Novel Writing Program - Modules And Consults

Story Statement – Blast Furnace Dennis Blackmon Investigator Margaret Loughlin must solve the mystery of the plane crash and live to escape Colombia and reveal the truth. Antagonist Sketch A middle-class outcast at his Connecticut Prep School, Brett Crenshaw hated his privileged classmates. He is determined to join the ruling class. He graduates with honors from Harvard and marries a Senator’s daughter. His father-in-law gets Brett appointed as Ambassador to Columbia. Brett, however, cannot remain faithful to his wife and she leaves him. Now his father-in-law wants to destroy him. Desperate, Brett brilliantly orchestrates conflict and generates income from the drug trade. He knows time is running out. He manipulates the deputy ambassador’s wife, Mandy, into relapsing on cocaine, has her arrested, and blackmails her into trafficking cocaine. When an American spy plane intercepts communications between rebel leaders, Brett leaks the story to the press, orders a Stinger missile, and has the Stinger delivered to a paramilitary group in the jungle. He forces Mandy to bring him the flight plan of the spy plane from her husband’s office. The paramilitary shoots down the plane with the Stinger. When Investigator Margaret Loughlin tells Brett about missing American soldiers, and that the crash wasn’t pilot error, he decides to silence her and eliminate the soldiers. Brett flies to Paraguay to run his cocaine cartel. Titles 1. Twisted Metal Tombstone 2. Canopy of Lies 3. Last Known Contact Comparable Novels 1. Don Winslow, The Cartel (too much?) 2. Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Fruit of the Drunken Tree (Also too big?) 3. Bonnar Spring, Toward the Light 4. Tina Wainscott, One Last Promise Hook Line – Logline A troubled aircraft accident investigator on the verge of being fired must solve the mystery of why a spy plane crashed in Colombia, escape the forces who want to silence her, and live to expose the truth. Inner Conflict In my story, twenty-seven-year-old Investigator Margaret Loughlin is a hot-headed aircraft accident specialist who was almost fired once before. Her boss and mentor, Harrison Burr, has been like a father to her since her own father died. He assigned her to investigate this crash in Colombia. She thought it was because he believed in her abilities and that he had confidence in her. After a brief tour of the debris field, she expressed her initial theory to the Deputy ambassador, Eugene Norwood, that the plane appeared to have broken apart prior to impact with the ground. His reaction and words cut her to the core. An excerpt from the novel is below: Norwood wasn’t finished. He pointed across the aisle to Margaret and said, “Don’t you tell Ambassador Crenshaw or anybody else that bullshit or you may never work in government again. Crenshaw has pull, you know. I think you need to fly on out of here when we get back to El Dorado International and we’ll do our own investigation. It was a mistake bringing you here in the first place. Fucking Crenshaw wanting to do some political hack a favor.” Norwood had to stop because he was out of breath. Margaret froze with shame. Harrison had to call in a favor? I’m that toxic, she thought. And now I’ve just gone off on the next ambassador. Her swagger was gone. She felt like the air had all gone out of her body. The men stared at her. Margaret feels like a charity case, a pitiful step-child, sent to rubber-stamp whatever these men concluded. Maybe Harrison didn’t have any confidence in her. He just sent her down here after asking the current ambassador if he could do him a favor and take her off his hands for a few weeks. No one really wanted her opinion, and no one respected her expertise. The fact that Harrison was a father figure made the slight hurt more acutely, personally as well as professionally. Secondary Conflict In my story, Margaret is assisted by the Chief of Missions from the embassy. His name is Gabriel Colón. He is from Puerto Rico and he works for the State Department and the CIA. During their dangerous journey, Margaret begins to have feelings for Gabriel. He is brave, handsome, and skilled. She and Gabriel hide in the house of an old friend of his, Julia, and the following takes place: Margaret asked, “So, how do you know Gabriel?” Before Julia could answer, Gabriel came back in the kitchen. His face showed the strain of the deteriorating situation. This evening was a welcome respite, but Margaret knew they were still in grave danger, as were one or two American airmen. Gabriel said, “Julia, darling, could Margaret sleep in the spare room. I’ll take the couch.” “What, you two not together?” said Julia. Then, looking straight at Margaret, Julia said, “Why not?” Margaret felt a flush. Why not? No. Why did Julia say that? Gabriel answered quickly, “It’s not . . . uh.” Margaret blushed, “Oh, we are not – I don’t even . . . uh” She babbled like a middle school girl with a crush. Her face burned red with shyness. She looked at Gabriel for help. Why did she feel embarrassed? She was a grown-ass woman, but she struggled to look Julia in the eye. “Margaret and I - we work together,” said Gabriel. Julia looked at the two of them and laughed. Margaret was relieved. But is that all we are? Is that really what he thinks we are? We work together? Margaret swung about to escape into the spare bedroom, cut her eyes over her shoulder at Gabriel and said, “Call me Maggie. Yes, well, good night, then,” and disappeared into the room, alone. Setting This novel is set almost entirely in Colombia, one of the most dangerous countries in the world in 1999. The scenes are set as follows: In the canopy of the rainforest where the pilot hangs when her parachute is caught in the tree tops. She gets out of her parachute, down the tree, and into the rainforest. Her travels through the vines, shrubs, ferns, rivers, and mountains challenge her resolve. Further, the forest is full of rebels and paramilitary groups who would do her harm. She rescues one of her crew from a rebel camp deep in the jungle. On the side of a mountain where the plane crashed, Margaret must inspect the muddy debris field and the broken bodies of the dead crew. She encounters a village that has been destroyed by the paramilitary, passing by burning body parts and tortured deceased villagers. She also has scenes in Bogota at her hotel, in restaurants, in a private home, and at the embassy. She and Gabriel are captured by the paramilitary group and Margaret is taken to a room to be tortured, but a sudden gun battle outside spares her and she escapes. Some scenes involving her boss, Harrison, take place in and around Washington DC. I hope the exotic setting of the Colombian jungle, combined with the inherent danger of being killed, kidnapped, or worse by enemies all around will enhance the drama of my thriller.

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I find that the possibilities within paranormal fiction are endless. For example, a ghost can linger on our plane of existence in order to wrap up any unfinished business they may have before moving on. Their unfinished business could result from a traumatic experience in their personal lives, or even their death itself. The classic trope is usually that the ghost was once a person who was slain, and now they haunt the location where they were killed. And it goes without saying that they won't let up until they have the satisfaction that justice has been done. Simple. What if the ghost was kind and good-natured as they were in their corporal life? They may choose to remain on earth because they willingly do so in order to assist in the care and provision of loved ones who are still among the living after they have passed away. They could warn the lovers of an adversary or inform the next victim before plotting their revenge. The ghost doesn't even have a personal connection to the main character at all. It's possible that the protagonist will get hurt because of the ghost's haunting. For instance, a ghost may be destined to continue haunting the location where they died until they can discover the name of the person who murdered them. Therefore, anytime anybody goes to the location, the ghost appears in all of their gruesome splendor to plead for help, terrifying the living daylights out of whoever is present at the time. I know that is a bit dramatic, but it has been done. The majority of ghosts search for answers, for justice, and for a conclusion to their unresolved issues. But let’s be honest, some ghosts are just jerks. They were bullies in life and death, or these ghosts have become so bitter as a result of their plight that they have given up all prospects of ever finding peace. All they want to do is cause as much anguish as they themselves have experienced. So now that you want to use a ghost in your work, it needs a physical setting. If you don’t ghost hunt like me, you may want to use the old tried and true locations where ghosts are found. Many supernatural ghosts are said to haunt (or be "connected to") one of several distinct categories of items, including the following: A room, structure, or location where they passed away. I have investigated homes, prisons, asylums, battlefields, and hospitals to name a few. Within an item that held significance for them or played a significant role in the manner in which they passed away. The most common objects that I found to have attachments are dolls, masks, jewelry, clothing, and portraits. Wherever the person they are attached to happens to be. If the person who is haunted is very unfortunate, the ghost may be able to materialize at virtually any time and in any location. For example, I have been on investigations at various locations, and entities from one location will follow the investigator to the next and call them by name. Obviously, the entity that can follow a person is pretty impressive. An entity like that should have a remarkable skill set. They should be able to pass through solid matter, enter people's dreams, possess and control other people, manipulate physical things like electricity, or take on a physical shape. These abilities must be consistent throughout the novel or develop over time as the entity grows more comfortable with its abilities. But how does my antagonist get rid of it? Well, that’s assuming your antagonist wants to rid themselves of it and that the entity is not the antagonist. You probably already knew this, but in order for a ghost to be laid to rest, their unfinished business needs to be taken care of first. You must: Discover the cause of their deaths. Put their killer in jail Reveal the secret that died with the ghost.

