Denice Garrou's Blog

5 stars! Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers' Favorite

Dragonhorse And Seeker of the Forgotten Knowledge by Denice Garrou will take readers on a fabulous and mystical journey filled with fantasy, suspense and whimsy. Shion is on a quest to discover the secrets of Forbidden Knowledge. She is accompanied by Ryven Blackmore. He is a handsome stranger who joins her along the trail of the Travelers. The Travelers are a band of gypsies who know about the Dragonwyck camp. Ryven and Shion come into contact with an evil Dragon clan that is protecting the unknown force supposed to be responsible for having the world under their power. But there is more to Shion's quest than just to defeat the bad people. She has to learn her lessons and she realizes that her lessons and guides come in various shapes and species.

Leaving her village, Shion takes readers on a journey through some great landscape that has warriors, dragons, flying horses, faeries, wizards, people seeking truth and strange creatures. There are many obstacles that Shion has to overcome on her journey to enlightenment. The book will leave readers entertained with all the whimsy, adventure and descriptive characters. There is a bit of a romance also running through the story. With all its twists and turns and sub-plots, the book is fast paced. It is a story that will take you into another dimension with its spirituality, symbolism and mysticism, and keep readers engrossed until the very end.

Coming out this May!!!!
Sumayah, A Gypsy Celtic Love Tale
Book 2, the prequel to Dragonhorse and Seeker of the Forgotten Knowledge.
Book description:

Would you forsake your life and your love to save those you never met?
Book 2 takes us back to how it all began. We go back to Shion’s lifetime as Sumayah. She must decide between two loves; the mysterious one promised to her, and the Fae Prince trying to save his realm. This tale of love begins in the ancient realm of Lemuria, a realm of unspeakable beauty and magic thought to be only a myth by the human race.
But, there is blood on the moon as impending invasion threatens the lives of those who live there.
Sumayah soon learns her life is not her own, and is thrust into a world of uncertainties and sacrifice.

I have a reader who is now selling my books at her summer classes. She teaches Cranial Sacral for horses. Love it, and yes, it does work! I do know first hand, because one of my horses needed it.
So, her first class for the summer just eneded and she sold 7 books in that class. This is the comment she left on my Face Book page:
"At the end of my 6 day CST class today...I asked my classmates where they were in the Dragonhorse book, (which they each purchased on day 1) and of course I got different answers but the one thing they all said in unison..."I can't put it down!"

Greetings all,
With sites like Authonomy and Wattpad I figured I could also follow suit and offer free chapters.
So please feel free to go to my website www.denicegarrou-dragonhorse.com and click on the link at the left that reads "Read Chapters Free" you will find 10 chapters.
But, of course I have saved the best for last! After chapter 10 Shion's world changes considerably with new challanges, eye opening discoveries and heartbreaks. Windows of magic will open! The real and natural realms that have been around her all along will begin to appear, helping her to remember who she truly is reconnecting her to her forgotten knowledge and special abilites. Things do heat up considerably after chapter 10! So please go and read, hope you enjoy!

