Seven Seeds of Summer
Chantal Gadoury
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Waldorf Press
Published: March 15, 2014
Synopsis
Seven Seeds of Summer follows the story of Summer, a college art student who has grown up in a house full of Greek mythology and legends. Summer grew up with a love for the darkest of all Gods: Hades, which caused tension between her and her mother. Summer comes home to Point Judith, Rhode Island, to find a mysterious figure on their family beach. The figure comes to her with questions about a familiar myth of her childhood: of Persephone and Hades. He proceeds to tell her of a new version of the story with a different ending that Summer never knew; an ending that includes herself.
A trip to Greece leads to tragic twists, leaving Summer in the arms of the strange figure whom she had met before. He takes her on a whirlwind through the busy streets of Athens, to the lowest point of Greece where his lair awaits: The Underworld. Determined to find out the secret of herself and her piece in the story, Summer goes with him, and tries to make herself at home in his world.
Summer has to decide to follow her heart or follow the same footsteps of the mysterious woman in her past life.
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Guest Post - For The Love of Hades, by Chantal Gadoury
Have you ever read a story that just stuck with you for the longest time? It almost played like a movie over the few years that you might have thought about it? Faces seemed to etch themselves out slowly, a curve of a line, a smirk, and then finally a face? Perhaps this is how Summer started to discover “Hades” as she imagined him - or rather, “Remembered” him.
For me, the myth of “Persephone and Hades” very much played out like this. When I was 7th grade, we were reading “The Odyssey” and part of the section in our books was more “Greek Mythology.” The first story was Persephone and Hades, and I was completely enraptured by the story. It was beautifully sad, wonderfully romantic and yet, eerie and interesting. It was a story that I knew I wanted to store for later in my memory. This is why, when approaching the story of “Seven Seeds of Summer,” their story was so strong in the book.
When I decided to revisit Persephone and Hades, it was more of trying to come up with a new, fresh idea. I wanted to retell a good, “fairy tale” - but something not a lot of people were familiar with. I took a lot of different books that I loved and tried to weave them into the story and character “building blocks” of “Seven Seeds of Summer.” I was taking a Novel class in college, and wanted to try something different than to the more “modern” novels that were being written in the class. I knew that I wanted to try something at least in a some-what fairy tale world, with an edge of the modern world; thus creating Summer as the character in our time, bringing the element of the past, (Hades) to the future.
For the character of Hades - I put a lot of thought into him. I took novels and stories that I knew, people that I knew in my life, and started to map out this person who at first was going to be very dark, and more cruel; I realized quickly that he needed to have some redeeming parts to him, for others to like. He needed to appeal to not only my readers, but Summer as well. I thought it would be more interesting to have Hades feel more like a human, than this untouchable God. I wanted the audience to feel for him, to understand the conflict of being untouchable and yet relatable. While he knew his power, and knew who he was - he also knew that he felt pain as others did. He loved, just as others did. And he had a love for not only Persephone, but grew a love for Summer as well. The developing love for Summer became the struggle throughout the novel; there would be times that Summer would just insist for me to stop writing; she wanted to know if Hades really loved her or loved her because she reminded him of Persephone. It became an arch to the story, without even trying. Hades is as “Shrek” would say - an onion. He has layers, and I know that I didn’t get to tap into all the layers that creates him; there’s still an element of mystery and surprise that I’d still like to discover - hopefully in a sequel, if I can ever think of a sequel for their story.
Summer was a little easier - I found myself relating to her more than anything. I think now, looking back at “Seven Seeds,” Summer is very much a part of me. She and I have a lot of things in common, and some things - are just things I wish we had in common. We both enjoy to paint, we both love people deeply, and we’re both very stubborn and can be quite determined.
I remember hearing once, “Write what you know” and while, perhaps I don’t know everything there is to know about Greek Mythology - this story reflects on things that I’ve learned in my years of growing, not only as a writer, but a person; a hopeless romantic and a friend. Love and Friendship inspired this novel, and without it, it wouldn't be in the form for others to enjoy.
I hope that everyone who reads Seven Seeds of Summer enjoys it! I hope they fall in love with the characters and ride a long with the story.
Thank you for having me on your blog!
And enjoy!
Chantal Gadoury
Author Bio
Chantal Gadoury is young author who currently lives in a small town in Delaware with her two cats, Theo and Harper and her boyfriend, Robert. Chantal likes anything Disney, plays a mean game of Disney trivia, enjoys painting, and has a interest in British History. Chantal first started writing stories at the age of seven and continues that love of writing today. As a recent college graduate from Susquehanna University, with a degree in Creative Writing, this is her first book.Twitter - Blog - Facebook
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