Donut Fall in Love RECOMMENDED: Donut Fall in Love by Jackie Lau is $1.99! Catherine gave this one a Squee grade: It is such a perfectly balanced book, too. It doesn’t just skim over the surface of difficult things, but it also doesn’t drag you down into the depths of grief, either. I loved that it is such a light, funny, hot read, but also a story that invites reflection. A baker provides the sweetest escape for an actor in this charming romantic comedy. Actor Ryan Kwok is back in Toronto after the promotional tour for his latest film, a rom-com that is getting less-than-stellar reviews. After the sudden death of his mother and years of constant work, Ryan is taking some much-needed time off. But as he tries to be supportive to his family, he struggles with his loss and doesn’t know how to talk to his dad—who now trolls him on Twitter instead of meeting him for dim sum. Innovative baker Lindsay McLeod meets Ryan when he knocks over two dozen specialty donuts at her bakery. Their relationship is off to a messy start, but there’s no denying their immediate attraction. When Ryan signs up for a celebrity episode of Baking Fail, he asks Lindsay to teach him how to bake and she agrees. As Lindsay and Ryan spend time together, bonding over grief and bubble tea, it starts to feel like they’re cooking up something sweeter than cupcakes in the kitchen. Add to Goodreads To-Read List → You can find ordering info for this book here. She Who Became the Sun She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is $2.99! This is an epic fantasy and the first book in a duology. It reimagines the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Definitely check trigger and content warnings for this one as I heard it can be pretty dark. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles in Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun, a bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from an amazing new voice in literary fantasy. To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything. “I refuse to be nothing…” In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness… In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate. After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness. Add to Goodreads To-Read List → You can find ordering info for this book here. Last Tang Standing Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho is $1.99! This, I think, is more women’s fiction than romance and is a Kindle Daily Deal. Shana reviewed this one and gave it a D+, finding it rather mean-spirited. Did you read this one? Crazy Rich Asians meets Bridget Jones’s Diary in this laugh-out-loud funny and irresistible debut novel in diary form about the pursuit of love, surviving one’s thirties intact, and the endless tug-of-war between pleasing one’s family and pleasing oneself. Andrea Tang seems to have it all: an enviable job as a high-profile lawyer at one of Singapore’s most esteemed firms, a swanky apartment, and the best friends a woman could ask for. According to her mother and her Auntie Wei Wei, Tang family matriarch and holder of the purse strings to a sizeable fortune, that leaves just one thing missing: a husband. After all, at thirty-three, she’s not getting any younger. When Andrea discovers that even Auntie Wei Wei’s notoriously unattached daughter has gotten engaged, she realizes she’s become what she fears the most: the Last Tang Standing, lone singleton in a sea of married Tangs. Andrea might be an independent career woman who doesn’t need a man to buy her the Birkin bags she loves, but she’s also a Chinese daughter who’s keenly aware that nothing in the world can pay off the debt of filial guilt. Luckily, options–and eye candy–abound in her quest to find Mr. Right-for-her-parents. There’s Suresh, her annoyingly attractive rival at the firm. There’s Eric Deng, the older, super-wealthy entrepreneur whose vision for their future entails sacrifices Andrea isn’t sure she’s willing to make. And, of course, there’s Tinder. In diary entries as rollickingly self-deprecating as they are searingly astute, LAST TANG STANDING follows Andrea through bad dates, questionable decisions, friendship drama, career competition, and intense familial pressure. And it reminds readers that the road to happiness might be unpredictable, but there’s always room to enjoy the ride. Add to Goodreads To-Read List → You can find ordering info for this book here. The Guinevere Deception The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White is $1.99! I talked about this in a previous Hide Your Wallet and it’s really gorgeous in person. I bought it from my local indie, but of course, it’s sitting in a stack somewhere. From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes a new fantasy series reimagining the Arthurian legend, set in the magical world of Camelot. There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl. Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution–send in Guinevere to be Arthur’s wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king’s idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere’s real name–and her true identity–is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot. To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old–including Arthur’s own family–demand things continue as they have been, and the new–those drawn by the dream of Camelot–fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur’s knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free. Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself? Add to Goodreads To-Read List → You can find ordering info for this book here. View the full article

“She calls them messages from the deep. Not the voices of individuals. These are the voices of cities. Cities sometimes speak through people. Did you know that cities speak through people? Well, of course you do. You’re always trying to feed yours lines… I suppose, even I can hear the cities talking, sometimes…” Nikhil Singh’s Club Ded is a remarkable and original work of near-future post-cyberpunk science fiction. Set in a media-saturated South Africa inhabited by washed-out movie stars, prescient drug cults and itinerant pickpockets, Singh’s novel is a hallucinogenic masterpiece and a brilliantly brutal dissection of neo-colonialism. Operating in a cyberpunk milieu reminiscent of Pat Cadigan, Singh expertly weaves together a complicated plot with a dizzying array of characters. The novel is told in a unique way, Singh’s sharp staccato prose and quick changes in perspective recalling the jump-cuts that made 90s music videos so frenetic. In less assured hands the book would be in danger of being a mess, but Singh is an artist in masterful control of his material. Challenging, disorienting, and full of dark humour, Club Ded is a vital and urgent work of speculative fiction and signals Singh’s arrival as an exciting voice in the genre. In the 90s, Brick Bryson was an iconic African-American action movie star, his leading role in Delany Croeser’s hugely popular high-concept sci-fi film Game Over earning him both popularity and artistic respect. Now he’s a has-been, just coming out of rehab. So when his old drinking buddy Croeser invites him to come to South African and help out with the filming of the latest film in the franchise, Club Ded, Brick sees an opportunity to get his career back on track. He soon finds himself trying to save a disaster of a film and wrangle the franchise’s new stars, talented but surly Sasha Styles and the young and beautiful Delilah Lex who is in an inappropriate relationship with Croeser. What he doesn’t realise is that Croeser is involved in more than just an indefinitely delayed Hollywood sequel. Oracle, Inc., an all-female intelligence gathering operation, is spreading the influence of a psychedelic drug that allows users to see the future, and their operatives Jennifer, Anita and V are connected to Croeser’s film. Fortunato, a prodigiously talented Nigerian indie film director turned drug dealer, is flooding Cape Town with this drug, whilst disillusioned ex-New Yorker Ziq helps him manufacture it in between indulging his kleptomania and his deranged friend Jaybird’s pyromania. There is a real Club Ded, a secret realm of lawless abandon that makes even Cape Town look tame by comparison, and as the various characters struggle to figure out what’s going on, events spiral out of everyone’s control. Singh vividly paints a picture of near-future Cape Town through his cast of varied characters. Club Ded’s characters are frequently unsympathetic and some of them are truly monstrous, but they are all fully developed and believable as people. Singh takes time to make sure that you understand where these characters come from, and why they are making the choices they make, so that even his most reprehensible characters we understand. His characters come from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds, which crucially gives us multiple views of the complexity of the society he is depicting. As his characters point out, South Africa still exists under the shadow of apartheid, and Singh expertly dissects how in many ways the attitudes, prejudices and tensions of apartheid never went away. Singh unflinchingly dissects the massive racial and material divides that still hold sway over South Africa, from the privileged wealthy white people from overseas who come to exploit the country’s cheap labour and feel the thrill of exoticism, to the wealthy white South Africans with their entrenched racism, to the black and white poor struggling to survive amongst the crime and corruption. There is an incredible scene in which most of the main characters are sharing a limousine, each of them talking about how they see South Africa, which largely boils down to how they can exploit it. The real, secret Club Ded is the grotesque endpoint of the neocolonial dream, a realm devoid of any kind of laws or regulation that exists as a playground for the rich and callous. Club Ded is a brilliant reflection of our media-saturated present. Like all the best cyberpunk writers, Singh understands that mass media can be a uniquely powerful form of social control. Singh uses cinema as a metaphor, a theme and a structuring device all in one, his novel taking on the heightened reality of a film to explore the ways in which our experiences with media, be they film or the internet, shape our consensus reality. In Club Ded, information is currency, because how much you know completely changes how you perceive what you’re looking at. Hence why Oracle, Inc. sets up its predatory helplines to monitor the psychic undercurrent of the city, and why all of the novel’s characters feel the irresistible pull of Fortunato’s psychedelic drug that can reveal the future. Singh brilliantly plays this trick across the whole of the novel, his deft misdirection ensuring that the reader does not know what they are looking at until the dramatic reveal. All of this might make Club Ded sound overly technical, but Singh populates his book with fascinating characters, all of whom have satisfying character arcs. From Jennifer’s fear of the premonition of her own death that she receives whilst under the influence of the drug, to Ziq’s doomed attempt to find meaning and belonging, to Brick’s own struggles with his own worst tendencies, Singh somehow brings all these characters to where they need to be, in tandem with the book’s shocking twists and clever resolution. For all of the novel’s density and complexity, it still manages to centre the humanity of its characters. Club Ded is a challenging book, disorienting even to seasoned readers of speculative fiction, but the rewards of following Singh through are more than ample. It is a novel that deals with high concept SFnal ideas and cutting social observation alike, written in a unique and adventurous literary style by an artist with remarkable skill and control. It is a book that deserves to be widely read and discussed, and I look forward to wherever Singh’s muse takes him next. The post CLUB DED by Nikhil Singh (BOOK REVIEW) appeared first on The Fantasy Hive. View the full article

