Authors

Our Kickstarter went well, thanks to you all! Backer letters will go out over the weekend. Thank you so much!

In reply to Bill.

The ways of Amazon are inscrutable.

I’m lost, which series is Augustine from?/ I’ve read everything I don’t remember an Augustine? /Is Augustine someone from This Kingdom?

Augustine is the character from the Hidden Legacy series. We first meet him in Burn For Me, which is the first book.

A section of the wall slid aside. The receptionist looked at me. I stepped through the opening into a vast office. We must’ve been in a corner of the fin, because the wall to the left and straight ahead consisted of blue glass. A white, ultramodern desk grew seamlessly out of the floor. Behind the desk sat a man in a suit. His head was lowered as he read something on a small tablet, and all I could see was a thick head of dark blond hair styled into a short and no doubt expensive haircut.

I approached and stood by a white chair in front of the desk. Good suit, in that color between grey and true black people sometimes call gunmetal.

The man looked up at me. Sometimes people with talent in illusion minimized their physical flaws with their magic. Judging by his face, Augustine Montgomery was a Prime. His features were perfect, in the way Greek statues were perfect, the lines of his face masculine and crisp but never brutish. Clean-shaven, with a strong nose and a firm mouth, he had the type of beauty that made you stare. His skin nearly glowed, and his green eyes stabbed at you with sharp intelligence from behind nearly invisible eyeglasses. He probably had to have protective detail when he left the building to fend off all the sculptors who wanted to immortalize him in marble.

The glasses were a masterful touch. Without them, he’d be a god on a cloud, but the hair-thin frames let him keep one foot on the ground with us mere mortals.

“Mr. Montgomery,” I said. “My name is Nevada Baylor. You wanted to see me?”

Montgomery valiantly ignored the purple tint of bruises on my face.

“Sit down, please.”

He pointed to the chair. I sat.

“I have an assignment for you.”

Andrews, Ilona. Burn for Me: A Hidden Legacy Novel (pp. 29-30). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Is the baby tiger ok?

Who do you take us for? Yes, the baby tiger is okay. Nothing bad happens to Kitty.

Does this mean the series is now back, and we’ll have Arabella’s trilogy?

No. You get Augustine’s novella with bonus Arabella scenes and her shorts from the blog. No promises for anything else.

Will Beast Business be available from your direct store? Is it an exclusive? Will it be on Amazon, B&N etc?

Beast Business will be available from all the usual retailers and our store.

Which formats will Beast Business have? When will they be available?

We are starting with the ebook, print paperback, and audio to follow. Print will be shortly after or on the release date of the ebook, while the audio will be a few months out. We are looking for our perfect Augustine audio reader. As always, the price of the POD print edition will be horrendous, but we have to make at least $1 from each sale, or we will be taking a loss.

We will announce the exact dates as they come in.

Will the audiobook be traditional narration or dramatized? Dual POV?

The novella is dual POV but we have made no decisions in regard to audio yet. It is a shorter project and not all audio readers work on shorter projects, but we are in process of reviewing the auditions.

Is it really coming out this January? 2 weeks from now January?! Can it be true?

We are aiming for the tail end of January. It’s the matter of getting the edits done. If we miss this deadline, we will have to push it to summer, because we do not want it to intrude on This Kingdom publishing window. Nobody wants to wait till summer, so January it is.

When does BB happen in the timeline?

A couple of months after Baylors buy their house.

Is this the same artist as the Hidden Legacy special edition?

Yes! Helena is amazing.

Is this Augustine’s real face or Augustine as he illusions himself to look?

If only there was a novella that might explore that question and give us some answers.

Detail Police: Why is Diana not blonde? Why does the cub not have 4 nostrils and a tentacle collar and 4 eyes and is not blue? Are Augustine and Diana the same age, because she is older than Cornelius?

It is so nice to see you guys still being that passionate about the series. It warms my evil heart. Let’s take these one at a time. Diana is not blonde because she changed her hair, which you can find in the first snippet of this novella.

