, take this darkness from me.”

And the darkness does clear, for a while. The wound is healing, so I apply some ointment to keep it clean and pick up the new dressing.

They are overhead now. There is no escaping the words, the room almost shakes with them: “Burn the witch! Death to the witch!”

My legs fail me and I slip to my knees. I am in the darkest of my nightmares, darkness shot through with flames. “Sarah, they are coming.”

I am Zoe Brooks, a British writer and poet. I spend half my life in a partly restored old farmhouse in the Czech Republic, where I write all my novels and poetry. I aim to write popular  books, which have complex characters and themes that get under the reader's skin.

Buy Love of Shadows on:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more on:
Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com

Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Love of Shadows - Excerpt Three

Hello Everyone,

Earlier today I shared two excerpts from my book Love of Shadows. The book is the second in The Healer's Shadow trilogy. The book follows the life of the young healer Judith and her Shadow Sarah. Some people in Judith's world, including Judith, are born with Shadows. Shadows appear to be human but are different: logical and without emotions, they act as a conscience and balance to their all-too-emotional masters. Shadows are faced with prejudice and hatred. In this excerpt Judith is caring for Shadows who have been attacked as part of a pogrom. 

As I passed the curtained doorway to the bar, I heard the sound of a life which once I had lived and from which I was now so far removed that the curtain might as well have been an iron door. My legs were heavy on the stairs, my eyes were shocked by sunlight. I presume I lay down on the bed and slept immediately, because when I woke I was still dressed. Still drugged by sleep I walked to the window and drew back the curtains. There in the square the costermongers were folding down the shutters on their stalls, pigeons were scrapping over food, the shadows in the colonnade deepening. A man was leaning against a pillar as he looked intently at the inn. Instinctively I stepped back out of sight and pulled the curtains to once more. I turned to find the landlord in the doorway.

“There’s someone watching,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “Started yesterday. Bruno spotted him yesterday evening. In a couple of hours he’ll be replaced. All they do is watch, they haven’t tried anything yet. And we can’t do anything to them, not legally. Thing is they don’t try to hide, they want us to know.”


To buy Love of Shadows: 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602  for British buyers. 

You can follow me on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Love of Shadows - Excerpt Two

Earlier today I shared with you the first excerpt from my new book Love of Shadows. Here is the second excerpt. Judith has met with Bruno, but Judith's personal demons mean that the course of true love is not going smoothly.

Midnight. He wasn’t coming back. And who could blame him? Not me. Wasn’t that what I had wanted – to drive him away? I was so good at that.

Where was he?

I went to the window and looked out. The moon was full now, but scarred by thin clouds. The ship stood dark against the water. A wind had got up, the trees were tossing their heads. Down at the beach the shingle would be creaking under the weight of the waves. Where was he? This was a bad night to walk in.

What had he done to deserve this? Nothing. All he had done was fall in love with me and, worse, admit it. That was a terrible crime to be sure.

All night I sat by the window watching for his return, wanting it and dreading it. For what was there to say? If he had struck me, it might have been easier. I deserved that. I deserved a beating. And I had had so many I didn’t deserve. But he had done nothing, only looked at me and gone.

I was so tired. I leaned my head against the window frame and looked out. The sea on its furthest edge was beginning to grow silver. Soon the barges would begin their journeys north. I hoped that he would be on one, going somewhere where people loved him. I was so tired of everything, of myself most of all. My eyes closed.

I am Zoe Brooks, a British writer and poet. I spend half my life in a partly restored old farmhouse in the Czech Republic, where I write all my novels and poetry. I aim to write popular  books, which have complex characters and themes that get under the reader's skin.

Buy Love of Shadows

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor

Love of Shadows Excerpt One

Hello Goddess Fish, thank you for allowing me to take part in today's party. Today I will be sharing with you all four excerpts from my new book Love of Shadows. 

Love of Shadows is the second novel in The Healer's Shadow trilogy, which began with Girl in the Glass. Set in an unnamed country the story follows the life of Judith and her Shadow Sarah. Their mentor and employer has just died as the book opens and Judith is struggling with grief, when she is arrested.

“Your second accuser, as I’m sure you will have worked out, was your mistress’ nephew. He claimed that you murdered her deliberately to get her money. A simple case of murder in the eyes of law, no fudge there.

“Both your accusers are men who if they found someone dying in the street would not stop to help, or rather they would – they would help themselves to whatever was in the dying man’s pocket. No, I don’t like either of them, but that doesn’t make their accusations wrong.”

He sifted through the folder and produced Elma’s legal will and her real one – the letter to me. There were nicotine stains on his fingers as they unfolded the fine notepaper my mistress always used for special letters. Holding it in one hand and the cigarette in the other, he read in silence. I had planned to keep the letter forever to remind me of her, lest I forget some day that that fine singular old woman had loved me. I knew that was in part why she had written it, knowing how much I doubted myself and others. I treasured it more than any money Elma could have given me and here it was an object of little interest in a police file, to be stowed in some drawer perhaps or worse waved in court as evidence to condemn. That young interrogator was nothing compared to this man, the Rottweiler knew how to worm under the skin without stunts or threats.

I am Zoe Brooks, a British writer and poet. I spend half my life in a partly restored old farmhouse in the Czech Republic, where I write all my novels and poetry. I aim to write popular books, which have complex characters and themes that get under the reader's skin.

I was a successful published poet in my teens and twenties, (featuring in the Grandchildren of Albion anthology). My long poem for voices Fool's Paradise is a finalist in the forthcoming EPIC ebook awards. More recently I have begun writing novels: Girl In The Glass - the first novel in a trilogy about the woman and healer Judith was published on Amazon in March 2012, followed by Mother of Wolves and Love of Shadows.

To buy the book visit:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602

You can find out more about me on:

Blog: http://zoebrooks.blogspot.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/ZoeBrooks2
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZoeBrooksAuthor