Blog Tour- MORTAL HEART by Robin LaFevers and a Giveaway!

Hey y'all I'm trilled to have Robin LaFevers here today to kick off the MORTAL HEART blog tour! I absolutely love this series it will go down as an all time favorite and I can't wait for everyone to read Anith's story. I have a post from Robin about Mortain's origins and why he isn't an evil god of death.  Oh how I love Death/Mortain in these books!!!. Oh and make sure to stick around and enter the giveaway! 
Haven't heard of MORTAL HEART? Check it out!

Title: MORTAL HEART

Author: Robin LaFevers

Pub. Date: November 4, 2014

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Pages: 464

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads

Annith has watched her gifted sisters at the convent come and go, carrying out their dark dealings in the name of St. Mortain, patiently awaiting her own turn to serve Death. But her worst fears are realized when she discovers she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever sequestered in the rock and stone womb of the convent. Feeling sorely betrayed, Annith decides to strike out on her own.

She has spent her whole life training to be an assassin. Just because the convent has changed its mind doesn't mean she has...

Now on to the post!

The Origins of Saint Mortain

Oh that, Death! What a fascinating and misunderstood figure he is, as both Ismae and Sybella have already discovered. One of the questions I am most often asked is where did I get the idea for his character.

Well, the first answer is that the vast majority of cultures had some sort of death figure or personification of Death. And Mortain, just like the other Nine old gods in His Fair Assassin, was constructed from bits and pieces of lore from earlier Celtic gods and goddesses and seasoned liberally with embellishments of my own.

I knew absolutely that I did not want my god of death to be vengeful or punishing, for there are many indications that those views of death did not develop until the early middle ages. I have always been struck by how death was once viewed as part of the fabric of life, but during the middle ages, with the Black Plague and accounts of hell and damnation that grew ever more elaborate, it changed into something more akin to punishment and filled with terror.

Mortain in particular, was inspired not only earlier gods, but by the Breton folktale of the Ankou, a personification of death. Other influences upon which I drew heavily were: Arawn, lord and king of the Welsh Otherworld and the Irish god of the dead, Donn, who was also considered the father of the Irish people. He was known to be somewhat retiring and chose to remain aloof from the other Irish gods. According to some Christian accounts, the souls of the damned resided with him before departing for heaven or hell.

According to the Romans, the Gaulish Celts worshipped a god the Romans called Dis Pater. He was one of their primary gods and thought of as an ancestor to the entire race. What drew me in particular to the Dis Pater material was that it tied him to even older beliefs that enveloped not only death and the underworld, but the entire cycle of life and rebirth. He was believed to derive from an earlier god who not only ruled over the riches of the underworld, but fertility and regeneration, not unlike the Egyptian god Osiris. I liked the fullness of that concept, that death had both a rich, giving aspect as well as something that took loved ones away from us, which in turn became a thematic thread of the trilogy.

Thanks Robin this was awesome! 

About Robin:

Robin LaFevers was raised on a steady diet of fairy tales, Bulfinch’s mythology, and 19th century poetry. It is not surprising she grew up to be a hopeless romantic.

Though she has never trained as an assassin or joined a convent, she did attend Catholic school for three years, which instilled in her a deep fascination with sacred rituals and the concept of the Divine. She has been on a search for answers to life’s mysteries ever since.

While many of those answers still elude her, she was lucky enough to find her one true love, and is living happily ever after with him in the foothills of southern California.

In addition to writing about teen assassin nuns in medieval Brittany, she writes books for middle grade readers, including the Theodosia books and the Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist series. You can learn more about those books at www.rllafevers.com.

Where you can find Robin:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Tumblr

Giveaway Details:

(1) One winner will receive a rustic arrow necklace, a leather bound notebook and a hardcover of MORTAL HEART! US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the Tour Schedule for more awesome posts!

Week One:

10/27/2014- Two Chicks on Books- Guest Post

10/28/2014-Katie's Book Blog- Review

10/29/2014- Once Upon a Twilight- Interview

10/30/2014- Magical Urban Fantasy Reads- Review

10/31/2014- Reading YA Rocks- Guest Post

Week Two:

11/3/2014- Mundie Moms- Review

11/4/2014- Tales of the Ravenous Reader- Interview

11/5/2014- The Starry-Eyed Revue- Review

11/6/2014- Step Into Fiction- Interview

11/7/2014- Parajunkee- Guest Post