#TeaserTuesday - Blood of Wolves

 I have three main projects I want to put out during the remainder of this year - the beast being Lionheart, which I love, and which I'm seriously wondering if I'll have to split into two volumes in paperback form (Amazon only prints up to 835 pages). Given the sheer size and scope of it, I expect it in the fall.

But before that, we've got Vanish Into Light, the third and final volume in the Hell Theory trilogy (I always reserve the right to return to that world, later), and that's what I've been spending most of my time on the last few weeks. 

Also this year, hopefully late summer, is the third - but not final - installment in the Drake Chronicles. I'm not sure how many books this series will end up being - upwards of five, I'm thinking, because I'm having a blast with it and there's lots to explore - but for now, we'll just focus on book three: Blood of Wolves. This book picks right up where Edge of the Wild left off: in the mountains with Erik and Ollie; in an Aeres under siege; and in Drakewell, with Amelia, and her new sort-of friends, and her pack of dragons. There's so much still to come, and it's going to be fun. 

One of my favorite things so far is getting to write Náli's POV for the first time. 

 

For most, early childhood – those tottering years before the mind began keeping careful record of happenings – was a blur of color, and sense memory, and sound that triggered indistinct recollections later in life, with a few bright, crystal points that stood out, edged in a child’s technicolor wonder. Those were the first memories; the memories that stayed preserved and precious like oil portraits in one’s consciousness. Usually, these memories were of a parent, on older sibling, a nurse or a nanny.

For Náli, it was Mattias.

The image of a boy’s smiling face, his hair already styled like that of a Dead Guard: the head shaved close save for a single, thick stripe down the center of his skull, kept tightly braided at all times, a single tail that slapped against his back when he rode, or slid over his shoulder when he bent over a map to show Náli something. A boy’s smiling face, and a boy’s high, musical laughter; his hand warm and large and safe around Náli’s, as he urged him along. Safe. He’d always been that. Always the cup of warm tea when Náli was flagging; the cloak draped over his shoulders; the insistence on sleep; the strong arms that caught, and lifted, and carried him, when talking to the dead overwhelmed him into unconsciousness.

Always “my lord.” In the voice of a boy, of a teenager, of a man grown, larger, and stronger, and more alive than Náli had ever been, or would ever be.

For two centuries, now, the lords of the Fault Lands – their lives interwoven with the wax and wane of the fire mountain, with the safety of the entire duchy, and even the kingdom – had been guarded from all harm, and doted upon by an elite force of five warriors, selected as boys, raised with their charge the way a sheepdog was raised with lambs. The Dead Guard were trained as knights and assassins both; learned warcraft, and statesmanship at their master’s hand. They took no wives, and fathered no children. When their lord died, they retired to a life of seclusion, in a quiet valley called Naus Fell.

Náli’s Dead Guard were cousins Danski and Darri, Einrih, Klemens. And the captain – a captain since age ten, when he was named to the Guard, Mattias. He knew them all, their faces more familiar than his own reflection, but it was Mattias who’d impressed himself upon a toddling boy of less than a year; who’d scooped him from his crib and toted him around on his hip, as adept as any nursemaid, but more fun, always fun. Always with a story to tell, and a gentle hand cupped round the back of his head when Náli cried. He’d had nightmares his whole childhood, and it was Mattias who’d slipped into bed with him, and held him close, and whispered to him of far-off lands, where it was warm, and the fields danced with flowers, and no one ever had to draw magic out of their bones and wake the dead.

If Mattias had died at Dreki Hörgr, when Ragnar had forsaken them all, then Klemens would become captain, and another Guard chosen to fill the empty space.

If Mattias had died at Dreki Hörgr, Náli was going to dig his corpse from the snow and bring him back, so help all the gods, or he would die trying.

The Long Game: of flowers, Foxes, and story tending

 

Let’s talk about the long game.

Let’s talk about reader expectation, and delayed gratification, and exacting scenes placed amidst a vivid big picture.

Let’s talk about the long game – and in the spirit of spring, let’s talk about it in garden terms.

