Taming the Blowing Wind

Dragon Shaman #1

by Teresa Garcia, Faith Lindgren-Brown (editor)

Every girl yearns for adventure, romance and magic in their lives. BlowingWind MountainChild had all of these and lost them, just as she was starting on what she thought would be the greatest adventure of her life. Now, she is being called out by the forces of life and undertaking the journey into adulthood alone. However, journeys always seem to entail healing, and a quest to find her lost love turns into something even greater.

Take Ryu is a boisterous magma ryugami trapped for five years beneath Mt. Fuji for the crime of becoming too engrossed in human affairs. Upon the end of his imprisonment he emerges to find a strange and undefended shaman woman within his territory. Falling prey once more to his kind heart he too is swept up in the threads of a destiny that neither human nor dragon could have ever believed.

This is the first book of the Dragon Shaman series, which will follow BlowingWind and her family in a saga of such depth and breadth, that some greater being, or beings must surely be behind the scenes. But for what purpose?

More than supernatural romance, more than fantasy, this multi-genre series will have a very different end than what the author usually finds to read...which is just how she wants it.

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Coming Of Age, Time Travel, Romance, Adventure, Young Adult

244 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2006

About the author

Teresa Garcia (once Teresa Huddleston-Garcia) is a rural Northern California mountain woman living with her very creative autistic son now that her daughter has left the nest. In a household of artists, this puts supplies at a premium. She has health, intermittent mobility, and nerve pain issues that have made working difficult. Some even call her ornery about pushing herself.

She has divided her work body under two main names.

Teresa as Teresa Garcia writes mainly fantasy. Her works include poetry, short stories, and novels. She also narrates under this name as well as edits.

Any 18+ work is published as Amethyst Stormrider to prevent children from accidentally reading it.

She does other work underTeresa Amehana Garcia, focusing her illustration here, usually for children's books. She also likes to work with science fiction and fantasy, preferring anthropomorphic animals and other non-human creatures. She believes that there are too many stories already being told with human faces. She will not illustrate for anyone who refuses to give her an illustration credit.

She freelance writes quests and challenges for the online text and browser-based Dragon Hearts RPG. She volunteers time and runs the library program for Trotsdale and the Intersim System overseeing live and pre-recorded programs, although currently she is on hiatus due to health issues. She also is one of the administrators for the Nisa/Dreaming Twilight role-play group and helps develop the lore for their program.

Teresa illustrates through both THG StarDragon Publishing and as a freelancer with PenIt! Publications (as Teresa Amehana Garcia) as well as individual commission projects. She does freelance work as well in narration, editing, layout, and illustration in addition to being the owner/operator of THG StarDragon Publishing. Basically, she will freelance anything in her skill sets that will help out.

Her Patreon is a good place to find her, as well as her personal Linktree to find everything she is involved in.

Her parents always encouraged her writing and artistic talents but as with her academic pursuits for a time she let her motherhood duties overshadow any serious pursuit. In 2005, she decided to pick up the dream of writing and publishing a novel once more, having shelved that (and the "Shadow Chronicles" manuscript) in her early college years due to the time constraints of motherhood at the time. In 2006 she released to the public her first novel in the "Dragon Shaman" series, "Taming the Blowing Wind," and has since published a second book in the series and a poetry book.

Teresa likes to work with multicultural and coming-of-age issues, being of multiple racial and cultural descents herself. She also likes to work with spiritual factors, mythology, and folklore.

Currently, Teresa has several manuscripts to work on, such as her "Dragon Shaman" series of novels and her current favorite serialized story, "Selkies' Skins." She will not be returning to working on "The Shadow Chronicles," her stories of Terrah that interlace with "Dragon Shaman" and "Selkies' Skins" until she has BlowingWind and Kirsty to where they have grown into themselves.

She also writes short stories, and ran a competition to collect dragon stories from people of all ages, entitled "The Dragons' Beads: A Treasury." She had hoped to make it an annual contest, but there were not enough entries. Currently, she is publishing a weekly podcast, "Mythical Minstrelsy and Flash Fiction Fridays" on several platforms.

