Book Rec - The Lymond Chronicles

Lymond is back.

Thus reads an opening line, and the beginning of a fictional adventure that I, in some ways, wish I had started much sooner. 

I saw author Victoria Schwab mention Dorothy Dunnett's famous Lymond Chronicles last year, and made a mental note, but, swamped with research, didn't pursue it. Between then and now, I've seen others reccomend it, wax poetic about it, and love it. So I finally ordered the first two books in the series, and started the first volume, The Game of Kings, about two weeks ago. 

“Good evening, ladies. The gentlemen now entering behind you are all fully armed. I am Francis Crawford of Lymond and I want your lives or your jewels -- the latter for preference; both if necessary.”

Books have a way, sometimes, of coming along at just the right time, when we need them most, and the Lymond Chronicles have done just that. Between social media obligations, and required research, it's easy to tell myself that reading for the sheer pleasure of it doesn't have a place in my daily life. But that's not true at all. An author has to read for pleasure. Has to remind herself why she loves storytelling, and keep her brain moving in a proselike fashion. I'm about thirty pages from the end of TGoK, and very glad that I've already ordered and now own the rest of the series. This is why I love to read. This is why I love to write.

“I wish to God,” said Gideon with mild exasperation, “that you’d talk—just once—in prose like other people.”

The series is written in a prose style highly reminiscent of the Classics; various Amazon reviews describe it as "hard reading," and even "dense." It belongs to an age of literature long past, though originally published in the sixties. The writing is clever. Even if I have to go look something  up in the middle, I adore clever writing; when you can see the author's wit and flexibility on full display. 

“I wanted to speak to you,” said the boy. “But not over a sword.”

“Through it, then.”

I can read about anything, but the books I love, the ones I cherish and reread, all boil down to character. And Francis Crawford of Lymond, and his supporting cast, are the sorts of characters that leave me hugging books to my chest, filled with joy. The kind of dynamic, tangible, delightfully human characters that command the page like the best kind of stage actor. Superhuman in that way, I guess. 

If the TV gods are listening, someone please, please create a Masterpiece series for these books. It would be spectacular. 

They don't carry the books at any of my local stores, so I ordered them from Amazon:

Workshop Wednesday - Tick Tock

From my Instagram post earlier today:

"One of the things I find most frustrating about being an author is the time required to write, edit, polish, and publish a book. I've been talking about Dragon Slayer for a year! And though every day I'm closer to its release, I often feel mired in quicksand. I feel actively guilty each time I post a teaser, because it's just that - a teaser. I've spent a year telling readers "this is gonna be awesome, just wait!" And amidst all the creative worries of writing, there's also this deep, personal frustration that I'm not working fast enough. A genuinely silly frustration, because I never feel impatient toward my favorite authors. Books take time, and I would never rush them...though I struggle not to rush myself. There's that sense of spinning your wheels, feeling like you're the only one, in the vast world of fiction authors, not accomplishing anything. An unfounded feeling: Dragon Slayer is 800 freaking pages, and I did that! But our own brains sabotage us in insidious little ways. I'll put this book out some day...she says for the hundredth time. Books, like wizards, are neither early nor late; they arrive precisely when they mean to."

I thought I might expand on that here, for a moment. 

Writing is, for the most part, a solitary art. We do our research, we piece together our notes and outlines, and we sit down at our computers and type. It can be lonely, at times, but for me, as an introvert, the quiet is a welcome and inspirational atmosphere; I do my best work when I'm totally alone - save the dog - without any outside distractions. Put on a book playlist, open Pinterest in the browser for some aesthetic images, and off I go. But being an author means plugging into social media on a daily basis to get your work out there. And that's when you start to feel, perhaps, inadequate. You see other authors talking about their new releases, posting their daily word counts, and you think, man, I'm slow. I just don't measure up. 

This is a natural, human thought, but it's such a harmful one, I've learned over time. Because no two authors are the same person (unless we're talking about those scammer folks who aren't even authors at all), and no two authors are writing the same books (again, except for those scammers). Different brains work in different ways. Different writers have different real-life obligations, and different novels require different approaches. 

We judge ourselves, though. In my case, too harshly. 

In 2016, I released five books. I still can't believe that happened. Two of the five had been written in the previous year, and merely published in 2016. But still. Five. Those books were Snow In Texas, Secondhand Smoke, Tastes Like Candy, Loverboy, and Walking Wounded. WW came out in December, and then I promptly caught pneumonia and was bedridden for two  months, and sick for six. 