Zeus does not have four eyes.

A creature waited next to him, indigo blue, with a spray of ghostly black and paler blue rosettes and spots across its fur. At least two and a half feet tall at the shoulder, six feet long, with a thick neck crowned with a fringe of tendrils, a short wide muzzle with dagger teeth, and wide paws as big as my hand. It reminded me of a tiger.

Andrews, Ilona. Wildfire: A Hidden Legacy Novel (p. 90). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

and

There was something feline about it, something reminiscent of the broad powerful tiger, but its nose was a complicated thing of four nostrils, and the fringe of tentacles that ringed its neck moved on its own. The beast looked at me with an understanding, as if it was a lot smarter than any Earth animal. It was just odd. Really odd and unsettling.

Andrews, Ilona. Wildfire: A Hidden Legacy Novel (pp. 95-96). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

It’s hard to draw that kind of nose on a tiger, especially when it’s that small, and Kitty is very young, so the tentacles are still forming, which is explained in the novella. The tiger is most definitely blue. Some of you think she is white, but she is not.

This is a white dress/blue dress situation.

I will also pause here to say that right now every book cover – not an exaggeration – is accused of “being AI.” We made a conscious decision to keep Kitty as tiger-like as we could and gave that description to Helena, because if Kitty was drawn with four nostrils, some people would assume it was an AI-generated image gone wrong. The potential fallout to the art and to the book was not worth it.

Augustine and Diana are roughly the same age. At the beginning of the series, Augustine is in his very early thirties, while Cornelius is 28.

Also, this cover is gorgeous, but it cannot possibly match the mental image of every Hidden Legacy reader because there are tens of thousands of you. While Helena is definitely an art Prime, there is no magic like that.

When will GA rerecord the books with the new Augustine?

They will not be rerecording them. So many people worked on them and the original actor gave a wonderful performance. He is very talented and his performance was inspired. It’s more that Catalina’s trilogy will get a different Augustine.

I thought the novella was a serial?

No. We only posted a couple of snippets. Serials require so much time, and we are putting in over 2,000 words on This Kingdom #2 every day.

When is the Spanish edition coming?

Mod R tells me June 9th, but please check with Hidra directly.

We are seeing two audiobooks of Inheritance on sale.

Correct. We are doublechecking this, but this is probably caused by our distributor stepping in. Initially, the Inheritance audio was exclusive to Audible/Amazon but now, after 90 days passed, our distributor will pushing it to other retailers. You are seeing that preorder.

My Turn

Now I have a question for you. We had a bunch of how-to writing articles on the blog, which we mostly archived. I’m not great at teaching. First, I’m not an expert. I know how to write commercial fiction, but I have none of the education that would train me for explaining how to do it. Second, fiction is also strange. What works for one person doesn’t work for another. You can really damage people with feedback if they are not ready for it, and I feel like I do more harm than good.

However, Mod R mentioned that people are still looking for the articles. I can bundle them together for you into an ebook reference, if there is enough interest, but I would have to charge a couple of bucks for it to recoup the time investment and editing costs.

I think the topics were something like how to fold time, how to write a chase scene, difference between show don’t tell and passive voice, basic story structure, etc. We did a class one time on the worldbuilding based on economy, and I think I still have the write up for that somewhere. For those who are still asking about the alphahole article, I took it down ages ago and I don’t have a copy of it.

I don’t think there will be enough interest in any of this, but if you want it, we will consider putting it together. If you want it, let us know in the comments and tell us which topics you want to be covered.

The post All the Questions, Some of the Answers first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Last week, our septic system died. It had been giving us trouble for a while, making dyspeptic noises when we did the laundry or ran too much water through the pipes, draining too slowly, and generally seeming not well. You might say the whole thing crapped out on us. But shit happens….

