Emily R. King is joining us today to talk about her novel, Wings of Fury. Here’s the publisher’s description:
From Emily R. King, author of the Hundredth Queen series, comes an epic novel of ancient Greece, Titans and treachery, and the women who dare to rise up against the tyranny of the Golden Age.
My mother told me that men would speak about the Golden Age as a time of peace and happiness for all… However, the women of our age would tell a very different story…
Cronus, God of Gods, whose inheritance is the world. Among his possessions: women, imprisoned and fated to serve. The strong-minded Althea Lambros controls her own fate and lives to honor her dying mother’s plea to protect her two sisters at all costs. Althea’s journey toward crushing the tyranny has begun. It is a destiny foretold by the Fates. And she is following their visions.
On the southern isle of Crete, hidden among mortal women who have fled the Titans, is the Boy God, son of Cronus and believed dead. He shares Althea’s destiny to vanquish the Almighty—fate willing. Because Cronus has caught wind of the plot. He’s amassing his own forces against Althea’s righteous rebellion and all those who will no longer surrender or run. There will be war. If she’s to survive to write their history, the indomitable Althea must soar higher than any god.
What’s Emily’s favorite bit?
EMILY R. KING
I adore Greek mythology. Writing Wings of Fury allowed me to delve into what happened before the Titanomachy war, before the Olympians were the Olympians, and in doing so, I was able to connect on a deeper level with my all-time favorite badass goddesses. While growing up, I heard a lot about Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Helios, and Cronus. I didn’t hear equally as much about Hera, Demeter, Hestia, Selene, or Eos. They were Titans of Ancient Greece too.
Well, Titanesses.
This Women’s History Month, as I mull over the greatest attributes of these famed goddesses, I’m particularly drawn to Hera. Before she became an Olympian, she was the Titan daughter of Cronus, the God of Gods. Hera became known as the Olympian queen of the gods, thanks to Zeus, who seduced her in the guise of a cuckoo bird. Once they were wed, she was known as the goddess of marriage, women, the sky, and the stars of heaven. Hera was usually depicted as a beautiful woman wearing a crown and holding a royal, lotus-tipped scepter, and sometimes accompanied by a lion, cuckoo, or hawk. She was renowned for her hot temper. Hera was a goddess that no other god wished to provoke. What I like most about Hera is that she was the only goddess even Zeus truly feared. She was a formidable equal to him, if not slightly more powerful, given how often he tried to avoid making her angry. Something that he was, of course, terrible at because of his wandering eye.
But Hera was so much more than just Zeus’s possessive queen. She became known for raising up heroes by challenging lesser gods with trials, such as Hercules. You could examine the story of Hercules and take away that Hera was trying to destroy him, or you could view the tale how the Greeks did. They called the heroes that triumphed despite Hera’s wrath “the Glory of Hera.”
Nowadays, Hera is the stereotype of an angry woman, even though she was quite often prodded into her big reactions. I think Hera punished Zeus’s lovers not out of jealousy, but because she had no other recourse against his public philandering. Most everyone agrees Zeus should have stayed home and quit seducing other woman in the guise of birds, bovines, and bodies of water. And remember, Hera didn’t want to marry him in the first place.
I wonder what would have become of Hera had Zeus not wed her? What would we know about Hera that would be different than the stories we have today about Zeus’s spiteful goddess wife?
Hera was arguably the greatest Titaness of her time. She spent an eternity defying her husband and her throne. I like to think of her as a true ruler, who believed that not even her husband, the Lord of the Gods, could get away with his ruses. Of course, what makes the Ancient Greek gods so fascinating are their flaws. They were achingly mortal, insomuch that humans today still feel a kinship to these fallible deities. Hera is an example of the dichotomy of our infatuation. She behaved as a scorned wife, and will live in infamy for her jealous anger, instead of being seen as an avid defender of women. She built heroes, not out of spite or malice. She made the ultimate sacrifice—her reputation—when no one else had the foresight or strength to step forward. Hera raised up heroes because she had the example of the goddesses and Titanesses around her to champion. Because as I tell it in Wings of Fury, they were heroes first.
LINKS:
Wings of Fury Universal Book Link
BIO:
Emily R. King is the author of the Hundredth Queen series, as well as Before the Broken Star, Into the Hourglass, and Everafter Song in the Evermore Chronicles. Her latest novel, WINGS OF FURY, will be released March 1, 2021, the first in the Wings of Fury duology. The second book, Crown of Cinders, will be released October 5, 2021. Born in Canada and raised in the United States, she is a shark advocate, a consumer of gummy bears, and an islander at heart, but her greatest interests are her children and three cantankerous cats. For more information, visit her at www.emilyrking.com.
