Liliana Fae Books

Liliana and the Fae of Fayetteville is set in a world that looks a lot like ours, but many of the legends of this world are a hidden reality in Liliana’s world. All life on Earth is nourished by the Green, the energy generated by life is the lifeblood of the planet. It makes Gaia a semi-sentient mother goddess to everyone, including Normals and Others. This mother chooses certain people as channels for the Green to bring it more fully into the lives of all people. There are three types of Others, the beast-kin, the plant Fae, and the Sidhe. All three types of Others use the Green to shift between three forms; a form that appears fully human, a demi form that combines abilities and appearances between human and whatever they are akin to, and the full form of their kin. For beast-kin, the full form is an animal. For plant Fae, sometimes derogatorily called the lesser Fae, the full form is a plant, such as a tree, bush, or herb.

The Sidhe are the most powerful Fae with the strongest tie to the Green. They are akin to various parts of the earth itself, minerals, streams, mountains, hills, etc. Traditionally, in Europe, Sidhe were the ones chosen by the Earth to be the conduit of the Green. The individual chosen by Gaia gains tremendous power, including a ruling power over all Others in their area of influence. The Green in turn gains strength as it flows more freely, increasing the overall health and life, prosperity and abundance of the area. European Fae tend to find the Green flows strongest for them either at noon, or at midnight, depending on the type of Fae. These Fae divided themselves into “Courts” of seelie day Fae, and unseelie night Fae. These courts have historically been bitter enemies, although other lands make no distinction between day and night Fae. The area of influence of land-rulers tends to start small, and grow as the chosen individual grows in power and influence and learns how to use and channel the Green.

Since Fae often have no lifespan limit, their power can grow and grow for centuries. Unseelie obsidian Fae Titania, for instance, was chosen by a specific part of France, but her area of influence now covers most of Europe. The Goblin King, an unseelie cave Sidhe, has ruled England for centuries. Baba Yaga, whose original Other nature is unknown, ruled most of Russia and parts of Eastern Europe from pre-history until the end of World War II. When two areas of influence start to overlap, there is usually some type of war or contest, a survival of the fittest situation where the one who defeats the land-ruler becomes the new land-ruler, and areas of influence merge. The two lands can also peacefully merge when the two rulers become one by becoming lovers.

When the Europeans invaded North America, European Others also came to the new land. As the natives were slaughtered, or died from disease, some European Others hoped to become the rulers of this new land, but the land never chose them. Killing a local land-ruler transferred nothing to the killer. The Green faded in many places or became wild and untamed, difficult to tap into. Most Sidhe returned to their own lands, since this new land wouldn’t accept them.

All Others hide by mutual consent from Normals, aka normal humans, regardless of their power. Since the humans outnumber the Others by 10 to 1, even powerful Others understand the danger if the Normals were to turn against them. In the mists of the past, when history was something orally told by grandmothers around hearthfires, Others were less careful, and the legends were born. Then came the time when steel cut down the dryad’s trees and dams limited naiad powers. As Normals gained power over the natural world in the form of scientific advancement and industrialization that polluted the air, the land, and the waters, the power of all Others faded. Many Others, especially the Sidhe, the most powerful Fae, still sought political power by pretending to be human and using their waning abilities to manipulate human leaders. During the worst of pollution and climate change, the Green faded to a sickly, poisoned sluggish flow. Wolf-kin could only shift sometimes when the moon phase was right, and often lost their human intelligence when they shifted. Spider-kin vision became blurry and unreliable. Many who had been Other found they could no longer shift to any form but fully human. Some forgot that they had ever been Other over the generations, and became Normals. Fae who took full plant or mineral form sometimes became stuck, losing their sentience, unable to attain human form ever again.

Then, new technology and political change hit. As the world threatened to collapse under the weight of climate change, micro-plastics, and super-storms, people fought back. They fought figuratively by developing better green energy sources like solar and wind. They developed the ability to use the sun to split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen for clean combustion engines. They also fought literally. Wars broke out across the globe as people with a powerful stake in keeping the world unchanged fought against the radical changes that were transforming the world. 

In the end, the world society made the great shifts that it needed to make for survival of Gaia. Fossil fuels became both obsolete and politically and socially abhorrent. Global warming cooled back to its previous levels as efforts to sequester greenhouse gases bore fruit. The Green rebounded as the world became cleaner and more alive. The Others found their old strength returning, and their ability to easily shift between their three natural forms returned with it. 

Now, about 30 years in our future, Liliana lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a small town that grew up around the oldest military base in the United States, once Fort Bragg and now Fort Liberty. This base holds not only the special forces and delta force teams that it holds in our world, but also a secret elite team of soldiers, many of whom are Others themselves, whose job it is to defend against Other enemies of the US, both foreign and domestic. 

Liliana does her best to fly under everyone’s radar. She prefers for everyone to believe that spider seers are extinct so that she, herself, can continue to be, well, not extinct.