'A Murder of Crows': Art as Vengeance

And here we have bratty novel number two. Luxembourg is an unusual country to choose as the setting for the novel because it's never on anyone's radar, mine included. For this final novel in the Arcana Europa collection, I wanted to use a country I haven't touched on before. Especially since I've written books set in largely four nations I'm far more familiar with time and time again: England, France, Germany, and Italy (primarily Venice). My first attempt at branching out was with The Amaranth Maze (Sweden), and then I decided to challenge myself with yet another location I knew nothing about.

It was a deep dive into Luxembourg's history, in that case, and I was pleasantly surprised to see patterns of migration into the country. 

In case you didn't know, Rembrandt van Rijn tops my list of favorite artists. And with the idea of regional magic being at the core of the Arcana Europa books, I decided to have Dutch magic be in paint. Mathieu's inscriptive magic is something more like minor magic, if you will, as it's a rare talent but very useful in education. As he's from France, which I've already covered in The Flowers of St. Aloysius, I decided not to rehash nature magic that was already explored in that book though it does enjoy a cameo in the end. 

And so this novel is peopled with immigrants who've all settled down nicely in Luxembourg.

a still from the BBC adaptation of Le Fanu's ghost story

Two other things greatly inspired this book's plot: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (one of my all-time favorite ghost stories) and Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and divine justice in Greek mythology. 

The former, of course, involves also one of my favorite horror tropes of the demon lover, but its presence in the book is a lot subtler than it was in The Amaranth Maze. However, the dark, brooding atmosphere of the story and the visuals I ran across online from the TV adaptation from 1979 worked perfectly for my inspiration. Rembrandt's portraits were also mined for mood and atmosphere.

"Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime" by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

Nemesis is something of a staple in my books, and in this case her presence is closely tied with what I call Dutch magic. Paint and art in this instance aren't only used to capture beauty and emotion, but also to exact vengeance depending on the artist's intent. It was an idea that first came to me when I wrote Ambrose, but it finds full expression in A Murder of Crows. 

A Murder of Crows is now 50% off in e-book format through the end of September. To get your copy, go here for a list of online bookstores.  

'The Amaranth Maze' and... Haunted Mazes, Yeah!

On to problem child number one. 😅 And here I am again with that chronic condition of mine called candor, especially when it comes to my own work. But I'm not going to groan like a parent looking back at those days when a growing child gave me so much sass. 

Okay, so I love mazes. I love labyrinths. There's a difference between the two, and while I dig the idea of labyrinths more as a story element in gothic fiction, I opted for a maze for this book because an escape is needed for the romantic relationship to work (vague, I know, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers here). 

When I read Stephen King's The Shining, I was immediately drawn to the animal topiary and maze where Danny played (that ghost-child in the tunnel made me nearly crap my pants, let me tell you). Since I was a teenager when I read the book, I didn't know till that moment that, Jesus, a maze could fuck you up. 

Fast forward to my post-college years, and I ran across ghost story anthologies of my present hero in classic ghost fiction, M.R. James -- specifically, "Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance". After years of not even thinking about mazes and how they can, yes, fuck you up, reading that story lit the fires, and there we go again with the muses refusing to shut their yap. 

Guys, get a load of this incredible video adaptation of the story using silhouette animation a la Lotte Reiniger: 

To add something extra to poor Lauris's troubles, I again turned to one of my favorite horror tropes: the demon lover. And when fused (sort of) with a cursed maze, it all made a hell of a lot of sense, and I just HAD to run with it. 

And as for the book's title, not only does "Amaranth Maze" sound good (it does -- a bajillion percent), the plant itself holds significant meaning in folklore: immortality and endless love. In the book, the significance is ironic, again much to Lauris's dismay. The setting being in Sweden plus the book also being a part of the Arcana Europa collection, the use of Sweden's primary economy in the 19th century also ended up working really well for me as the country was progressing in finance at around that time while rural agriculture fell under its metaphorical wheels. So pitting Frederik the capitalist and Lauris the traditionalist against each other (at least at first) also turned into the right sort of conflict given their respective backgrounds.

The Amaranth Maze is currently 50% off in e-book format through September. You can get a copy from the online bookstores listed over here. And, as always, thank you for your support.

September Backlist Bonanza: 'The Amaranth Maze' and 'A Murder of Crows'

A new month, a new sale. Cool, cool. Now these two books, the last of the Arcana Europa collection, are special -- but not in the way you think. They were the twin runts of the litter, if you will, and they challenged (not fought, but just challenged) me at every turn. 

