#DragonSlayer is LIVE!!

*throws confetti*

The day has finally, finally come, and Dragon Slayer is live in the world!!

*more confetti*

I would really like to go lie down in a patch of sun for a while, now.

Links:

Kindle

Paperback

I'll have the Nook version up soon.

I'm planning on doing a debriefing - which will probably take more than one post, given how long this monstrosity is - in a week or so. I spoiled way too much about this book in the last few months, because I was just so excited about it, but there's still lots I haven't talked about, yet. So look for that, soon.

Happy reading, everyone. Thanks so much for letting me share this series with you all. xo

Sunday Updates 4/28

Currently: quietly devastated with the way the MCU chose to end Steve Rogers' arc - or, more aptly stated, alter it. I ranted about it here. 

Also, not all that surprised. Film of all kinds has a habit of fascinating me, pulling me in, and then faltering. I shall pretend the film doesn't exist and power forward.

On a reading front, I'm almost finished with Pawn in Frankincense and Caesar.

Also reading The Perfect Assassin,

The Shadow Rising,

The Race to Save the Romanovs, and

When Christ and His Saints Slept. 

Looking forward to the release of:

Roman Warfare

Middlegame

Silver in the Wood

Less than 48 hours from the release of Dragon Slayer, I'm humming with quiet anxiety; excited; concentrating on work with difficulty. It's warm outside. I'm no longer feverish, even if I don't feel exactly well yet. 634 words on the day and thinking that's nothing to sneeze at given the circumstances. Also, because I'm me, feeling very much like I haven't' accomplished enough, and like I need to get busy, because I want Golden Eagle out before the end of the year. 

One of my major motivations is wanting, for purely personal reasons, to carry my characters' stories forward. I want to put out the next book for my readers' benefit, yes, but I also want the chance to explore the fallout of the scenarios that played out in each installment of a series. For instance: lots of big, important things happen in DS...and there will be consequences that carry forward. There are emotions to unpack; traumas to face and wrestle with. Bonds to explore in new ways. I love that; I love digging into their brains and helping them heal and seeing how they grow. I'm a writer who enjoys the emotional journey above all else - I'm that kind of reader/viewer, too. So even though a part of me wants nothing more than to lie down and take a nap and just enjoy being done with this book...I also can't wait to keep going. I don't feel like a puppet master, but, rather, a poor beat reporter chasing my subjects around with a notepad and a tape recorder. They don't want to slow down, and neither do I, really. 

I'm SO excited for readers to get to the epilogue of DS...while acknowledgeing that I have a LONG way to go before the next book is finished. I'm working on it, promise! I love these characters to much and can't wait to share their future adventures with everyone. 

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend. I'm going to go read for a while, and prepare myself for tonight's GOT. 

  

Sorry, I Need to Vent

Warning: this is going to be long.

Second warning: this is about Avengers: Endgame, and while I’ll try not to discuss explicit spoilers, it will, by its nature, be spoiler-y. It’s also going to reflect my negative thoughts on the film, so if you loved it, and want to think me a crybaby, you’re completely free to do so. Backspace now and you don’t have to hear my whining. 

One Week

“You know,” Val continued, “the worst part is that I still love you. You will always be my big brother, and I’ll always want to please you.” He offered a smile. “But you won’t let me help you, will you?”

Vlad stared at him a long moment. Val thought he almost – but, no. There was no love there. He supposed there never had been. 

You guys. We are one week away.

Commence countdown. 

Dragon Slayer drops next Tuesday. It's actually already out in paperback on Amazon, but if you want a steal, be sure to grab it for Kindle before the release day, after which the price will go up to $4.99. You can pre-order it here. 