Nils and Beth were very kindly sent proofs of Claire North’s upcoming novel Ithaca from Nazia at Orbit Books, so we thought it was the perfect opportunity for another buddy read! From the multi-award-winning author Claire North comes a daring reimagining that breathes life into ancient myth and gives voice to the women who stand defiant in a world ruled by ruthless men. It’s time for the women of Ithaca to tell their tale . . . . Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus’ empty throne—not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit, and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive. This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca’s shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women—and their goddesses— that will change the course of the world. Ithaca is expected for release on 6th September 2022 and is available to pre-order HERE What were your expectations for this novel? Nils: Well, I haven’t actually read many Greek Mythological Retellings such as The Song of Achilles and Circe, so I was looking forward to diving into Ithaca to widen my familiarity with the Greek Gods and the people they had influence over. I had very little knowledge of Penelope, which I’m guessing is why North decided to write her tale and I’m all for forgotten voices being heard, so I expected this to be a powerful read. Beth: Yes Nils! There’s a wonderful surge of this at the moment – Madeline Miller’s Circe, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne and Elektra, Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy and The Silence of the Girls, Jessie Burton’s Medusa… women have always had a particularly tough time of it in Greek myth, so there’s a lot of love for their stories to be told. I’ve read Circe and Ariadne, and I feel North’s Ithaca is very much the crest of this wave, taking the mythology coursing through Circe, the historical feel of Ariadne, and combining the two in what was a moving read. Nils: That’s fantastic to hear, it’s so important to have these Greek female figures represented because there clearly are a lot of them. Akin to authors such as Alix E Harrow, I know North is a powerhouse for feminism and giving female characters the agency they deserve. Having now finished the novel overall I think Ithaca surpassed my expectations because although it is a powerful feminist retelling, it is also extremely entertaining. Beth: I’d previously only read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by North, so I was expecting a thought provoking read with exceptional prose. Knowing it was the story of Penelope, I was hoping for a feminist exploration of her tale. My hopes and expectations were far exceeded by Ithaca! What were your first impressions? Nils: Given that we open the novel to a raid by pirates, which served to hook me right in, I expected quite a bit of action throughout. Beth did warn me this would be more of a reflective, philosophical tale rather than one of action, but I still felt a touch disappointed by the initial first few chapters where the story focused more on Penelope’s suitors. Beth: I was worried what you’d think of this kind of read, knowing you usually love your high action epics! Nils: I do! That’s definitely my usual preference. It’s nice to try something slightly different though, and I’m glad I read Ithaca. So our story begins with Penelope’s husband, Odysseus, presumed dead in Troy, which meant that the island of Ithaca was in a vulnerable state. Penelope doesn’t want to remarry, she doesn’t want a King threatening her son’s eventual rule, but she does want to see her people’s safety, though this is no easy task as although she is a Queen, she has very little power. At first I found it a little hard to keep up with all the characters, a lot of whom were unfamiliar to me, though it wasn’t long until I began to enjoy the political aspects, the plans that Penelope and her maids began forming, and most of all I loved Hera’s narration. Beth: I loved the politicking! I had a similar issue with the characters, but I wondered if this was deliberate? There were plenty of characters who were vibrant, distinctive; the characters I struggled a little more with differentiating were the councillors and suitors – the men. Nils: Excellent point Beth, it was mostly the male suitors I struggled to keep up with too. Beth: I believe if North wanted them to be distinguishable, she’d have written them as such. Instead it was very much as if one man was interchangeable with another. Nils: Very true. This may be Penelope’s story, but it is told by the goddess Hera, and she didn’t really think that highly of the men trying to manipulate and Penelope, did she? I loved how her narrative voice was laced with so much wit and cynicism: “Some people can nonchalantly lean against a narrow wall, casual as a cat, as though to say – oh, is it me you were looking for, lucky you? Medon cannot. He is graceful as a fart, which perhaps is what Odysseus liked about him.” This was one of the first lines from Hera to make me really laugh. Beth: I absolutely loved Hera. I loved that we didn’t immediately know it was her, I loved how sarcastic and humorous she was, I loved how fickle and emotional she often was, I loved how vulnerable and bitter she was… all whilst telling the story of other women. It’s a true testament to North’s incredible character portrayal and writing. Hera has always been portrayed as this harpish wife who takes revenge on those (many many) people her husband betrays her with. There never seems much sympathy for Hera. She’s the ideal voice for the mis- and under- represented. “That’s all right, I breathe, squeezing her hand in mine. For some silence is weakness; for a great queen it is a weapon. You are most great, most great, my love, most great above them all.” Had you read anything by Claire North before? How did it compare? Nils: I’ve only read The Pursuit of William Abbey, which was a historical fantasy. In terms of the narrative it was completely different as it followed a young doctor who witnesses a boy murdered by white colonists, and is then subsequently haunted by the boy’s shadow for standing by and not intervening. The prose was in some ways identical, atmospheric, emotive and almost poetic, yet I found Ithaca a much less dense read because of the humour and obviously the subject matter being far less dark. Yet both books deliver a powerful message, and they both deal with the injustice in our history. Beth: The only other book of North’s I’ve read is The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August; it was very different to Ithaca, and sounds different again to The Pursuit of William Abbey. It’s quite a philosophical read; Harry August is reincarnated each time he dies and starts his life over again, but is able to remember his past lives. It’s a really thought-provoking read, to the extent that years later, it’s still very much in mind. I think the same will be true for Ithaca; although very different in plot and theme and execution, there’s just something about North’s story-telling that stays with you. What did you make of the various themes throughout the book: motherhood, feminism, power, abuse? Beth: Plot-wise, there isn’t a great deal going on in the novel, but oh my days the undercurrents are very strong, aren’t they! Nils: Absolutely, and that’s what is so powerful about this novel. Take this quote for instance: “From what I can tell, there are only two kinds of men in Ithaca. Old men cowering in their corners, and boys queuing to get between your legs.” “That is an excellent assessment of the manhood of Ithaca.” Although this is a humorous take on the perception of the men of Ithaca, it holds so many truths. North does present to us men who physically or sexually abuse, sons who show little love or respect for their mothers, suitors who wish to take power and riches for themselves, and a young boy determined to prove his masculinity whilst being overwhelmed by fear inside. Pride was their biggest downfall. Whereas on the other side, we are presented with intelligent, capable women who on the outside have to behave in a subservient manner, whilst underneath it is clear their anger boils. The theme of feminism is brought out by North showing us different ways in which these women strike back. Beth: Excellent points Nils. Just as a content warning, there isn’t any explicit sexual abuse, but there are many references to historic sexual abuse. I think the island of Ithaca posed an interesting question in what happens to a place when all the men leave? Every man of a fighting age left seventeen years ago with Odysseus to fight in Troy. I was fascinated by this society which had such a hole in it, and the ways in which North addressed it. Nils: Absolutely, and I was fascinated by the way North explores various themes in great detail throughout, a lot of which was heartbreaking to see. I think the theme of motherhood was one which left the biggest impact on me, the strained relationship between Penelope and Telemachus and also Clytemnestra and her children, Elektra and Orestes, were perhaps some of the most memorable scenes for me. How must it have felt to have your own children look down upon you? To want to see you stripped of power you rightly deserve? What did you think, Beth? Beth: As much as this is a book about feminism – what the women manage to achieve through subtlety for the protection of themselves and the island, what it takes to be a woman and her various roles in this world – it also has a great deal to say of masculinity. Of the attitudes and behaviour of the men, of their foibles and weaknesses, but what masculinity means in this world. Telemachus’ drive to be brave and protect his land, and live up to the hero status of his father. His home is full of boys barely older than him vying for the hand of his mother, and he is powerless against them. Moving against them would be unwise politically, and so he feels robbed of his masculinity, in his purpose of protecting his mother. He then turns against his mother in his attempt to appear “manly” and “heroic”, for in this world they are one and the same. Nils: Yes, this is exactly what Telemachus’ downfall is! He’s driven by an ideology of perceived ‘masculinity’ he envisions his father had, or would expect his son to have. Yet he’s caught between the ploy of all these other men who he knows far outmatch him in leadership and battle skills. That doesn’t excuse how he treats Penelope in my eyes, but North does show us his dilemma too. To listen to his mother’s council would display weakness, and turning against his mother leaves him without the guidance he so sorely needs. Beth: Likewise Orestes’ relationship with his mother. In order to become king and prove his “manliness”, he must kill his mother in punishment for murdering his father. But he loves his mother. Orestes is the physical manifestation of the idea that to be a man you cannot love your mother. In doing so, he draws the attention of the Furies; and so to be a man is also to be doomed. Let’s discuss the characters! Who were your favourites? Which side characters stood out to you the most? Beth: For me, Penelope was hands down my favourite. My perception of her from other stories has always been of a figure of pity, left behind whilst her husband is “trapped” on an island with a sexy witch, plagued by men who only want her as a means to the throne. She epitomises that damned if you do damned if you don’t stance that women always seem to end up in no matter what role they attempt to