Being sick like that. Being useless, needing my mom and brother to take care of my horses and dog for me; something as small as making myself breakfast serving as a daily triumph...that crushed me. I've never been in the best of health, but manage to muddle through; that winter, though, not being able to write - that sent me into a deep depression. I felt worthless. If I couldn't write, then I couldn't make money, and then what good was I? What purpose did I serve? 

I know that this was a really, really unhealthy way of looking at myself. I'm self-critical, it's what I do; it's why I always use a face filter on Instagram. But that was a low point. And I couldn't seem to regain my former productivity. 

I realized something, though; five releases is breakneck. Five releases in a year is crazy. In the (often dishonest) narrative of indie publishing, rapid releases are seen not only as normal, but necessary. It's an erroneous assumption that's been pushed forward by paid readers who have a financial interest in supporting a particular kind of indie author. It's gross. It's unrealistic. It has authors thinking they don't have time to properly develop a book's plot and characters; the demand for quantity has never been higher...and that of course drives down the quality of the product being offered. 

I'll admit to falling into the trap for a little while there. Thinking that I had to keep cranking out book after book if I wanted to stay relevant. Who knows; maybe I do. But take my urge to write all the things, and layer on the social media pressure of being an indie, and suddenly I was crushed beneath a weight of someone else's making. 

It causes me daily worry, but I've kept to a strict mindset while editing Dragon Slayer. This is your dream, I've told myself. This series, these characters, these books. Don't you dare rush that and mess it up, just because of the outside pressure. And can I say, here, that I appreciate so much that my readers have been encouraging and patient and cheered me on? I have the best readers, and I love you guys. 

And I would say this to any other indie who might be reading this, who's feeling the way that I've felt: Those hurry-up authors? The ones with book after book after book? Either they're going to burn out, or they were nothing but a ghost-writing collective to start with. They aren't going to stand the test of time. This business is full of ups and downs, good days and bad. But you can't fake passion. And there's no substitute for careful time taken. If your book needs a little longer to marinate, then take that time. Writing is a slow, lonely thing; revel in it. 

#TeaserTuesday 2/26/19

I'm kicking myself, because I keep talking about and hyping up the historical portion of Dragon Slayer, but there's an exciting modern-day storyline, too. I think I've kept it under wraps because of ~spoilers~, but I really enjoyed journeying back to Blackmere Manor. 

From a rooftop landing pad, Mia traveled with her escort in an elevator that dropped them three floors down and opened onto a long hallway lit with wall sconces, tiled with black and white checks. Tall, mullioned windows let in the night, bracketed by clusters of toile-printed armchairs. Light glowed at either end of the hall; in one direction lay the warm, exotic environs of the conservatory. In the other, the rest of the manor house.

Even this, just a place to pass through, to maybe stop and read a book beside a rain-streaked window, was awash in simple splendor.

“You get used to it,” Treadwell said at her side, but she didn’t believe that at all. He was an artless man.

“This way.” He took her elbow in a gentle grip and attempted to steer her toward the main house.

She pulled away – quietly, but firmly – and walked at his side without touching. She thought the woman, Ramirez, smirked.

The hall fed into a another, this one floored with polished hardwoods. Doors opened along one wall, leading into dim parlors with dainty furniture. It turned out to be a sequence of connected hallways, each larger than the last, until they finally reached a soaring entryway. Galleries for the two floors above looked down on the tile floors, a massive skylight at the top of the atrium softly lit by electric light.

Mia came to a stop, head tipped all the way back as she stared. She probably looked like an idiot, but she didn’t care. She’d never been inside something like this before. It was like the Biltmore Estate, but bigger. And that she’d only ever seen in photos.

“It’s crazy, right?”

Mia dropped her head and saw a young woman in cutoffs and biker boots walking down the grand staircase toward her. Everything about her seemed incongruous with their surroundings. And yet…not.

“It’s beautiful,” she countered.

“I think it is,” the girl said, arriving at the foot of the stairs with a clack of bootheels. “My husband hates it, but that’s just the bad memories talking, I’m convinced.”

“You husband – you live here?”

“Kinda sorta.” The girl reached Mia and stuck out her hand. “I’m Annabel le Strange. Your welcome wagon.”

Mia accepted her shake with some hesitation. This girl seemed friendly, and her smile was wide, and her accent was hopelessly Southern. But Mia had been brought here against her will. And somehow, Annabel must know and work with her father. “Mia Talbot.”

“I know.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Annabel chuckled. But then she leaned in. Close. Closer than was comfortable. When Mia tried to draw back, a hand darted out and landed on her shoulder, much stronger than it looked.