If you walk through a flourishing garden in the middle of summer, you might see a trellis heaped with climbing roses; waving stalks of purple salvia; thriving gardenia hedges and bright cosmos and zinnias. All of it’s working together to create a complete, harmonious picture…but at the outset of spring, they all emerged from the soil at different times. Some plants need more time to grow before they bloom. And in the case of the climbing roses, it took at least three years before the canes reached the top of the trellis: first they sleep, then they creep, then they leap. Some plants reseed naturally, and some have to be dug down deep, and watered thoroughly. Some die off and need replacing each spring, like the tulip bulbs, and some are perennials that reappear every year on their own. The garden as a whole is lush and wondrous, but each individual plant requires a different sort of care. Be it seed depth, water amount, or soil ph, every stalk of that garden needed special attention so that it could contribute most beautifully to the overall portrait.   

So too, when writing a series, does each character need his or her own special care so that they can contribute most beautifully to the overall story arc. A book series is made up of dozens upon dozens of smaller story arcs, and trust me: I am ALWAYS playing the long game.

With rare exception, I don’t write standalones. Whether it’s Dartmoor, or Sons of Rome, or Hell Theory, or the Drake Chronicles, I’m always deeply-invested in the small, intimate moment at hand, and highly cognizant of the chapters and books that lay ahead. Each scene for each character is steering them toward those larger moments of growth and self-actualization. Some characters arrive as potted plants, already thriving, simply in need of a little maintenance. And some characters are the most unlikely-looking, potato-esque bulbs that need to be dug way in, watered heavily, and which finally surprise you at the end of summer. Some characters resolve most of their issues in a single book, and others take a whole course of books to end up where they’re going.

But for me, they were ALWAYS going there. Some stories take longer to germinate, that’s all. And if readers are thinking that I am – for some unknown reason – writing tidy, standalone romances, and nothing else, that delayed gratification is going to be a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Because, see, I haven’t changed my approach. It’s the long game or bust for me. But sometimes, if that long game isn’t what readers are searching for, they wind up disappointed.

So, let’s talk about that.

Let’s talk about Fox.

We first meet Fox at the beginning of Snow In Texas, when Colin walks into the Texas clubhouse and finds a rather unassuming man with very blue eyes sitting on a bar stool. At that moment, I knew that Fox had been trained up as an assassin, that he was cold, calculating, and peculiar, and that, of his eight half-siblings, he was the most like their father. I think the thing that readers found immediately fascinating about him is the very thing that makes him such an unlikely lead POV character: to put it bluntly, he’s mysterious. It becomes quickly apparent that he isn’t like the other Dogs. Local boys who were mechanics, or brawlers, or teenage runaways, all of whom found a home amongst the club. For all that he can blend into any situation, Fox sticks out like a sore thumb by comparison. He’s fine with this. For all that he does love the club, he thinks of himself as a bit extraordinary, if he’s being honest.

When I announced that I was beginning work on a project called White Wolf, people began clamoring for a book about Fox. In the case of many angry emails and messages, they demanded a book about Fox instead of White Wolf. Thus began the ongoing four years of gaslighting and insult from people who enjoy telling me they won’t read or don’t like anything I write that isn’t about bikers.

I didn’t want to write a book about Fox. Why? Because his story was part of a long game that I didn’t think people were going to go for. I was being emailed plot “suggestions” for a Fox book, most of them involving Fox shacking up with a single mother and settling down. Finally planting his wild roots. But Fox doesn’t HAVE wild roots. He isn’t aimless; isn’t a broken man waiting to be made whole by the love of a good woman. He isn’t wounded. Fox is shockingly well-adjusted. He isn’t repressing his feelings – he just doesn’t feel things all that deeply. Fox loves, and Fox protects, but he doesn’t have that inner, aching loneliness that mark Walsh and Albie. Fox is, in fact, a bit empty – a condition that we see him grappling with in his own quiet, subtle way over the course of Prodigal Son, Lone Star, and Homecoming.

