Born in Victoria, Australia, my childhood was spent in a variety of places, both in towns and the outback. Now settled in Western Australia, I work as a nurse. A love of animals has me involved in animal welfare, and certainly explains why the cats hog my bed and the hot water bottle!

Reading has always been my escape, writing my dream. Horror, myths, legends, fantasy and history – there are no limits to the wonders to be found. And romance? Well, that adds the spice, hope and happiness ever after..

PNR: First, what inspired you to become a writer? What kind of books do you enjoy?

Jeanine B.: My desire to become a writer was a natural development from my love of reading. Ever since I can remember, books were special, magical things to me. I remember the librarian in junior high telling me I had read every SF and fantasy book in the library. And when I had read them all, writing one of my own seemed like a natural next step.

PNR: Let talk about the Dayspring novels, beginning with DAYSPRING DAWNING. As I understand it, Gaea is an alternate Earth within the multi universe, and Atlaua is?

Jeanine B.: Atlaua is an island continent in Gaea. According to legend, our Earth once had such an island continent where the people used their psychic powers to create a great and blessed civilization. We know that land now as the lost continent of Atlantis. Where did the people of that continent get their vast knowledge of the paranormal and what would have happened if they had found a way to use
that Power to save their land from destruction? Those are a few of the questions explored in DAYSPRING DAWNING AND DAYSPRING DESTINY.

PNR: Just over a millennium ago, the people of Atlaua had worshiped the Sky Gods. Then these demiurges had abandoned their world. Aren Lohenrin, a priest of their temple, felt the loss most keenly when his prayers to save the life of his son went unanswered. What was Aren's response to this abandonment and what
happened as a result?

Jeanine B.: Interesting that you should ask that question, because while writing
DAYSPRING and DAWNING DAYSPRING DESTINY I often wanted to know more about that driven, tortured and enigmatic man, Aren Lohenrin. He was a towering figure, the man who summoned the demigod S'hazons to Atlaua and founded the House of Lohenrin. To find out who he was and how he struggled to achieve his dreams, I wrote a short story about him called "Godfall". This story describes his loss of faith after the death of his son and where this led him. Yet after writing the short story, I felt that Aren wanted still more of his spiritual journey revealed. In a very real sense, he was responsible for all that happened in the two Dayspring books, for he set in motion all the events that culminated in those books. Did he ever regret calling the S'hazons to Atlaua? Did he ever find peace or love again?

To answer those questions, I had to write a third book about his life's story. THE SECRET SKY will be published by Novel Books Inc. in April of 2004.

PNR: One thousand years later, Elinna Serru intends to follow her dream and enter the House of Lohenrin, to learn under the tutelage of the S'hazons to master the khi power, and become a healer. It is a noble intention, so why doesn't her father approve?

Jeanine B.: One of the things I found out by writing THE SECRET SKY is that Elinna's
father is a man of many secrets, some of them quite startling. The true reason he is opposed to the House goes back a thousand years to the time of Aren Lohenrin and a sacred and vital task Aren entrusted to the House of Serru. But in DAYSPRING DAWNING we only know that Elinna's father has lost his faith in the
much-vaunted nobleness of the House of Lohenrin. He saw in his own wife
what can happen when faith turns into a fanaticism and a single-mindedness that shuts out everything and everyone else. He doesn't want that same obsession to consume his daughter.

PNR: Elinna passed the entry test with flying colors. Is she happy with her life in the House?

Jeanine B.: At first Elinna is very happy indeed, like a young bird who has been set free to dare the skies at last. Filled with idealism, she drinks in all the Masters and the S'hazons can teach her about the Power and dreams of the day when she can save the lives of the sick and injured with her healing skills. It's only very gradually that she comes to see that others around her have different concerns, that there is more than one kind of Power sought in the House, and that the S'hazons may not be quite the creatures of light she believed they were.

PNR: Elinna, like many other adepts, believes the tales of the Sky Gods to be little more than a myth. Not so for her best friend Hasmonea, who had once shared Elinna's ambition to enter the House. Hasmonea, who has now
joined the revived ancient religion, believes the alien S'hazons to be corrupt, using the psiborn adepts for sinister purposes. She asks Elinna to investigate.
What is Elinna's response? Does she expect to find anything incriminating?

Jeanine B.: Elinna agrees to investigate Hasmonea's suspicions mostly to shut her friend up, since she thinks those suspicions are entirely unfounded. But she has another motivation, too. Hasmonea's request is brought to Elinna by the charismatic Inheritor, Mesor Tethays, a man Elinna has secretly loved for years. Elinna is outraged that Mesor dares to doubt the S'hazons and she is determined to prove him wrong.

PNR: Tell us a bit about Mesor and his relationship with
Elinna.

Jeanine B.: Mesor and Elinna are two people who are irresistibly attracted to each
other, but neither one of them can see any future in their relationship. That's tends to make them edgy when they find themselves in each other's company. Sexual tension will do that to a person. Mesor can't envision falling in love with someone who serves the very House he despises, and Elinna can't allow herself to show her love for Mesor, because he is trying to destroy all she holds sacred.