hold. In being a good mother, she can’t be a good queen, in being a good queen, she can’t be a good mother, if she surrenders to the suitors, she’s a whore and a faithless wife, in holding them off she’s an obstinate woman who won’t see sense. There is no outcome for her in which she comes out favourably, in which she can be respected. And yet despite all this, she makes things happen. She is clever, and cunning, and protects her island and her son, whilst the men think they are the ones to have succeeded, thus protecting herself also. She was an incredibly complex character. I particularly loved seeing her snatch moments of agency in what was such a restricting world. Nils: Wholeheartedly agree with you Beth. Penelope is a fantastically woven intricate character. It was an absolute joy to see her outsmart suitors such as Andraemon and to see his reaction at being outplayed by a woman. As you said Beth, at every turn she is faced with hard choices, even to the point where she has to choose between the life of her cousin, Clytemnestra, and the safety of Ithaca. She’s always faced with no-win situations but never shows despair. She is a true Queen. Beth: I found Clytemnestra another heartbreaking character and situation. I didn’t particularly like her, her treatment of Penelope, but again Penelope’s strength shone out at those instances, she rose above it all. I loved this line Hera shared with us from Penelope’s past: In the end, the bullies grew bored of singing at stone, and Odysseus sat by her side and said: “It is futile to mock the ocean, is it not?” and she looked up, and though she was silent, there was that in the corner of her mouth that seemed to agree. Another stand-out character for me was Kenamon. He was something like a breath of fresh air in that musty palace, something new who heralded a change. If Penelope did have to end up with someone, although it would never have been him, as he was an Egyptian and the Greeks probably wouldn’t have stood for that, I wish it could have been him. Nils: Ah my beloved Kenamon, I definitely wanted to see him and Penelope together too, but like you said, that could never be. Kenamon was the only man within that palace who showed any kind of decency, who thought before reacting, who would have been the best influence on Telemachus, and having at least one male character to root for was definitely a welcomed addition. Beth: Out of the suitors I thought Amphinomous was a similar character, that he perhaps had the strength of character to one day become a man like Kenamon. He was a figure the other suitors mocked out of jealousy, but he was never quite strong enough to do the right thing he knew needed doing. Nils: My standout favourite character though was Hera, who was an absolutely superb choice of narrator as she is able to look down upon Ithaca and view all the plots unfolding. She offers moments of revelation, the truth of what characters are thinking versus what they are saying, she offers well needed backstories to a lot of the characters, but most of all her sarcasm and cynicism as she casts a critical eye was a delight to read. In a lot of ways she felt akin to Penelope, Zues’s shadow lingered over Hera in the same way Odysseus’s legacy hung over Penelope. Being a Goddess meant as little as being a Queen and both these women had to devise subtle ways to change the course of events. Beth: I was not expecting this book to be as funny as it was, Hera’s sarcasm was brilliant! Athena sits and hoots like an absolute bloody idiot, an owl upon the blackened branch of an ancient withered tree. Hoot bloody hoot she goes… Nils: Beth, that moment where the raiders attacked and Hera tried to warn the people in subtle ways was funny, wasn’t it? Beth: That part was fantastic! We had a lot of Whatsapp conversations about Hera and how funny she was, you particularly liked her face palming at their stupidity, didn’t you? Nils: I did! Because for a Goddess to facepalm was utterly ridiculous, but yeah, their stupid was facepalm worthy! Other characters which stood out to me were Eos, and Autonoe, Penelope’s closest maids. I loved their humour, especially at the beginning when they were feigning mourning the absence of Odysseus! I also thoroughly enjoyed Priene’s scenes, a fierce warrior in her own right and a means to empower Penelope’s women, to teach them her skills so they could fight back when the time arose. Death to all the Greeks may have been her mantra, but she was willing to bend this to help some Greeks kill other Greeks, and I kind of liked her philosophy there. Beth: I loved Autonoe! I loved the way she would subtly undermine the men by playing her lyre at opportune moments. Like an ancient form of trolling: Peisenor stands silent and grey as the old man shouts. Medon waits; Aegyptius fumes but gives no answer. Autonoe seeks another note, and it lands, by total chance it would appear, like strange punctuation every time Polybus seeks to draw a breath, until finally he rounds on her and barks: “Will you cease your picking?!” What did you make of Elektra, Nils? I have Jennifer Saint’s Elektra, and oddly, North’s portrayal of her has made me want to read Saint’s book, although I imagine they’ll probably be quite different! Nils: Oh Elektra, our strong-headed Elektra! Ok, so at first I didn’t like her much, her attitude towards her mother Clytemnestra, really frustrated me. Yet towards the end I began to understand her character, I began to see that beneath her hard exterior she feared a life of being married off to a man chosen by her uncle and becoming inferior and insignificant. Beth: I found her so interesting, the ways in which she was clearly the one in charge and used her brother as a shield. She was another example of the ways in which women can wield power; Penelope quietly and hidden from the shadows, Clytemnestra boldly out in the open whilst her husband is away, and Elektra, the master pulling the strings of another. How amazing was it when she put the suitors in their place? What are your overall impressions of the book? Nils: Although the beginning was a slow start for me, it wasn’t long until I fell in love with Penelope’s tale. If you’re looking for a read with an array of different representations of strong females, this is the one. Ithaca weaves a mesmerising tapestry where forgotten, seemingly insignificant women are justly given a voice, all it needs is an audience to listen. And I’m glad I did. Beth: North breathes new life into an ancient story you would think had nothing left to tell. Instead, she shines a light on all the stories that were always there but never told. She gives voice to the voiceless and their message was a joy to read. This is a story as entertaining as it is thought-provoking, as witty as it is intelligent. If you’re going to delve into Greek-retellings, let it absolutely be this one. Nils: Perfectly put Beth! Quotes taken from an Uncorrected Proof and may be subject to change The post ITHACA by Claire North (BUDDY READ BOOK REVIEW) appeared first on The Fantasy Hive. View the full article

The year is 1977. I, age six, am in love with my first grade teacher, Miss Thompson. What do I love about her? Everything! Her long red hair, curled by fat, hot-rollers. Her fluted-hem wool skirts. Her many pairs of high-heeled boots that come in eggplant, olive, black, and tan leather. The clip-clip sound of those high-heeled boots on classroom tiles. The stern way she deals with Alex G. (who shows me the naked pictures in National Geographic magazines). I want her to hug me. I want her to love me. I want her to tell me to grow out my bowl-cut hairstyle so she can hot-roller my hair. I want to show her how many books I read during Silent Reading. I want to show her that I am an excellent math student. Except I am NOT an excellent math student, and because I want to keep this shortcoming a secret, I make A BAD CHOICE: I cheat on a math quiz. I erase my wrong answers, write in the “right” answers, and take the quiz to Mrs. Erlin, the classroom aide. “I think Miss Thompson made a few mistakes in her grading,” I say. “See?” Mrs. Erlin has an oddly stretched-tight face. Her tan is too tan, her pink lipstick too yellow. Her hair is wispy and weird. She bends down to look me right in the eye. “Sarah,” she says. “I think you changed your answers.” “I didn’t,” I insist. “I really didn’t.” Her face skin stretches tighter. “Sarah. You need to tell Miss Thompson what you did.” Do you know of the uber-talented artist-writer, Austin Kleon? I stumbled gleefully into his newsletter this summer, and a few months back, Kleon mentioned his own gleeful stumble into the Dutch term, krul, the “flourish of approval,” the handwritten mark that teachers use to show their approval of a student’s answer on a quiz or assignment. It’s also the loopy thing at the top of this post. And because I wanted Miss Thompson’s kruly-haired krul more than I wanted to do the right thing–admit my unethical blunder–I never said a word. Forty-four years later, I’m an 8th grade English Language Arts teacher at a school where there is no teachers’ union, and my contract can be rescinded at any moment. My livelihood depends on my principal’s metaphorical krul. Likewise, my unnecessarily stressed-out, high-achieving students believe that my literal krul will (or won’t) grease the wheels on the vehicle that will shuttle them to HarvPrinceYaleFord University. The krul also matters to my dear students. And doesn’t the krul matter in everyone’s professional life? After all, the approval of others can result in earning praise, clients, contracts, raises, bonuses, promotions, and awards. Well, then what about writers? If we define “success” as “getting our work into the hands of readers,” aren’t we also dependent on the krul of agents and editors? But here’s the problem and the danger. If we write stories that we think will win the approval of others, especially the approval of the folks at Simon&RandomHousePenguinSchuster, instead of the story that’s impatiently tapping its foot, insistently rapping at the walls of our brain and our heart with its pokey knuckles, we don’t win. Traditional publishing is fickle. Tastes change. Trends change. Pandemics happen. In spite of what we want to believe, hardly anyone knows what will sell because hardly anyone can predict the future. I wish I had known believed this. After my first two manuscripts came close to selling, I thought I had nearly cracked the code. So I got to work on the third manuscript, the one that would finally earn an editor’s krul, but each time I sent a snippet to my agent, she replied with a gentle, “I’m just not feeling it, Sarah.” No problem! I’ll go back to the drawing board. I’ll change the voice, the POV, the tense, the audience, the setting … and I did, so determined was I to finally give the folks at RandomSimonPenguin&SchusterHouse what I thought they wanted. But what was it they wanted!?! My agent recognized what was going on (heck, a beach towel or a hamburger would have recognized what was going on), but I did not, and yikes o’ frighty, I wasted YEARS of my life. Still, unless we are truly writing only for ourselves, I still believe the krul matters. I wanted my book in the hands of readers, and I didn’t have the skills or the will required to self-publish. How could I get a book deal without the approval of editors? Then the lightbulb moment: What if instead of trying to seek the krul, I sought permission? Permission to trust myself, my agent, my critique partners instead of publishers? Permission to trust the insistent knuckles of my story? This spring, a colleague noted how beleaguered and overwhelmed I was. My school was asking so much of all of us! But, I lamented, if I didn’t take on more, if I didn’t volunteer for all of the extras, would I get canned? My colleague grabbed a Post-it Note, and