“Your man’s downstairs,” she whispered. “Play along during dinner and I’ll see if I can get you down to see him.”

Annabel squeezed her shoulder and pulled back with a smile that said, Work with me. 

Dragon Slayer will be available for pre-order soon!

Make sure you're all caught up on the series, first:

White Wolf

Red Rooster

Unfiltered

I totally used this pic yesterday. Oh well...

Last year, I mentioned on FB that my dad is reading my Sons of Rome series. 

Cue the anxiety. 

It always weirds me out when people I know in real life read my books. I always worry that they'll judge me, and not my work. But there's an extra level of squirminess to letting your dad read something laced at every turn with erotic overtones. Just...yikes. 

Prior to White Wolf, he'd never read any of my books, and I was perfectly okay with that. Still, he's been really complimentary of the series so far, and says he loves it. I even ordered him his very own proof copy of Dragon Slayer, so he didn't have to wait for the official release. And when he says something like, "That scene was really racy!" I just stick my fingers in my ears and sing loudly to myself. 

This weekend, he brought it up in a more serious way. He asked if I thought it was a good idea to include graphic sex scenes in this series since I'm billing it as a fantasy series. His concern was that, in the fantasy novels he's read in years past, the sex is muted, or outright excluded, and he worried I might be, in his words, "alienating the typical fantasy audience." Please note that he wasn't being critical, and I didn't take it as such. He's trying to learn more about the publishing business, and I thought it was a fair question. I answered him then, but I decided to write out a more coherent, concrete answer today, and share it here. 

(I wouldn't be me if it wasn't a long answer)

I've talked at length before about how important it is that I write mindfully. I think it's the reader's job to sit back, read, and just enjoy the overall experience of the story. That it's the author's burden to paint a vivid story that delivers on every level. With that in mind, I sit down every day to write purposefully. Each sentence is carefully constructed to offer something: be it a sensory detail that places you in the story, a useful bit of plot information, or an important piece of character information. Did a sentence frighten you? Anger you? Make you smile? Make you fan your face in sympathetic heat? It was designed to. 

So the first part of my answer to him was that the explicit passages are meant to be inciting: in good and bad ways. The elements of Val's captivity that made him uncomfortable are written to do just that; just like, later, when we see consensual, loving sex, it's meant to be scintillating, and even heart-warming. I don't believe in lazy writing; I don't want to tell the audience Val had a rough time, and now he has issues, and use it as a cheap plot device. The abuse in this book, as in the books I've written on the topic in the past, is a part of his growth as a human (well, vampire). It's an important piece of the puzzle that is Val: it explains the way  he thinks, and feels, and reacts to stimuli around him. Showing the audience instead of telling them in a vague, hand-wavy way puts the reader in the story, physically, and I think that's important.

The next point is this: I write books for adults. Sex is a part of adult life, and, since I'm not writing for children, I don't feel required to offer up lessons about morality or warn against "problematic" behavior. That's a whole other conversation. In this particular book, I stuck as closely as possible to the true life events of the real Prince Radu Dracula. My thought is: he lived this, we can at least read about it; and my intent is never to linger overlong on unpleasantness such as to fetishize it. 

That's the practical aspect of my answer. But there's a more personal, artistic aspect to it as well. Take the abusive scenes out of the equation and just look at the purely romantic ones. The series interlude, "The Stalker," opens with an explicitly romantic scene between two long-married werewolves in the forest. And they're role-playing, no less. You gotta spice up a century-long marriage somehow, you know? 

I've hesitated to call this series a romance, because we have plenty of scenes and storylines that are driving forward an overarching storyline that isn't romantic. But we do have romance; we have love, and sex; we've had a fair bit, and the romance is only going to increase as the series goes on. The love stories between all the various couples are, truly, the beating heart of the series, even if the action and adventure get plenty of page time. I've called this series "fantasy," and "urban fantasy," and "paranormal," and "paranormal fantasy." The truth is, it's all of those. And it's also historical fiction, and a police procedural, and it's romance, and it's...

Well. This is why being an indie author works so well for me. Because I want it to be everything. I don't want to trim away half of a book just to be able to more easily label it as one thing. And looking at it as a fangirl myself, I see this series as an opportunity to - potentially - offer readers everything they want in one package. 

For example: I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So much. Those movies have the most amazing casts, and they manage to accomplish so much in just a few hours. But, as happens often with big action/adventure/sci-fi/fantasy projects, the romance gets short shrift. Sometimes they leave you wanting more development, and sometimes they leave you wanting any development at all, aside from a couple of glances and one rushed kiss. 