I suppose I should refer to them as the twin brats of the litter instead of the runts. That tracks. I do look back at these two with bemused fondness because my experience working on them still hangs in space above California, and it's become part of the state's climate now. 

That's a lot of candor for two books I'm supposed to be advertising for the month, but I'm nothing if not blunt in the best of times (my husband will say "That's because you're an INTJ, which makes you a borderline sociopath" -- but he's an ISFP, so what does he know? 😁 ). I'll touch on these books' creation when I post about each down the line, but yeah.

All writers have their problem children, and these two are mine -- at least in this particular collection. The good thing is that they're nowhere near as problematic as Eidolon (for which I'm still grieving, by the way). As I've said, they're just brats, and if they were human kids, they'd have spent a lot of time in the time out corner. Just saying.

Anyway...

THE AMARANTH MAZE

A legend of a long-dead murderer buried in a mysterious maze. A cruel, childish trick gone wrong. A dangerous vow made in trust by a shy and lonely young boy. And somewhere in the idyllic Swedish countryside, a centuries-old entity is summoned from its thorny grave.

Fourteen years later, twenty-two-year-old Fredrik Niequist returns from his travels, a brilliant financier who intends to break new ground in the Swedish agricultural industry by commercializing local nature magic. He is also newly engaged to a wealthy childhood friend in a cynical and loveless partnership.

Twenty-year-old Lauris Ahlberg, meanwhile, turns his mind to botany as a promising apprentice to an English botanic occultist. As he studies a flower species displaying marks of the night world, he realizes the tainted flowers' sudden appearance near his home and the ominous pattern they form signify a terrifying presence coming from a familiar source.

When Fredrik and Lauris cross paths again, old wounds break open, and promises of forever after ring hollow as the two awkwardly rekindle their friendship. And in the meantime, a creeping threat takes physical shape, breaking past its prison of thorns in order to lay claim to what has long belonged to it.

and then we have

A MURDER OF CROWS

Blessed with the unique talent of Inscriptive magic, twenty-year-old Mathieu Perrault leaves his old life in France and the orphanage that has been his home since his childhood for work as the new tutor to a five-year-old mute girl. His head filled with dreams and endless possibilities, Mathieu soon finds himself in a great house tucked away in the quiet wooded hills of the northern region of Luxembourg.

A house occupied by an ailing Dutch artist, one burdened with a terrible secret, and his charming family. A house shadowed by the sudden death of a well-loved servant. A servant, in fact, whose ghost stirs from its dusky world and seeks out Mathieu in terror. Through echoes of past events in unlit hallways, incoherent messages carved into walls, and the eerie vigilance of crows guarding the family, the ghost does what it can to warn Mathieu of a coming danger.

And in the midst of warmth, laughter, and family, of friendship and magic, of young love blooming against a backdrop of terrible heartache and tragedy, Mathieu searches for answers in a dreamer's bid to give the ghost the peace long denied it. All the while, a twisted shadow from the past creeps forward, inching closer and closer to him, a vicious hunger that leaves ruin and death in its wake.

In that isolated great house among the silent trees and the watchful crows, Mathieu will soon learn that the restoration of balance in a world gone awry doesn't always lie in the sphere of ordinary, mortal men. 

Both books are 50% off through the whole of September, and for a list of online stores where you can purchase copies of the e-books, just click the book titles above. Onward! 

Slowing Down. Slooooowing Dooooown. Also Hints On the Next Book (Plus Elton John!)

Now that I've decided to follow a six-month publishing calendar, it's really freed up so much time literally and in my head. This weekend, though I got up at my usual time to continue my weekday work schedule (best to follow that through the weekend so as not to mess with my sleep cycle), I didn't work on edits or revisions. I just messed around, reading and catching up on some subscriptions online, and it's such a weird, alien feeling. 

I never used to give myself that much space in the past. I never did. And I love it now. Of course, in addition to just messing around, I also dove into planning for Doppelgänger, which is coming out pretty surprisingly since I finally latched on to an unexpected interpretation, if you will, of what a doppelgänger actually is. Other story ideas complicated things too much, and a couple of them were dangerously similar to previous books I've written, so no go with those.

Anyway, as you know, music is one thing I turn to for inspiration -- sometimes on its own, sometimes partnered with other forms of art (literature, visual art, film, etc.) -- and with my increasing focus on music from my childhood and teen years for my work playlist, I found a couple of standouts that I now can't shake off. The ideas both songs (individually and together) trigger in my head are the most promising, and it helps that I can find common threads or connections between two completely different songs given their histories.

