Hi everyone, I’m so happy to be here today, and a huge thank you to the Fresh Fiction staff for having me. It’s a real honor to be visiting here at their blog and chatting a little bit about my upcoming release Assassin’s Heart, which comes out September 7. I’m excited about the book for a number of reasons, one it’s Lysander’s story and he’s one of my favorite heroes of all that I’ve written to date. I love his and Phaedra’s story as well as the story of Maximus and Cassiopeia the ancient Roman couple in the book. There are a lot of reasons why I love Assassin’s Heart, but one of the biggest reasons, aside from Lysander, is the past lives aspect of the story. You see, I’m a firm believer in past lives. Why?
Well, I guess it’s because I’ve lived many times before myself. Did your eyebrows just go up? A lot people do arch their eyebrows at me when I say that. I’ve even had people snort with contempt, with laughter and even tell me I need to seek mental health services. It’s okay, I don’t mind because belief structures are personal and rooted in experience. For me, personal experience plays a large role in my belief structures. I’ve experienced things that make some people scoff and others go Wow! So what are some of those things, Monica?
The first thing I have tell you is that I can’t wear anything around my neck. When I was a kid, those Georgian velvet bands with the brooch in the middle were all the rage. I wanted one really bad. So I spent the dollar or two I’d saved and bought one. Problem was, I couldn’t wear it. The minute I put it on, it was like I couldn’t breathe. Same thing goes for turtlenecks. I LOVE them. I love how they look on people. Turtlenecks highlight the face, and are totally awesome, but the minute I put one on, I’m tearing at it to get it off. So what does all that have to do with past lives? Read on.
I’ve experienced three different lives via past life regression. One I was a big burly landowner, possibly a knight of some sort. I knew I was a man because in the regression, when I looked down I saw I had these big, hairy arms (NOT exactly what I expected from a past life regression!). In this particular past life regression, I was sitting in front of a large fireplace (the kind you can walk into), and a boy was playing on an animal skin rug in front of me. A few minutes later a woman came down a set of stone steps that had no railing. She greeted me, and when I turned my back on her, she stabbed me to death. Pretty gruesome way to go, right? I’ve no idea if I lived a good life, hurt her, killed others, or did whatever? I just know it wasn’t a pleasant way to die.
The next past life regression was in a similar time period. I was a healer of sorts. I tended to animals and people with herbs, and other natural remedies. That is until someone accused me of being a witch, and a judged sentenced me to hanging. Not a pleasant way to die. Have you noticed that so far my lives ended violently, and that I wasn’t too well off? Forget what famous people say about having been princesses and queens in a past life! *smile*
Perhaps the most frightening of all my past life regressions was the one where I was in a tumbrel with my hands tied to the side of the cart to prevent escape. I remember being terrified. I was a young servant girl during the French Revolution who got caught up in the politics of the whole event (there were numerous people of the working class who were executed when neighbors turned them in on a whim.). I can still remember the crowd pressing into the cart as it rolled toward the guillotine. There was this overwhelming terror as I tried to tug free of the ropes tying me to the side of the tumbrel. In my hypnotic state, my body apparently began to twitch and jerk. The agitation became so great that the individual doing the regression had to bring me out of the hypnosis quickly.
Now remember early when I said that I can’t wear anything around my neck? Can you understand WHY now? There have been many stories of people with past lives who have problems in this life resolved by addressing problems left unresolved in a past life. I still can’t wear turtlenecks or collars, but I think two of the lives above make for a pretty good case for why I’m really uncomfortable wearing something on my neck. *grin*
With my strong belief in past lives, it just seemed natural to use that theme in Assassin’s Heart. When I sat down to write the book, one of my goals was to show the origins of the Sicari. I knew the back-story in all its tragic detail so well, I didn’t even have notes on it because it was so vivid in my head. But I was stumped as to how I was going to show the Sicari’s birth without writing a historical paranormal. It wasn’t until Lysander showed up in Assassin’s Honor that I knew how to do it. His story and the ancient Roman general Maximus were tied together, just as Phaedra and Cassiopeia were connected. Suddenly, it all fell into place, and I knew that dreams of a past life would make the story come full circle.
I enjoyed writing Assassin’s Heart enormously. It was one of those books that sort of writes itself, although there were moments when I was banging my head against the wall. But I got through it, and now that it’s finished, I’m on to the next book into the series, however, I’m left wondering…was I a writer in another past life? Maybe. You never know.
So tell me, what do you think about past lives? Had any experience with regression therapy? Tell me your story.
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