You can visit Teresa Garcia on her Patreon for behind-the-scenes information. Published also as Teresa Amehana Garcia, LadyRainStarDragon, Amehana Arashi, and Amethyst Stormrider.

Reviews

[AnathemaDevice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I am not sure how to describe it but the style of the book reminded me of The Last Unicorn by Beagle. It had that dreamy/mythology/wisdom vibe to it. There was also some beautiful descriptive prose to enjoy, and it tells this love story nicely. This is not an action pact adventure with mysteries to solve; it's the poemy words that keep you reading.

I liked the main character and I wished to see more of her life lessons and interactions with different types of people. I didn't like her name though, it's a romantic book- give the poor girl a "romantic" name. The images that blowing wind conjures in my head doesn't do her justice. The secondary characters are interesting and I would have loved the opportunity to read more about their adventures during the book.

This is a return to old school fantasy so if that rocks your boat, I would give it a gander. I will be interested in reading more from this author.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you believe that there could be more to our world than meets the eye, in the possibility of spirit realms filled with guides to aide us on life’s journey? Dragon Shaman: Taming the Blowing Wind, the first book in the Dragon Shaman series by Teresa Garcia delves into the legends, spirits and beliefs of multiple cultures, while telling a beautiful story of the pain of young love lost, healing and moving on along the path one is destined for.

BlowingWind MountainChild, is the daughter of an Irish mother and an Apache father. She has grown up steeped with the legends of both cultures and is deeply connected to the spirits of the Native American culture and the natural environment around her, following the spirit guides who call to her. Wind has dreams of adventure, love and a future filled with all life has to offer, but when she loses her one true love, her inner spirit fragments, she is devastated and knows she must travel across the globe, in search of answers in her own spiritual quest. In Japan now, earthly wind must contend with the barriers of language and cultural differences, while spiritual Wind finds solace in the spirit world of Japan. Will she ever be whole again? What are the spirits trying to show her? Is she ready for what she discovers? Is she ready for Ryu?

Dragon Shaman: Taming the Blowing Wind is complex, well-written and combines multi-cultural beliefs with beautifully descriptive prose. It is a love story, a coming of age story, and a tale that demonstrates the similarities of age-old beliefs between diverse and distinctly different cultures. Teresa Garcia remembers to put some “fun” and light-heartedness into her characters, making them all the more likeable! If you’ve ever felt like there may be ‘several’ enitites within you (you know, the angel on one shoulder, the devil on the other) or felt “shattered” by some life altering event in your life, you may find a commonality with young Wind! If destiny, cultural legends, tales of environmental spirits poke at your interest, you’ll find much to enjoy here in this beautifully written novel!

I’d like to thank the author for providing this read for review copy!

Publication Date: September 10, 2006
Publisher: Teresa Garcia
Series: Dragon Shaman, Book 1
ISBN: 0978802802
Number of pages: 244
Genre: Romance / Fantasy / Literary Fiction
My Rating: 4 Stars
Available at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

For more reviews check out Tome Tender's Book Blog or find us on Facebook.

[Bob Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the outset Dragon Shaman : Taming The Blowing Wind, by Teresa Garcia, plants one foot firmly and confidently in the realms of the spirit world. But this is no preachy evangelical sermon, or airy fairy new age nonsense, this is the spirit world of the Native Americans. As I read on, I was reminded that this spiritual perception of nature, and the world at large, is shared by many other cultures in many other parts of the world.
Our heroine, the wonderfully named, BlowingWind MountainChild, is the daughter of an Irish mother and an Apache father. Although her father is killed while she is still a child she continues to follow the spirit path of her Apache heritage. Later she is devastated by the death of her lover, to the point that her soul is fractured into the separate components that make up a human psyche.
She travels to Japan on a spiritual quest, where she encounters the Japanese equivalent of the Native American spirit world.
Personally, I would have preferred to remain in America and learn much more about the wonderful and mysterious native culture there, but I had the feeling we were retracing the steps taken by the author at some point in her life.
There was just enough of the Irish mother’s spiritual heritage to remind me, personally, that this way of looking at nature: where mountains and lakes and rivers are inhabited by entities that may be malevolent, benevolent, or simply indifferent to man, was also shared by the Gaels of my own country. I live in an area where we are surrounded by the echoes of this long forgotten spirit world. Stone circles, mysterious mounds, tombs, carvings, even - dare I say it - an entity which was believed to inhabit Loch Ness.
A book like this is so rooted in the beat and pulse of nature, the descriptions of the natural world so rich and vivid, that only someone with the eye of a poetess, and the heart of a naturalist, would be able to do the story justice.
Passages such as the following are typical:
The stars blazed overhead like diamonds in a rich field of blackened velvet while the pines whispered among themselves in their quiet groaning language that only they spoke.
Word painting of this quality is a joy to read, and I was genuinely disappointed when I reached the end of the book. Fortunately for me, and for anyone else who discovers this wonderfully talented writer, this is the first in a series. I look forward therefore to spending more time looking at the world through the pen of Teresa Garcia.