Fairytale, Fantasy or Methaphyscial? I was having a conversation with my foreign rights agent before she took Dragonhorse off to Bologna, Italy for the annual book fair. The conversation was about the genre of my saga. I have been calling it a fantasy for lack of another word, and secretly abhor that term. Fantasy means something that is impossible or improbable. Nothing in my life has been impossible nor improbable, especially in the realm of magic, another misunderstood term, which simply means, to cause a change in yours or someone’s life by thought or intention accompanied by the unending belief of the outcome you desire.
In doing a little more digging I have decided we need to add another genre. That genre would be called Metaphysical, meaning, beyond the normal scope of belief and science. Yes, perfect! Since Dragonhorse is based on my experiences in the realm of metaphysics I have learned that all things are possible and probable as long as we follow the rule of magic.
I have spent the winter on a mission to get book 2 of my Dragonhorse Saga in the hands of my editor by March. And yes, I made that possible and hope to get it released sometime in June.
Here is the book description I have been working on for book 2, “Sumayah”.
Would you forsake love to save those you have never met? In book 2 of the Dragonhorse Saga, we go back in time, to Shion’s life as Sumayah. It begins in the world of Lemuria, a mystical, utopian land, shared with the Fae, inaccessible to man and thought to be only a legend, except by a secret group called Witches.
Another race called Rep’s has settled within the realm of men, enslaving them for riches and power, changing the original plan for Earth. With the continuing disappearance of dragons the Lemurians and the Fae form a plan to save Earth and awaken men from their bondage.
Lemuria is destroyed to keep her from the approaching Rep’s who have gained entrance to Lemuria by capturing and using one of the dragons. At the very last second the Lemurian’s shift into middle earth, another mythical place called Agartha, where secrets are revealed, truths are learned and family is reunited.
The journey does not end there, and some will answer the calling, and return to the upper world to save Mother Earth and the realm of men, but not before middle earth is penetrated and the legendary battle for Agartha begins.
Follow Sumayah on her legendary and epic journey, as she saves a dying dragon, battles a long-tooth tiger, learns to control her power of fire, becomes a Priestess by gaining the trust of a fiery horse, is torn between two loves, learns the lethal powers of the darkness, and most of all, calls into existence the dragonhorse.

It is so affirming and refreshing to find a fellow author who writes responsibly using his gift for words as a great tool of teaching and awakening...I get him! And now I do not feel alone in my quest.

Here is my review for Atlantis Rising, a Youngreader level book.

I applaud T.A. Barron! He writes for the betterment of our young people planting a seed with every word in hopes that they awaken to how much we need to be responsible when living and sharing this planet.
He writes of the birth of a place that I believe once existed, along with Lemuria. For these places were not destroyed never to return, but only taken from us, set in a different dimension to protect and preserve until we are ready to be an equal part of and live according to the laws of nature. For we are not above nature, we are part of nature.
He shares my belief that we are all immortal and death does not have to be and is not the end. We are all part of a much bigger plan, living, growing and expanding from one lower dimension striving to reach the higher dimensions where Atlantis or Lemuria awaits us.
Promi and his entourage heard the calling; they gave all to save the good of Mother Earth and help her ascend to the higher realm, to walk the Rainbow Bridge to perfect love and trust …the final act to the origin of all magic. I get you T.A.! Denice Garrou, Dragonhorse and Seeker of the Forgotten Knowledge

I would like to start out by thanking Sara for allowing me to share her message.
Synchronicity is the word here. And we both have been inspired by each other. I have inspired her to move forward and embrace who she truly is and she has inspired me to continue to do what I do...spread my message through the written word.

Here is her lengthy message to me:
Dear Mrs. Denice Garrou,

I feel compelled to write to you having just finished your book Dragonhorse....

