So We're Down the Home Stretch

In terms of the month, the year, and my WiP. How ya like dem apples? Granted this year's been a mess in more ways than one, but as far as my protective bubble of writing, everything's going swimmingly. Therein lies the real benefit of doing this -- not for a living, no, but more like a labor of love at this point. It's very healing, writing books on subjects and themes I love to read and explore, and I'm always proud to share them with the rest of the world.

Anyway, as the year draws to a close and I'm clean out of promos to post, howzabout basic updates? Yeah, I can do that.

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DOPPELGÄNGER -- I'm down to the last 19K words, which is always a point in my writing progress that catches me off-guard and then cranks up the background anxiety. It's a marker reminding me that I only have less than 20K words left for the first draft, and I've got to make sure the climax is placed where it can give the resolution enough space to unfold. So I have to be doubly mindful of how each chapter leading up to it needs to move, but the penultimate moment for Alec is going to be in one of the next 2-3 chapters. 

I'm basically looking at the last weekend of the month or the first weekend of the next month / next year when the first draft will be completed, and then it's circling back to revisions and edits. 

Incidentally, a previous blog post discussing this book noted a couple of Elton John songs that have been my musical inspiration for this book. But that's now all changed because I needed to start over and do a complete overhaul, and the inspiration is now very, very different. What started out as a contemporary story is back to being a historical fantasy.

Also another big revelation -- or make it a painful reminder -- is that I suck at writing first person POVs in a modern setting. Did that once with Primavera, and I tried again with the first attempt at Doppelgänger, but no more. If I'm going to write in the first person again, it'll be historical fantasy because I have a pretty dated style of narrative. Now we're back to a third person POV, which is my comfort zone.   

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THE SHADOW GROOM -- The next book on the calendar is already enjoying quite a bit of visual inspiration collection, if you will. I've put together a folder and am saving every image I'd like to play with as prompts. 

It's meant to be another historical fantasy and a comedy like The Twilight Lover, and it's also just as obvious as a romance with hefty doses of folktale elements. The main plot's already laid out: it's a retelling of another fairy tale, which is "The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was". Damn, that title's a mouthful, but I've only known it as "The Boy Who Didn't Know How to Shudder" as a kid. That was the title given to the fairy tale in the book I once had, anyway, so that's what I remember. I do love the story, though, and it's one of my favorites. 

Oh, and speaking of myth and folklore retellings, I do have a new one in mind involving the Cupid and Psyche myth. I looooove that story to bits, and I think it's a great one to take apart and retell using the genre that's closest to my heart. I've yet to come up with a title, but that story's a solid contender, and I'll be posting more about it here as more ideas on it come up.

I do want it to come out like Compline, which I'm ridiculously happy with. Yes, it's pretty damn dark, but the original fairy tale is very, very subtle and requires the reader to pay close attention to the story elements that hearken back to the Pied Piper story. I'd love to do just that with the Cupid and Psyche retelling as well. Or re-imagining, I suppose, which would be more appropriate given what I hope to achieve. 

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EIDOLON -- Or the book formerly called Eidolon, anyway. It's going through some initial tweaking, idea-wise, and I do have a good angle for the ghost story now. The title hasn't come up yet, but it'll happen once I'm ready to tackle it. But it's another solid contender for my publishing calendar, which means there'll be some adjustments yet again. 

My pace of writing at this point now depends on not so much my energy levels (which have recovered and are being strictly maintained because I don't want to work myself to death, thank you very much), but by my desire to immerse myself in my therapeutic bubble. Even if I only write on the weekends (3 - 4 hours per day), it's a strategy that's worked nicely so far. 

I don't know how 2026 will unfold, but I'm still hard at work on my books, so at least I've got something to offer folks who want to escape the world for a short time. And if things end up working better than expected, I very well might just give in and tweak my releases again, giving up the 6-month calendar in favor of shorter gaps. 

Because I'm obviously good at making a liar out of myself, know what I mean? 

'The Glass Minstrel' and Strange Visions

By chance, I saved the hardest book for last. The Glass Minstrel was one of three realistic historical novels I wrote (the others being Icarus in Flight and Banshee), and I honestly was so drained after finishing this that I decided historical fantasy was more aligned with my preferences. 

