The Inspiration

The Stone Edda, another one of those unexpected consequences of Covid, came from the bowels of a short story written years prior. But more importantly, its beginnings, middle, and its end come from the tragic death of my younger brother, without which this story would not exist. And yet I would not think twice to give up its life for his.

The Story

A despondent Dagny finds herself in a most unexpected place. Having lost her mother years earlier to a mysterious illness, and now her father and little brother to a tragic accident, Dagny moves in with a surly grandfather she never knew she had who lives in the northern woods of Michigan.

In time, as grandfather and granddaughter begin to bond, Dagny realizes the world is rather different from the one she thought she'd known. All those fairytales and fantasies her father had read to her as a young girl came from more than just the wild imaginings of a few old storytellers.

Dagny learns, from her grandfather no less, who just so happens to be a descendent of Dwarves, all those tales of Tolkien, Lewis, Dunsany, or Grimm, not to mention countless others, exist as twisted version of a long forgotten truth. She also discovers her mother and herself also descend from those tales.

As she considers the gravity of what she has learned, Dagny and her grandfather begin to see uncanny signs of that once forgotten lore returning back to haunt our world. She also wonders how long before she too must meet her mother's fate.

With the help of her grandfather, his two estranged Dwarvish friends, and her dead mother’s peculiar brooch, Dagny sets out on an adventure to find the reason for her mother's death. Her companions, who serve as keepers of the old world's tales, also want to know the cause for the resurfacing of magic, and its implications for our world.

Book 1 of Stone Edda focuses on a young girl’s struggle to deal with her loss while trying to find her place in two very disparate worlds. Along the way, her adventure also redefines for her what it means to be part of a family.

Where many fantastical stories try to transport us to new realms, Dagny’s adventure transports the fantastic to us. And it does so while reimagining some of the character types so familiar to us as fantasy readers. For all those fans who always wished the events of Middle-earth or Narnia had in fact really taken place, The Stone Edda allows us to see what shape such a tale might actually take.