The Meaning behind Daughter of the Goddess

Ephrielle from Hope, Love, and Happy Endings (a cute blog with loads of great book info) says about Daughter of the Goddess:

"I was thinking this would be quick fun little romance. What I ended up with was more motivational story. Sort of look inside yourself and face your inner demons. See them for what they are."

Truth is, she is totally right, and I can certainly understand her hope for a fun romance and her disappointment in my novella. When life is hard, I often want something easy and fun. (P.S. Sophie Kinsella and Janet Evanovich both write some fun stories, but the best I read recently was Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill. LOVED that one!)


Another blogger said they were also disappointed by Daughter of the Goddess because it wasn't as close to the Greek myth of Eros & Psyche (where my inspiration for this story came from) as she had expected. She was right too. I did take a lot of liberties with my rendition.


Eros means love. Psyche means soul. And in my story, I named her Nephecia, which came from the Hebrew word nephesh meaning soul...


...and can also be translated as LIFE.


I really wanted to explore the idea:  What is Soul? It's Life. Abundant and vibrant. The deep part of us that allows us to create and laugh and sing and dance. And that is who Nephecia is, a bright soul that, even in her darkest moments, could never be extinguished.    


And love, the real kind that lasts a lifetime, requires souls that have vanquished their inner demons. With a 50% divorce rate (or is it more?), our nation is full of people who go into marriage still broken by callous words and rejection and neglect and abuse. Their souls are hurting, wounded, empty.    


Daughter of the Goddess is a parable about healing the soul, fighting your inner demons, and finding real love.     But if you want something more fun, I've got another novella coming out late January / early February called Playing Hooky. It's the start of Paranormal Investigations, a new series for college-aged YA. Stay tuned and I'll share an excerpt in the next few days.