The book actually started out as a short story, and (ironically) the story was a fairy tale (read: historical fantasy). It revolved around a glass minstrel that comes to life when Christmas rolls around, and while other ornaments and toys celebrate the season, he's burdened by the grief his creator (a toymaker who lost his son) infused in him.  

And to go even further back, a very specific song (and a very specific rendition of it -- see: embedded video) somehow called to mind a scene which involves an old man bent over his worktable, weeping over a glass ornament that he'd designed to represent his dead son. Pretty strange, isn't it, that something so specific would inspire another extremely specific thing in my head? But that was how it all started.

Fast forward several years later when I decided to expand that fairy tale, strip it of its fantasy elements, and reshape it into a more realistic plot -- while at the same time hinting at those lost fairy tale elements with the use of Christmas and toys as significant symbols (even metaphors, if you will) that weave in and out of the day-to-day lives of three main characters. 

While I spent a lot of time looking up information on 19th century Bavaria (the setting of the story), there were still obviously a number of things I had to use my imagination on. I think that also kind of added an extra layer to the fairy tale touches. 

It was a difficult novel to write, yes -- not only logistically, but emotionally. I'll admit I cried here and there while working on this, especially the final chapters. This is a book that I hold dearly, dearly, dearly in my heart largely because I had to dig deep and scrape so much of myself out and lay it all on paper, and it hurt like a MF in more ways than one. 

The Glass Minstrel is the final book that's up for a 50% discount in e-book format. Go here for more information and a list of stores where you can purchase a copy.  

December Backlist Bonanza: 'The Glass Minstrel' (How Apropo!)

We have a solo act for the final month of the year, folks. This December, the following book is 50% off in e-book format from online stores: 

THE GLASS MINSTREL 

It is the Christmas season in mid-19th century Bavaria. Two fathers, Abelard Bauer and Andreas Schifffer, are brought together through the tragic deaths of their sons. Bauer, a brilliant toymaker, fashions glass Christmas ornaments, and his latest creation is a minstrel with a secret molded into its features.

When Schiffer sees Bauer's minstrel ornament in the toy shop, he realizes that Bauer is struggling to keep his son's memory alive through his craft. At first he tries to fault him for this, but then recognizes that he, too, is seeking solace and healing by reading his son's diary, a journal that reveals, in both painful as well as beautiful detail, the true nature of Heinrich's relationship with Stefan.

Fifteen-year-old Jakob Diederich is the son of a poor widow. The boy is burdened with his own secret, and he develops an obsession with a traveling Englishman who stays at the inn where Jakob works. The lives of Bauer, Schiffer, and Diederich intersect during the holiday as Schiffer tries to focus on his family in the present, Bauer struggles to reconcile his past, and Jakob copes with an uncertain future.

Echoing the sensibilities of melancholy 19th Century folktales, lyrical prose and rich period detail quietly weave a moving tale of redemption, hope, and haunting, but timeless, themes.

The book choice is coincidental given the season. I ran my backlist through a random number generator and ended up with the sequence of books as I posted it since January. Anyway, my only Christmas novel is the final title on the block, the solo act due to the face that Eidolon was pulled from the list, and it left a space. 

Anyway, there it is, and I'll be posting stuff about it later this month. 

 

Maybe Not Dead, After All

No, that post title doesn't refer to me. Yikes. It's in reference to my much-lamented book, Eidolon, which I delisted and pulled completely from all stores. 

I've been thinking about it on and off lately -- though the "on" bit is a lot less than the "off" bit, I'll admit -- and I do think something can be done with it. The story itself falters once Emerick grows up, and the POV shifts to his entirely, so I'd like to go back, take the earlier chapters (however many I can salvage, anyway), and work with those for a new story.

Or at least a new angle to Emerick's curse. 

One thing I'd like to do is to continue the POV from his parents', which I've always felt was a stronger position from which to tell the story, but this is one example of not listening to one's instinct and the less than stellar results of that move. Not that I'm excusing my choices, mind you, but since I was trying to force the book into the Curiosities mold, I was obligated to change the POV to the character most affected by the cursed wish. 

Shouldn't have done that. Well, you know what they say about hindsight.