First let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Sara, I am a new mother to a beautiful baby girl who lives in California with her husband and dog. I have always been interested in mysticism and the metaphysical, for as long as I can remember. Also, for as long as I can remember, I have loved horses and rocks/crystals. As a child I rode on an Arabian mare we leased from a nearby ranch. Sadly, I have never owned my own horse, as circumstances have never been right, but I still hope to have that pleasure in the future. I also collected rocks and crystals. To this day I have stones I've had since before I was in the double digits that I simply cannot part with. My husband probably wonders why there are always rocks stuffed into my bags whenever we move!
I love to read and the most exciting thing for me as a child was when Barnes and Nobel was added to our local mall and I discovered the "new age" section of the bookstore. I was not brought up religious and fortunately my family never raised an eyebrow when the books I selected were titles such as "a witches guide to fairy folk", "how to see and read the aura", "how to develop psychic touch", "animal speak", and so on. However as got older, around jr high I think, for no other reasons than my own insecurities, I began to feel extremely self conscious about my interest in magic (which I believe is simply a persons natural state of existence and capabilities). So I would sneak over to the new age section when no one was around and read secretly in my bedroom about casting circles and writing spells.
Now despite my interest in earth based religions, magic, healing, and other such topics, I never really began practicing or really delving into any such practice, as Wicca, paganism, Celtic magic...all topics I read about and was interested in, but weren't quite resonating with me. Maybe it was the formality of the spells, the chants, the rules, or maybe it was just my own prejudice and the shameful fact that I was torn between the fact of wanting to be a witch and at the same time thinking people who claimed such practices were "weirdos". So I quietly kept my own beliefs to myself as the years went by. Then, when I was older, probably a junior or senior in high school, my mom gave me for my birthday a book called "natural witchery". She said it reminded her of me. My mom is not a witch, (that i know of), and I remember being both excited and a little embarrassed by the gift. But that was the first time something clicked with me. It was a practice based solely on your intuition and personal experience and relationship with nature, and I liked it. It still had spells and rituals, but it was more along the lines of what I had been searching for. I kept this book with me, (I still have it now), but unfortunately at that time I was more concerned with getting into college and subsequently, living the college life style, (partying way too much). My spiritual quest had been put on the back burner, but not forgotten.
This august I gave birth to my daughter. Being a mother really got me thinking: what kind of mother do I want to be? What is it I want to teach my child? While academics are no doubt important, I have always thought there are more important things to teach children. I want her to know how to be in tune with the subtle energies around her, how to see the magic and miracle in everyday, how to heal herself and others, be self sustainable and compassionate...
I am lucky enough that my husband has fully supported my decision to be a stay at home mom, and since having her I have resumed my "studies", of developing aura sight and meditations, healing and psychic touch, and other natural abilities I hope to teach and nurture in her. I am writing to you because these past few moths things have been happening at such a rapid pace and I just cannot keep the succession of events leading up to the purchase of your book and the effect it has had on me to myself.
This October two things happened which I feel created a domino effect in my life. The first was my dad giving my daughter and I two small gifts out of the blue. For her, it was a small orgone to put in her room, for myself, an orgone necklace. He told me both had been blessed with reiki. Now I had never heard of reiki, or orgones for that matter. He briefly explained both to me and that was that. I found the ideas interesting but spent more time researching orgones as I found them beautiful and wanted to make my own. I kind of just disregarded the reiki aspect to be honest. However, a few weeks later, a girl who I am friends with on Facebook, (we must have gone to college together but truthfully I'm not quite sure how I know her), posted something about her reiki master giving classes. For some reason this time the term stuck with me. It really rang a bell. Then I remembered my necklace. I rushed to find the little card that had come with it, and there it said "each item has been blessed with Reiki". That's where I had seen the term! I felt a very strong urge to learn more, and over the next few days schemed of a way to learn Reiki myself. The main hurdle was the cost of classes, we are now living off of one income only. But wouldn't you know, there just happened to be classes being taught less than five minutes away from me that were based on donation only! I called my mother and told her about the classes and she decided to join me. So we each donated what we could and became level one certified under a woman whom I am very pleased to have as my reiki master. Since that class I have been practicing every day, with saying and meaning the principles, meditating, and giving reiki to myself and family as well as reading several different books on the subject. It has been under a month since I was attuned and already I feel so different. More peaceful, centered, and just overall positive. I feel great! I really could relate to the whole concept of reiki, as it fits perfectly with my own ideals of the natural divinity we are all part of.