Sometimes, in the plot-heavy whirlwind of defeating a villain, those of us who are there mainly for the character development will feel little pangs of hollow disappointment. Yes, Steve and Bucky finally got to hug, but I could watch a whole series about all the things that need exploring there. Thor and Loki's brother issues can't be explored enough for my liking; literally my favorite aspect of the MCU. 

And how many times have you read a kickass fantasy novel, or series, and thought, But I wish this author was less awkward about writing kisses...

Okay, that's not a dig at anyone. But I think there's a gap there. And it might be a tiny gap, and I might be the only one who falls into it. But I think there's room for a big, epic, action-heavy story that appeals to adults; that takes plenty of time to develop not just friendships and teams, but romantic relationships as well. In a steamy, adult way, even. I love fantasy, and paranormal, but I love them mainly for the characters. Sons of Rome is my humble answer to that want; it's character-focused, completely. Which means that there are moments that might feel slower than others, but which are all the time building the bonds between our characters. Whether it's two best friends realizing that they're pining is mutual, and their love very much reciprocated; or feelings evolving over time, complicated by one party's magic - the love is there. In SoR, most of our characters start out alone, but as we move through books three, and four, and onward, it becomes apparent that the series is actually built around a connected group of romantic partners. Love saves the day, you know? 

So I told my dad that I wanted to leave in the explicit sex, even if a more traditional fantasy reader was turned off by it. Because there are tons of traditional fantasy novels out there, and I have, instead, a chance to do something a little bit different. Something that, perhaps stupidly, perhaps stubbornly, resists easy classification. Something more like Outlander, that doesn't shy away from all the messy parts of life, whether it's good-messy or bad-messy. 

That's kind of my jam, after all. 

The half-dozen WIPs I have chilling in my docs are much more streamlined, and fall much more neatly into genres. But this series...this series is my chance to throw the whole kitchen sink at a project. These characters might have some special powers, and some long lifespans, but they're people, in the end. People with tough pasts, and hard choices to make. People with grudges, and with friendships, and with blisteringly hot love stories that play out on the page in vivid detail. I wanted the meticulous pacing of an epic fantasy; the carefully interwoven eroticism of the best dark vampire stories; the pageantry of historical, and the snappy humor of contemporary. And I want the romances to feel like real, proper genre romances, and not lame afterthoughts that got squeezed out by the big action sequences. 

This is a series unfiltered. Purposeful, and thoughtful, and lovingly hand-crafted, fueled by a lifetime's worth of fictional love and frustration. If you're still on the fence, if you're worried there's not enough romance, or that the paranormal aspects might be too much...I urge you to give it a chance. I think you might just be very pleasantly surprised. 

And if you're already reading, and you're waiting on Dragon Slayer, it's coming, promise! Gosh, this book is big 😄

Happy Monday! I'm going back to my editing cave. 

Sunday Thoughts

What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday, I was still feeling shaky and ill after having fought the flu for a week.-and-a-half. While sipping Sprite and working very hard to keep food down is by no definition a vacation - for a few days there I felt too poorly even to read, and that's a crying shame - it did force me to take some time off from writing and editing. And posting and just...everything work related. It left me sad that I don't ever plan to take time off; that I don't allow myself to have breaks. It's part of a mindset in which I've become entrenched: that I don't deserve to take time off. This is a damaging way of thinking about the work/life balance, but one that's hard to shake. 

Forced or not, I took that break. And when I felt well enough to get back into DS edits, it was with the conscious decision that, even if writing is work, I deserve to enjoy that work. 

On Monday, I blogged about authenticty; about wanting to regain that openness and passion that marked my first years of published writing. I want to blog, I want to share photos; I want to share books. I did three things:

1) Threw out my daily word count. I got to a point in early 2017 when I began to feel like I couldn't possibly write enough to stay afloat, so I enforced a firm 2k word a day quota in the hopes of boosting my productivity. But, rather than work more efficiently, I felt hemmed in, and my creativity suffered. I started to dread the daily word count.

2) Shelved a project that just wasn't working. Sometimes, the order in which you thought you'd release books just isn't the order that maximizes your energy, and that was definitely the case for me. It's still there, still waiting, and hopefully in the future I can come back to it with a happy heart and a willing spirit. But, for now, setting it aside has done wonders for my mental logjam. I feel so much lighter; the words are just spilling out, and I want to write. 

3) I decided not to rush edits. Dragon Slayer is a massive book, and it deserves to be delicately picked through. 