Anyway, I'd like to salvage those chapters from the fateful night of the mother's misguided wish through to the moment the family immigrate to a different country and take it from there. Of course, there'll be a hell of a lot of rewriting -- not revising, no, but an overhaul without completely sacrificing the story from Valentin and Hanke's perspective. It's going to be tricky, but I can do it. At least the groundwork is there, and I just need to spend time picking through what's usable and what isn't until the foundation is completely set.

I think it's the only way to give the story the vindication it deserves now that I've accepted my mistake and am willing to make things right. The story will be part of the Grotesqueries collection, naturally, and as for what the new title will be (definitely won't be Eidolon) or even the story's tone, it's all going to come out down the line. The calendar might shift again, I don't know. 

For now the six-month schedule looks good, but I'm also progressing pretty rapidly with Doppelgänger, and I might be tempted -- because I'm weak that way-- to tweak my publishing calendar again. If that does happen, it's more likely going to be a five-month schedule and not a four-month one like before because I'm not superhuman. 

Anyway, watch this space. 

'Rose and Spindle' and Loving Thy Enemies

I do apologize for the radio silence from my end. Work's gotten surprisingly hectic, and I haven't been mentally fit to update my blog until now. There were also a few self-care things I've been delaying that demanded attention, so I paid them attention. All's well now, though, and I can move on.

Anyway, yes -- Rose and Spindle, woo!

image from Pinterest

This book, along with Gold in the Clouds, was my attempt at writing a fairy tale retelling from the point of view of a side character. For instance, for Gold in the Clouds, which was a retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk," Blythe is a good friend of Jack, and the book delves into the magic beanstalk and how its existence forces the boy to choose a path while Jack goes off on his own adventure in the clouds (with disastrous results in a lot of ways). 

And for Rose and Spindle, we're looking at the "Sleeping Beauty" story with the points of view of two side characters, both princes, one of whom is a cousin of the titular fairy tale princess. The book is also a romantic comedy as well as a satire poking fun of all the perfect attributes given to Sleeping Beauty herself, and I really enjoyed turning Rosamund's "gifts" and "blessings" on their head (much to her cousins' chagrin). 

The enemies-to-lover trope was really the main point of the book: the journey taken by Hamlin and Edouard from childhood mutual loathing to a thawing of the enmity every time they saw each other through the years -- but with still a lot of saltiness seasoning the meal, so to speak, until there wasn't any salt left. 

The love story coming out of this coming-of-age experience is the reward, the final choices made when the curse finally comes to silence the princess's castle and everyone in it -- all of those aren't the focus of the book even though they all lurk in the background like ever-evolving threats. An inevitability that will test the princes' love for each other. 

And to mirror what we usually get from Disney princess films through the years, we have sidekicks -- animal and human -- who are there to help our boys find their hearts and understand their bond. 

Rose and Spindle is one of two books currently marked down by 50% through the end of November in e-book format. You can go here for the book page and a list of stores, and happy reading! 

'The Book of Lost Princes' and Oscar Wilde

I once owned a collection of Oscar Wilde's short stories, which were primarily his original fairy tales. It was one of those books I loved to pieces (still do, really) despite collapsing in a puddle of tears after every story. 

this wasn't the volume I owned, but you get the idea

"The Happy Prince", "The Selfish Giant", "The Nightingale and the Rose", and "The Birthday of the Infanta" were the ones that tore me up again and again, yet I couldn't help (still can't, really) going back to them repeatedly because of how different they were from the older folktales we're all so familiar with. They're complex, they dive much deeper, and they deal with more adult themes in several ways -- "The Nightingale and the Rose" and "The Birthday of the Infanta" are examples of the last item. The other two stories are more child-friendly, if you will.

I was inspired primarily by that collection of stories, wondering if I could write my own fairy tales in a longer form. I wanted to do something that one-ups The Winter Garden and Other Stories, which is a collection of short stories that are also original fairy tales. 

The stories in this book were originally published individually when I was still working with a small press, and then three of them were bound into an anthology. Ansel of Pryor House was published way after that, and when I got my rights back, I decided to re-release everything in one volume. 

I heavily leaned on symbolism and metaphor in these stories, which all deal with self-acceptance, confidence, and courage. Similar themes as those tackled in my other fairy tale anthology, but I gave myself way more room to explore them here as these stories are all novelettes and short novellas. My original plan was to write a series of fairy tale anthologies containing longer forms but never got around to doing that. 