scribbled three words: Don’t Do It. “Sarah,” she said. “Just say no.” I thumbtacked that note to the bulletin board in my office. Sometimes we need others’ permission to give ourselves permission. So how about today we give ourselves (and each other) permission to care less about the approval of agents and editors and more about our passion, our gut, and our stories? Permission to play with words and characters, to carve out time to write, to choose writing over weeding, folding laundry, cleaning the bathroom? Permission to tell a friend that we need to reschedule a date because we are on a roll with our writing. Permission to write badly, to start over, to say “Eff off, Ron!” to the mean-voiced voice that perches on our shoulder and whispers unkind things in our ear. Permission to accept rejection not as a sign that we should stop writing, but as a necessary part of the process. Permission to leave a critique group or to step away from those who aren’t supportive of our writing life. Giving ourselves permission is far more powerful and persuasive than seeking someone’s chameleonic, shape-shifting, temporal, flourishy krul. Instead of letting our quest for approval result in wasting years and words writing what we think will sell, instead of cheating on math quizzes and lying to our beautiful red-headed teachers, let’s focus on permission, or as the Dutch would say, toestemming. In Arabic, al’iidhn. In Irish, cead. In Turkish izin. And in Latin, permission (ha!). No matter the language, permission, unlike approval, is something we can grant ourselves. Let’s try it. What toestemming do you need today? What al’iidhn are you already giving yourself? What’s the cead, the izin, the permission that will allow your story to ultimately land in the hands of readers? Feel free to use a template if it’s helpful: I, ________, give myself to ________ simply because ________. Thank you, dear writers, for sharing! Krul photo compliments of Wikipedia. About Sarah CallenderA Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family: one tall, patient husband, one cartoonish canine, and two inspiring offspring. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true--and somewhat fraught--passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first book, BETWEEN THE SUN AND THE ORANGES, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in Summer 2024. Web | Twitter | More Posts [url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Amanda Jayatissa, You’re Invited (Berkley) “This story is deliciously messy…Buckle up. This is a psychological thriller with corkscrew-tight twists and surprising depth as the novel explores issues of class, identity, and friendship.” –Oprah Daily Zac Bissonnette, A Killing in Costumes (Crooked Lane) “A Killing in Costumes has all the hallmarks of a great cozy: a unique setting, an intriguing cast of characters and an exciting mystery.” –Bookpage Martin Walker, To Kill a Troubadour (Knopf) “Smoothly integrated into Bruno’s investigation is information on a multitude of subjects, from medieval musical instruments to Ukrainian history, plus easy-to-follow recipes. . . . Good food, fascinating history, and a crackerjack mystery: who could ask for more?” –Publishers Weekly Kirk Wallace Johnson, The Fishermen and the Dragon (Viking) “Fast-paced though complex account of ethnic collision among the fisheries of Gulf Coast Texas…[Johnson’s] fascinating and disturbing narrative is a winning mix of biography, true crime, and ecological study. A carefully written investigation full of villains—and the occasional hero.” –Kirkus Lisa Jewell, The Family Remains (Atria) “Lively…Jewell effectively keeps readers off balance all the way to the happy ending. Though this tale of child abuse and mayhem works as a standalone, those who haven’t read The Family Upstairs will immediately want to rush out and do so.” –Publishers Weekly T. L. Finlay, Girls Without Tears (Crooked Lane) “A bone-chilling thriller set in the Everglades full of suspense and hauntingly surprising twists.” –Claire Contreras Mathew Betley, The Neighborhood (Blackstone) “Propulsive, suspenseful, and relentless, The Neighborhood is a roller-coaster thriller packed with twists and gritty action—Matthew Betley’s best novel yet. Grab it and hold on for a great ride.” –Meg Gardiner Julie Cameron, Nameless Acts of Cruelty (Scarlet) “The plot simmers for a long time before finally boiling over with dramatic revelations.” –Publishers Weekly Mark McKenna, Return to Uluru (Dutton) “Honest and thought-provoking, this book takes a hard look at some uncomfortable truths in Australia’s history. Recommended for anyone wanting to examine racism, colonialism, and their continued effects.” –Library Journal Joanna Schaffhausen, Long Gone (Minotaur) “Loads of exciting action, balanced with dramatic personal revelations and some fine nuts-and-bolts police work, keep the pages turning. Readers will look forward to the next outing for the complex, introspective Vega.” –Publishers Weekly View the full article

Damascus – capital of Syria and the oldest continuous capital city in the world. The ‘City of Jasmine’ is of course sadly bomb damaged and war-torn these days, its two million population in dire straits and so many forced to flee as refugees. But still, the city has a long history from the third millennium BC and not least, a lot more recently, as a plaything of competing Empires with the French and British vying for control. Fertile ground for some good crime writing. Damascus is also a major cultural centre of the Levant, the Eastern Mediterranean and western Asia. The master of the pre-war accidental spy genre Eric Ambler wrote The Levanter in 1971. It deals with machinations around Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but starts with the central character – the Levanter – Michael Howell in Damascus running his family’s business. Howell, a Levantine of mixed parentage has a good life in Damascus – money, a good business, an Italian mistress. Until he discovers that his factory has become a clandestine operations base for the Palestine Action Force, an anti-Israeli terrorist organization. Suddenly, Howell is caught in the middle with nowhere to run. Frederick Highland’s Night Falls on Damascus (2006) is a fantastic neo-noir set in the turbulent and rather exotic Syrian capital of the 1930s with French-Syrian police inspector, Nikolai Faroun, caught up in a complex murder investigation of a beautiful and controversial woman from a prominent Damascus family. Set amid the once Bohemian Arab society of the city that made Damascus the equal of Cairo or Tangier at the time of the French protectorate. Travel back a decade further for Karen Baugh Menuhin’s character Major Heathcliff Lennox, ex-WW1 war pilot in a leather jacket. His fourth outing, Death in Damascus (2020), is set in the city in the 1920s with all the tropes of the period – damsel in distress, silent movie crew in town, devilishly handsome Sheik, the ex-Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Swift, and the dusty streets of ancient Damascus. A few more Damascus set thrillers with an accent on the contemporary…. The best of the growing bunch of thrillers set in Damascus and Syria is perhaps Daniel Levin’s Proof of Life (2021) telling the tale of an armed-conflict mediator searching for a missing person in Syria over eighteen tense days. The twist is that it is a true story – Levin is a New York lawyer turned armed conflict negotiator with extensive Middle Eastern contacts. Former Middle East foreign correspondent Matt Rees’s The Damascus Threat (2016) is a book in his ICE series set within the United States Homeland Security Department. ICE Special Agent Dominic Verrazzano uncovers a plot to launch a chemical attack in New York that tracks all the way back to the backstreets of Damascus. Joel C Rosenburg’s Damascus Countdown (2013) is a thriller set around Iran, nuclear weapons and the potential meltdown of Damascus featuring CIA operative David Shirazi. The book sits in the subgenre of ‘Christian thrillers’ that have quite strong messages and ideological undercurrents but have proved popular with a niche audience. Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo’s SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Viper (2018) is set in a Syrian succumbing to the Islamic State. A Doctors Without Borders camp is threatened by Viper, a notoriously vicious ISIS general. Crocker and his SEAL Team Six deploy to help out. The above books may be thrillers but also perhaps potboilers. But there are more serious fictional books about contemporary Syria out there. David McCloskey’s Damascus Station (2021) is a far more sophisticated and atmospheric novel set amidst the ongoing Syrian civil war. CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. They then go to Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. The streets of the besieged city are lethal for an American agent – Bashir Assad’s spy catchers, the feared Republican Guard, betrayers at every window. McCloskey’s author bio describes him as a former CIA analyst with Middle Eastern experience and the book has been praised by some who, I suppose, should be qualified to judge its authenticity, such as General David Petraeus and the book pages of the WaPo and FT. Also worth reading is James Wolff’s debut novel Beside the Syrian Sea (2018). Jonas is a British spy. When his father is kidnapped and held for ransom by ISIS in Syria, he takes matters into his own hands. To pay the kidnappers, he begins to steal the only currency he has access to: secret government intelligence and heads into the Syrian desert. And finally, as usual something special, and a book some have called the ‘Great Arab Detective Novel’. Rafik Schami’s The Dark Side of Love (2004). Schami’s was born in Damascus in 1946, educated in the Lebanon and moved to Germany in the 1970s. Today he is one of the most successful German-speaking Arabic writers though sadly little known in the English reading world. His work is often seen as “migrant literature” in Germany and does often deal with themes around the country’s Guest Workers and minorities. But The Dark Side of Love is essentially a detective story, albeit one that deals with many issues of twentieth century Damascus history and insights into Damascene society. A dead man hangs from the portal of the St Paul Chapel in Damascus. He was a Muslim officer and he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi sets out to interrogate the man’s mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely and discovers the murderer’s motive: it is a blood feud between the Mushtak and Shahin clans, reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. And it is the epic sweep of Schami’s novel that has led it to be considered perhaps the ‘Great Arab Detective Novel’. There’s no escaping history in Damascus – centuries of it. A history that is still playing out and, though tragic in the extreme, is still inspiring great writing. View the full article

