It’s been a year since Secret Ones was released, launching Nicole R Murphy’s “Dream of Asarlai” series. This month sees the series reach it’s grand finale with the release of the third book,  Rogue Gadda.

As most of you know, I was quite excited by Nicole’s debut novel, Secret Ones, which blended wonderful imagery of a dry Australian outback with a lush green (and damp) Ireland, created the perfect characters to live in these worlds, mixing  it all together to present the reader with a delightful romance with a dash of crime & mystery, and a good dollop of hot steamy lust (I am tempted to make bad jokes about what do you get when you combine a hot Australian with luscious Irish… but I won’t).

It’s amazing to think that this seamless blend of cultures Nicole has created, wasn’t how she originally saw the stories coming together, but we’re lucky enough to have Nicole as our guest blogger today, sharing insights into how it all came to be!

If you’d like the chance to win Rogue Gadda, Nicole and HarperAus have kindly offered a copy to give away, to anyone in the world, just answer Nicoles question at the end of this post.

Over to the lovely Nicole R Murphy:

Writing a Celtic-based book was NOT my aim when I started writing the gadda books. Back then, they were called the opear and in my vision, they were wholly and solely Australian.

But then I came across a problem. Two problems, actually. You see, in order to fully suspend my disbelief, I need a trigger. Take two of my favourite authors for example – Keri Arthur and Charlaine Harris. Keri’s Riley Jensen series is set in Melbourne (a city I know reasonably well) and posits a world in which vampires, weres and other assorted folks live openly amongst humans. So to does Charlaine Harris’ Southern Gothic (aka Sookie Stackhouse) series. However, Charlaine’s books give an explanation for this – the Japanese have invented Trueblood and so vampires no longer have to live in hiding. Keri’s books don’t – they’re written as an alternate Melbourne.

I do love Keri’s books, but all the time I’m reading them, I get jolted out whenever I’m confronted with having to just accept humans and the supernatural interacting. Whereas I don’t have any issue with Charlaine’s books and so can submerge into them.

When you’re writing, you’ve got to be able to submerge and believe. If you’re questioning, it’s going to come out in the story and then the readers will question too. So I had to have a plausible explanation for a world in which humanity lives alongside magic wielders.

My answer was a completely different race – human-like creatures that came from a different set of ancestors to humans and as a result, have a different relationship with the world around them. From an evolutionary sense, it seemed possible for two distinct races to evolve and appear physically identical – take the differences between the big cats for example, which tend just to differ in cosmetic ways.

So, there I was, with my mythical non-human race. Excellent, thought I. Now, to make them Australian.

This is where I hit problem number two. I’ve lived and worked in Aboriginal communities, and have a great deal of respect for the ownership tribes take over their Dreaming stories. So I started trying to work out how I could have a race of human-like creatures evolving here in Australia without stepping on the indigenous mythology of our country and – couldn’t. It made my brain hurt.

So with a heavy heart, I gave up. Time to look at this from a different perspective, I thought. Humans originated in Africa. What place on Earth is the most unlike Africa? The first place that came to mind – Ireland.

It was one of those random ideas that turns out to be perfect. Ireland is stepped with mythology and a belief in magic – the perfect place to be the home of a secret magical race. And because the opear as they then were aren’t human, I didn’t have to be a slave to Irish mythology because it was a human view – not their view.

So I picked bits and pieces. The word ‘gadda’ is a mix-up of the name ‘dagda’, which is one of the Irish fairy kings. Most of the terms in the books – the names of the guardians, the monsters and so on – are amalgamations of Irish words. Fatharr, the giant monster in Power Unbound, was a mix of snake, lizard and horse because they are important, powerful creatures in Irish mythology.

And so you have it – how the gadda became Irish.

I haven’t given up on setting a fantasy in Australia – I love this landscape too much, see so much mystery in it that I have to do it. One day, the idea will come.

In the meantime – thank you Ireland.

Giveaway question – to win a copy of Rogue Gadda, tell me where you would base a secret magical race? Winner will be chosen at random. Open to international entries.

Rogue Gadda cookie

Pushing the disturbing thoughts from his mind, Hampton called on his power and fed it into his fingernails, lengthening and strengthening them to handle the pressure of the wire strings. He pulled the harp back to lean on his shoulder, took a deep breath and another to calm his heart rate, and then he started to play ‘Brian Boru’.