We had someone come in to check it, and they told us the tank needed pumping. But when we had another someone come in to do that, they discovered that the tank, which is made out of cement, was broken, and had been KNOWN to be broken by the previous owners of the house, who had set up some weird makeshift patches over the broken section to hide or at least mitigate the problem. So, that was something of a pisser….

Then we had a third someone come in to remove the broken tank and replace it with one that, well, wasn’t broken. This was set to cost us a great deal of money — a butt-load, if you will. And they discovered that the broken tank was actually resting on a second tank, which was deeper in the ground. At which point, their already-substantial estimate ballooned further. That really stank. It felt like we were just flushing money down the toilet….

And actually, we had previously — as in just a couple of weeks ago — had to replace our hot water heater. Hence, you might say that the septic issues were our number two problem….

Okay, I’ll stop now with the terribly immature scatological humor. The septic problems were real — not something I made up to work in these awful jokes. Fortunately, the work is done, the expense has been borne, the bird feeders are back up, and the yard has been patched, though it will take a while for it to recover fully. The guys doing the tank replacement (who were great — professional, considerate, friendly, reliable, and determined to get the work done quickly) had to bring in some heavy equipment. There was nothing to be done about the lawn.

But that’s a small matter. Everything (for now) is working as it’s supposed to. You might even say that our problems are behind us now….

Enjoy your weekend!

 So, I hope everyone had a good holiday season. Mine was mixed.

Anyway, I am between books still and working on a bunch of print projects with my new Elegoo Centauri Carbon at the moment. But I sent Shelby 10 off to Rea and Goodlifeguide so, here is the first snippet!

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           Chapter 1

New Tau Metropolis

 

Vice Admiral Shelby Logan stared at the bulkhead. Things were coming together but not how she had hoped.

"Ma'am?" Boni asked carefully.

"Yes?"

"We recieved confirmation that General Sedu went to ground with the hostages. He's taken a chunk of the reservation aliens too, apparently to work as a slave workforce. He has dug into the Eastern Reserve Mountain Range. Apparently the area is riddled with caves and mines."

Shelby scowled and looked down and then to the window. "Damn it."

"This was not anticipated."

"No, it was," Shelby said with a shake of her head. "The grunts and jarheads knew that he might pull this shit—at least find a way to fight and possibly go down fighting. Taking the hostages was not something that was considered but should have been."

"Yes, ma’am," the AI stated, grateful that her principle was beginning to think properly again.

"Let the colonels know and give them whatever support that they need. We need to end this. Preferably without a bloodbath."

"Yes, ma’am."

Shelby inhaled and then exhaled slowly. After a moment, she shook herself. "The good news is that the grunts were in preparation of this contingency." There were hundreds of troops en route to T-15. But they were scattered in various ships in transit from various locations, some as far away as Agnosta in Rho Sector.

"Yes, ma’am. Pity about the timing, most of the line troops are in Sigma."

"Don't I know it," Shelby stated in disgust. "And it doesn't help that we've got penny packets of army reservists all over the sector with expensive bases and equipment but not the right sort of troops. All weekend warriors and engineers."

"Reservists can fight, ma'am. They have the basic training."

"I don't know; I never looked too deep into the grounder's training methods. Aren't most of them support personnel?"

"Yes, ma’am. Army Corps of Engineers, some SAR, MASH, logistics, training, recruiters … a few infantry units but none larger than a company. They are scattered as you mentioned."

Shelby shook her head. That was all thanks to the partisans in congress who had spread the love with the army at the expense of the navy when they had been blocking Admiral Irons’ rebuilding efforts after Horath blew up in everyone's faces. "My point stands."

She scowled. "Alert all commands to support any movements. If the Marines or army need transport, I want them moved within twenty-four hours if possible. Less is better."

"Aye aye, ma’am."

<<(O)>>

Lebynthos

 

As soon as the details began to come in, the 2 Colonels had their schedules changed so that they could sit down with each other and discuss it.

“Good news, Lobo is out of it and the navy has control of the star system.”

“With the exception of the ground,” Colonel Letterman said as he continued to study the report. His jaw flexed when he got to news about the hostages.