[Teresa Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this to anyone that likes long plots, multiple plots, world building stories, fantasy, Japanese culture, dragons (ryu/ryuu), youkai/yokai, kami, Native American culture, Irish/Celtic culture, mythology, spirits, ghosts, time travel, the possibility of multiple timelines, exploration of the spirit, exploration of the possibility of and manners of reincarnation, as well as environmentalism.

I thought long and hard about whether or not to review my own book. On the one hand, I am very critical of myself. On the other, this actually gives me the opportunity to speak about the process of the book.

Firstly, I have had readers that I didn't even know send me old fashioned, in the mail, honest to goodness fan mail telling me how much they liked the story. I have had people come up to me, ask if I was the lady that wrote it, and then proceed to tell me they enjoyed it and ask about the inspiration. Paperbacks have been passed reader to reader in families and I have hear from teens what they loved about the story (the name "Blowing Wind" for example, and Ryu's antics... and getting them interested in environmentalism). So this tells me that it struck a chord, and the one I was wanting.

BlowingWind was hard to write. When I originally conceived of her she was much farther along in the grieving and growing process, and when I started using her in other stories people began asking about her backstory. That is where this book comes in. I went back to tell the tale of her first big turning point and how a half Apache, half Irish young woman wound up in Japan taking environmental engineering courses and partnered with a roiling magma dragon kami. With this in mind I have to be careful not to spoil the next books of the series by saying too much before I've finished them.

My father was a big influence on this book, as he lost his cultural heritage when he was three and given to a white family. Through him I can trace Irish, Apache, Navajo, Mestizo, Spanish and more bloodlines (my mother comes with yet others) so a big part of my growing up was about reclaiming and salvaging what was possible and reconnecting with various cultures. Dad was my first proofreader. Dad was the one that gave me advice when I'd get stuck, and it was his questions that shaped the tale. Our family makes a brief cameo as the Sanchez family, as my father had been diagnosed with cancer shortly before I went to work on the manuscript.

This series also has a brief crosspoint with an earlier series that I had started while in Junior High about a girl that was to go to school (in a parallel world) to learn to use magic, long before Harry Potter started to be known in North America (I regret shelving the Shadow Chronicles when I did to work on other, more immediate concerns).

Although BlowingWind was hard to right, it surprised me how utterly resistant she became when experiencing her first boyfriend/spirit partner's "death". For her though, it was appropriate given that she'd lost her father when young, and so had some attachment issues. A small fact is that when her father was killed is about the same age that my mother's father died. So I had a lot of consultation on what people going through grief were like. Hence why she tends to slip in and out of her own thoughts and, in my opinion, obsesses a bit much. Writing her is always an interesting challenge though.

A lot of research went into the cultures involved also, and later in the series other cultures will come into play as our young shaman grows into her role and retrieves her missing bits of soul... and finds more of her spirit partner's soul. The reason for some of the time travel of one of the characters will also come into play. I wanted to explore why so many cultures had interweaving themes and the way the spirit world handles that.

The more one knows about the cultures that the motifs are coming from, the deeper the tale gets, which is as I wanted it. I wanted to inspire at least someone to go digging in old folkore and start meeting ryugami, kami, totems, and kitsune for themselves, and to think about meanings behind names and the different versions of some of the tales of the kami, Coyote, Raven, and Rattlesnake.

