Friday, April 5, 2013

Meet Kat the Teen Witch from the Witches of Galdorheim Series


Today we welcome author Marva Dasef to the Girls Succeed blog. Talk about succeeding, Ms. Dasef poses the question--How does a fantasy girl succeed, namely, Kat the Witch? She's the main character in  Ms. Dasef's fantasy series, The Witches of Galdorheim.

If you are into magic. imaginative characters, and locations, then you'll love these stories. I mean really, Ms. Dasef has cooked up a stew of amazing characters and situations which will make you laugh and cry. You will cheer for Kat the teen witch and boo the mean old hag. It's a fun read!


Katrina the teen witch with her half-vampire brother, Rune, brave crossing the arctic sea, being attacked by a polar bear, fighting giants, dodging magic attacks by an evil shaman, and that's just in book 1 of this trilogy. Complete in a single volume, follow Kat's adventures from the arctic circle
to the Otherworld in Scotland.


How Does a Fantasy Girl Succeed? by Marva Dasef

It doesn’t seem fair to compare regular humans with fantasy characters. After all, most fantasy characters have some magic to back them up. But if a fantasy girl, in this case a witch, doesn’t have control of her magic, she has to draw on her girl power to succeed instead.

Katrina (Kat) has a witch mother and a regular human father (witches are also human, but just happen to have talents we regular humans don’t). She’s got the witch power churning inside her, but every time she tries to use it...well, it ain’t pretty. Her poor bunny has to put up with being turned into green goo and furniture breaks instead of levitating.

She’s a little jealous of her half-brother’s ability to use his inherited magic and knows she’ll never come up to the high standards of her mother, aunt, or any of the other witches on Galdorheim, the witches’ home island in the Barents Sea.

Her father, frozen in an ice cave when Kat was a tot, came from the Sami tribe of hunters and fishers who live in the farthest northern reaches of Siberia. Kat figures if she’s a magical failure, she should find her father’s family and live with them. So she decides to run away from home. Not an easy feat when you live on a ice-bound island in the Arctic.

She has what it takes to succeed. Not magic, but grit and determination. Nobody succeeds if they’re giver-uppers. She does enlist the assistance of an elderly and crotchety witch, Mordita. Without magic, Kat has to obtain some cold weather gear. Any of the other witches on the island would conjure it up themselves. So think of Mordita has Kat’s answer to having an Eddie Bauer’s store in town.

She also asks her brother for a couple of spells-to-go which she can invoke safely (e.g., without blowing up or turning anything into green goo). When Rune hears about her decision to leave, he insists he has to go along to help. Another thing a girl who wants to succeed can do is to call on others to help. Not to DO her work, but to mentor or provide tools she can use on her journey to success.

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To find out how Kat does in her quest, check out the Witches of Galdorheim series. They’re available in ebook and print formats from Amazon. Here’s a bit about all three books in the series.

Available in eBook format and in print from Amazon


BAD SPELLING
A klutzy witch, a shaman's curse, a quest to save her family. Can Kat find her magic in time?

Follow the adventures of Katrina and her half-vampire brother, Rune, as they chase down an evil shaman. Dodging the shaman's curses on a dangerous trip across the ice-bound arctic seas, they meet both friends and foes. Kat and Rune must find the shaman and stop him before their beloved island home is destroyed.

MIDNIGHT OIL
Shipwrecked on a legendary island, how can a witch rescue her boyfriend if she can’t even phone home?

Traveling with her newly-found grandfather, a raging storm catches them unawares. Kat is tossed into the icy seas, while her brother and grandfather travel on to find help. Kat is rescued by an unlikely creature, and Rune is captured by mutants. Only the magical Midnight Oil can save her brother, but an evil forest elemental is trying to stop her.

SCOTCH BROOM
A magical trip to Stonehenge lands a witch in the Otherworld where an ancient goddess is up to no good.

Kat is on her way to an exciting trip to a faroff land, but is led astray by a jealous rival. Caught in the Otherworld with a has-been goddess trying to kill her, Kat has to defeat the goddess and rescue her brother from the hag's clutches.

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To get links to the series and other books by Ms. Dasef, check out these sites:









10 comments:

  1. I had my head buried all day in another book's finalizing.

    I can't believe I looked at my calendar about 20 times and my eyes kept missing this!

    Thanks for having Kat on Girls Succeed.

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  2. Oh, good. This is a day early, so I'm not as senile as I first thought. ;-)

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    1. Yes, I pubbed it early because I had to get out early on Saturday morning and wanted to make sure the post was published on time. You are not senile at all!! LOL..

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  3. Well, you have to be a little whacky to be an imaginative writer like you are. I really loved all of Kat's adventures and the great characters she meets along the way. Even the nasty ones.

    I'm sure the young readers will enjoy the trilogy, after all, I did, and I'm sure not a youngster anymore. lol.

    Great writing, Marva.

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    1. Lorrie, you are so right. Kids and kids-at-heart will enjoy Kat and her adventures.

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  4. Hi Marva, thanks for being my guest at Girls Succeed. Sorry I'm so late popping in here. My Saturday turned out busier than what I had planned!

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  5. Marva, I am curious how you chose Galdorheim for your series location. You know I am always looking for the "story behind the story" angle on this blog.

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  6. Galdorheim combines Galdr (Old Norse for spell or incantation) and heim (German for home).

    I wanted to use a Norwegian setting, but with the witch colony removed from civilization. If you look at a map, the Barents Sea is north of Norway. I saw the large island, Svalbard, but it was too big and Phillip Pullman already used Svalbard as his base for witches in the Golden Compass. My granddaughters pointed that out to me, so it was my original idea, but got kiboshed by smarty-pants successful reader girls.

    I noted that the Barents has a few itty bitty islands, so I just added one more. The location is within reach of Norway, Finland, and Siberia, which are all settings in the books.

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    1. Aha! I can tell you have done your research for this series. Such interesting places for your stories. Thanks so much for taking time to clue us in on Galdorheim.

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