Blog Tour: Guest Post by author Devin O’Branagan!

CITY WITCH VERSUS COUNTRY WITCH

In my bestselling urban fantasy, GLORY, there are two powerful covens. The Moonstone Covenstead is located high in the Colorado mountains near the sacred space of Crestone. The Starlight Coven is in located in the heart of the city of Atlanta. In order to cement relations between the two covens, the Elders are attempting to arrange a marriage between eighteen-year-old Kaia from Moonlight, and the sexy young Evan from Starlight. Kaia rebels, not only at the prospect of an arranged marriage, but because she cannot fathom how to bridge the gap between her more traditional practice of The Craft and the modern approach of the city witches. This is a conversation between Kaia and Evan:

“But you are attached to your life here in the city.” Kaia said “city” as if it were a dirty word. “How can any self-respecting witch practice the craft in a city? You’re out of touch with nature. How do you raise energy to channel into your magic? How do you commune with the ancient powers? I mean, what you’ve got here is concrete, asphalt, power lines, graffiti, subways, busy roads, skyscrapers, nightclubs, and random gunfire. How sacred is that?”

“It’s just a different kind of sacred,” Evan said. “The skyscrapers are concrete caves and we’re cave dwellers. Graffiti is our cave painting, conveying symbols that represent tribal myth. The streets are rivers of movement and life. Nightclubs are temples where ritual dancing generates tremendous cones of energy.

“Channeling energy in the city is easy; it overflows our banks. Both the concentration of people and those power lines you mention are tremendous reservoirs. Instead of working to raise energy, city witches have to work at grounding it, because we swim in a giant sea of power.

“The city has its own deities. For instance, here in Atlanta, our underworld is ruled by MARTA—the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority—our subway system. She’s a snake goddess who takes us into the labyrinth where we can explore the depths of our being and experience our personal transformation.
“There is nature here. It’s just different than you’re used to. Our wildlife consists of pigeons, rats, alley cats, crows, and moths. They become our familiars, helping us to survive in this wild place. “And yes, there’s violence, but there are demons everywhere. It’s up to us to fight the good fight, be it in the mountains or the city. The entire world needs us and what we do, Kaia. There isn’t any place that isn’t sacred.”

In the forthcoming sequel to GLORY, Kaia and Evan struggle to bridge the cavernous gap between them. But of course, as Evan just pointed out, it really is all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

Copyright © 2012 by Devin O’Branagan

GLORY is available in both print and as an eBook. For more information, including links to purchase, please visit www.GloryLegend.com.


The unique Celtic Dragon designed for GLORY’s book cover is used in the story as a tattoo for coven members. It is available on a variety of items at GLORY’S ONLINE STORE.

Also, famed silversmith, Sister Silver, created a line of Celtic jewelry as a novel tie-in and it is available for a limited time at DEVIN’S GIFTSHOP.

Autographed copies of GLORY and all my other novels are available at my BOOKSTORE.