TITLE: YA
GENRE: Secret
Issabel was mine and I was hers, long before we entered the world on the same dim winter’s morning our mother went out of it. She bore us, like twin snow-bear cubs buried deep in the cold arms of hibernation, into the weak lamplight where we shut our new eyes and yowled at the alien brightness. We thrust our fists at the midwife and nuzzled our wet-nurse, our tiny bodies wrapped in deer skins striped in soot and charcoal, fit for gliding like ghosts through the leaf barren forest.
Instinctively, we knew the darkness was there to protect us. We suckled and grew fat, we crawled, and stood, and walked, and ran across a floor of deep slate between walls of red cedar. We peered through tiny windows of scraped, bleached hide and snow. We built towers with gnawed wolf bones and we banged walrus tusks against father’s copper shield like a drum.
Fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI am going with fantasy because there are enough "Romulus and Remus" overtones here to not know if the twins are human or otherwise. Father's shield is the only hint toward human. I am guessing this takes place in some Middle Earth type place of talking animals and evil queens.
Historical
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing this is a tale set in an ancient, ice-covered country because of the walrus tusks and dad's copper shield.
Historical fantasy. The setting seems to be an artic wilderness. Since it's hard to tell who's speaking (human or otherwise), I think it could be fantasy.
ReplyDeleteFantasy
ReplyDeleteThe setting feels like it's part of the past, but the strong the birth memory and first person POV makes me think there's something magical here for the MC to have such a clear recollection of that moment.
Historical Fantasy.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can't tell if the twins are human, animal, or some combination, the barren forest, copper shield, wet-nurse, and phrase "gliding like ghosts" made me definitely think fantasy set in an ancient time.
Fantasy
ReplyDeleteI think there are enough elements like wolf bones and gliding like ghosts and darkness as a friend to push it into that genre.
Fantasy
ReplyDeleteThe use of the word alien made my mind jump to sci fi but then it sounded like they were American Indian with the deer skins and the mention of ghosts. But then the copper shield and walrus tusks sounds historical. Norway pops to mind.
Fantasy
ReplyDeleteThe use of the word alien made my mind jump to sci fi but then it sounded like they were American Indian with the deer skins and the mention of ghosts. But then the copper shield and walrus tusks sounds historical. Norway pops to mind.
Historical. Thinking Native American, which could also lead to magical elements.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWait, the name Issabel caught my eye... so now thinking Scandinavian not NA.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHistorical Fantasy
ReplyDeleteThe deer skins point to it being historical, and while there aren't any overt fantasy elements, the metaphorical language of snow-bear cubs make me thing it's also fantasy.
I can't tell.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if your main character is human or animal.
Fantasy, due to gnawed wolf bones -- people don't usually eat wolf in any culture -- and due to the darkness reference.
ReplyDeleteFantasy, due to gnawed wolf bones -- people don't usually eat wolf in any culture -- and due to the darkness reference.
ReplyDeleteMy best guess is Historical. I had to read it twice, slowly, to look for clues. The reference to a wet-nurse and the father's copper shield led me to my guess. There's so much metaphor that it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't. Very literary.
ReplyDeleteFantasy
ReplyDeleteThose are some pretty strange kids if they remember what it was like to be an infant. I'm guessing not human? How about prehistoric fantasy?
Fantasy
ReplyDeleteThe birth memory, the setting, the gnawed bones and banging walrus tusks on a copper shield...
Historical fiction or fantasy, depending on what happens to the characters later in the story. The deer skins, walrus tusks, father's shield...
ReplyDeleteHistorical fiction or fantasy, depending on what happens to the characters later in the story. The deer skins, walrus tusks, father's shield...
ReplyDeleteFantasy
ReplyDeleteMedieval feel to it due to descriptions of the deer skins, the shield, walrus tusks but it could also be historical.
HISTORICAL.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like the Inuit culture.
Historical
ReplyDeleteMulticultural too. Native people of the far north, some time ago. "Lamplight" could mean seal oil lamps, or more modern ones, but the rest suggests a distant time and place.
Fantasy.
ReplyDeleteBecause no real-life child remembers details from his/her infancy or toddlerhood.
Historical with elements of fantasy or magic. Midwife, deer skins, wolf bones all sound like Native American culture, but there feels like something unrealistic (fantasy or magic) that is about to happen.
ReplyDeleteFantasy.
ReplyDeleteI lean toward that because in spite of the narrative that sounds historical, it's hard to place a narrative on that time in history without adding some magic to it, ala Hobbit, etc.
Fantasy.
ReplyDeleteDarkness protecting them. Mother dies giving them life. Red cedar walls (which was used in olden times to keep vermin out). The twins instincts were strong at birth for them to know as infants that the darkness would protect them . To me, hints of some sort of super-humans, mystical beings or maybe changelings that are being kept safe for some future adventure.
Hmm. I'm going with Fantasy. With all the talk of snow and hibernation and skins ad bears and wolves and walrus, I thought possibly magical realism in a very far northern Native American tribe until the copper shield.
ReplyDeleteFantasy. Historical feel, but laden with fairy-tale qualities. A retelling?
ReplyDeleteI lean toward Fantasy, something feels magical
ReplyDeleteI'm the author :)
ReplyDeleteFantasy, or Historical Fantasy would be the correct answer, and bonus points for those who figured out this was based on Northern mythology like the Inuit or in Norway.