“So, worst case confirmed, you were right. He went to ground and took the hostages with him. Now we have to dig him out without rock bombing his ass into oblivion.”

“Exactly,” the army colonel said with a resigned shake of his head.

Brown eyes surveyed the army colonel. “You don’t look happy at being right,” the Neochimp said.

“That’s because I’m not,” Colonel Letterman sighed.  “This is going to be a bitch.”

“I know. Good news, Taurens do not like enclosed spaces.”

“True. But there is a ticking clock.”

Randy blinked. “Oh? Why the sense of urgency? The hostages are still in their pods right?”

“Exactly.”

The Neochimp Marine’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Exactly?”

“The pods. They have a limited battery life. Unless they are hooked to an external power source.”

“Um… shouldn’t they last for like, centuries? Like Admiral Irons did?”

“Admiral Irons was in a life pod. These stasis pods are for long term movement of people. The batteries are purely there as a backup and for when they are moved around. Remember what they said about the death of the Pele refugees?”

The Neochimp blinked and then his eyes flared wide in surprise and consternation. “Shit!”

“Right. The Pele refugees died because some idiot shut the power off and the batteries shut off after a few months.”

“Oh frack…”

“We don’t have years to starve him out. Months at best.”

“Damn it…”

“Right.”

“Do the powers that be know this?”

Colonel Letterman looked up to the ceiling. “You know, that is a damn good question.”

<<(O)>>

Celebrate the launch of Twelve Months with Jim on Reddit with an “Ask Me Anything” event!

…Not to mention all the stretch goals. Yes, we’re running a Make 100 Kickstarter, and it ends today. So, if you were thinking about getting 100 detective stories in all genres, you’re almost out of time. Fifty of the stories are mine, and fifty are Dean’s. Plus any extras that came with the Kickstarter itself.

(And if you signed up for my newsletter, you got two more.)

If you want a sample, read my Free Fiction Monday story, “Helmie.”  Last week’s free fiction story was also from the book, but alas, free fiction vanishes from my site when I post the new one. However, if you read it last week, you might remember…

Anyway, the Kickstarter with all of its deals on books and workshops will vanish at 7 p.m. PST tonight. So click here for your last chance to get all the good deals.

Updates on the Wrath & Desire book release in February, including pre-order links, details on maps and dictionaries, ARC team info, and a bonus story I'll be including.

Fiends, Ronams, Countymen, Lend me your paws!

Oooh, I think it might be time to develop a drinking problem.

You’re not wrong.

I have no problem. I drink, I fall down, I sleep, it’s basically the state motto.

Why are your paws spinning? Or…is that just me?

Enter here to win a Kindle copy of Twelve Months!
Open to United States Residents. See website for rules and conditions.

My neighbor across the street wants flowers blooming in her front yard from spring until the end of summer. To do so, she’s planted dozens of tulips, daffodil, California poppies, wildflowers, and other random bloomers.

Her yard is bright and colorful for months.

Autumn is creeping in, though—just the breath of it cooling the breeze and tempering the sunshiny days. Her flowers have done their job spectacularly, but now their colors have faded.

I love autumn, I do. But seeing her yard go fallow made me realize summer went by far too quickly. I stood at my gate wondering if I had enjoyed the sun enough. Had I drank lemonade, dipped my feet into lakes, rivers, oceans? Had I taken time to run through a sprinkler, sleep outside beneath a wide starry sky, told the people I love just how much I love them as we laughed and sang old songs?

Had I savored it enough, the sweet summer-ness of summer?

I’m happy to say YES! I did all those things! Summer was wonderful. I mean, Life has still been Life, with happy days and really sad days, hard things and joys. But time moves us all forward, and the seasons are turning once again.

I think this autumn I’ll take a hint from my neighbor. I have buckets of daffodil, iris, and tulip bulbs down in the shed. Maybe it’s time to plant them, a small hope—a promise—of more sweet summers to come.