So I was on Pinterest the other day looking up "Reiki" to add images to my reiki board. This eventually led me to search the term "reiki master" under which I came across an image whose caption read "wisdom of the divine feminine". This term hit me hard as I had once read an article in a magazine with a similar title that I very much enjoyed. I then searched this term on meetup.com and this led me to the group "the women's spirituality meetup" which had been created this month and has but one member, the creator. Researching her I learned she teaches "mystical dance", which again, stirred something inside me as I love to dance, especially flow arts like belly dance, poi, hoop, aerial tissu, and aerial hoop. I dance around by myself or with my baby quite often at home. So I started looking up this mystical dance stuff which led me to the studio it is taught at which offers yoga, reiki, massage, and various other classes including "crystal healing". Again, something that struck a cord in my heart. I got on Amazon and looked up "crystal healing" in books then sorted the results by customer reviews. Your book was one of the top ones. Even though I was at the time looking for a book about crystals, your book caught my eye because of the horse and gypsy on the cover. As well as loving rocks and horses, i also have a special place in my heart for gypsys, and there were suddenly two together in front of me when I had been searching for the third, so on a whim I clicked on it, saw the good ratings and downloaded a sample which i immediately started reading. Imagine my surprise as I read the prologue...to hear you speak not only of reiki, but to the exact circumstances of that which I had been feeling my whole life. It really is like something I can't describe clicked in that moment. Like being struck by lightening, such bad Shion in the story! I had to stop and write what was happening down in a journal I've been keeping since the reiki class. I knew I had just fallen down the rabbit hole. Especially as I started reading, (I bought the book as soon as I had finished writing about the preface), and was again shocked to have Shion speaking of the persecution against women (which is something I am also passionate about and part of studying the divine feminine), as well as the atrocities against the "indigenous people". For the past week or so I have felt a profound connection and true heart ache for the Native American people. I had actually discussed it with my husband, mother, in laws, and even brother in passing, mentioning how tragic the loss of such a beautiful culture was to the world, and started watching a documentary about the portrayal of natives in film, simply because I was for some reason very drawn to them in that moment. And to have them described so eerily similarly in your story with the gypsies...
I don't know if this is all really making sense, but one thing is just leading me to something else that will also have a profound impact on my life. I feel as though for the first time in my life I am truly on the right path. I feel as though I have remembered something. Remembered who I am. Since I started reading your book I have started using magic again. I say again but really I mean for the first time, because it never felt natural to me before. It always felt hokey and forced. Now I am suddenly so comfortable with it. I see the ritual aspect of it as a method simply for directing attention. And when attention is focused anything truly is possible. I have been suddenly struck with ideas that I feel in my bones about the things that are woven into my everyday life. Like when I am singing a lullaby to my daughter that my mother sang to me, and I'm watching her eyes droop shut and realizing all the women of my family's past generations are connected by this song. This song has comforted countless infants and sent them off to their dreams. And if not this specific song in this specific family, than the mere act of a mother singing to her child, of lullabies being passed down from one generation to the next. There is magic in that. Or of teas. It suddenly hit me that teas, while sold and enjoyed almost everywhere by everyone, are part of the norm, they really are a beautiful blend of nature that with the right intent could have potent effects. What if these different blends and varieties of teas are just what this ancient wisdom has had to become to survive? I suddenly thought the same about cooking, music, art...it is all miraculous...and with intention, so so powerful. Not only am I thinking these things, but I am feeling more connected to nature, wanting to know more and more how to live with her and protect her.
I feel like I have gotten off track and started rambling. But i really wanted to thank you for your story and the door it has opened for me, or should I say in me. I don't know what it all means yet, but I don't think that happening upon your book about witches and dragons while I was looking for a book about healing crystals was just a coincidence. I was led there by a very specific course of events which each seemed to unlock something within me. Nor do I think my life is going to be quite the same from here on out. I thank you for such a gift.