I told everyone I wouldn’t write his book, and after some of the hate and abuse I received, I felt pretty okay with that decision. I don’t write books according to prompts or suggestions. I write books that follow a character’s journey. Character first, character first, character first.

But then in 2016, I went to see Captain America: Civil War. Thus began my long, slow realization that, despite adoring some of its characters, the MCU was more focused on plot than any kind of meaningful and deep storytelling. Also, in light of the writers saying that Bucky had to go into the deep freeze because, quote, “he deserved it after killing all those people,” I reconsidered writing a book about Fox. More accurately: a book about Fox’s family. About his father, and his siblings, and his new, lost, tenth brother, who wasn’t a boy at all, but a weapon. I was never going to write a book about Fox melting when he found the love of his life. But this – this tale of authority using pawns for their dirty work…this was a story I could tell, and wanted to tell.

I’d already told a half-dozen stories about gruff bikers finding true love. Fox’s book was always going to be a part of the long game. We’d seen what happens when broken men carve out their own kingdoms and set up shop in the underground. Now it was time to explore the other side of the underground. You don’t live and work in hell without running afoul of other demons. Who better than a criminal organization to tackle a government organization?

To put it bluntly, Prodigal Son didn’t go over well with readers. Most people seemed not to like it, and the sentiment continually expressed was that readers had “expected more” from Fox. On the one hand, I didn’t want to write the book for exactly this reason: it was never going to be a mushy romance and I knew that could be a problem. On the other hand…I’m not sure what anyone did expect from Fox personally, as a character, given what I’d already revealed about him. From the start, he was presented as irreverent, a little tone deaf, blunt, and downright rude. He shared the hard truths, and he didn’t sugarcoat them, but he wasn’t trying to be an asshole. He just didn’t have use for tact. He wasn’t a big guy, but he was deadly. Expert with gun, blade, or martial arts, he could also speak a dozen languages and don any accent, any persona, any facial expression at the drop of a hat. His skillset isn’t normal amidst the MC. From the beginning, it was quite obvious that Fox had been trained. That he’d studied, and practiced, and was a master chameleon.

I’m honestly not sure why the spy angle was a shock. He was always a spy. Any story focusing on him and his family was always going to go the spy route.

Because I don’t claim to be a writer of standalone romances, I didn’t feel compelled to force Fox into a role that would egregiously damage his character integrity. I always say that I have to know what makes a character most vulnerable before I can write his story, and in Fox’s case, it wasn’t his love for Eden – and he does love her, in his own Foxy way, as we slowly learn going forward – that left him most vulnerable, but his hatred of his father. His fear that he was too much like his father; his resentment of all of Devin’s secrets, which all get dragged out into the light in PS.

Is the whole assassin bit, with Tenny, and the underground facility, and Devin’s past over the top? Sure. The whole series is over the top. I mean, come on. Mercy? Freaking IAN? Yeah, the assassins aren’t a stretch. And it HAS to be over the top in order to explore some of the topics we get to with Reese and Tenny, and even Fox: that of autonomy, and personhood. Of killer skills, and dark impulses, and the wearing of masks. We’ve explored the concept of one-percenters about as deeply as we can, and PS – Fox’s backstory, the intro of Tenny – launches us on a road to a whole new way to explore the Dogs and their underground empire. Prodigal Son isn’t your favorite? Cool. Everyone has favorites. But I’m always playing the long game, remember, and it’s a necessary seed in the garden, one with deep roots that needs time to germinate.

Which brings us to the present. To the moment of blooming. And once again, I find myself hesitating. Because all that “spy shit,” as one reader so nicely put it (the review was later amended) isn’t going away. It’s still there. It’s still Fox’s history. Tenny is still a boy raised as a weapon struggling to find the human underneath. And even though I teased a book about Reese and Tenny, and it would take place on US soil, it’s a book that will address and draw upon both those boys’ skills. Reese’s efficiency and Tenny’s masks will be in full deployment. Lone Star and Homecoming rolled the ball forward on the long game, and the plan for the next book involved lots of big, twisty, action-and-angst heavy stuff. A long and involved story that would challenge the club like it had never been challenged before, and put Reese and Tenny to the ultimate test. Lots of sex and romance, sure…but lots of that long game, too. Lots of spy and assassin stuff.