Only one story -- Benedict -- received the musical treatment, if you will. I listened to Carl Orff's "Gassenhauer" repeatedly when I wrote this story. 

It does have a fairy tale-esque quality to it. 

The Book of Lost Princes is currently 50% off in digital format through the end of November. Go here for a list of stores for a copy. 

Double Whammy: 'The Twilight Lover' Now Available and November Backlist Bonanza

New month, new stuff! Also a couple of not-quite-new stuff, hey! So firstly, it's finally out:

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 rival. 

I had way too much fun writing this book, and with any luck, I'll be able to enjoy another dip in the nutty pool in future books. For a behind-the-scenes look, go here for the book's gallery page. The Twilight Lover is available for 99 cents in e-book format and $9.00 USD in print. Go here for the main book page and the links to bookstores. 

This book also marks the end of my 4-month release calendar. From 2026 onward, I'll be publishing two books a year following a 6-month calendar to ensure I don't burn myself out (especially given the ridiculous pace I've been following for years now). Time to slow down and take care of those gray cells and keep inspiration going. 

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And secondly, we have a couple of books on the block for this month's Backlist Bonanza:

The Book of Lost Princes

"Outside, on the bough of a tree, sat the living nightingale. She had heard of the emperor's illness, and was therefore come to sing to him of hope and trust. And as she sung, the shadows grew paler and paler."

- Hans Christian Andersen, "The Nightingale"

A marionette, a weeping willow, a house shade, and a lonely, abused boy - there are more to them than what meets the eye.

Written in a style reminiscent of classic European folktales, the four original fairy tale novellas in this collection explore a gay teen's coming-of-age in settings steeped in magic, wonder, romance, and infinite possibilities.

In Benedict, a marionette is given a strange puzzle to solve during the king's quarter dance. A cursed tree finds salvation in the love of a homeless, ragged boy in The Weeping Willow. In Grave's End, a house shade learns what it means to be human. And in Ansel of Pryor House, a boy rescued from his abusive father discovers the darker fate marked for those whom Nature refuses to forgive.

Rose and Spindle

Boy meets boy. Boy hates boy. Each swears never to have anything to do with the other, forever after.

Unfortunately for Prince Hamlin and Prince Edouard, history has a bad habit of repeating itself, and worse, each time the two boys run across each other, things get a touch muddier as well. Destiny and free will go head-to-head, the princes' dilemma echoing the more baffling curse that's been placed on Edouard's young cousin, Princess Roderika. Doomed to prick her finger on a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and fall asleep for a hundred years as a result, Roderika's rapidly dwindling time becomes an inescapable tapestry into which Hamlin and Edouard's own fates are woven.

With the help of a magician princess and a crotchety talking raven, Hamlin and Edouard not only have to outgrow prejudices, but also find the courage and the will to define their destinies, even if it were to take them a hundred years.

Both books are 50% off in e-book format for the month of November. Click the book titles to go to their respective pages for online stores. And if you do purchase copies for yourself, I hope you enjoy them! I'll be posting more about these two in the coming weeks.  

 

 

Shifting Gears (the Usual)

After writing 10K words on Doppelgänger, I had to rename the file, store it for possible later use, and start over. It happens. It sucks when it does, but I've learned not to fight it.

I couldn't make it work in a contemporary setting despite all of the notes I've amassed while working on the previous book. It's likely (most likely) a case of overthinking on my part because no matter what I did, I couldn't make events work in a contemporary setting while keeping things realistic within reason. 

And this is why I admire writers of contemporary fiction: I find that I keep resisting reality when I try, and I know it's not going to sit well with readers if none of my characters or cause-and-effect events are believable. My imagination takes flight, and when I go back and reread whatever sections I've written so far, my "modern day" side would point out places that won't work in the real world. 

Ignore the fact that since I write gothic horror, there'll be several things in the story that'll be highly implausible. However, what's happening is the way all those elements bleed into the rest of the scene / setting / characters. My plan was to make it something like "domestic gothic" or something along those lines, so the horror elements are supposed to be subtle and scattered. 

But I can't make it work because I'm me. 😑

So!