Best wishes,

Sara

It's been a while so thought it was time to catch up!
Dragonhorse went to the fair via Foreward Reviews through Association of Independent Authors which I am a member of. The Fair ended November 10th, if I remember correctly and since then I have had inquiries! Apparently this is a long process but considering all the titles available and me being an Indie that is very exciting for me! Sylvia Hayes will be my international rights/royalties agent for this process, since I would much rather write. This is a very difficult undertaking and I am clueless.
This is very encouraging for me to keep moving along on my series. See this book is not your usual pop out of your head kind of story. This series is taken from our forbidden and theoretical history of our world. Since I began studying earth based religions and healing modalities it has brought me deeper and deeper into the mystical realms of our world and worlds beyond. That which cannot be seen does not mean it does not exist. Remember when Christopher Columbus came to the Americas? The natives could not see his boat anchored off the shoreline. They had no idea “others” existed so their minds could not comprehend this information and their brains did not process this into a believable picture.
It was the Medicine Man who first noticed something going on when he saw the ripples in the water from the boats. He was the enlightened being of the people so he went beyond his peripheral seeing.
So, I must write as I myself go beyond my peripheral seeing. This series has been an awakening for me. And as I awaken I further understand more possibilities of our unseen and yes forbidden world. So, book 2 of the series, will take us back to one of Shion’s past lives. We will learn of her life as Sumayah, an up and coming priestess of the lost continent of Lemuria. Have you ever heard of it? I will tell my version of what I think happened to this lost world and I will incorporate the “Hollow Earth” theory. Have you heard of Agartha? It is the middle world, middle earth where the gypsies believe they came.
Even Hitler believed in Agartha and some believe he was able to get there and was sent there after his death. Not sure why they would let him in though.
The Journey to the Center of the Earth is the same theory, so you see others have been lead to this information and awakening too. I look at my path to writing as a journey of discovery. Writing this has been just as much fun as some of you found reading it. Those of you who do not get it and just enjoy will eventually have a light go on.
So, my point about inquiries with the book Fair. I must get the second book Dragonhorse and the Priestess of Lemuria, finished in case I am picked up. I am half way through and it is going much differently than I expected. Let’s just say I am pleasantly surprised.
Happy Holidays to all, I celebrate Yule which is also the Winter Solstice, the return of the sun and when the Holly King must die and give up his crown so the Goddess may give birth to the new Oak King; never ending turning of the wheel of the year.

http://www.amazon.com/Dragonhorse-See...

If you have been waiting for a deal on my book Dragonhorse, now is the time to get it. Running only until November 10th you can get a Kindle version of Dragonhorse for only .99!
Hurry only four days left.
And watch my website for notices on Book 2 of the Dragonhorse Series; Dragonhorse and the Priestess of Lemuria

www.denicegarrou-dragonhorse.com

Well looks like I might need to change my book cover...but this judges scores and review will most certainly keep me at my writing craft!!

21st Annual Writer’s Digest Annual Self-Published Book Awards

Entry Title: Dragonhorse and the Seeker of the Forgotten Knowledge
Author: Denice Garrou
Judge Number: 89
Entry Category: Middle-Grade/Young Adult books

Books are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “needs improvement” and 5 meaning “outstanding”. This scale is strictly to provide a point of reference, it is not a cumulative score and does not reflect ranking.


Structure and Organization: 5

Grammar: 5

Production Quality and Cover Design: 3

Plot (if applicable): 4

Character Development (if applicable): 5

Judges Commentary*:

I thought this was an interesting novel. The idea of horses and dragons secretly having a lot in common is definitely something I’ve never seen before, and it’s always nice to come across something totally new—especially in the fantasy genre, which is a pretty crowded category. I like Shion as our protagonist. She’s spunky and strong and inclined towards trouble, which I think makes an interesting read. I also liked Lhayan. I thought she was a great character and I loved how she rebuked so many of the standard “witch� conventions. In regards to the narrative, I liked how you jumped pretty much right into the action. I had sort of mixed feelings about your prologue, though. I like that you included one, but I think the definition of magic fell a little flat. I might revamp that a bit. Your writing was really strong and accomplished. There was a wonderful flow to the prose and the mysterious, lovely narrative voice you employed really fit your genre. Some of your descriptions were really lovely and evocative as well. Regarding the cover, I thought it was striking and I liked the font choices, but I do think it is a little misleading. It comes off a bit more “Victorian� than “fantasy�. The image quality, too, was a little grainy. The only other significant criticism that really occurred to me was that I was not quite sure how old Shion was. She reads youthful and she’s still bound to her guardians, so we get the sense that she’s a young woman, but she’s very independent, so that makes her feel older. I think you could afford to give us her age from the start, which would help. Without a clear distinction, I’m not sure I’d say this screams YA, though. However, you’ve clearly got talent and it was an enjoyable read.

*Commentary may be quoted as: “Judge, Writer’s Digest 21st Annual Self-Published Book Awards”