The Healer and the Beast
by Nicholas Kotar
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show notes
In this episode you’ll hear a short story from Nicholas Kotar that challenges a young girl to see what truly makes a beast. The Healer and the Beast is narrated by Karyne Norton.
Important Links:
The Author: Nicholas Kotar’s website, where you can get his novella Son of the Deathless for free
The Narrator: Karyne Norton’s website
full transcript
Karyne (00:00:07) – Hi fantasy readers. This is Karyne Norton, your fellow book binger, and you are listening to the Finding Fantasy Reads podcast where you can test out a new fantasy story every single week to find your next favorite author.
If you like stories that feel like modernized fairy tales, you will love everything written by today’s featured author, Nicholas Kotar, who writes epic fantasy and science fiction inspired by Slavic fairy tales. And if that sounds randomly specific, it’s because he comes from a family of Russian immigrants and grew up speaking Russian before English. He then went on to study Russian literature, and I swear the man has lived a hundred lifetimes. He spent several years teaching, then traveled in a storytelling troupe, and again as a missionary. He then went back to Russian Orthodox Seminary, and now serves as a deacon, conducts a choir, teaches music, and is homesteading with his family in New York. He’s the kind of guy that you want to sit down and hear his life story, but it’s terribly intimidating because it’s clear he’s far more intelligent and has just lived so much more life. And I say that like he’s old, but he has young kids. He’s probably younger than me.
Anyway, you’re going to love this story about a young girl who finds a magical artifact deep in the woods. I had the honor of narrating it. Stick around to the end or check out today’s show notes to see where you can find more from Nicholas, as well as how to enter our giveaway.
For now, please enjoy The Healer and the Beast by Nicholas Kotar.
Karyne (00:01:40) – The Healer and the Beast is read by Karyne Norton. Due to copyright, the full transcript of the story cannot be included here.
Karyne (00:36:40) – I hope you enjoyed listening to The Healer and the Beast by Nicholas Kotar, narrated by Karyne Norton. If you want to read more by Nicholas, go to nicholaskotar.com to find more of his books. When you sign up for his newsletter, you’ll get a free copy of his novella The Son of the Deathless, which is actually how I found him, and ever since I have been stalking his newsletter and waiting for him to put out a short story that would fit in the time constraints of the podcast.
You’ll also want to check out this month’s giveaway, which includes a paperback copy of The Song of the Siren, the first book in Nicholas Kotar’s Raven’s Son series. Today’s story actually fits between book one and two, so if you liked this story, you’ll love his series. Go to findingfantasyreads.com/giveaway to enter.
As always, I will have links for all those sites in the show notes.
If you’re not aware, I record these episodes pretty far in advance because I want this to always be something fun and never stressful. So I keep forgetting to tell you guys that Finding Fantasy Reads recently hit a milestone. There’s a website called ListenNotes that rates podcasts globally to show their popularity. And while I’m not aiming to be the most popular podcast, I do want to extend my reach to serve more fantasy readers. Which in turn serves the authors I feature. It’s a beautiful cycle that I hope to keep up for many episodes to come.
Anyway, Listen Notes doesn’t even bother giving you a percentage until you hit the top 10% of podcasts in the world. I didn’t anticipate seeing numbers show up there anytime soon, but this last month we crept into that 10% slot. It’s small potatoes because it means we’re barely in the top 300,000 podcasts. But it also means we have a wider reach than 2.7 million other podcasts, and that’s pretty good for this baby podcast.
And that has so much to do with all of you and how much you’re sharing the podcast. I’m so appreciative of it and I hope you all know it. So thank you. If my sappy update distracted you, please don’t forget to check out Nicholas Kotar’s website and enter the giveaway. All the links are in the show notes.
Thank you all for listening and happy reading.
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Featured Author
Nicholas writes epic fantasy and science fiction inspired by Slavic fairy tales. He writes for readers who love classic fantasy like The Lord of the Rings, but who aren’t afraid of a little darkness and honesty about the human condition. He also writes for seekers after truth and beauty (like myself), and for those who feel trapped by modernity, with a fresh take on traditional values and storytelling.
He comes from a family of Russian immigrants and grew up speaking Russian before English, which explains why he studied Russian Literature and taught for seven years. He has travelled with a storytelling troupe, for mission work, and he went back to Russian Orthodox seminary. He’s a deacon, he conducts a choir, teaches music, and at the core of all of his work, he has a fervent belief that telling, writing, watching, listening to, and reading good stories may be the most important thing you do with your life.
Here’s where you can get your free copy of his novella: Son of the Deathless.
Narrator
Karyne Norton hasn’t found the key to time travel, immortality, or infinite lives, so she’s taking a break from nursing and photography to focus on raising four human beings while writing epic fantasy.
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