The musical collaboration of Elton John and Bernie Taupin was a massive, massive part of my childhood soundtrack. I loved their songs as a child though I naturally didn't understand the meaning of some of them. I was much older when I actually took the time to listen -- really listen -- to the lyrics, and that's why so many of their songs are now an integral part of my work playlist. 

I'm not going to get into my plans for Doppelgänger for now as it's still way too early for that, and I'm not done cleaning up The Twilight Lover. However, as a bit of a tease, here are the two songs that now inspired much of the plot:

God dang, it's a knife to the heart, both of these songs. I actually have visceral responses to the words and the music, and they're like the kind of pain that you don't want to let go. But that's probably me being dramatic? Nah. I love them both, and now that I understand what they're about, I love them even more, and I embrace the hurt.

Another thing about slowing down is that I'm planning to go back to writing stories by hand, which is, of course, a significantly slower method but more fruitful in ways than straight up typing on the computer. I've always loved writing in cursive, which clearly shows my age, but I've grown to appreciate how it forces me to take my time getting the words out -- that is, actually thinking about what I'm writing. I also think it'll be good for me to keep using my hand especially since I had thumb fusion surgery done a few years ago, and I can't hold a pen the same way again.

Oh, I can still do it, of course, but it's a hell of a lot trickier now than ever, and it's definitely a much slower process. I just hate to lose the fluidity of movement involved in writing cursive, especially since any handwritten messages I do at work are in block letters (because no one can read my writing, I guess). 

'The Twilight Lover' Blurb

My birthday gift to myself was to complete the first round of revisions and edits (yesterday), which leaves me time to work out the book blurb this morning. Since today's my last rest day for the summer, I'm going to take it easy and allow myself to be as lazy and unproductive as I can be (though reading isn't unproductive at all, is it?). 

I need to put some space between the recent revisions and the next round of edits, and it's going to be hard as hell to do with me being at home. The temptation is real, yo. Anyway, here's the book blurb:

In the fairy tale-like and colorful town of Glossop lies a small graveyard guarded by an ancient yew. Residents have long resigned themselves to its existence, with the poorer ones forced to trek through its dreary space just to get to work each day. 

For little Rowan Linville, the mysterious graveyard is both a necessary ordeal for his parents and a strange place where something in the shadows whispers after him. Something that might also be behind a number of personal items Rowan’s lost in his occasional walks through the graveyard in his mother’s company. As he grows older, those whispers follow him, and boys his age intent upon courting him suddenly fall victim to all kinds of misfortunes. Illness, broken bones, sprained limbs, and odd accidents plague hopeful suitors until Rowan is saddled with the reputation of a cursed youth.

Hope stirs at the arrival of the Akker family and their younger son, the dashing Tennyson, who is immediately drawn to Rowan. A couple of chance glimpses of the lonely boy stir Tennyson’s artistic muse and lay the foundation for a future courtship that seems to come straight out of a Shakespearean comedy—and tragedy, for that matter. 

That is because the entity that has attached itself to Rowan is not at all pleased with this new suitor, and it will do anything to keep him away. Unfortunately for the ghost of an embittered man, it appears it has met its match in a determined and ridiculously smitten Tennyson.    

I think this is close to the final version of the blurb, but don't hold me to it. I always tweak the blurb as I continue to work on edits, and this one's no exception. At any rate, I'll be sharing the final version (if any) in a future post. 

By the way, I have an update on my upcoming publishing calendar. Recently, I said I'm thinking about spacing out the release dates some more since keeping to a four-month schedule is starting to wear me down especially with my day job holding steady with its volume of work. I gotta take care of myself some more, and that involves easing up on the gas pedal where my writing's concerned. 

I'll be going back to my six-month calendar, which will be a May / November timeline. Pretty easy to remember for all, and it was the schedule I followed in the past when I was still writing full-length novels. I mean, in some places my long novellas actually count as short novels, but I'm still adhering to the label of long novellas. My chosen word count is perfect, anyway, and I love working with it.

Tangent aside, that's my plan, which means that the following will be out next year: Doppelgänger and The Shadow Groom. And in 2027, we'll have Camera Obscura and A House of Profane Gods. I'll likely finish these books well ahead of schedule, but I'll plow through the edits and revisions as I usually do and list each book accordingly. Whether or not the final listing happens a month or two months or even three months before the actual release date is neither here nor there. If my speed puts me way ahead of the game, I'm not going to change the dates. 

What I'll expect to do in that case is to work on the next book even if its release date ends up a year out. All that extra time will be spent planning upcoming books, anyway, so there's no lost time at all. Plus self-care. Can't forget about that.

My Book News Page has been updated with the new calendar.