I give myself four stars as some typos were found after the original publication, and I am sure that other errors managed to make it through the new edition of the ebook for the Kindle and on Smashwords, despite my diligently applying what my editor had marked out for me. For some reason, there always seems to be at least one correction that always refuses to save even when given confirmation the file saved. I would love to give myself five stars as I give many other author's works... but it is my own work and I do not feel it sporting to do since it might convey the fact that I think it is perfect. It probably is not. I wrote the sort of book that I wished I had been able to find in the libraries I devoured, combining the things I love to research on.

I hope you enjoy it.
I thought long and hard about whether or not to review my own book. On the one hand, I am very critical of myself. On the other, this actually gives me the opportunity to speak about the process of the book.

Firstly, I have had readers that I didn't even know send me old fashioned, in the mail, honest to goodness fan mail telling me how much they liked the story. I have had people come up to me, ask if I was the lady that wrote it, and then proceed to tell me they enjoyed it and ask about the inspiration. Paperbacks have been passed reader to reader in families and I have hear from teens what they loved about the story (the name "Blowing Wind" for example, and Ryu's antics... and getting them interested in environmentalism). So this tells me that it struck a chord, and the one I was wanting.

BlowingWind was hard to write. When I originally conceived of her she was much farther along in the grieving and growing process, and when I started using her in other stories people began asking about her backstory. That is where this book comes in. I went back to tell the tale of her first big turning point and how a half Apache, half Irish young woman wound up in Japan taking environmental engineering courses and partnered with a roiling magma dragon kami. With this in mind I have to be careful not to spoil the next books of the series by saying too much before I've finished them.

My father was a big influence on this book, as he lost his cultural heritage when he was three and given to a white family. Through him I can trace Irish, Apache, Navajo, Mestizo, Spanish and more bloodlines (my mother comes with yet others) so a big part of my growing up was about reclaiming and salvaging what was possible and reconnecting with various cultures. Dad was my first proofreader. Dad was the one that gave me advice when I'd get stuck, and it was his questions that shaped the tale. Our family makes a brief cameo as the Sanchez family, as my father had been diagnosed with cancer shortly before I went to work on the manuscript.

This series also has a brief crosspoint with an earlier series that I had started while in Junior High about a girl that was to go to school (in a parallel world) to learn to use magic, long before Harry Potter started to be known in North America (I regret shelving the Shadow Chronicles when I did to work on other, more immediate concerns).

Although BlowingWind was hard to right, it surprised me how utterly resistant she became when experiencing her first boyfriend/spirit partner's "death". For her though, it was appropriate given that she'd lost her father when young, and so had some attachment issues. A small fact is that when her father was killed is about the same age that my mother's father died. So I had a lot of consultation on what people going through grief were like. Hence why she tends to slip in and out of her own thoughts and, in my opinion, obsesses a bit much. Writing her is always an interesting challenge though.

A lot of research went into the cultures involved also, and later in the series other cultures will come into play as our young shaman grows into her role and retrieves her missing bits of soul... and finds more of her spirit partner's soul. The reason for some of the time travel of one of the characters will also come into play. I wanted to explore why so many cultures had interweaving themes and the way the spirit world handles that.

The more one knows about the cultures that the motifs are coming from, the deeper the tale gets, which is as I wanted it. I wanted to inspire at least someone to go digging in old folkore and start meeting ryugami, kami, totems, and kitsune for themselves, and to think about meanings behind names and the different versions of some of the tales of the kami, Coyote, Raven, and Rattlesnake.

I give myself four stars as some typos were found after the original publication, and I am sure that other errors managed to make it through the new edition of the ebook for the Kindle and on Smashwords, despite my diligently applying what my editor had marked out for me. For some reason, there always seems to be at least one correction that always refuses to save even when given confirmation the file saved. I would love to give myself five stars as I give many other author's works... but it is my own work and I do not feel it sporting to do since it might convey the fact that I think it is perfect. It probably is not. I wrote the sort of book that I wished I had been able to find in the libraries I devoured, combining the things I love to research on.

I hope you enjoy it.