Writing them out, these three steps seem almost silly in their simplicity. Each was a case of telling myself "it's okay, deep breaths." It's like there's this hourglass in the back of my mind, always about to run out of sand. And I can't think like that. I can't work like that. And, as I've reminded myself this week, taking some of the personal pressure off usually results in more words, rather than less. Being a workaholic means managing your motivation in a healthy way, and I'm trying to do a better job with that. 

This week I made good editing progress with DS:

“I heard you had a temper. It seems the rumors were true.”

“This is not my temper.”

“That’s true,” Stephen chimed in. Vlad could sense his anxiety, but his voice came calm and airy. “This is Vlad in a happy mood, your grace.”

And Golden Eagle is currently sitting at 13.4k words, which is farther along than I expected to be at this point! This book is going to be fun; it's a mix of found family, some rewarding and deep romance, developing friendships, and some of our more aimless characters finding voices for themselves. 

“I spoke with Dracula, Nik. Some. He’s violent, and he’s frightening – but he’s not like Rasputin was. He isn’t trying to trick anyone. Not that I could tell. He’s…he says there’s a war coming. A bad one.” He shuddered. “I don’t want anything to do with that. But.”

“But nothing,” Nikita said, finding some firm ground as last. Protectiveness he could do. Looking after Sasha, shielding him. He twisted in the booth, so they faced one another fully, and put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder, tight enough that his knuckles turned white, but Sasha didn’t flinch away from the touch.

“Sashka, listen to me.”

Sasha’s eyes widened.

“Whatever this war is, whatever those people” – he stabbed a finger toward the empty side of the booth across from them – “want to fight: that isn’t our business. It isn’t our fight. We lived through our war.” Flashes of memory: blood on snow, the cry of ravens, the stench of burned flesh. “It took its pound of flesh, and we don’t owe anyone anything. Do you hear me? Not a thing.”

He was panting through an open mouth, head swimming, heart hammering. Drowning in Sasha’s gaze.

Finally, Sasha blinked and turned his head away; nodded, hair slipping loose from behind his ear and swinging forward to shield his face. “That’s the thing about war, though,” he said, still soft. “It has a way of sweeping people up, whether they want to fight or not.”

***

I'm also working on a secret project that is a mix of a lot of story elements that I really love and which I probably won't be able to talk about in any detail for a while. 

On a reading front, I'm currently entrenched in this book, which I love. 

V.E. Schwab posted about listening to it on audio last year, and several other authors had already recc'd it, so I ordered the paperback with my last Amazon shipment. I finally started it while I was sick, and I've now ordered the whole rest of the series. It's kept me up several nights this week; a temptation I can't wait to get back to every time I set it down. I plan to do a write-up about it this week, but the quick rundown is: 16th century Scottish drama centered around a charismatic rogue who is in turns delightful, deadly, and tragic. It reads more like a classic than a modern novel, and for me, it's been a welcome distraction from real life. 

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend; hope the sun shone on you, at least a little. 

Val

Even if I've been more introverted than normal the last stretch of months, I know I've mentioned how much I care about Val. At the risk of making myself vulnerable in an artistic sense, he's my favorite, and he's never done anything wrong in his life, ever. (I jest)

To be more specific: Val is a character I've had tucked away for a long time. For years. (He, Fulk, and Anna are my longest-held characters) But he was, up until I actually started laying out some real foundations for SoR, the sort of character I wanted to write, but was afraid I couldn't bring to life on the page in the way he deserved. Lowering him down onto the stage for the first time, giving him lines, and watching him toss his hair, in White Wolf, was a tiny, personal triumph. It was joyous. But getting to reach back to his childhood in Dragon Slayer, to tell his whole story...that's been an incredible process of discovery. 

I like to say - and it's true - that I don't build characters; I meet them. They introduce themselves, and getting to know them is more like an internal interview; or sometimes it's a bit like watching a documentary. They already exist, independent and fully-formed, and it's my job to learn them inside and out, and then present them properly to the reader. This sounds weird, I know. But it's the best way I know how to describe it. 

Some characters come on swift and sudden: that was Nikita. He dropped down into a chair, hungry and angry, lit a cigarette, and said, "What do you want to know?" That was also Lanny; it's been many of my characters.

Val, though, and maybe because he first introduced himself when I was much younger, and still very much a writer-in-the-making, has been more enigmatic. He's charming, and accommodating, but he has a way of skirting substantial questions about himself; he likes to play the mirror, rather than look into it. So Dragon Slayer was an exercise in finally, fully getting to the heart of him, and I think that was what made it such a fun project. 

