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This New Twist
Danny C. Estes Author Interview
Jim Sanders left behind modern life when a wizard hooked his freshly-dead soul out of the ether and placed it in the body of a 16 year old girl from the middle ages. I find the setup of Lady Athina to be entertaining. How did this idea start and develop as you wrote?
In truth, it just sort of came to me. I knew I wanted to move Jim into a fantasy world, but simply doing that seemed anti climactic. I pondered for a bit and thought, what would happen if a macho guy suddenly ended up in a small girls body. With this new twist, I rewrote Jim to be a large guy, then gave some hint of his life before I moved him to the new world.
Jim Sanders is an intriguing character with an interesting backstory. What was the inspiration for the main character’s traits and dialogue?
I’ve worked around construction people for a few years and drew up what I considered most wanted to be, a strong, tall and confident man. However, such would be boring without some tragedy to mold his personality. Thus as the story progressed, I sought out meaningful snippets of his life to make him more viable and believable.
Are you a fan of the Sword & Sorcery genre? What books do you think most influenced your work?
Right out of high school, some friends introduced me to fantasy roll playing. We mainly dealt with magic and swords. Elves, dwarves and the like were always on hand. So yes I’m a big fan of Swords, magic and the medieval era. Reading fantasy books also caught my eye, but real history books of the dark ages put everything into perspective for me.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be published?
My next book is Mother Athina. This is the 3rd book in a series of 4 books. Currently Mother Athina is on the market at Amazon.com.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
Former construction company owner Jim Sanders left behind the modern life he knew when a master wizard hooked his freshly-dead soul out of the ether and placed it in the body of a 16-yr-old girl, Lady Athina Green. Newly widowed and displaced, Jim must dodge advances from Athina’s old boyfriend, outmaneuver assassins, and avoid Athina’s father marrying her off to anyone else for political gain. Jim borrows knives and trouble when he jumps the fence and disappears into the night to save himself from a medieval world controlled by men. While on the run, memories of emotional abuse at his own father’s hands manifest in Jim’s nightmares, culminating in an identity crisis that shakes him to his core. With the help of Athina’s few allies, Jim faces his largest trial yet as a woman. It’s time to pull on his big girl panties and face an uncertain future.
Lady Athina
Things have gotten worse for our protagonist since we saw them last in Lord Athina. Danny C. Estes outdoes himself in the second installment of his trilogy: Lady Athina. Our protagonist, Jim, who was whisked away from the world as we know it and plunged into the body of a sixteen-year-old high-born woman who has just given birth is not out of the woods yet. Lady Athina follows Jim’s trial in the body of Athina as he tries to make sense of what happened to him at the end of the previous book. Feeling more isolated than before, Jim finds himself meeting both of Athina’s parents and realizes that he is now an eligible female whose parents want her wed. Still struggling to accept the fact that he is no longer a man in his late thirties but a woman in her prime, Jim rejects everything and everyone with the entirety of his being. Assassination attempts have him learning how to use a knife but he’ll be damned before he lets himself be married off.
Lady Athina is much more of an emotional ride than the previous tale. Even though he is in a woman’s body, Jim’s male mind is still infatuated with breasts and women so the very thought of marrying, and consummating said relationship, with a man makes the very heterosexual Jim balk. In fact, we learn that Jim would rather get naked with Renault, a female guard who is staying with Athina’s family since she saved Athina’s life, than with Wendell; the young man Athina was apparently smitten with many years before she was married off.
Jim struggles in this tale with the fact that he is not used to the frail female body he’s trapped in, but he also struggles in dealing with trauma from his former life. Dealing with flashbacks of his youth growing up in a household ruled by domestic violence, it is clear to see that his distaste for how Athina’s father treats her is founded in personal experience. There are some things that will translate no matter what sex you are.
In an attempt to flee marriage to Wendell, Jim/Athina finds himself/herself running from the safety of Athina’s father’s walls and out into the unknown world. Jim receives kindness from strangers who basically keep him alive long enough to be sucked into an enchanted forest and into the hands of the wizard who rules there. It is here that Jim reunites with Renault and discovers parts of himself he thought were long buried. With his newfound understanding of himself and his relationship to the body he now inhabits, Jim forges forth to write a new tale for Athina.
This installment in the Athina series is a refreshing change from the obsession with the female-form that the first had. Estes has a clearer grip on Jim as a person as he guides the story over more realistic emotional hurdles that the first book lacked. Picking up smoothly from where the first book ended, Lady Athina is a welcome tale of adventure and defiance that leaves readers begging for more.
Pages: 224 | ASIN: B00JSQ5XHW
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