Quick Confession Let me start by admitting something that may be a little shameful, a little anathema, on a site like this: I’m not a crime fiction aficionado. Honestly, I read other genres much more extensively. I’ve never read Agatha Christie (gasp!), Lee Child, Gillian Flynn, Harlan Coben, Dean Koontz, James Patterson, John Grisham etc. Sadly, the list goes on. Are you still reading? Am I still invited to this club? Maybe, maybe not. Let me also say, I fully enjoy the thriller/crime/mystery genre. I love Tana French, Kate Atkinson, and Val McDermid; I especially enjoy thrillers that toe the line between other genres like Julie Phillips’ Disappearing Earth or Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation. But I don’t read fiction to watch car chases, solve clues, or guess who dunnit. The truth is, I often don’t really care. Oh man, I AM gonna get kicked out of this club! Let me explain. Writing Jeanie King When I sat down to write what would eventually become The Lost Kings, in my mind, I was writing a very different book. But fiction often surprises us. I knew I wanted to write about mental health through a character recovering from trauma. From there, I wanted to tell a story about a girl reconnecting with her father years after the traumatic experience. As I began to put the pieces into place, I was fairly certain I was writing some sort of character-driven bildungsroman. I cared about the exploration and evolution of my main character more than I did about any twist or mystery involved in the plotline. So how did it end up taking that turn into the thriller genre? Good question. In part, I don’t really know. Which sounds unsatisfying, but in the world of creativity, I find that things are a lot less set in stone than we like to portray them. When I get asked during interviews where my inspiration comes from, I often give some sort of concrete answer that’s mostly true. However, the reality is, inspiration comes from that amorphous haze that hovers above your head and is informed by your childhood experiences, the books you’re reading, the shows you’re watching, the people in your life, and your current mood. But it’s also something more than that, something unique about who you are as a person and as a writer. It’s something more mystical, more airy-fairy, something that you rub crystals for and make your sacrifices to under the light of a full moon. You can’t talk about it a lot, or it might just go away. I’ve probably said too much already. Basically, I try my best to stick to my gut when writing the plot, to listen to my characters, and when in doubt, trust my agent and my editors who very much helped me mold this book into what it became. What is a thriller? I’ve had people ask me this a lot and I find myself not really having a great answer. “A thriller is a book that is thrilling,” feels a little too vague. But “A book with a mystery, crime, dead body, or missing person” feels too reductive. However, these are often the qualities you find in the mystery/suspense/crime fiction genres. But it’s not quite enough, is it? A thriller can also be a deep exploration into a culture or time period or social issue. A thriller can be a character study, a comedy, satire, or a science fiction romp through the universe. In essence, a thriller, like any genre, can and should be able to do anything it wants. Therefore, it’s hard to put it into a box or to break it down to its base materials. I once heard David Mitchell talk about genre as merely the different colors of paint he uses to create his art—in this way, genre, in the end, is just tool bookstores use to organize their shelves. I like looking at it like that. That’s why, when I sit down to write, I don’t really think about what genre I’m working in. I don’t crack my knuckles and say to myself, “Time to write some crime fiction.” I simply tell the story that I want to tell and see what comes out. In The Lost Kings, I told the story of Jeanie King, using whatever colors looked best on her. Plot is not a dirty word I forget who said it, but I feel like it’s as true today as ever. Plot is NOT a dirty word! High-brow literature professors who turn their noses down on genre fiction aren’t allowed to speak any kind of wisdom into my life, to give any criticism on my work, nor are they invited to my birthday party. Thankfully, instead, I had professors who told me things like “It’s all literature.” And that’s the real dirty secret. It’s all an escape, a lens to look at humanity, a device to inspire and practice empathy, and, yes, a means of entertainment. And while I thought I was writing a character study on trauma, the truth of it is, I also like things to happen in my fiction. I like story. I like plot! I don’t outline very heavily, but I do like to have some idea of where I’m going. The key takeaway here is movement. I like for the plot to move forward and for the character to move forward with it—or, better yet, for the character to be the one moving the plot onward with her actions. This movement, in the end, is the core reason, I think, I end up writing thrillers. Why I read fiction Overall, I, like you, read fiction to feel something. Sometimes I want to be thrilled, saddened, mortified, disgusted, devastated, or even triggered. I want to feel human. I want to feel alive. And usually, that takes more than just plot, more than a good twist or a well-thought-out mystery. It takes characters. I can follow a fascinating character through a boring story, but I can’t follow a boring character through an action-packed plotline. The best-case scenario, for me, is to create complicated characters who do interesting things, place them in drama-filled situations, and watch as an exciting plotline bursts forth like so many colors of the rainbow. Finally, to the real, selfish, reason I wrote this essay. Now that you know my preferences for fiction in general, give me your recommendations! What books fit my criteria that I have to read? What characters are so good they’ll hold my attention? What mysteries are made fascinating because of the character development? What crime novels will make me feel something deep in my bones? Help me navigate the depths of the crime/mystery/suspense/and thriller fiction; as you now know, even though I write in this genre, I’m really a complete newb! *** View the full article

Chances are, your favorite suspense novels are stories filled with unexpected twists and turns; pulse-pounding, page-turning action; and gritty, dark discoveries. But even the darkest thriller is balanced with a sliver of light. And what better to bring in that light than love—a compelling love interest who stands by the main character amidst all the chaos. Many readers have commented on the creep factor of my new novel, Iris in the Dark, when the main character hears a chilling voice in the night while staying at a remote hunting lodge on the South Dakota prairie. But just as many readers have raved about the love interest, the swoony lodge caretaker, Sawyer. To me, each aspect of the story is as important as the other—providing the right balance of light and dark. So how do you create a compelling love interest? To start, let’s take a look at some traits Sawyer shares with other well-written characters in some of my favorite suspenseful reads: Support: In Iris in the Dark, my main character, Iris, goes through some scary times—but as she dives into the mystery of the voice, Sawyer is there for support, despite being concerned for her safety. Likewise, in Amy Suiter Clarke’s incredible debut, Girl, 11, main character Elle puts herself at risk investigating a killer. Clarke wrote a strong love interest in Elle’s husband, Martin, who was worried about her safety but also very supportive. Stability: For Iris, Sawyer’s reassuring presence provided stability when the world around her was anything but. Similarly, in Aggie Blum Thompson’s riveting I Don’t Forgive You, main character Allie’s life is thrown into chaos when she’s framed for murder, digging up her past—but her husband, Mark, provides a stable tether to reality in her present life. The Right Strengths: In my book, Sawyer’s strengths complement Iris’s weaknesses—from his cooking abilities to his sense of calm in the face of danger. In the phenomenal Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Francis’s strengths—his connection to his house and family—provided crucial help to Noemi when she needed it most. Tragic Back Story: Sawyer, like Iris, experienced his own past tragedy, and this is something they share that brings them closer together. Likewise, in Paulette Kennedy’s outstanding debut, Parting the Veil, Eliza is drawn to Malcolm despite—or, perhaps, because of—his mysterious, dark past in the potentially haunted home they now share. A Shred of Doubt: Finally, the trait that is arguably the most compelling is that tiny spark of doubt—the inkling of uncertainty that makes readers ask if this person is truly who they claim to be. In each of the books I’ve mentioned, as well as my own, there are moments that make readers question: Can they really be trusted, or could they be secretly working against the main character? To me, that uncertainty is the best part of a thriller for readers. They think they caught all the clues, but don’t quite know for sure—so they compulsively turn pages until they reach the answer. As authors, we want our work to invoke that emotion in our readers, driving them to solve the riddle of our story—and a compelling love interest is a crucial piece of that puzzle. Putting the Puzzle Together So how do you make sure you fit those puzzle pieces together just right? Here are some tips you can use during the writing and revising process that can help you on the road to crafting your story’s perfect love interest: Ask the right questions: First, ask yourself: What does my main character need most on her journey—and how can my love interest provide that? As I noted above, in my novel, Iris needs stability and support as she searches for the truth. However, that might not be true of your main character. Perhaps your MC needs a love interest who will push them out of their comfort zone in order to uncover the secrets they’re seeking to reveal. Make a list: Another tip is making a list of your main characters’ strengths and weaknesses. Then, create a similar list for your love interest and see how the characters complement each other. I’m not saying you should entirely construct a love interest to match the main character—you want them to feel authentic, so their characteristics won’t perfectly align with the MC. But, if you can identify some strong traits that match well, then you know you have a good fit. Create a character arc: Speaking of authenticity, another idea is to create a character arc for your love interest to make sure they feel like a real person. That could mean filling out a beat sheet from your love interest’s point of view, or it could mean making a list of your love interest’s wants, needs, and goals outside of the main character. Write their back story. It’s time for some free writing, starting with a few past scenes that are key to your love interest’s back story. Even if you don’t end up using it in your manuscript, these scenes from the past will be crucial to tapping into your love interests’ current emotions and motivations. (And you never know what small piece of that writing might end up fitting into your final draft.) Plant some clues: Circling back to the uncertainty—if you want to plant a seed of doubt about your love interest, use one of your revision passes to sprinkle in some subtle clues, whether it’s hinting at time unaccounted for off the page, or adding an ambiguously ominous statement. In the end, your love interest might be the real deal—after all, you’ve spent all this time crafting them to perfection—but your readers won’t know that for sure. And if you can keep them guessing, invested, turning pages—and swooning over your love interest even as they doubt them—then you’ve crafted not only the perfect love interest, but also the perfect reader experience. *** View the full article