Worldcon was a very fun experience for me this year! Here I am on day 1, waiting in the registration line. Even though I arrived just after noon on Wednesday, it took an hour for me to make it to the front of the line and there were even more people arriving behind me.

I headed straight to the dealers’ room, and was happily shopping all the tables (So Many books and authors present!) when I heard a familiar voice. Who should I see but…

the fabulous, amazing author (and terrific friend!) Nina Kiriki Hoffman!! We strolled more of the dealers room together and eventually went out for a bowl of chowder at Pike Place Chowder.

I’d just had a bowl of Mo’s Chowder a few days before, and sorry, Mo’s, Pike Place Chowder was the superior bowl.

I can’t quite remember the order of things but eventually Nina and I ended up going to Martha Wells Q&A session:

I thought it was a wonderful Q&A, and that Martha had thoughtful, interesting comments about her writing process, what she’s writing next, and even a bit of what she would take away from the Murderbot show and possibly use in her upcoming work (it’s the costuming, and how the people from Preservation leave obvious patches on their clothing to acknowledge both injuries and recovery.)

I finally caught up with my fabulous roommate (and writer friend) Diana Pharaoh Francis by the evening and if I remember right, we talked for hours and called it a day.

These were the signed books I gave away to folk on my Patreon last year:

We also have an active discord.

For higher tier Patrons I do consults and chapter critiques.

Also social media follows, early signed copies of upcoming books, and tuckerisation into new novels.

In addition, I have a collection of unpublished work including 7 books and numerous short stories that tier 3+ patrons can access.

So ... check it out!

Patreon is a great way to support authors and get involved in their work at a deeper level.

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.

Back in late 2023 I started writing something, and in early 2024 that something was a complete book, called The Bookshop Book. 

In this post in late 2024 I was offering folk on my Patreon access to it.

The book centres on a bookshop called ... Books.

The name is explained not as a lack of imagination on the owner's part but by the fact that the proprietor's surname is Books, and Books's Books felt rather too much for him.

All good so far.

Today a Facebook advert alerted me to a new TV series called Bookish about to drop 2 days from now. Here's a still from the trailer:

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the bookshop (around which this series is set) is called Book's.

Moreover, it turns out that it bears this name because the proprietor (the star of the show) is a Mr Book...

So - I now expect that when The Bookshop Book hits the shelves in 2026, if Bookish turns out to be a popular show, I will be accused of copying from it.

And the point of this blogpost is simply to flag the coincidence at work here. 

Ironically, The Bookshop Book is tangentially related to The Library Trilogy, and in both works I talk about how the Library uses the currents of coincidence to bring interested parties together and manipulate the world. Coincidence?

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It’s been a minute since I’ve been here. I’ll be blogging more often to keep folks updated, so here we go!

First bit of news: HOUSE IMMORTAL (ebook) is now re-released with a new cover! Book two and three (INFINITY BELL and CRUCIBLE ZERO) also have new covers and are up for preorder!

Good news! I’m writing a new series set in the town of Ordinary, Oregon. It’s funny, cozy fantasy with a dash of mystery. It features new characters, and of course, many of the favorites from the Ordinary Magic series. If things go to plan, you’ll see the first three of those books out this year!

Am I knitting? Yes, of course! I made this cute little car hat for a kiddo who loves cars:

and I also tried my hand at crochet, and made the same kiddo a race track rug:

That’s it for now, friends. More new soon, so stay tuned, and happy reading!!

It’s here! It’s out! Wayward Devils, Book 4 in the Souls of the Road series is available in ebook and print!

Apple Kobo Amazon Barnes & Noble

Cursed to follow Route 66 for nearly a hundred years, Brogan and Lula Gauge have made a deal with Cupid to find the spellbook of the Gods—a book powerful enough to destroy the world.

But they aren’t the only ones looking for it.

The evil goddess, Atë, has already tried to kill them once to get the book, and now Brogan and Lula must race to find it before Atë finds them and finishes the job.