It's one week to go, and I'm giddy. Excitement always manifests itself as nerves for me, so that means I'm nervous as a fractious racehorse waiting for the bell. I've talked at length here, and on Facebook, and on Instagram, about the journey of this book. About how much it's meant to me to have the chance to write it, and publish it independently like this, so I could do it exactly how I wanted. Now it's almost here and I can't quite believe it. There was a moment in the middle of last summer, working on it, when I wondered if I could finish. It seemed like it would never be done. So many scenes to go, so much tweaking to do. This whole series is so incredibly daunting that sometimes I can't wrap my head around it. There's still so much story left to go. So much to tell. 

But all journeys progress the same way: one step at a time. Slowly, methodically, you keep plodding along. And now this leg of our trek - all 791 pages of it - is ready. 

I wrote the book a little out of order. I wrote the beginning and ending first, all the present day content. Then I went back and wrote the middle. Val surrending - and you'll see to whom - was the last line of the novel I wrote, and then I just...sort of slumped. It was over. And I knew I shouldn't have felt so deeply sad for people who've been dead six-hundred years...but I did.

But then I remembered I'd already written the real ending. That they aren't dead at all. But off on a new adventure, live and kicking in this century. Even though I'm a little bit exhausted, I can't wait to keep going. To chase these characters through the next book, and the next...

In a few weeks, I'll do some official debriefing posts, and we can talk in earnest about what happens in this book. But for now, I want to say thank you. And I want to wish you happy reading; I hope you'll enjoy this one. I don't say it often, but I'm immensely proud of this book, and I'm thrilled I get to share it with you all. 

ONE WEEK!! 

To Be or Not to Be...Predictable

Predictable. It's a term levelled at modern fiction media with a scoff and an eye roll. "That's so predictable." And it's an insult. Predictability is the kiss of death for a TV show, or a book series. Everything has to be shocking. Everything has to be totally unexpected. Jaw-dropping, gut-wrenching; audiences want to be yanked around  by the scruffs of their necks, without a clue where the story they're reading or watching is headed. 

At least, they say so. Have proper buildup to a moment on a show, and all the critic blogs will call it a boring episode the next morning. 

But then why is everyone so keen to get their hands on leaks? Why do they troll the internet for spoilers? Why do they flip to the end of the book to find out what happens before they set out on the journey? 

Because predictability, despite the quips of professional reviewers, is actually not a bad thing. In fact, it's a comfort. 

Because what I realized, several years ago, was that if the creative focus is placed on shock value - on delivering plot twists the audience never saw coming - media becomes too stressful to care about. As an audience member, I can see the puppet strings of the writers and directors; no longer am I watching characters who feel like real people, making their own decisions and suffering the logical consequences. Instead, what's playing out is a series of unrelated, spontaneous, totally unlikely events, and the characters are mere marionets, victims to the whims of the people writing them. 

And here's the thing: I don't want to see the strings. I want cause and effect. I want characters who feel real. I want their journeys to be logical. And most of all, I don't like when a show or a book makes me feel stupid. When it got my hopes up only for the sheer delight of dashing them against the rocks...and laughing about it.

So far, the first two episodes of this season of Game of Thrones are getting a lot of things very right (Arya and Gendry! Jaime knighting Brienne! Theon!). But the reason I stopped watching in season three was not simply because they deviated from the books (and I think the foundations for things like Arya/Gendry and Theon's redemption arc were laid down in the books), but because they did so in a way that stripped out most of the books' excellent foreshadowing, symbolism, pacing, and altered the characters to a great degree. For instance, Sansa is still very much a virgin in the books; Theon saved instead her friend Jeyne Poole from Ramsay, a risk and sacrifice that wasn't about saving the Lady of Winterfell, but about being brave enough to do the right thing. By the time Arya and her crew run into the Brotherhood in book three, Thoros is no longer the drunk philanderer he was in King's Landing, but a skinny, rag-dressed true believer, reformed by the miracle of Beric's multiple resurrections. In the show, while I still loved him for what he was, Thoros became a conglomerate of multiple book Brotherhood characters...and mercenary besides.