New file opened, new version started, and I'm back to square one with one chapter written. I'm sitting on it for the rest of the work week and checking it here and there to see if I'll still feel satisfied with the results, which I am, btw. So we're back to a historical fantasy with some subtle hints of magical elements worked into the story. I mean -- I love the idea of hexed lamps or hexed this and that (see: the Curiosities collection). You can say that I'm still mourning the loss of Eidolon and wishing I could do more for the series, but it is what it is, and I should keep moving forward. 

The story's the same as the original draft, but there are (of course) subtle tweaks because of the sharp change in setting. As with my other historical fantasy books, this one will be a mix of historical fiction and folklore, but (with any luck) it'll be closer to a straightforward historical.  

'Henning' (Omnibus) and a Love Letter

Henning was originally released as a two-volume series but is in an omnibus in its final edition. This book was one of my most sentimental projects, I'll have to say. One of my former co-workers had died from cancer -- this happened way after I left the company -- and he was, hands down, my favorite co-worker at that place. 

When I learned about his death, it took me a while to wrap my head around it considering the time gap between that and the last day we worked together. He was one of those people who left a lasting impression in me that I still cherish to this day. Herbert was one of the kindest and humblest people I've ever known, and he was a ridiculously talented artist to boot. 

A lot of his mannerisms found their way in the book, scattered among the characters. And as I write Doppelgänger, I'm finding myself leaning once again on the memory of my time working with him, this time inspired by the really tight bond I didn't realize I needed then. He was like the quiet and quirky but super cool uncle you always want to hang out with at a family reunion. He had so many great stories to tell, and I practically hung on to every word.

Tangents aside...

Another reason for the sentimental label I just gave this book is the fact that this was also a kind of a love letter to Berkeley, CA, where I worked for a good part of my years (frame shop just off Telegraph Avenue near UC Berkeley and then the art store just off Gilman Street and San Pablo Avenue). That said, I wrote the book sometime between those two jobs, which didn't really affect my memories of the fun times.

The most vivid and fondest memory I'll ever have about Berkeley involves the yearly holiday fair on Telegraph Avenue. There were also weekend booths popping up outside the holidays back then (not sure if they still do today), and I've bought a few things from local artists through the years. I've always loved strolling down the street, checking out booths and their one-of-a-kind merchandise, eating food from local restaurants, and just enjoying the hell out of myself. 

There are scenes in this book that take place in events like what I've described. Even writing those scenes were almost magical. 

Henning is currently 50% off in e-book format through the end of October. For a copy, go here to the book page and the list of online bookstores.  

'Arabesque' and the Cynic

This book was my first immersion in a satirical take on a fairy tale (or fairy tales in general). I was still in college and stumbled across a book required for an English class I wasn't taking and thought the blurb and some of the text I sampled looked pretty damned good, so I bought it.

And I was right. 

The book was Briar Rose by Robert Coover, an American writer who wrote a good number of fairy tale retellings with a postmodern angle. This book was a really short one, but its approach to reimagining the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale caught me completely off-guard once I started reading it.

It was, by far, the most cynical take on a beloved fairy tale I've ever read, and I'm glad I took that chance in the university bookstore. I loved the book. I loved its weirdness, its satire (not the gentler Horatian satire, either, but more along the lines of my preferred kind: Juvenalian like Jonathan Swift's kind of satire), and especially its non-linear storytelling.

Since the focus was on the sleeping princess, the book was a long immersion in the princess's dreams. And they were alternately dark, hypnotic, horrifying, and sensual. I've seen readers react to the book and criticize it as misogynistic, but to me it read more like an anti-fairy tale. No HEA except in dreams.

And the writing style, being postmodern, was distant and aloof -- cold, almost. I LOVED IT. The POV was one most readers nowadays loathe, which was the third person omniscient, so the perspective is wide-ranging and all-encompassing in order for the slightly bitter tone to make a full impact.

It was the main inspiration for my own attempt at writing a cynical take on Snow White while also weaving a number of other fairy tales and myths into the plot to create my own version of entrapment and manipulation. The difference between Arabesque and Briar Rose is that the princes do find their HEA in the end. 

I remember working with an editor back in the day after JMS Books accepted the manuscript, and I apparently confused him with the mix of fairy tale samples -- especially in the woodland scene. We went back and forth over those, and I ended up trimming a few things that I thought were too much while he suggested removing them entirely. 

