Talking Location With T C Kraven: GREECE

26th August 2025

#TalkingLocationWith … T C KRAVEN, author “Of Prophecies & Pomegranates‘: Greece

Of Prophecies & Pomegranates is the first installment in the Dark Fates Novels, a twelve book saga that spans thousands of years, but it all starts in Ancient Greece, with the gods who once ruled. This Hades and Persephone retelling thrusts readers into the realm of gods and monsters, showcasing the extreme embodiments of human emotions in their most divine forms; fear, passion, rage, jealousy and of course, love. 

The gods and titans were driven by the best and worst of our emotions, with no impulse control and nearly limitless power, and that makes for some messy drama. 

Like most children of the 90’s, I had a Greek Mythology hyper focus phase (thanks, ADHD), and I was voracious with it. I devoured everything I could reach. At first glance, I was enamored by the strong and fiercely powerful deities. Some related to Athena because she was the smartest, or Poseidon because they love the water. I myself, was always an Artemis girl, (being a Sagittarius, and besides, who doesn’t love the thought of running through the woods on magic moon power with a girl gang of huntresses?), but I could see the merits of each of the Olympians. 

The deeper I dove, the more I cracked through the crust of the sanitized, Disney’s Hercules version of Greek Mythology, and found that most of the gods were actually just…like us. Petulant and vengeful, it’s hard to see that your favorite god was also responsible for deaths or wars or just foul things in general. But much like the human condition, the gods could have good qualities and still do bad things. And the ones seen as bad could perform acts of kindness. The dichotomy of good and evil versus perception intrigued me, and it’s no wonder I grew up to write about it. 

In my work, I employ “setting as a character” quite often. I’ve had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in Greece, and it while we don’t see particular cities in the novel up close, the Wild Wood is heavily inspired by the Dadia Forest, in Alexandroupoli. We hear mentions of Crete and Thebes, and the cave where Hades and Persephone have their triste is directly inspired by Cape Matapan, theorized to be an entrance to the Underworld (as made famous by myths such as The Labors of Hercules and Orpheus and Eurydice). 

The love triangle between Ares, Hephaestus and Aphrodite was inspired by their temple ruins in the Ancient Agora in Athens. I spent days exploring. The Temple of Hephaestus is the most well preserved Athenian structure, and it’s location compared to the ruins of Aphrodite’s Temple and Ares’ Temple was always curious to me. At first glance, he looks to be in between them, but from the top of the hill looking down, they’re nearly equidistant from one another and he seems to be watching over them. Protective. As a polyamorous person, I always thought their story was interesting because queerness was inherently built into the fabric and exploration of the Ancient Greeks. Why would the Goddess of Love not want both? 

The Oracle of Delphi was the inspiration for the celebration for Dionysus’ name day, the lush trees, the incredible greenery. The one thing that struck me, and continues to, on every trip to Greece I make, is how incredibly lush the countryside is, especially once you get out of Athens. These tiny pockets of communities, sometimes built into basins, or high up on mountainsides, they’re easy to see in the ancient world. 

Sparta heavily inspired the development of New Elysium, (which we see in book three), and it was so incredibly rad to see the warrior like simplistic society that was farther ahead of it’s time than modern media would have us believe. 

Buy Now

Now, I’m a student of history, and one of my favorite things about mythology is that it was a way for humans to explain things too great to comprehend. Yes, we know most of these things are explained through science, but the insatiable curiosity of the human race, the inherent need for us to know “but why” has stood the test of time. 

Note the racoon covering the author’s face – this is an inside joke that she uses with her readers

I like to work that particular element of web-weaving into my books by tying up known events as real consequences of characters. The most pointed example of this is with Hades, and the eruption of Vesuvius. I can’t go giving away spoilers, but I can say that everything down to the name of the rulers of Pompeii, to the time of day, is tied to history. 

A mythological explanation for a natural phenomenon. 

While the rest of the series are love letters to New Orleans, this one, the one that started it all, is my homage to Greece, and the incredible myths and legends born there. 

T C Kraven

Join team TripFiction on Social Media:

Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction) and BlueSky(tripfiction.bsky.social) and Threads (@tripfiction)

Subscribe to future blog posts