(I LOVE the Brotherhood in the books, and they got done so dirty in the show. Still mad about it. Also, where tf was Lady Stoneheart??) 

I think the show might end up in a really good place, and truer to the books than I expected - I accepted early on that we wouldn't get SanSan in the show; I'm looking at George not to let me down in the next two books - but I'm still annoyed that the showrunners decided to take the shock value, Edgy™ Approach, which leaned on surprise, action, and sex rather than true character development. It resulted in some really inconsistent storytelling. 

Shock value is the reason I stopped watching SOA, too. And why I don't really watch any scripted adult dramas billed as "edgy." Give me angst, and heartache, and pain, and drama, and sex...but do it in a way that feels natural and organic. That approach is, I fear, seen as too predictable, and so shock value usually wins out. 

As a storyteller myself, though, I've had some doubt. I've questioned: Is my work too predictable? For instance, there's never much of a question in my books as to who will get together romantically. It's almost always plain to see. And I like to write happy endings. I've been terribly unsubtle about Nikita and Sasha in Sons of Rome. I've wondered if anyone will enjoy a book in which we flash back to Fulk and Anna's meeting, given they know they're already together and very much still in love after all this time. 

I've doubted.

But I've also been a viewer and a reader who has, over the years, been immensely frustrated by the lack of emotional payoff in the media I consume. When directors make you ship things, and then never do anything about it. When characters are killed just to make you upset. When freak coincidences throw a big wrench in the works and prevent the characters from getting the justice they want and deserve. 

And so in that sense, I'm glad to be predictable. I'm glad that my books can, despite all the darkness, ultimately be a safe place for readers. A place where they can enjoy the drama, but then be rewarded by a sweet ending. I'm glad I can get readers to ship Nik and Sasha, and then reward them with that in book four. (oops, spoiling my own stuff). 

In my very humble opinion, the journey is no less rewarding just because you predicted where it would lead. The thing I've learned about twists is, they're best received when they serve to reward the audience, or to surprise them in a good way. I get asked fairly often if I feel like I'm obligated to write happy endings - I do feel that way. But the obligation is to the characters. I serve them first, and that in turn serves the readers. 

Dragon Slayer is going to be dark. But in my books, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.  

#WorkshopWednesday - On Historic Figures

I don't intend it to be, but I nevertheless have the feeling that, with this post, I'm wading into controversial waters. I shall wade anyway.

Last week, my brother texted me a link to this article. He spends more time on the web than I do, and he's forever sending me things he think I'll like or appreciate. And this definitely fit the bill. 

(For anyone who doesn't want to take the time to read it, it's a fairly snarky rebuttal to those Twitter threads that try to demolish, or "cancel" historic figures of the distant past and to blame them for all the problems of today. The Twitter threads that strip away every scrap of context, and paint the people of yore as abject villains.)

While I think there are definitely conversations to be had about the morality of key figures from the past, and about wars, and policies, and so on, I really hate the way misinformation gets bandied about on Twitter, totally unverified, and presented as "fact." Shortly after I published Walking Wounded, my Korean War historical novel, I encountered a Tweet in which someone claimed "the US totally just started bombing the Korean peninsula for no reason, because they love subjugating people." My head very nearly spun around. Think what you will of the US and its wartime policies - come to your own conclusions - but my God, at least know the facts before you start spouting stuff like this. For instance: in the immediate aftermath of WWII, the US was very hesitant to become involved in another international war. They only entered Korea after the UN insisted they do - beneath the leadership of a French diplomat - and even then, only a small contingent of green US Army boys who'd never seen conflict, shipped over from bases in Japan, made a move. Overfed, undertrained, and outgunned, these initial Army deployments were mowed down by the North Korean's Russian tanks and guns. It was quickly realized that a mistake had been made in underestimating the North Koreans - who invaded South Korea, by the way, prior to any other countries' involvement - and it was then that the US Marine Corps entered the fray and spent a winter losing toes and fingers to frostbite as they tried to push back the NKs.

