Curse of the Tahiéra, an award winning spiritual adventure

Dead silence spanned the plain. They came with the failing of the light. Their slender swords gleamed silver in the pale light of the moon. On the other side of the plain young, inexperienced hands clutched their swords, and old men held their breath. A dark horror crept over the battlefield and smothered everything in its path.
A dark figure stood at the top of the cliff. The wind lifted strands of midnight hair. They floated about his head as if they had a life of their own. He steadied himself and drew his sword. His voice was a whisper.
Now.

A journey through haunted forests, through dreams and time.
A story of love, magic and the power of forgiveness.
A Tzanatzi outcast and an Einache shaman are on the trail of an ancient curse.
Will they save their people from destruction?

When Rom, a young man shunned for his Tzanatzi ancestry, crosses paths with Yldich, an Einache Shaman, they embark on a journey which will change their lives and that of their people forever.
Yldich believes that Rom can free the Einache people from a curse that has been brewing for five-hundred years. A dark force is already rising in the North, while in the South power-hungry nobles will stop at nothing to get what they want. Yet Rom has no clue to who he really is, and will have to grow up fast if he is to fulfil Yldich's prophecy.

Together with Eald, a little Einache boy Rom and Yldich travel north through Gardeth Forest, where the veil between this world and the underworld grows thinner each day, and the army of the Southern King is closing in.
Embattled on all sides, but with the loving guidance of Yldich, Rom must face his own past and that of his people to heal the wounds inflicted by centuries of persecution and hatred.

But sometimes uncovering buried secrets comes at a price. Will Rom be able to accept his true self and regain his power in time for the final battle?

While I was writing Curse of the Tahiéra, I had no idea I was not writing a fantasy novel at all.

Sure, there were signs. My number one reader, a psychic intuitive was surprised at how real the characters felt. To her, they even had aura's of their own, which she described to me.

I was also surprised at how easy the story came to me. I did not make up the storyline, it just flowed through me, or rather, I stepped into it as if it were a movie and only had to write down the impressions, the feelings, the images, even whole chunks of dialogue that came into my head.

For example. at one time I was so immersed in the ''story'' that, as I was sitting down on my bed to put on my socks, I found myself as Rom, my protagonist in the Underworld, being engaged in dialogue by a know-it-all mouse. I listened to it with my jaw dropped, and ran downstairs to type it all as fast as I could in my ever-growing manuscript.

Another give-away was that my ''characters'' had a tendency to go and do as they pleased. Not only did they make their own way through the story, but they were even seen and felt by other people. Yldich, the age-old Einache healer for example popped up at a healing workshop to inspire the teacher by his presence (and oh, what fun he must have had seeing the look on her face!)

Another funny side-effect of writing was the fact I lost my fear of spooks. As long as I could remember, I had been afraid of ghosts, of the unseen but felt presences. Now I felt the presence of several people in my house on a daily basis, and as they were all loving, kind, and humorous I completely lost my fear of people who have left their earthly bodies.

After ''Curse'' had been published, and the Dutch and English editions began making their way into the world, the strangest thing began to happen.

More and more people, both new friends I met on-line after publication, as well as old friends and family members began recognizing themselves in the book.
They told me so with great reluctance at first, which only increased the credibility of their experiences. It was like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place.

I began to look at my story with the eyes of the past life therapist and realized I had not written a fantasy novel at all. I had written a past life autobiography. And when I spontaneously relived the ending (which is yet to be written in part three), I was sure.

This is a true story. And it has waited for hundreds of years to be told.

Wendy Gillissen (1969) is a psychologist, certified past life therapist, dream worker and award-winning author.
She offers past life therapy sessions in her practice in Delft, and teaches dream work classes at Trance Art, a school for hypnotherapy in The Hague.

Wendy has always been fascinated by dreams, the supernatural and the mystical.
She also has a fancy for all things Celtic.
When she isn't writing, teaching or working in her practice she plays the Celtic harp.

Currently Wendy is finishing part two of the Tahiéra trilogy, ''The Search for Tzanáta''.

Curse of the Tahiéra won first place in the Reader Views Awards 2009, and second place in the Readers Favorite Awards 2009. It was also Finalist in the 2010 Indie book Awards.

Superbly written and highly recommended
Magic, ancient curses, star-crossed love, heroism against great odds and an unknown evil from the distant past, these are just a few of the elements that master storyteller Wendy Gillissen draws upon to deftly craft an engaging, 444-page fantasy that truly grips the readers fascinated attention from first page to last.
Imaginative, complex, detailed, laced with cliff-hanger complications, Curse of the Tahiéra is a superbly written and highly recommended novel for the dedicated fantasy fan.
Midwest Book Review

A powerful all-engrossing epic
Wendy Gillissen's wonderful début novel is a powerful all-engrossing epic, in which love and forgiveness are essential lessons to be learned. The rich history and cultures of the land in which the tale unfolds is entirely convincing, as are the story's well rounded and sympathetic characters. For all it's depth, Wendy has succeeded in writing a thoroughly enjoyable tale which never once becomes heavy going or dull (the curse of many fantasy epics I have endured over the years!).
Tangle Catkin, Fae Nation

Captivating from beginning to end
Curse of the Tahiéra achieves on nearly every level of excitement and entertainment that the genre of fantasy prescribes. It's enlightening in its connection with real world values of love, honour, and camaraderie and on top of that, its great entertainment. Gillissen's take on pixies, beasts, and other common fantasy figures is unique and revitalizing. Fantasy novels are all about the journey, and Gillissen is able to weave several into a single amazing voyage that is captivating from beginning to end.
Eric Jones, Bookreview.com

It can be a dangerous thing for a man not to know who he is
Curse of the Tahiéra succeeds on so many levels; the characters have personality, depth and personal history, the fantasy environment is vibrant, detailed and filled with mythic wonder and the storyline is absorbing and well paced from beginning to end. Plain and simple it's one of the most enjoyable fantasy books I've read in a long, long time.
However my highest praise for Ms. Gillissen's book is reserved for the deep, profound spirituality oozing from her written words; her understanding of the nature of dreams, her innate knowledge of the unseen but sometimes felt life force emanating from the world (or worlds?) around us and the way in which she reveals the spiritual underpinnings and karmic destiny that ultimately determine who and what we are.
Brian E. Erland, Amazon top 500 reviewer

'Let us see what you can do,' the Woodland King said, and pulled some gossamer strings from the air with a broad sweep of his hand.

Áyra held out his arms. The harp weighed almost nothing, fashioned as it was from moonlight and the delicate threads of spider webs.

He moved his hand over the strings. They tinkled like chimes, the low notes resounding like bronze bells. He sat it on his lap and began to play.