Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hunting the Egret by Bryn Colvin


What's her name?
Verity

Why did you pick that name?
It means truth. There are quite a few issues in ‘Hunting The Egret’ about what is true, and real. Giving a paranormal character a name with this meaning rather appealed to me.

Give us a brief description of how she looks.
Verity has blond hair and brown eyes. She’s quite tall and strong – a bit of an Amazon, but otherwise at first glance not that remarkable. Her clothes are old, faded and worn.

Is there anything unusual about her appearance? Hidden under her hair, are ears that are far too small in proportion to her face.

Who does she love? Why? Verity loves the river and the hills. She adores her father. Conventional romantic relationships have not worked for her thus far – she finds it hard to give of herself, or to trust people with how she really is.

Does this person love her? Being a prickly, difficult person Verity does not attract affection. Her family love her, in their own odd ways, and she does inspire strong feelings in others – although she finds this hard to see.

Tell us about her family. Verity’s father lives on a narrowboat, sharing his daughter’s need to be close to the water. Her mother is a traveller, who comes and goes and is somewhat crazy. Verity’s grandmother was a witch and crops up as a ghost on a few occasions, along with a few other ancestors.

Where is she from?
Verity has spent her life on the side of the Severn, in a small village called Arlode. She seldom travels further than she can walk, and considers a sixty mile round trip to be a huge journey. Rejecting much of the modern world, she’s intune with the landscape but at odds with human culture.

Does her hometown affect her behaviour, thoughts and attitude? Verity wouldn’t survive in a city, and would probably struggle in a town. She needs wild places and the river. However, she finds the people around her difficult – in a village the chances of finding a kindred spirit are that much lower.

What does she want out of life? One of Verity’s problems is that she really doesn’t know. There are gaps in her life, but she has little sense of how to fill them.

What's her biggest secret? (Only share if it isn't a spoiler in the story.) I don’t think I can say!

Did you write more than one story about her?
There’s just the one, and it seems like a complete tale to me. She may crop up in the background of another book sometime – I love doing that – but she won’t be the central character in any other stories.

How would she describe you? I come from the other side of the river. Would Verity look twice at me if I walked into the bakery she works in? Probably not. I’m just another person, and she doesn’t do well with people, so I fear she wouldn’t remember me well enough to bother trying to describe me. Perhaps if we met on the riverside and shared a few words about the wildlife she would consider me tolerable.

Is there anything else about your heroine that we need to know? Feel free to share.
One of Verity’s concerns is the threat of a tidal barrier being built across the Severn and harming this unique habitat. I did not invent this threat – I wish it was just a piece of fiction, because the river is beautiful and could be ruined by this.

Please provide your website link. http://brynneth.org.uk/

What is the link to buy your book? http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=28&products_id=337&zenid=e8fb5f33a911b999e381b72512589bd7