But on Twitter, the narrative was: the US wanted Korea and bombed it and took it. And...my God. Read a book, dude. 

Because here's the thing: it's one thing to question motives, and it's quite another to interpret the facts, and understand those motives in the first place. It doesn't matter if you agree; a historian's job is not to make things more palatable, or to draw a moral conclusion. It's to present the facts.

In my case, as a fiction author, it's my job to crawl inside my character's heads, no matter where they come from. 

The author's note at the beginning of Dragon Slayer is my admittance that I've always wanted to write a book about Vlad. But it wasn't until I started researching my series in earnest that I realized that the whole story of his life was, at large, being withheld from the public. "A warlord," he's been called. A monster, a wicked, fiendish villain who loved the sight of blood and who feasted on the innocent for no reason.

Readers, let me tell you: there is always a reason. And it wasn't until I was poring over the absolute tragedy of Vlad the Impaler's family life that I understood his reason.

I will never excuse his behavior. Never. He committed extreme butchery. But context is important. Context is how we make sense of the past. Even if the past is dark, and ugly, and repels us - it's important to understand it if we're going to write about it. 

I think it's incredibly important that authors be given the leeway to explore the past without limits. Without it being assumed the author is pushing an agenda. I never am. In fact, it's damn insulting when someone assumes they understand my politics based on my (hopefully) accurate attitudes of characters from the past. 

I guess my point is this: history ain't pretty. But let's not wipe it out and pretend it never existed. And that there was never any logic behind it. 

Brothers and Sisters

It's National Siblings Day! I have a real life brother, with whom I'm co-writing a real life novel...but it's early stages and Top Secret still, so, I can't talk about that book. Which also features a pair of siblings! 

I've had the chance to write about a good many siblings in my author career thus far, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. There have been BIG families, like the Walkers. Estranged siblings like Layla and Johnny in the Russell series. Keeping-it-real brothers and sisters, like Aidan and Ava; I like that Ava is always ready to take her brother down a notch or two, because he always needs it. There have been found family brothers, like Aidan and Tango, or Aidan and Mercy. The club brotherhood. And there's been the Brood, which is honestly so much more entertaining and fun to write than any of those individual characters' potential romances. If readers had wanted books about Raven being kickass, and Cass learning how to be kickass, we could have had some fun there. But I get it: romance only. Le sigh. 

And then, now, there's Vlad and Val. Largely inspired by two real-life brothers. My first royal siblings. My first tried-to-kill-each-other siblings. 

***

The next time he woke it was to the sound of a disapproving voice saying, “Sir, I’m sorry, but you don’t have clearance to–” The speaker cut off with an oomph. Val, even behind crusty, closed eyelids, swimming in drowsiness, recognized the sound of someone’s back hitting the wall.

And then: “Let me through.” Vlad. Low and commanding.

Vlad. No, no, no, no. Val curled in on himself; a whimper got caught in the back of his throat, too tired to even voice it properly. He was so tired, and he hurt so much, and no, no, no, no.

Flight instincts kicked in as he heard the key turn in the lock. Of course the guards were letting Vlad through; he didn’t have the power to compel; there were no mind tricks. It was simply his presence. His implacable stare, the reputation that still, alarmingly, dogged his heels in the twenty-first century.

Get up, get up, he thought, desperate, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He managed to crack his eyes open a slit, just in time to get a blurry glimpse of Vlad’s boots as he came to stand over him. He opened his mouth to croak out some pitiful insult, but his throat was too dry, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Vlad’s clothes rustled softly as he crouched down. And then…

Then.

A touch on his head. The gentle weight and warmth of a palm; he could feel it even through his tangled hair. And he squeezed his eyes shut, ashamed, because even after all that had happened, he could scent his brother, recognize his touch, and his muscles unclenched. Family. Safety. But it had never been safe, and Vlad didn’t want them to be family.