Luckily, a coven of honkey tonk witches in Shamrock, Texas claims to know where the book is hidden. But their information comes at a great price. Brogan and Lula must help the witches kill an ancient monster. To do so, they will have to form an alliance with an old enemy who wants the Gauges dead.  

Brogan and Lula’s luck is turning, but whether it’s good or bad teeters on a knife’s edge: trust the devils they know, or go all in with the wayward devils they’ve just met.

This book was a lot of fun to write, especially when a few favorite characters from Ordinary, Oregon showed up, as did a certain Crossroads I rather like. I’m SO EXCITED to share it with you all!

Happy reading!!!

(more book and writing news soon…stay tuned!)

The fabulous people over at Graphic Audio have put Brute of All Evil on sale for 60% off. That means you can get this audio, fully performed like a radio play by multiple voice actors and special effects and all the other bells and whistles, for LESS THAN THE PAPERBACK PRICE.

That, my friends, is a terrific deal. Sale will end soon, so get your hands on it soon-ish!

While we can certainly be forgiven for not seeing our personal wounds as jewels, our most powerful wounds often have as many facets and hidden depths as an exquisitely cut gemstone. They are sharp, with hard edges that not only reflect back light but distort it somewhat.

As writers, we know that our character’s wounds are some of the most fertile ground for creating a rich, fully realized protagonist. But before we can explore this with our characters, we have to understand it ourselves. And because we have all been wounded in some way—and those places are always tender—it can be uncomfortable to look too closely.

In order to use our characters’ wounds to full effect, we need to understand that wounds aren’t simply an attribute to be filled in on a worksheet. They are the rocket fuel for our character’s backstory, the backstory that drives their motivation and colors their world. It must be deeply organic to that character and so intricately woven into their emotional DNA that it distorts the way the see the world and themselves.

While everyone’s wounds are uniquely theirs, they are also universal in that they’re something we all share.  What differs is their nature, how we carry them, and the many—often unexpected—ways they shape us and our behavior.

Because of course the impact of any given wound isn’t limited to that initial injury. I was reminded of that last week when I was out walking and twisted my ankle. It was nothing serious, but by the time I’d limped around favoring it for a day or two, everything else was out of whack as I contorted my body to accommodate the injury.

Emotional wounds are just like that, only worse by orders of magnitude.

Even when we know our character’s painful past, we often don’t use it to full effect. We don’t manage to weave into the very essence of who our character is—because make no mistake, wounds fundamentally shape us, especially those incurred in childhood when we are so defenseless. With wounds of the heart or soul—the ones that violate some deep fundamental part—it is the repercussions of that initial wound that create the most scarring. The blame, the self-doubt, the suffocating shame, all serve as a way to cut us off from our core self.

Emotional neglect, a betrayal, a rejection, a lie, are all painful enough, but often become the lens through which we see ourselves. We accept that rejection. Believe that lie. Justify the betrayal due to something fundamentally flawed within us rather than the betrayer. Or worse, we don’t see it as a betrayal at all, but simple evidence of how flawed and unlovable we really are.

The emotionally abandoned child believes they are undeserving of love.

The abused believes they deserve the abuse, that love will always hurt and often comes coated in shame.

The child of addicts learns to fundamentally mistrust the safety and stability of the world around them.

The child raised in a religion that vilifies all human behavior will inevitably see themselves as sinful and unworthy.

Any kind of abuse—emotional, physical, sexual—is often the starting point for a long, twisted, distorted journey from our true selves. And our worldview takes shape around that bad information we’ve deduced because of it.

One of the biggest challenges we face as writers is how to hook our reader emotionally and forge a connection in those first few pages without becoming the literary equivalent of the stranger in the checking line, blurting out every gory detail of the drama of their lives without even having been asked.

The secret, I think, is to show or hint at the character’s contortions and defense mechanisms that have sprung up around that deeper wound. As readers, we’re trained to look for clues and hints, so we’ll spot those coping mechanisms and be intrigued—we’ll want to know why.