As a writer of speculative fiction, by definition, I make things up. I imagine things into existence, at least on the page. It’s an act of creating something from nothing, and it’s limited only by one’s imagination. There’s a kind of beautiful of freedom in that. Andy Weir has never been to Mars, but that didn’t stop him from writing The Martian. Tom Clancy was never in the military, but that didn’t stop him from becoming one of the most prolific military thriller writers to ever work in the genre. Octavia E. Butler never had to trek across countless miles of lawless wasteland fighting for her life in the apocalypse, but that didn’t stop her from writing Parable of the Sower. My point is, no one owns any particular genre. Anyone can write anything they like, and with enough skill—and a good amount of research—it’s absolutely possible to achieve believability. However, there’s something to be said about having that highly-regarded, holy grail of writing qualities… the element of authenticity. You see, Weir isn’t an astronaut, but he is a computer programmer with a physicist and an electrical engineer for parents which provided him the background needed to have an intimate understanding of scientific processes, which in turn helped him write about the trials of fictional astronaut, Mark Watney. Clancy wasn’t military, but he was an insurance broker with a passion for naval history which influenced the creation of his iconic character, CIA analyst Jack Ryan. Butler wasn’t an experienced doomsday prepper, but she did grow up in a racially charged environment where she absolutely had to keep her head on a swivel in order to survive, which clearly informed her writing of the Earthseed series. What I’m saying is you don’t have to be the thing you’re writing about, but it sure as hell helps. I, myself, am a veteran of the United States Army, having served four and a half years active duty with two deployments to Iraq in 2003 and 2005. My debut novel, Wake of War, is a near-future military thriller about a second American civil war and the horrors those who have to fight in it are forced to face. I’ve been told by a legitimate source that the book is one of the most realistic military novels this person has ever read. Some other early feedback I’m seeing affirms this as well. It goes without saying that I’m blown away by this praise, and incredibly pleased to hear that this book that I poured my soul into and worked hard to make an authentic and honest story is so far proving a success. And talking about authenticity, I don’t think I would’ve been able to write something like this without having the first-hand experience that I did. I’ve walked through crowded war-torn cities. I’ve driven miles and miles through desolate, cratered nothingness. I know the smell of burning fuel and explosives. I know the sound of gunfire, and the compression you feel in your chest when an IED goes off nearby. I know what it’s like to look in the eyes of someone who wants nothing more than to see you dead. All of this experience bled onto the pages of Wake of War in one way or another. Now, could someone with no experience at war write about this? Of course. You can do research, conduct interviews, watch films and documentaries. But somehow, in some indefinable way, it’s not the same as hearing it from someone who’s been there. Someone who’s lived that life and got the scars to prove it. I know I can tell when something is written by someone who’s been through the crucible of war. The honesty, the sincerity, the small details that breathe life into a scene and might otherwise have been missed by a writer who doesn’t have first-hand knowledge of the situation are all made evident by personal experience. And it’s in those details, those small pieces of reality that could only come from experience that draw you into a story and make it so much more engaging and visceral. But besides realistic details, what else does military experience bring to the genre, you might ask? Speculative military fiction, and fiction in general, allows us to explore potentialities. Possible futures that we might either want to strive for, or desperately avoid. Writing is a way to express ideas, work out answers to complex questions, discover new ideas altogether. Sometimes, writing can be therapeutic. For me, writing Wake of War was something of a cathartic experience. I’m not afraid to admit that. Life can be chaotic and unpredictable, and often times the things we experience or are forced to endure can leave a mark. That can make it difficult to look in the mirror, but fiction provides a lens through which we can examine those rough spots. Fiction gives us permission to confront the darkness, to face the storm we might be holding back within ourselves. Because sometimes in order to truly consider the weight of a thing, you have to make it hurt. Like dressing a wound. You won’t do a damn bit of good if you don’t first lay eyes on the wreckage and figure out what happened, and what needs to happen next in order to fix it. Facing the damage is part of the healing process. It’s not easy, and it’s not for everyone. But it is an important part of the process, and military fiction written by people with real-world experience can help move the conversations around such topics in the right direction. We can all collectively begin to understand, at least to a degree, what that world is like. Wake of War is a tough book that confronts some tough situations. It’s not a feel-good story with easily identifiable heroes and villains. Real life doesn’t work that way, not typically. There’s pain, loss, regret, rage. Sincerity, desperation, hope. Consequence is an important theme in this one. And in order to give the story weight, and to do so with an honest voice that doesn’t exploit the situation, I had to consider my own experiences quite a bit. This book wouldn’t be what it is, wouldn’t even exist at all really, had I not been through much of it myself. Authenticity continues to be a highly regarded element of speculative military fiction, which, when you think about it, is somewhat unsettling. In order for writers to have authentic stories of fictional battlefields, they must first survive real world battlefields. Maybe one day it won’t have to be that way. Maybe one day these stories can help inspire conversations that move us toward more positive outcomes, and help influence a better future. *** View the full article

It's hard to believe that fall is around the corner! I love this time of year, actually. It leaves me inspired to be creative and read. In honor of the upcoming season, we're hosting a group giveaway that we're inviting you to join in! Like our very successful group giveaways in the past, we'll be bringing a bunch of authors together to give away their book to hungry readers. By taking part, you'll enjoy a much-needed boost in your social media following (we add one of your social media accounts for entrants to follow as an optional entry method). The giveaway will last for two weeks, starting September 22nd. Plus, all the books will be featured in an e-blast that goes out to over 49,000 email subscribers, and featured in a blog post on The Muffin, featuring all the books and authors. There will be three prize winners, and you'll be sending out a book copy to each winner. It's easy to sign up and all you need to pay is a small $50 fee. $10 of that will go towards a gift card that will be given to our grand prize winner. Intrigued? Sign up via the Google form here. Don't wait! Our deadline to sign up is September 10th. So spread the word.(C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!'s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now![url={url}]View the full article[/url]

Welcome back to Cover Snark! Let’s get into it. Susan: Ma’am – ma’am, I need you to stop right there and put down the disembodied hand. Wait, no, it’s a coffee, I retract that snark and go back to my original “Did you know you’ve got a tree in your hair”. Amanda: I love that in the terms of fading in and out of time, the coffee cup is the last or rather first thing to materialize. Sarah: Much like you should put the bunny back in the box, you should put the tiny historical people back in your coffee cup. Susan: And in further eye test questions: does this look like a minotaur or a very angry rabbit? Lara: Angry rabbit gets my vote! Amanda: Has anyone seen Tank Girl? Getting hot kangaroo man vibes. Susan: I’d forgotten about the kangaroos, but now you mention it! Amanda: That movie feels like a fever dream. Tara: I was thinking muscular topiary. Amanda: A hot muscular topiary seems like a job for Chuck Tingle. Sneezy: Angry rabbit needs a vet. His skin being so messed up that he looks like a radioactive iguana. Probably has something to do with why he’s angry. Claudia: It’s a Jackalope to me!! Sneezy: Doesn’t it also look like he has a teeny tiny little jewel box? Sarah: It is so frustrating when one is a royal rabbit and one’s housekeeper puts one’s royal tiara too far away. From Susie T. Sarah: When I was younger, I wished my hair would do that long, smooth, wavy thing, but…did he just drop her? Is she climbing him? Is he a climbing wall? Does he have a sunken living room? I have a few questions is what I’m saying. Shana: Does he have one tiny arm? Amanda: Maybe he has one of those conversation pits. From Jenna: Please please please include this title in your next cover snark! Sarah: Have we discussed this one already? The abdominally gifted aliens against a skyline are starting to blend together. AJ: I think we did but it was a different cover? He was a cat guy in the other one Oh no wait! It was another book in the series, that one was an alien ARCHITECT that needed a nanny Claudia: I get it, nannies are hard to find, and maybe harder yet if you are an alien. Sarah: I would really like to believe that alien societies value care work more than we do and compensate amply with full benefits. Maya: But not shirts Claudia: Yeah, they DEFINITELY do not value shirts. Maybe they are so evolved they do not need to worry about any of the middling stuff we earthlings need to keep an eye on. Amanda: Tasha Black’s covers never fail to disappoint and I feel like we should send her a fruit basket. View the full article

Eden McCarthy's compelling essay, "Remaining Embers," was a runner up in WOW! Women on Writing's Q3 2022 Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest. If you haven't read it yet, pop on over to WOW for a great read, then join us for a fun chat. Bio: Eden lives and writes in the mountains of Southern Oregon near the California border. She started her first piece over thirty years ago but only recently began submitting her work for publication. Her personal essays can be found in Sneak Preview magazine and on WOW! Women on Writing. She loves to dance (tango/ballroom/folk/contra) and hike with her dog and is learning to sing and play guitar. ----- Interview by Angela Mackintosh WOW: Welcome, Eden! Congratulations on placing as a runner up in the Q3 2022 Essay Contest with your moving essay, "Remaining Embers." What a harrowing experience to have your house burn down and lose everything during COVID, and I'm so sorry you had to go through that. To help cope with the grief, you turned to Carolyn Hax's advice column and ring theory, a concept that puts the person experiencing trauma at the center of the circle and serves as way to navigate social situations. I find this theory fascinating, and love how you used ring theory to provide a deeper context to the scene with your insensitive date. I can imagine this essay went through multiple drafts to get it just right. What was your first spark or way in to writing the essay and how did it evolve? Eden: Thank you! And thanks for your concern. I dove right into writing classes with Chelsey Clammer after the fire. "Remaining Embers" came out of her Curiosity and Creative Nonfiction class through WOW! where we used research to fuel or enhance our writing. My friend Brigid, whom I mention in the essay, had unpacked ring theory when several folks leaned on me too hard after the fire. I researched its concepts and used the theory to explore my strong reaction to the man who had brought me the burrito and to protect myself better going forward. The first draft of "Remaining Embers" came organically, and then I reworked it based on feedback from Chelsey and my Curiosity