Imagine writing back and forth with a pen pal for thirteen years, and then, finally, meeting face-to-face for lunch and learning everything. 

I think the reason I love writing him so much is that he's a character that so many can readily identify with. His personal struggle is one of identity, of freedom, of autonomy, and those themes resonate far past  his specific circumstances of Ottoman hostage. He's royalty, yes, and embroiled in politics, but he's always held a sort of soft power; rather than sitting on a throne and deciding the fate of others, he's trying to stay alive, trying to stay one step ahead, and wrestling with the moral conflicts of saving his hide - or standing up for his own beliefs. Val is a prince, but he isn't in charge of anything except his own behavior, and of the image he projects to others. 

***

Val took a restorative sip of wine, and some of the shaking began to subside. “I’ve found that a little kindness and familiarity goes much farther than treating a person like property and barking orders at them.”

“Hmph. It never worked for you.”

“You’re a wealth of comedy, your majesty.”

***

Without spoiling too much, I can happily say that Val ends DS in a good place. But his history - and reason I felt it necessary to write it - is going to dog his heels well into the future. It's the interpersonal struggle - Val wrestling with his family, his friends, with himself - that I love most about writing, and while DS does walk us through a bit of 15th Century Romanian history, the book is, at its heart, a character study. 

***

A dinner tray did indeed arrive, and it wasn’t the prepackaged, microwaved fare Val usually enjoyed in his cell. No, this was freshly prepared by hand in the manor’s kitchen, the same food that Vlad, and Talbot, and Treadwell, and all the mortals in the mansion ate. Roasted chicken, and rice, and steamed vegetables, and a cup of pig’s blood alongside a dish of something soft, and chocolate-smelling.

“What is this?” he asked, prodding it with his spoon. It wiggled.

“Pudding,” Vlad said, like the idea of such a thing was beneath him. Sour enough to have Val biting back a laugh. “It’s dessert.”

It was delicious, is what it was. Val ate every bite of it first thing, and then licked the dish before taking a more civilized approach with his chicken.

When his belly wasn’t so empty, he slumped back against the headboard and ate more slowly, sipping blood in between. “Alright, oh patient one, tell me of your elaborate plan.”

Vlad stood at the window, arms folded across his chest, staring out through the parted curtains at the moonlight lying across the lawn. It shouldn’t have, considering all that had happened since their reunion – Val set down his cup and reached to gently touch the wound that lay beneath his shirt, still angry-red in the mirror and healing slowly from the inside out – but the sight of him there, immovable as ever, was a comfort.

As if he sensed these thoughts, Vlad’s gaze slid over to him. “What?”

Val smiled. “You’re a warrior in every century, aren’t you?”

#FridayReads 2/22/19

If you follow me on Instagram (@hppress), you'll know that I've read a lot in the last year. Last few years, really. Okay, I've always read a lot. But the last year has brought me some really excellent reads. So if you're all caught up with my releases (hello, shameless plug), and need a fat book to curl up with on a foggy, dreary Friday in February, might I make the following suggestions:

The Way of Kings. This past summer was, perhaps embarrassingly, my first foray into reading Brandon Sanderson. I started with the Mistborn trilogy, since, while kneeling on the floor at Barnes & Noble, weighing a book in each hand, Mistborn was substantially lighter than TWOK. I chickened out and went with the smaller book. I really enjoyed that trilogy, loved it, even, but The Way of Kings I loved. This series is old-fashioned, great big high fantasy, replete with its own world, countries, cultures, religions, and rules. If you're used to fantasy, the heaviness of getting into the first book won't be an obstacle, and you'll love the characters. I'm still slowly working my way through book three, Oathbringer, dragging it out a bit since I don't know when the next volume will release - and since I have about a dozen things I'm reading to boot. 

At the front of the novel, Sanderson says that this series is his great passion project, that it was ten years in the making, and you can tell. His care for that world and the characters shines through the text. When an author really loves something, it's usually an indication that it's pretty special. 

His Majesty's Dragon. I started Naomi Novik's Temeraire series just before Christmas and I think it's absolutely delightful. I have her Uprooted and Spinning Silver on my TBR, but I started with her dragons, and I'm glad I did. Central protagonist Captain Will Laurence is outwardly dry, buttoned-up, and...I won't say rude. But there's a touch of the dismissive, at moments. But you can read right through that to the big heart beneath, and he loves his dragon - the titular Temeraire. Novik's dragons are not unpredictable brutes like Dany's Drogon, but can speak, and read, and even write, after a fashion - at least Temeraire can. He's completely earnest, and lovable, and I know I mentioned on Insta how nostalgic this series makes me for the animated Flight of Dragons I loved as a kid. Novik's writing also has a particular cleverness that has always attracted me to a certain kind of fiction; the sense that the author knows just what to tell you - and what not to. Like you're in very capable, knowledgeable hands while reading. This series is a treat. 