But I didn't write them into the scene for no reason, though, and needed to show how disillusionment was beginning to grip Alarick after years of being taught happy endings for virtuous characters in those childhood tales. Also I wanted to maintain that dream-like feel that escalates inside the cottage. 

As the blurb notes, this book was all about homophobia, misogyny, and conversion therapy, which I explored via Roald's ordeal and even Ulrike's descent into madness via metaphors and analogies. Even symbolism, i.e., the strange flowers being hawked at the open air market.

I really enjoyed writing this book, and I'd love to write something like this again down the line (now that I'm much older and even more cynical). I guess this would make my only attempt at writing something postmodern-ish, and now I'm jonesing to get another book by Robert Coover (like Pricksongs and Descants). 

Arabesque is currently 50% off in e-book format through the end of October. For a copy, the book page is over yonder. 

'The Twilight Lover' Gallery Page Now Up (Plus Other Updates)

I'll be posting stuff about the books on sale this month next weekend. We're down the final stretch, and The Twilight Lover will be out in less than a month (whoop!). I just finalized the manuscript and hit publish on the print book, and now I can really focus on the newest WiP.

Anyway, I finally put together a gallery page for The Twilight Lover, and it's over here. 

I wasn't kidding when I said in that gallery page that this book was one of the most fun I've ever had, writing it. I hope readers enjoy it as much as I did as I dive back in and work through a darker book. 

I dumped my first attempt at writing the opening chapter for Doppelgänger as the epistolary approach wasn't working as well as I'd hoped. It's now being written in a more standard first-person narrative, and it's also a contemporary setting.  

Trying to write something modern that's also a lot closer to realism than my previous efforts has always been a challenge. I've never been one for realistic fiction. I tried with Icarus in Flight, Banshee, and The Glass Minstrel, and while I'm proud as all hell of those books, I'm not keen on repeating the experience. It's just not me. 

Doppelgänger will be closer to Banshee in treatment (both books are first person POV), but the fantasy / paranormal elements will be in the minority. At least I have those to lean on for a fuller expression of my brain's weird turns, and I expect to continue along these lines in future contemporary books. I did mention that there's a germ of an idea for a future story in the Nightshade universe, and it's starting to feel more and more likely. 

Now if THAT happens, I'll be squeezing it somewhere in the calendar as I'd like to see a more even balanced release schedule involving both historical fantasy and contemporary fantasy. Beyond A House of Profane Gods, there are no new stories percolating somewhere (not counting that one for the Nightshade plotbunny), but I'm actively scouring through images for potential story prompts. 

October Backlist Bonanza: 'Arabesque' and 'Henning'

And we begin the final quarter of the year, which also happens to be my favorite (the first quarter comes second, obvs) with the nights lengthening and the temperatures dropping. For this month, we've got two more books on the half-off throne:

ARABESQUE

An ambitious young princess, Ulrike, turns to the dark arts in order to become queen despite her younger sister's warnings of a fatal consequence to mortgaging her soul. She succeeds, yet Ulrike finds herself trapped in a hateful marriage, her mind slowly being devoured by her powers, while conceiving and giving birth to a boy.

Alarick -- "the bastard prince" -- becomes the court's favorite object of mockery because of the scandal of his conception, his mother's spiraling madness compounding his ordeal. When Alarick falls in love with a childhood friend, Roald von Thiessen, the added sin of an unnatural romance gets caught up in a tumultuous aristocratic environment that's rife with hypocrisy, cruelty, betrayal, and murder.

Forcibly separated from each other during a bloody uprising, Roald and Alarick become helplessly ensnared in nightmarish adventures designed to twist their characters and destroy their minds in the process. The young lovers fight for their souls and a way back to each other in a world weighed down by the forces of dark and light magic, and gods grapple with each other over mortal destinies.

Arabesque is more than a gothic, homoerotic retelling of the Snow White folktale. It is also a dark allegory exploring contemporary issues such as misogyny, homophobia, and conversion therapy.

and

HENNING

Book 1: The Hunted Prince: Young Henning Babkis has learned not to consider himself to be anything special. Ignored and taken for granted by his family, his education suffering as a result of their neglect, he nevertheless struggles to fit in and improve himself, though with unimpressive results. He's also learned not to expect anything more for himself, convinced that he's doomed to live his life in a deep closet, surrounded by people who don't care and who'd have given him a lot of grief if they were to find out he's gay.