classmates. After the course ended, I continued editing solo. A friend recently suggested I add a responsibility piece; she thinks I failed ring theory because I asked burrito guy how he was doing. It's true that I asked and true that I missed a dump opp, but he got there first and so fast! The main tenet of ring theory dictates that outer circles only offer support. Comfort in, Dump out. Competing for center circle does not connote comfort. WOW: That scene with burrito guy is so vivid! It always warms my heart to hear that a winning essay came out of a WOW workshop. Another vivid, chilling detail was your choice of paint color, "Remaining Embers," which serves as a premonition. You can't make this stuff up! What do you think is important when telling your own true stories? Eden: Reality is bountiful! I think it's important to keep mental notes of associations that occur to you in life: when something strikes you funny or strikes your fancy or when you notice ironies, paradoxes, and things that jar you. That I had painted my house Remaining Embers and that it burned right after finishing the four-year paint job freaked me out and I marked it. Another eery detail I didn't mention in the essay is that I used to dance hula and had an ipu heke (gourd drum) named uahi in the house that burned. Uahi means "smoke." It's customary for hula dancers to name their implements, and I had had a difficult time coming up with a name. Uahi was the only one that had felt right. But where there's uahi, there's fire! WOW: Eden, that is eerie! You are so smart to keep notes of details and associations. I find it interesting to discover what things writers leave out; but if you find that one perfect detail, then that's all you need, especially in flash. In your bio, you mentioned writing your first piece over thirty years ago, but only recently started submitting. What was your first piece about, and what prompted you to start submitting after all these years? Eden: My first actual piece was the beginning chapter of a book about my junior year abroad in Poitiers, France. I wrote the chapter in a graduate writing class two years after returning home to Oregon. I called it aBroad and decided its cover would have crazy, mismatched fonts to make the double-meaning work. The teacher loved the chapter and spent our final class period reading it out loud to me and my classmates, though he thought I should turn it into a short story. I wanted it to be a novel, so I ignored his advice and wrote a problematic and frustrating second chapter. It was the eighties, and I had printed the chapters on the kind of paper that fed through rollers, so the edges were perforated with holes, and the pages were connected to one another like a scroll. You were supposed to tear the edges off and separate the pages but I stored the unfinished piece intact in a box labeled "Writing," which eventually landed in the back room of my Remaining Embers home. Occasionally, I would think about following my teacher's advice to turn it into a short story, but I never did. I lost that work in the fire, along with a handful of flash pieces and poems about my then boyfriend. I'm sorry to have lost that rich part of my writing history. Covid-induced free time and the desire to express myself and heal from the fire prompted me to study and write more and start submitting. Completing a masters degree in business and joining a writers group in the interim had primed me for the push. WOW: I remember those printers! And that's a bummer about losing your work in the fire. Hopefully the important parts will weave themselves in your current work. I've found that to be true of work I've lost on old computers. In fact, almost fifteen years after I wrote chapters in my "novel," I wrote memoir chapters and then actually found that old manuscript and it was almost identical. When we interviewed you last year, you were working on a collection of essays and poetry. I know working on a book takes a lot of time and dedication. Where do you like to write, and what does your writing routine look like? Eden: Post-fire, I was too strung out to work, so I would often write early in the day after hiking on the property where my dog and I were staying. The studio we lived in was sunny and quiet and lent itself to good concentration. Now that I'm back to full-time work and the rebuilt house, I tend to write late at night - in spurts and for deadlines. I usually write at home, unless my writers group has coffee together and does timed writings with a prompt. I love those. Essay topics sometimes emerge from our timed writings. WOW: Timed writings are such a great jumpstart! So is reading, and I'm always interested in what other writers are reading. What are some of your recent favorites? Eden: I just finished reading an essay by Joy Castro in Oldster Magazine called "Burning it Down." I liked it for its clarity and topic. In the essay, Castro discusses letting her hair go silver and its effects on her identity. Since I had just cut off the last of the dark golden blonde of my headshot, I resonated with her insights. Cheryl Strayed recommended the essay on Twitter. Strayed is someone else I've been reading lately. I'm enjoying her book Dear Sugar, a compilation of letters written to her advice column by that name and her responses. Nia Vardalos adapted Dear Sugar for the stage and calls the play Tiny Beautiful Things. I read the script after seeing the play because I had been so moved. WOW: Cheryl Strayed's Wild is my all time favorite memoir, and I love her book, Dear Sugar, which was also my favorite advice column when she wrote it for The Rumpus. Speaking of columns, I have to ask, after the ring theory fail, do you still subscribe to Carolyn Hax's column, and what's the most useful piece of advice you've gotten from her? Eden: Oh yes, for sure! I still subscribe to Carolyn Hax and her column. She and her ex, the cartoonist, deliver great wisdom and humor every day. The best advice emerges from reading the column regularly. Themes like: invest in your emotional health; be yourself in relationships, even at the risk of losing them; don't settle unless you do, but know the full consequences and remember it's a choice; strengthen your boundaries and enforce them as kindly as possible; life can change if you have stamina and patience; and you can change, too. The biggie: you, we, have value - it's our job to recognize it and act accordingly. WOW: I love those lessons, Eden! Thank you so much for spending time with us today, and I wish you continued success in all your creative writing endeavors. Write on!(C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!'s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now![url={url}]View the full article[/url]

B+ A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows July 26, 2022 · Tor Books Mystery/ThrillerRomanceScience Fiction/Fantasy Content warnings TW: explicit rape scene, homophobia and transphobia, murder of a horse, toxic sibling rivalry, suicidal ideation, violence Oh my gosh, this was such a tender m/m fantasy romance, steeped in narratives about healing, acceptance, and love. It’s also a mystery about a series of bloody, brutal killings (including, I regret to inform you, the death of a horse). And it’s a political thriller. There’s a lot happening here and fortunately the novel takes its time with all the pieces although it doesn’t quite stick the landing. While the book involves a lot of trauma and pain, the tone is consistently one of healing and acceptance and the book is often sad but never depressing, while the happy ending feels richly earned. Here’s the publisher’s description of the plot: Velasin vin Aaronever planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead. Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock. With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love—as both will learn—is quite another. There are a lot of threads here, what with the romance and the politics and the healing from trauma and the solving a series of crimes, and contrast between a society steeped in toxic masculinity and homophobia (Ralia, where Velasin comes from) and a more open and flexible society (Tithena). Yet the book feels leisurely. At times I felt it was too leisurely, even a bit slow and repetitive. But mostly I appreciated the pace, which gives ample time to each theme. In particular, the book pays realistic attention to TW/CW Velasin’s slow recovery from sexual assault and to the gentle, warm, patient but sexy romance that develops between Velasin and Cae. While there’s a lot of plot, the book really centers characters and their relationships with each other. Velasin and his valet, Markel, begin the story with a mutually respectful partnership, and under the looser political and social structures of male relationships in Tithena, their friendship flourishes. To Cae’s considerable embarrassment, and my delight, a bantering friendship develops between Velasin and Cae’s ex, Liran. As Velasin becomes more accustomed to Ralian norms, he is able to express affection of both platonic and romantic kinds to men, and this freedom opens him up in a way that is simply lovely to witness. This is definitely a story that values intelligence, particularly of the emotional and political varieties. Markel, Cae, and Velasin use knowledge of a variety of languages, including sign language, to great effect in gaining and sharing information and sometimes in simply surprising people. They also display a lot of political acumen – especially Velasin, who is very good at politics and genuinely enjoys it. If you enjoy “smart is sexy” tropes and the intricacies of becoming familiar with a new culture, you’ll really like this. Also there’s magic, although the magical element is pretty minor. The message that everything is better in Ralia gets a little heavy handed. Not content to be better in terms of cultural mores that embrace queerness, Ralia is better at EVERYTHING, including food (which, OMG, so much good food, I wanted to eat it SO MUCH), fashion, government – you name it, Ralia is better. Also, the plot is repetitive. Every day our heroes wake up, they eat something amazing, they have sexual tension, someone dies, they worry about it, repeat. And there are not one, but two lengthy villain monologues which are handy for explaining the mystery to the reader but otherwise kinda silly. TW/CW - details of sexual assault This book does contain a graphic rape scene early on. I often nope right of books that involve rape, but I felt that this book handled it very well. First of all, the scene challenges some myths about rape, specifically showing that men can be raped, that even if the victim responds on a biological level, it’s still rape, and that lack of consent equals rape even if the rapist and the victim had consensual sex earlier in their history. Further, a lot of time and attention is given to Velasin’s mental, emotional, and physical recovery. This is a painful journey, but not a depressing one, possibly because Velasin’s emotional trauma is balanced by the interesting things happening around him and because although Velasin’s culture and family is rife with homophobia, he has a strong support system in Markel, in Cae (who he confides in early in their relationship), and in others in Cae’s circle. If Game of Thrones was about two brilliant cinnamon roll heroes in a world where a few people are vile and a few people are ruthless, but most people are either flat-out awesome or at the very least pretty OK, it would sort of resemble this book. There are no dragons, I’m sorry to say, but there is a lot of food and fashion, some action scenes, and a smattering of magic. Above all, if you like intelligent heroes and narratives of healing, slow burn romance, and found family, you can’t miss with this book. View the full article