Author's Comments
This book started as a challenge in my writer's group. We were all to write an erotic short
story, so I invented the Hob's world and a woman who was different from the ones I'd written
before: a woman who started out as a good mediaeval housewife then was honed by survival into
a woman of strength and character. It didn't turn out to be erotica, but I liked the story.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good hold on Aren's character when I backed up to the softer
woman the story began with. This was a problem I'd never encountered before, characters
usually come easily to me. In frustration I shifted to first person, but not even that desperate
effort seemed to help. I workshopped it at two writer's groups, and at last, Jerry Oltion hit the
nail on the head. "Things just happen to her. She never does anything," he said. And I learned a
very simple truth, good characters have to do something - which was counter to the character I'd
established for her. So I changed the first chapter and suddenly Aren was a real person to me.
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