The Confessions of Young Nero. I picked this one up precisely because, in it, Margaret George has done exactly what I'm doing with Vlad Tepes: taking the reader inside the head and heart of a historical figure largely remembered as a monster. (Get ready for a very long-winded post or two from me about this). George introduces us to Nero as a child, and walks us through his strange and threatening adolescence, highlighting the machinations of a mother you wouldn't wish upon anyone. The book is in no way an excuse for Nero's rule, but rather an attempt to understand it, and George's prose is wonderful. 

The Race to Save the Romanovs. This last book is one that I actually haven't started yet. So I can't yet make a true recommendation. I picked it up months ago, intending to read it before I started work on Golden Eagle - not wanting to further muddy my head with Romanovs while I was writing of Draculas. Now that Dragon Slayer is finished, and I'm barreling right into GE, I think I'll give it a go. I've got to get back into that Alexei headspace. 

In general, I try to keep at least one research book and one for-fun book going at all times, and usually end up juggling six or seven. Writing Sons of Rome, given its breadth of history, has been the most daunting, but exhilarating research project of my life. I feel like I'm back in school, only this time I'm studying the periods and the people that interest me most. History is fascinating, man. Just...fascinating. 

#TeaserTuesday 2/19/19

A veeeeeerrry premature Teaser Tuesday today, and one that's unedited, raw text to boot. While I work on edits for Dragon Slayer, and wait for me beta to catch up, I'm also doing some writing on book four, Golden Eagle, which takes us back to New York with exciting new storylines for that whole crew. 

Here's the Nik-and-Sasha-centric prologue: 

PROLOGUE

New York City

1988

“Sashka…”

“But look at them. They’re so pretty. And they smell nice. And one will look nice, and smell pretty in our apartment! In the corner by the TV. Don’t you think?”

Authenticity

Sometimes, it seems like just the right words come along at just the right time, when you most need to hear them. They aren't always handed to you with pomp and fanfare; not always a sermon, or a lecture, or anything grand and life-changing. Sometimes it's as simple as a few lines in a magazine. 

Yesterday, my mom handed me the latest edition of The Magnolia Journal and said, "I think you really need to read Jo's letter in the front." This issue's theme is "authenticity," and in her letter from the editor, Joanna writes: 

"Authenticity can't be copied; it can't be false." It seems to me that there are very few absolutes in this life, only a handful of things that are true to their core. If our authenticity is one of these rare, undisputed truths, why then does it seem to be such a difficult part of ourselves to live out? Perhaps we choose to hide a little bit of who we truly are each time we compare our lack to someone else's plenty. Or we muddy the truth about ourselves whenever we imitate a glossier version of our current reality. Or maybe when we hush our own voice with the loud noise of commotion, we slowly begin to fade back. And once we're covered up and the real us is quiet, we find that we're forced to look around, to other people and other things, for evidence of who we are. 

Simple words. Honest words. But they resonated with me deeply. Because, lately, when I step back and conduct a self-examination, I feel rather like a shadow of myself. Because I have steadily, for the last two years, pulled back. Withheld. Self-edited. 

Working with horses is an incredibly straightforward business. Yes, there's always interpersonal drama, always barn gossip, but horses are honest. You can't fake your way into being a good equestrian, a good manager, a good trainer, instructor, and horsewoman. In the years that I managed a barn, I was completely, wholly confident in my competency. I was not, and am still not someone who appreciates bragging, but I knew what I was about. And I was every inch me. 

If riding is one great passion, then writing is the other. It's something I've worked toward, something in which I've practiced, and studied, and educated myself in all the ways I know best to do so. It's something I love. There's a particular thrill when you're in deep on a story, and you know all the characters, and you're arranging their lives, taking them on adventures, bringing them to awakenings. Storytelling - the art of it - is something I will always cherish. 

But the business of selling books is a strange and often disheartening one. We start out with the best of intentions, wanting to present our true, authentic selves to the world, and it doesn't take long for people on the internet to start telling you who you ought to be instead. "No," they say, "that's not you, this is you." 

"Get in your box," they say. 

"You're just like X, Y, and Z authors over there," they say.

