A Dream Within A Dream: Shiloh Blog Tour: Excerpt + Giveaway

Shiloh

Author: Helena Sorensen

Genre: YA Fantasy

Release Date: April 22, 2013

Publisher: Alpha Wolf Publishing

Buy Links: Amazon

Description:

In a world of perpetual darkness, a boy is born who wields remarkable power over fire. Amos is no more than seven when he kills a Shadow Wolf and becomes a legend in Shiloh. He would be destined for great things were it not for the stories his father tells about a world beyond the Shadow and a time before the Shadow. Only madmen hold to such tales, and in Shiloh, they have always come to bad ends.

Amos is fearless. He walks with easy confidence, certain that the Shadow cannot touch him. Even his family is in awe of him. His father marvels at his skill with the bow, his mother thanks the gods that he has all the courage she lacks, and his sister, Phebe, worships him for saving her from an attack of the Shadow Cats.

On a trip to the village of Emmerich, Amos rescues the Magistrate’s son, Simeon, from the village bullies. Simeon, fair-skinned and pale-eyed like other Dreamers in Shiloh’s history, becomes Amos’s constant companion and dearest friend. Simeon becomes a part of Amos’s family, listening to fireside stories told in a way he’s never heard them before and learning to wield a bow and arrow.

The year the boys turn twelve, they are itching to prove themselves. An impetuous plan to steal a beautiful lantern goes miserably awry, and the lantern’s owner prophecies that Amos will be devoured by the Shadow. For the first time, a seed of fear is planted in Amos’s mind, and when his father is killed by a Shadow Wolf on the last day of the Great Hunt, the fear takes hold. If so great and brave a man as his father could fall to the Shadow, what hope has he?

Prologue

In the beginning, there was Ram. He was alone and apart from every-
thing, and he was great and joyful and immensely strong and good. To begin, he created the sun, round and red and gold, and he loved its brightness and its warmth. But the sun shone down on an empty world, and Ram was grieved. He looked at the void and longed to fi ll it with color and life.
So Ram created other creators to help him fi ll the emptiness. Th ree sons and three daughters burst into being from the soil of Ram’s thought. Leander, Rurik, and Vali were fi erce, daring, brave. Petra, Callista, and Riannon were strong, beautiful, wildly free. Th ese sons and daughters of Ram, like their father, were not bound by fl esh. Th ey could see into one another and discern one another’s minds. And whenever one of the Immortals (for so they came to be called) saw in another Immortal an image that matched something in his own mind, that image came to life. Leander and Riannon shared many visions of wild creatures, and it was not long before the world was fi lled with soaring birds and creeping beasts. Vali and Petra shaped the mountains, great windswept peaks tipped with snow, and Riannon and Callista formed the fl owers, soft purple heather and delicate wild roses.
In this way, Shiloh was fi lled with life, and the Immortals, at times, even created other Immortals to share in their work. At the birth of Linden, trees spread over the land, gathering into forests and hedging the meadows, their great branches stretching toward the sky. Some of the trees were touched by Ram, and they took on a spark of the life of the Immortals. At Maya’s birth, rivers cut through earth and stone, laughing
and rollicking their way across the land. Ram was so delighted that he fi lled the waters with nymphs, shimmering creatures whose eyes sparkled in the light of the sun.
But Rurik, as yet, had taken no part in creation. He went to his brothers, Leander and Vali, searching their minds for some vision that matched his own. It was not to be found. He went to his sisters, but neither Petra nor Callista shared any thought with him. Rurik was angry at this, for his brothers and sisters shared in their father’s work and their father’s glory, but he did not. He wished, in fact, that he might create alone, bringing into existence the thoughts of his own mind as only Ram could. It was not until Rurik went to Riannon that he discovered some trace of himself, for Riannon was the wildest of Ram’s children and she, too, longed to be free of the Immortals’ one restraint. In her heart, as in her brother’s, a dark sliver of rebellion resided. Riannon was neither cruel nor wicked, but, like the wind, she could not be contained, and she hardly knew what she did when she stood face to face with her brother and brought into being the Shadow.

It is only in recent years that Helena Sorensen discovered how deep her love is for epic fantasy. In preparation for writing Shiloh, and as part of her independent education in literature, Helena has read scores of books: books for children and young adults and adults, National Book Award Winners, and Newberry Honor Books. But she always comes back to the fantasy novels. Helena loves the idea that anything is possible in the world of fantasy. There is no limit to the imagination, and she can choose to embark on any kind of adventure.

helenasorensen.com