PNR: Let's see if we can move on to DAYSPRING DESTINY without spoiling Book 1. The S'hazons have Vanished, taking a large number of the House adepts with them to a mirror world in another dimension. If what the S'hazons had revealed to her is true, Gaea will be destroyed in a decade's time. Elinna had chosen not to join them. Why?

Jeanine B.: In choosing to stay, Elinna remained true to her essential purpose and calling in life, to be a healer. Where would her healing skills be needed more--on a new world or on Gaea? Gaea was doomed unless some of those with Power remained to try and stop the coming destruction.

PNR: With time running out for her world, Elinna attacks the problem with single minded obsession, leaving no time for normal relationships. Five years later she
has made no progress. Does she have regrets?

Jeanine B.: Strangely, no. While she loves Mesor and gave up that love to dedicate herself to finding a way to save Gaea, Elinna truly believes that sacrifice was necessary. She's not a person who engages in half measures. She still feels the pull of her love for Mesor -- it's never far from her mind or heart -- but she consoles herself with the belief that she has done the right and necessary thing. It takes a
powerful revelation through a Dream of Knowledge to change her mind.

PNR: Elinna now knows that the Sky Gods are not the mythical beings she'd once believed. They have sent her Dreams of Knowledge of a long ago past, and a
personal past that could have been. What does she take from these dreams that sets her on a new path? What does she now feel is the key to Gaea's salvation?

Jeanine B.: The great thing that Elinna learned from her Dream of Knowledge--and it was an earthshaking revelation indeed to someone who was so convinced they did the right thing--was that she was wrong. In trying to save her world, she had chosen the wrong path. She had sacrificed love and in so doing isolated herself from the very power that could lead her to the answers she needed.

Her only hope, after understanding the dream, is that it is not too late, that if she can break down the walls of self-righteousness she has forged around her and reach out to all factions on Gaea, she might yet be able to forge the links of love and understanding that will reveal the true salvation of her world, a salvation the Sky Gods hid away long ago for Gaea's hour of need.

PNR: Well I hope that was enough of a teaser. Let's just say all's well that ends well. What is next for Jeanine Berry?

Jeanine B.: I'm busy writing more tales of love and adventure. I had a novella in the anthology TWILIGHT CROSSINGS and co-wrote MASTERS OF THE SEX GATE with Darrell Bain. Both are out this year. Next year will see the release of the final book of the Dayspring series, THE SECRET SKY. And at the moment, I am having a great time writing a paranormal romance that taps into some of the ancient legends ofIreland. For the latest news on my writing adventures, drop by my website.

Featured in this Issue:

Interviews with:
C. J. Barry
Jeanine Berry
Stobie Piel
Catherine Spangler
Angela Verdenius

Jeanine Berry

Website

 Books

Dayspring Series

Novel Books, Inc.
July 2002
255 pages
ISBN: 1931696624

DAYSPRING DAWNING - On an alternate earth called Gaea, Elinna Serru dreams of entering the House of Lohrenin where she can learn to heal with the Power.

But before she can enter the House, she must first pass the Judging, a fiery initiation into the dangerous khi force. And if she does pass, she will face yet more tests . . . for those nearest and dearest to her fear that the alien S'hazons who teach humans to use the Power are molding the adepts of the House for their own sinister ends.

Challenged to find the truth by the man she loves, Elinna must risk a living death to discover the shocking secret the S'hazons are hiding from humankind.

Novel Books, Inc.
December 2002
ISBN: 1591050472

DAYSPRING DESTINY - For thousands of years the fate of humankind has been mysteriously interwined with the demiurges that have ruled over the island kingdom of Atlaua -- first the Sky Gods, then the S'hazons. But these demigods have their own secrets, hidden ages ago in the Heart Stone.

Many adepts have attempted to read the Heart Stone in the past. But all have failed. Now Elinna Serru must wrest the truth from its crystal depths, for the fate of the House depends on the knowledge it conceals.

Gaea's children are split between two worlds, and both worlds may be doomed unless someone can bridge the gap and reunite humanity. Will the Heart Stone show the way? In Dayspring Destiny, Elinna Serru will face her greatest test, a test not of the Power but of her heart and soul.

This story will be expanded into the full length novel
THE SECRET SKY in 2004

GODFALL - In the ancient land of Atlaua, Aren Lohenrin is a healer in the Temple of the Sky Gods. When his faith is destroyed by the death of his son, he denounces his old gods and goes in search of new deities. He sends a psychic cry up into the night sky ... and gets an answer that will change his life forever.

Other Paranormal Titles

Buy it now!

Lighthouse Press
May 30, 2002
ISBN: 097148273X

Double Dragon
April 2003
eBook 236 Pages
ISBN: 1554040396

Double Dragon
December 2002
336 pages
ebook
ISBN: 1894841891
trade paperback
January 1, 2003
ISBN: 1894841905