"Write a book about this one character," they say, "or else I'll never read you again."

My favorite: "If you don't write a book about Fox, then you aren't the author I thought you were, and I'm really disappointed in you."

The reason I've mentioned my anti-White Wolf reader mail so often is because it still, to this day, boggles my mind. It felt like it came from out of left field. It was unwarranted, and most definitely inappropriate. And, I'll admit, it knocked me for a loop. I'd spent the last few years blogging, and writing, and publishing, and posting on social media, interacting with readers, and I'd thought that, all that time, I'd been presenting this authentic portrait of myself as not just someone who wrote some books, but as an artist, and as a lover of art. Someone who loves books, and films, and comics, and poetry, and who wants earnestly to be able to conjure emotion and empathy the way my favorites have. The reason I'd enjoyed writing Dartmoor was because I did not see it as catering to a genre and its limited standards. I'd thought, I'd hoped, that readers enjoyed the series because they loved the characters, the big misfit family, their adventures, their growth, their unlikely friendships. And so I thought starting a new series, a series that was also about a big misfit family, their adventures, their growth, and unlike friendships would be met with excitement - rather than the plethora of "don't write this" and "I won't read this" emails I received instead. 

Get over it, Lauren, you're thinking, maybe. And yes, I will. I have. But I won't lie and say that it didn't hurt my feelings. I have a thick skin, and I'm stubborn, and I routinely thumb my nose at anyone who dares to tell me what I should do when it comes to the things that I love. But that was the point when I started to doubt. When I thought, "Maybe it was never about anything I was bringing to the table as an author. Maybe it was only ever about the superficial trappings. The motorcycles, the leather." 

I don't intend to paint everyone with the same brush, not at all. Many were kind, many have been encouraging, and White Wolf's overall reception was better than I could have hoped. To the readers who've taken a chance on the new series, who comment, who like it, who have reviewed it, I can't thank you enough, truly. And I also thank anyone who might not be into vampires, but who was kind anyway. 

But I am human. And I doubted. And I wondered. And I began to look at everything I did - be it blogging, photo posting, or book writing - through the lens of "will anyone like this? Or will I get more hate mail?" Once you start to question yourself you can't stop, and you pull back, and you put up walls, and you hide the real you, occasionally lobbing things over to the other side that you hope is what your audience wants. And all that time you're feeling depressed, and a little hopeless, and your confidence wanes. 

Writing Dragon Slayer was an incredibly cathartic experience. It felt like a reclaiming; it felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing. These characters, these stories, this series. It felt like coming home. I was having fun again. And in the past six months I've started no less than half-a-dozen new WIPs that I hope to someday write through to completion. I've looked at my blog, and known sadness, because I've all but stopped blogging. I've spent a lot of time thinking "no one cares what I like, or think, or care about," and so I've closed that door. I love doing writing exercises, and sharing snippets, and tidbits, even if they never go anywhere. But I stopped; I held myself back. 

That's changing, though. That changes today. For too long I've let doubt and worry control what I do; I've let it control the art that I'm willing to share, and I want to be the old, confident me again. The one who doesn't care at all what anyone thinks, or how harshly anyone's judging me. Putting yourself out there on social media is a kind of terrifying that I hate; you're left raw and exposed, and so easily you can feel like it's your followers with the power, that they have some say in what you do. And they don't. They would only change you until you were just what they wanted...and then grow bored of you.

I say all this not to fuss. Not to blame anyone. I'm not angry - not with anyone but myself. And to, hopefully, say what someone else might need to hear. What I badly needed to hear from Joanna Gaines yesterday. I admire Jo deeply, and I wish I had a tenth of her grace and poise - alas, I'm a horse person, and we're a little more blunt than that. 

I said at the beginning of 2019 that I wanted to do things differently; to do them better. And I do. I want to have fun. I want to be excited about sitting down at the computer. I want to blog, and post content, and share my excitement with everyone. I want to gush about the things that I love. I want to simply be me, whether or not the real me is the kind of easily-packaged, ready-for-market, simply-defined author persona that anyone wants. 

If you're reading this, and you're thinking Lauren, I've been supportive this whole time! I know you have. I see you, I hear you, and I appreciate you more than you know. I want to write books for you. For the ones who want to go on adventures. I grew up loving Lizzy Bennet, and Sherlock Holmes, and Eowyn of Rohan, and Steve Rogers, and I'll never stop striving to create characters that readers might love the same way. 

And for the doubters: If you spend all your time wanting an artist to meet all your very personal requirements, you're going to miss out on all the amazing things you never expected.