So as writers, we need to ask ourselves: In what ways does our character limp through the world? How do they favor that wounded place inside? What distorted belief do they cling to with both hands?  What ways do they disassociate from parts of themselves that brush too closely to that wound? In what ways do they wear their wound like a chip on their shoulder, insisting to the world it has made them tough, impervious to future wounding?

And why are these characters indelibly scarred by these events, when others might brush them off or take them in stride?

I believe the answer to that last question is that because for some, the psychic soil has been well prepared and cultivated—their soil broken down and covered in so much manure before the wound even shows up—that the individual is supremely susceptible to the final blow.

But what about characters who don’t have a tragic or traumatic event in their past?  What about lesser, garden variety wounds? The kind we acquire from the simple life lessons of growing older or growing up? Because the majority of the time, these shaping wounds are incurred early in life—either in our childhood, teen, or early adult years.

These less traumatic experiences still shape us, although to what degree will vary widely from character to character and will depend on things like the psychic equivalent of adrenaline, momentum, individual pain thresholds, and how cultivated the soil was.

We all have memories from our childhood, of playing with other kids, either on the playground or in the neighborhood, then taking a fall, skinning our knee or scraping an elbow. Chances are we bounced right up and kept on going, utterly impervious to any pain. At least until it was time to come inside and wash up for dinner. THEN we could feel that sucker throbbing and stinging.

Science has also shown that pain thresholds within the same person vary depending on how stressed our systems are. When we are under chronic stress, our body produces a lot more of some chemicals and fewer of others. The reformulation of our brain chemistry intensifies pain response—both physical and emotional.

So even if the story you’re writing does not involve characters with large traumatic wounds in their past, common everyday wounds can be equally fertile ground for deepening character.

• Why does a character have a gambling problem?
• A shopping addiction?
• Why are they terrified of clowns? Cats? Blimps?
• Why do they feel the need to be perfect?
• So competitive?

Each of those behaviors could be fueled by either a traumatic wound or a common every day one. It is the tone and theme of your story that will decide which it should be. Or rather I should say, it is the nature of your character’s wounds that will determine the tone and theme of your story.

We are often our own worst enemy—there is no denying that. Many writers feel that their character is his own antagonist, and that is likely true. Our desperation to avoid acknowledging our wounds, to avoid awakened that old pain and our deeply held beliefs about the nature of that pain are often an enormous component of getting in the way of our own happiness. It is hard and scary to look that deeply inside and reorient our world view, even it if ultimately frees us. It is scary to be thrust back into the same powerlessness and vulnerability we had in that moment. That is why we need stories to show us how.

Some of our character’s most transformative moments will come from facing those wounds, freeing themselves from the weight of them, and beginning the healing process. And of course, the stories we write aren’t about the wounds—but how we can overcome them.

We need stories to show us that being wounded or broken doesn’t lessen our character’s—or our own—humanity in any way. It is, in fact, what make us deeply human. The best stories show us that having been wounded doesn’t mean we are less than, or broken beyond repair, or unworthy. Instead, they illuminate all the different shapes wounds can take and the many different paths to healing that await us, if only we have the courage to look.

Do you know your character’s defining wounds? Can you brainstorm three to four ways these wounds create behaviors that readers can see on the page?

 

(Originally published on Writer Unboxed April 13, 2018)

 

Hoping to find an ally from the convent, Sybella instead discovers yet another initiate who has been misled and misused by the former abbess of Saint Mortain. But with long held secrets exposed and allegiances revealed, Sybella must form an uneasy trust borne of desperation to combat enemies at the French court who would have them branded as traitors and heretics.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed—that is Genevieve’s growing fear. Though she may have been a fool, she is no coward and will do whatever it takes to set things right and ensure her Queen’s—and Sybella’s—safety. It will take all of Genevieve’s strength of will and cunning, along with Sybella’s willingness to embrace her growing power. But even that may not be enough.