Vlad’s hand withdrew, and here it came: more pain. Val braced himself as much as he could, muscles feebly tightening in anticipation.

But there was no pain. Only Vlad’s hands, turning him over onto his back, and then his strong arms sliding under Val’s knees and behind his shoulders, and he was being lifted. His soreness spiked when he was moved, and he hissed, awash with pain – but it wasn’t intentional, was it? It was…it was…

Tears pushed at his eyelids, and he kept them shut tight as Vlad walked out of the cell, carrying him, Val’s head tucked into his chest. He smelled like modern human laundry, and sweat, and steel…and like his brother. Like Wallachia. Like home.

***

Romantic relationships may be the main event when it comes to fiction, but great stories need brothers and sisters, too, of all kinds. In fact, I've focused so much on the brother vs. brother dynamic of Dragon Slayer that I often forget to mention the romance. Which is there! One more slow-burn than the other. 

DS drops 4/30, and you can pre-order it here. 

#TeaserTuesday: Chapter 9

With the exception of the prologue, this is our first chapter of "Baby Val," and it's one I really enjoyed writing. Dragon Slayer drops just three weeks from today! I'm bound and determined to get my print ARCs ordered in the next day or so, but you can pre-order the novel for Kindle HERE. 

Please enjoy Chapter Nine, and have a wonderful Tuesday!

9

A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

Tîrgovişte, Capital of Wallachia

1439

“Vlad! Vlad, wait for me!” Val panted as his small legs worked and his arms pumped and he struggled to catch up to his older brother. Vlad was only four years his senior, but they were a dramatic four years for boys who were four and eight, and Vlad had always been sturdy and large for his age. Val, by contrast, was a pale, slow-growing, delicate thing. “No bigger than a bouquet of flowers,” Fenrir’s wife and mate, Helga, liked to say, smiling and ruffling his golden hair. Vlad hadn’t meant to run off and leave him, Val didn’t think, but his legs were so much longer, so much stronger. And now Val was alone as he rounded the corner and saw that Vlad was long gone. 

Some Reflections

Two things, first off.

I saw today that this month has been dubbed "Indie April" for writers on Twitter. Being an indie, this pleases me. 

Also today, I completed a highly emotional, very important scene in Golden Eagle. One that, though only 2k words or so, has taken us 3.25 books, and 1,864 pages to get to. A pivotal scene, one that shifts things for two characters forever going forward. That sounds ominous. It's a good shift! I hope the scene brings a tear to readers' eyes; it did to mine while writing it, and that's usually the goal. 

But before we get to Golden Eagle, there's my 24th major novel release, arriving on the 30th of this Indie April, fittingly. Dragon Slayer. 

True story: In 2015, after the urging of every bookstore owner and writer in the N. Ga area, I joined the local chapter of the RWA. I went to one meeting, then never went again, and let my membership lapse. There were a lot of reasons for that, but during my one and only monthly meeting, something interesting happened. I arrived early, armed with pens, and notebooks, and bookmarks emblazoned with my personal contact info, and a whole lot of nervousness. As the ballroom slowly began to fill up with authors, I introduced myself to those sitting around me, and we all traded business cards - in my case, bookmarks. One author, who I'd estimate as close to my own age, confided that she hadn't written a novel yet, but that she wanted to, and attended all the meetings, learning what she could. I told her that was wonderful, and that this was my first meeting in a while, and that I hoped to learn a lot. Then she took a careful look at my bookmark. 

"These are your books?"

At the time, it was Fearless and Price of Angels. "Yes, I just went to a signing last night, it was so fun!"

"Who's your agent?" she wanted to know.

"I don't have one."

"Who's your publisher?"

"You're looking at her."

And then a look of unadulterated horror crossed her face. "Wait. You don't mean...you aren't self-published, are you?" Her tone was one of blended horror and revulsion. 