Things come to a sudden head when Henning's fifteenth birthday rolls around. An unexpected and terrifying attack by a creature from another world shakes up his quiet life, and Norbert steps forward with remarkable and shocking revelations as to Henning's true identity. And from a boy who's grown up to think himself as a nobody, Henning discovers a previous life in a world called Wintergrave -- a world of magic, romance, and danger.

In the company of a motley bunch of former warriors, Henning must reclaim his former life and regain his powers in order to defeat an old threat. But in order to do that, he needs to convince a certain former lieutenant that the two of them were deeply bonded before and need to reform their connection now in order to get their powers back. The wrinkle? Ellery Thomas is in a happy relationship with another boy in this lifetime.

Book 2: Prince of Wintergrave: Being a prince in a past life yields no benefits in the present, Henning has quickly learned. His concerned housemates have made themselves his official, overbearing chaperones, Ellery appears to despise him, and Henning's limited movements slowly wear down his nerves. With his awakening process turning out to be more of a zombie-like stagger, the stakes rise inevitably as undead attacks not only increase in frequency, but also in danger levels.

Henning finds some relief in the company of Alan Scott -- a handsome, smart young man he meets in a store, who displays an earnest interest in Henning. He gradually tears Henning's heartbroken attention away from Ellery, offering him promises of happiness as can only be defined in a boy's first love.

In the meantime, danger now spills over to threaten innocent civilians as they get dragged into monster attacks, making it difficult for Henning and his companions to fight back while raising troubling questions about the walls between worlds being torn down by dark magic. It also reveals the effect of a soul bond on Henning and Ellery's awakening -- that is, each boy's awakening is affected by the other, and the mystery of how and why only get muddier.

As Henning and his companions scramble for answers, it's a mad race against time when things happen that make them suspect Varian of crossing over to their world, searching for Henning.

Both books are 50% off in e-book format through this month, and I'll be posting tidbits about each in the coming days.  

Seeing the Backside of Summer and Welcoming Fall (At Last!)

Granted, the Fall / Autumn Equinox is tomorrow, but I won't have time at all to write a post. 

hand-drawn illustration from Freepik

I began preliminary work on Doppelgänger after hemming and hawing for so long on how best to approach the narrative. It's a return to dark drama, and considering the subject (hell, the title!), I need a very personal touch for the book, and since I've been champing at the bit for another epistolary narrative, I finally settled down on a series of short journal entries from the MC (at the moment named Alec, but that might change). 

Everything right now is a placeholder (character names included), and so far I've only written just over 600 words. 

I was at first planning to get going on this book in October, but as I've given myself all of September to finish polishing up The Twilight Lover and then be lazy for the rest of the month, I feel energized enough (not to mention inspired enough) to at least get the opening page written. I still have time to sit on this and see if I still like it when I look at it next weekend. 

But I love the idea of a character who already feels isolated pouring his thoughts into a banged-up, spiral-bound (generic) notebook for comfort -- hence a return to the epistolary form. The difference between this book and all the other books I've written in this format is that the account is strictly in journal entries and no letters (texts and emails included). 

As before, too, I'm going to have to be careful moving forward with this because dialogue in the traditional sense shouldn't be an extensive part of journal entries -- summaries of conversations and the character's responses to them, yes, but not detailed exchanges. 

The same goes with events that transpire, of course. I still look to books like Dracula as both inspiration on what to do and what NOT to do what with all those looooong, overly detailed recollections in journal entries. The Demeter captain's log entries are the way to go, but Alec's will be more extensive than those as well. And I daresay sinking myself into a new gothic horror book in epistolary form is the way to experience Autumn. 

Another thing I'd like to share is a possible plotbunny for another book set in the Nightshade universe, but it's just a teeny-weenie germ of an idea, and it might not happen at all. I'll play with it some more and see if it promises enough weight and heft for a complete story. If I do add it to my to-do list, there's going to be another shuffling of the calendar. But as always, I'll post about it, regardless.
 

'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. 

