In Norse mythology, Fenrir is a giant wolf who was tricked into a contest of strength with a simple ribbon he couldn’t break and that ended up trapping him.

In the world of Ice Warriors, Fenrir is chained up in a mountain on the hidden, apparently deserted island of Atlantis. Like his father, he has the ability to shape-shift, but only into a human form.

Fenrir is supposed to play a fairly big role in Ragnarok, the Norse end of the world. While many myths portray him as evil, there are just as many that portray him as having a really rough deal of it. In Ice Warriors, I feel (personally) that Fenrir is going to be quite an intriguing character to write. I’ll have to let other people judge whether or not they think he’s as intriguing to read about.

I quite like this cover, though I really do like all the covers people created for me, to be honest. This one was actually provided with a full cover, too, including the spine for the book.

There’s a particular scene in the Prologue of book one that I think this cover fits really well with. I like the colours on here and I also really like the use of the keys.

Narfi is one of Loki’s sons and twin brother to Vali. In Norse mythology, Vali is turned into a wolf and forced to attack and kill his brother, after which Loki is bound under a serpent with his entrails. (I know. Pretty disturbing, right?)

In Ice Warriors, Narfi is trapped as a spirit in the ice palace, along with his chained father and his mother. Mainly skilled as a warrior, Narfi also has some magic ability due to his father being a powerful mage.

Personality-wise, Narfi is honourable and noble. He does have a mischievous streak, but there’s nothing cruel in it. He was originally meant to be a main character in book one, but his part has fallen back a bit… though he still has an important role to play.

You can probably tell, due to the different styles, but I was fortunate to get three separate artists who were able to show different portrayals of Narfi. Personally, I think they’re all especially cool and each one demonstrates a particular aspect to his character. In mythology and in the series, he’s probably quite a tragic character.

Although this front cover isn’t really colourful, I really adore the style of the writing on here, particularly with the series title of Ice Warriors. The stalactites are a really cool effect as well.

Although not actually an ice warrior, Loki (the Norse god of mischief) is still a central part to the series… and his children are quite important, too, but you’ll meet some of them a bit later on.

Loki’s first appearance is when he’s chained up in the ice palace… at least in the version I’m currently working on. The person who drew the above picture was also inspired to draw a second one based on the profile I provided for Loki:

Pretty cool, huh? Loki and Thor weren’t raised as brothers in the Ice Warriors universe, but they were blood brothers and fought side by side on more than one occasion.

Loki is supposed to play a pivotal role in Ragnarok (the Norse end of the world), but to do that, he has to be freed from his bonds.

When the person I requested this front cover from showed me the finished piece, they told me they’d actually frozen a key in ice and taken a picture for use on the cover.

I felt that was a really unique idea and the overall effect is incredibly cool.

So… Ariadne and Shaia are twins. Part of the original seven Ice Warriors, they actually live in the UK. Shaia’s just on the outskirts of London, but I don’t think Ariadne has somewhere in particular she lives.

Shaia has brittle bone disease, which means that, even as an adult, people are protective of her, to the point where it can be somewhat stifling. She works as a co-editor at a magazine and seems fairly well-adjusted. Her power, which is the ability to sense if someone’s telling the truth (or believes that what they say is the truth), is quite helpful to her in the job she does.

Ariadne is… very different. She’s a character who’s completely out of my comfort zone, but because of that, I’ve found her to be the most interesting.

Ariadne is actually a prostitute and the first scene I wrote with her in, she came out with some comments that shocked even me. I realised she was an empath early on and can manipulate the emotions of others to perform ‘tricks’.

Unfortunately, having no way of protecting herself from the often negative emotions battering her, Ariadne spends most of her time in a haze, due to drugs, alcohol, or a combination of both.

Because my memory is bad (I seriously tend to remember things when I can’t do them, like when I’m on the bus or at work), I kept forgetting about my promise to show the artwork created for Key of Midgard. So while it’s in my head, I decided to upload the next front cover version.

I think this might be one of the really pretty covers. There’s not much colour on it, but I think the design is awesome.

Danny probably replaced Amberley as my favourite character in Ice Warriors sometime during the first draft. By the time he’d become a fully formed character, I was still finding my feet with the whole mythos and the fact that each of the (now nine) Ice Warriors had a particular skill or power they’d cultivated as children.

As is probably evidenced by even the ink drawing (which is amazing work and I will try to find the artist who did these drawings for me), Danny is a policeman. And the use of the gun is accurate, because he’s actually living in the US at the start of the story, so my understanding is police officers are more likely to carry guns with them while on patrol.

Danny is actually (loosely) based on the character of the same name from CSI: New York. Obviously not the same character, but that’s where the inspiration comes from.

Danny has the ability to expand all of his senses. This can have different effects depending on where his attention’s focused, but my favourite part of this ability is what he terms his ‘binocular’ sight, which is to say he can focus on one exact point and zoom in to look at it more closely… or out, depending on what he needs to see.

Just before I go to work, I thought I’d share the second front cover for book one of Ice Warriors. I think this one is pretty cool with the key ring on and it’s interesting that the keys are all old and rusted.