"I am, yes," I said.

She replied, "I would never do that. I'd rather never be published at all than be self-published."

It was a theme that day, with the exception of one or two people kind enough to at least not say anything to my face. It's been a theme since 2012. 

I'll be the first to admit, especially on down days, that it would of course be ideal to have a trad pub contract. To have a more stable financial future. To have the opportunity to reach a wider audience. I know that a trad contract doesn't guarantee success at all, but being on physical bookstore shelves is a leg-up that I would love to have, while feeling sure I never will. 

I've learned so much in the last seven years as an indie author. I've seen the dark side of the business, and witnessed some of the unethical, artless things some authors are willing to do for notoriety. I've learned an immeasurable amount about craft; every day I'm one step closer to being the kind of author I'd always hoped to be, in those early, fumbling days. 

The scene I wrote today, the one I mentioned on my IG story, is a romantic scene. A confession scene. And I was struck by a thought, as I finished it, and read back over it, and felt wildly delighted by it. Writing romance has never been my strong suit. I write friendships, and families; I write places, and the feelings of places; I write details, and vistas. But romance is my biggest weak spot. I'm just not built to write self-contained genre romance. 

But with Sons of Rome, the romances, though perhaps not the main focus of the series, are, I think, some of its strongest points. Where before I've always felt a bit like someone smashing two dolls' faces together and saying "now kiss," because we were already past page one hundred and no one had kissed yet, it now feels natural and necessary. It feels like I'm hitting all the right emotional notes with it. I don't know if this is just a natural progression of improving through practice, or if having the chance to stretch out these slow-burn, naturally evolving relationships just feels more comfortable for me. Probably a combination of both. 

So there are days when I think it would be nice to have the safety net of a contract. But there are days, like the day I unboxed my proof for Dragon Slayer, when I'm so glad for the freedom of being an indie. I don't think any publisher would touch this series, and I'm not sure I'd let them. 

I always say that I hope that my readers enjoy my new releases, and I always mean it. I mean it this time, too, with number 24...but that wasn't the driving force behind this book. I didn't write it worrying about what the audience would think. I wrote it because these characters won't rest until their story is told. I wrote it for Val, and Vlad, and Mia, and Fulk, and Anna, and Nik, and Sasha, and Trina, and Lanny...I wrote it for them. And for me. Because after 24 books, I can. 

So bring on the next 24. I'm ready. 

#TeaserTuesday 4/2/19: Dragon Slayer

I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones

And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
God damn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?

 ~ "Control," Halsey

“Why do you insist on testing me? Is it fun for you?”

The only fun Val had had in years had been today, watching Mehmet’s men fall back. Knowing that somewhere beyond the defiant flags flying above the unconquered fortress, across mountains and green hills, Vlad waited. And someday, perhaps, they might even see one another again. 

***

Twenty-eight days away! It's funny the way it's seemed to take so long, and now, with the release day in sight, it's going to fast. A part of me wants to apologize for the next twenty-eight days, and the sheer amount of advertising I'm going to do. But another, larger part of me is thrilled to finally be able to share this book. Thirteen years of dreaming, two years of research, a year of writing. It's kept me up nights, and required lots of coffee; I've shed real tears for these boys. And now, soon, I'll get to send them out into the world. 

Dragon Slayer drops 4/30, and you can pre-order it for the reduced price of $3.99 

here.

***

“Forgive me,” he drawled, “but you’re both forgetting one very important factor in all of this.” He made a lazy gesture toward the map, leaned back in his chair, one leg kicked up over the arm.

Mehmet shot him a glare.

Timothée turned to him with his usual pleasantly bland smile, his eyes hard and bright as polished stone. Val knew the mage hated him, though he hadn’t figured out why yet. He didn’t think, though, that it was for any of the reasons the rest of the court did.

“And what is that?” he asked, hands folded together primly before him.

Val lifted a finger. “My brother.”