Oh, Look, a Holiday

Wow. I'm finally enjoying a five-day break from work, which is something I haven't done since the lockdowns. There's a really long story behind the significant lack of PTO hours accrued since 2020, and I'm not going to start. Suffice it to say, I reached a milestone at my current job and am finally (FINALLY) reaping the benefits. I'm expected back next Thursday, and this holiday-of-sorts was planned specifically to fall on my birthday, which is Tuesday (Aug. 26).

I originally requested all of next week off, but I changed it as I wanted to allow myself one last hurrah in November before the holidays come, and the company goes into black out mode till after New Year's. 

So what's been up with me? Well, writing, of course -- or more specifically, revising and editing The Twilight Lover. It's also giving me lots of room to think more and more about the book that comes after (Doppelgänger) and how best to approach it. I've been significantly enjoying writing and revising + editing The Twilight Lover that I'm again being swayed into turning Doppelgänger into a dark comedy, but I'm trying to rein my impulses in. Until I settle down on a plot since there are so many paths to take with the idea (so what else is new?), the tone can be considered afterwards. 

The Shadow Groom, which comes after Doppelgänger, is a comedy, though, while Camera Obscura and A House of Profane Gods are both drama, so at least I've got some kind of balance going by way of tone. But as always, that's looking too far ahead, and I need to zero in on one thing at a time. 

In other news, my library card's been getting a wild workout lately. I've been checking out two or even three books at a time, and then there's also Hoopla, where I can check out digital books or audio books or even films and series. That said, I'm reverting back to print books when it comes to library loans, but as for purchasing books I want to own, I'm still a heavy e-book user. This is the only "vice" I now have as I get older, and what used to excite me in my twenties or even thirties no longer raise my interest. 

My eyesight needing extra help with font size adjustments aside, a quieter and more solitary pursuit has always been my thing. As a kid, I've frustrated people by pointedly ignoring them because I'd rather read my book than be with them (Dad absolutely loved seeing me read, though, so thank you, Dad). 

I recently reset my e-book library by updating old Kindle collections and turning them into .epub files, which I then re-uploaded while removing other books that are either one-time reads or DNFs. At the moment my e-book library's reached that sweet spot of containing only my favorite books (which I do reread when the mood strikes) and new titles. And so between that and my jaunts to the public library, my reading addiction's nicely satisfied while I'm also able to keep a close tab on my spending.

So you can guess what I'll be doing through Wednesday, eh? SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME! I mean, really, that'd be the best kind of dilemma to have as far as I'm concerned.  

'Helleville' and Road Trips

And not to mention Beetlejuice. 😀 

It's been a century since I last enjoyed a road trip, and that includes my favorite destination of the Sierra Nevada mountain range -- well, specifically Mammoth Lakes, Yosemite, and all the incredible places east of the mountains. And it's this glorious mountain range and its surrounding landscape that shaped Helleville's otherworldly nature. 

One of my favorite movies (ever!), Beetlejuice, got me worked up about writing an environment and its residents that were specifically designed to frighten people back into the straight and narrow but ultimately failed. And, largely, because it was so convenient not to have to pay for anything and also so much fun living in a literal ghost town with your own house ghost. 

What I love about Beetlejuice was how much more interesting the world of the dead seemed compared to the living even though bureaucracy is just as bad as that in the world of the living. Still infinitely funnier and interesting, but you get my drift. It's echoed in another Tim Burton classic, The Corpse Bride, which I also adore. In that movie, the world of the dead is a thousand times more colorful and fun than the drab and dreary world of the living. 

Anyway, I ran with that idea while locating Helleville in a desert-like area that mirrors the Sierras. And as much as I didn't want any of the residents to leave (go me!), of course I needed to demonstrate that the punishment doled out to sinners is stupidly short-sighted (which isn't even the worst thing about the machinations behind Noah and Dot's inter-dimensional trip). I do highly regret them leaving their house ghosts behind, but that can be a plot bunny for another book entirely. 

This song helped me along not so much because of the music itself but because of the video and its celebration of untamed nature. The location chosen also accurately captures the gorgeous and awe-inspiring sights I enjoyed when I went to those road trips.

Helleville is currently 50% off through the end of this month. Go here for the book page and the links to all online stores where you can get a copy.