Plans fail, fragile loyalties are tested, and bridges burn in this riveting conclusion to the Courting Darkness duology. Here, the Daughters of Death finally embrace the full depth of their power—and try to make whole that which has been broken, including themselves.

 

Want to read more? You’re in luck! My publisher is providing an e-sampler of the first eleven chapters. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it! (And if you get so excited that you feel like pre-ordering the book–be sure to save your receipts! There will be a pre-order gift. Details coming soon!)

As I wrote Dark Triumph, I wanted to be sure and populate the book with some of the colorful characters from the Middle Ages that I had come across in my research, and yet it had to feel organic to the story and not wedged in there.

As Sybella and the wounded knight were racing through the countryside, trying to escape pursuit, I had to do some serious thinking as to who they would actually run in to, and of those people, who would help, who would hinder, and who would turn them in in a heartbeat for a reward. Since they would need to slip into the forest to evade capture, I decided to draw from those who lived in the forests or obtained their livelihood from the woods, and settled upon a group of charcoal burners.

Oddly, it is often the outcasts in society who are most accepting of other outcasts. Their very disenfranchisement sometimes makes them more willing to challenge the status quo or thumb their nose at rigid authority. While charcoal burners were not (probably) true outcasts, they did keep to themselves somewhat, confined by their livelihood to dwelling in forests and tending their charcoal fires rather than living in cities or villages.

In the middle ages, one of the most efficient fuels at the time was charcoal. Coal itself was rare and difficult to mine with their technology, but charcoal could be made through the slow burning of wood, then stopping the process before the wood was fully burned to ash. Charcoal burning was a tricky thing, requiring fairly esoteric knowledge of how to build the fire pits just so, how to pile the wood so it wouldn’t burn too quickly, and how to read the smoke to discern when the charcoal was ready. There were a number of occupational hazards, primarily involving collapsed fire pits and burns. It was also an occupation full of hazard, for a stray spark or ember could start a conflagration in minutes.

As I continued to research charcoal burners, I came across a curious mention of the Carbonnari, a branch of Italian charcoal burners. They started off as a guild, as many medieval trades did, and developed into an organization or brotherhood similar to Freemansons, only with their charcoal burning trade being at the center of their rituals and organizations. While their organization and political involvement was most evident in 19th century Italy, it is believed the groups’ origins began in the middle ages. When I learned they had a French counterpart called the Charbonnerie, I knew I’d found my outcasts.

As a writer, a dozen questions immediately went off in my mind. Who were they? What would compel them to become political and engage themselves in the affairs of the kingdom? How would they make those decisions? And, most importantly in a world populated with patron saints, whom would they worship?

Any deviation from normal church doctrine in the middle ages was rigorously opposed, so it made sense to me that they would worship someone not approved by the church, one of the older gods who’d not make the transition to patron saint.

Dovetailing nicely with this was my personal fascination with the concept of the Black Madonna. There are various theories for the origin of the Black Madonna, whether it was simply the color of Jesus and Mary’s skin before Renaissance artists reimagined them as fair skinned and blonde, or an origin that spoke to possible African roots. There is some speculation that the huge popularity of the cult of the Virgin Mary in the middle ages was a redirecting of earlier earth/mother goddess worship.

But interestingly, over the years I’d also run into mentions of the Black Artemis, rumored to have been worshipped by the Amazons, or Black Demeter, the aspect of the earth goddess when she was in deep mourning for her daughter Persephone. I took all those threads and swirled them around until I had the Dark Matrona, the unsanctioned aspect of Dea Matrona, the former earth goddess now patron saint. I decided that her darkness would be of a more spiritual nature, not unlike the Egyptian god Osiris, for in the Egyptian pantheon, black was not only the color of the underworld, but regeneration as the rich dark silt from the Nile river allowed them to grow their crops each year, and so black was also the color of regeneration, which dovetailed nicely with the book’s themes of finding hope in the darkness.