Murder of Crows Behind The Scenes: How Ancient Wisdom Inspired an Interdimensional Fantasy Novel

Book 2 of the Murder of Crows Michigandia fantasy/romantasy series, White Hurricane, is coming out July 1. We have been a bit under the weather, unfortunately, but I did want to take you behind the scenes before launch to do at least one author interview type post about this book. Why write a book set by Lake Michigan that takes place in multiple parallel dimensions and layers of reality?

Short answer: shamanism

It's a long story, though. Two decades ago, I met a variety of healers including a shaman while looking for help with a then undiagnosable health problem. I ended up meeting several individuals who were trained as shamans, or traditional healers rooted in indigenous cultures from several places around the world. The word shaman is from Siberia for a specific type of shaman, probably what you have in mind when I say that word. But every culture on earth has a healing tradition that is similar far back in its pre-medical history. Many of those healing traditions continue today in parallel with traditional modern medicine, providing services such as herbal healing, bodywork, psychological counseling, and more. Without going into the details too far, I became fascinated with how shamanism was structured the same way as the human mind: in layers of reality.

Shamans have a thing they call journeying, a type of guided meditation wherein they astral travel or meditate in their mind's eye to go retrieve information from the subconscious, or maybe the superconscious. How many layers of reality does this imply, even if the "travel" isn't literal but is inside the mind? I was hooked.

Turns out, this ancient shamanism thing slots in nicely with, guess what, string thoery. Quantum physics. All kinds of topics related to quantum entanglement, which is the idea that once two particles have interacted, they will continue to influence each other's motion even at a distance when they are no longer connected. Sounds crazy. Even Einstein called it spooky and didn't like the subject. But once you think about it from a shamanic perspective, it makes all kind of sense, and makes for a great story to boot. It's too much to explain in a blog post, but if you check out book 2 of the Murder of Crows series White Hurricane, you will follow our characters through portals between overlapping dimensions of similar versions of parallel reality. The book also contains three female magical human characters who are developing natural magic via affiliations with something akin to spirit guides to guide their meditations by which they travel between dimensions. It isn't a spiritual book, per se, it's much more a love story between similar but still oh-so-different humanoid species. But if field theory or string theory is your jam, you're going to enjoy this story, in which characters must learn to find their own voice to weave paths through interdimensional reality and stop a nature spirit trying to drain all the life force energy out of the multiverse for nefarious ends. Enjoy!

I... have mono. But I'll be back for launch day and hopefully sooner to bring you more behind the scenes on what is shaping up to be a fun series. She even has a doppleganger whose eyes she can look through, guys. I think you'll like this one.