I’ve already received some messages/emails/comments from people who say they won’t read it, or who want me to write about other characters instead. I will once again remind that I don’t write to order. This isn’t Burger King, y’all. I don’t take a survey before I sit down to write a book. It’s the long game or bust, and I think a Reese/Tenny book could be really cool.

But I have to ask myself: If Prodigal Son was such a let-down for readers, what’s to make me think a Reese/Tenny book wouldn’t be also? Am I opening myself to more DM abuse a la Prodigal Son vs. White Wolf? I was told in no uncertain terms that writing about Fox was the ONLY way to please certain readers, and now I can see that the same thing is already happening after simply teasing Dartmoor 9.

I’ll be real honest with y’all: it doesn’t give a gal much hope for a different outcome. I took the teaser chapters down off the blog, and, as of now, I’m thinking that if I’m going to play the long game, it’s best played in other fictional arenas.

Sons of Rome, Hell Theory, and now the new Drake Chronicles are all playing the long game too. The Drake Chronicles are more like a genre romance, with lots of steam in each volume. Sons of Rome plays a much longer long game: all those little seeds of Nik and Sasha from White Wolf didn’t bloom until Golden Eagle, but, oh, wasn’t the delayed gratification worth it?

I guess it just feels, sometimes, like I’m trying to tend this garden. Carefully, slowly, patiently, giving each plant its own special care. But that it’s expected that I just shove a shoddily-wrapped carnation bouquet across the counter instead. In an impatient world, I don’t really know how Dartmoor fits into the garden equation, but I won’t go down a familiar road when the warning signs are already flashing.

What I can say, though, to the supporters, is thank you. If you’ve left a review, or dropped a kind note, or liked, or shared, I honestly can’t thank you enough. You always brighten my days, and make all the garden-tending worthwhile.

 

EOTW: Fave Lines

 

Edge of the Wild - now available for Kindle HERE - is one of the most romantic, sentimental books I've written, but it also has the most banter. One of the things I enjoyed most was the dialogue. Narrowing down my favorite lines proved challenging, and I've left some off the list, but in no particular order, my faves are:

“I’ve never cared about you enough to hate you. I hate that I’ll have to marry you, or someone like you, for the sake of my family.”

**

“Oh, I’m full of truths, but they get so covered up by my being a pompous ass no one usually notices.”

**

“You’re useless with a sword, from my understanding” – Oliver shot Erik a dark look which he couldn’t see, lashes still lowered – “but your liege there is insisting, and I have to agree.”

“My liege,” Oliver parroted. “Can my liege not teach me himself?”

“I have very many kingly things to attend to.” 

**

“Leif,” he murmured, chest aching. “You don’t have to worry about all of us right now.”

The wry twist of Leif’s mouth was far too knowing. “Was there ever a moment when you stopped worrying about all of us? Have you ever not thought like a king?”

**

“Shall I open up the window and let you throw them right out into the snow? It might save you a step.”

**

“Do you think that I have ever, for a second, wanted anyone the way I want you?”

**

“I could box his ears, the bloody, contrary fool. A king. A king. Talk of impertinent – I send him to work out a marriage contract and he tumbles the king? The gall of him.”

“Mother, I think this morning has firmly established that we can’t help who we fall in love with,” Amelia said, dryly.

Katherine let out a slow breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Gods above, I shall have to explain this to people. Lady Matilda is going to laugh in my face.”

**

“Do you remember that time you told me that dragons existed?...This now? Tonight? Twice as alarming.”

**

“I wonder: what did you tell them, Ragnar? I’m not sure I like ‘paramour.’ It makes me sound like a strumpet – rather than the man who saved your sorry ass from a cold-drake.”

**

"Mothers have to be indelicate sometimes, when the truth is anything but.”

There are more! But those were the ones that jumped out to me this morning. That last is my favorite: Bjorn with a flash of brilliance when it's needed most. 

New Book Alert: Edge of the Wild

 

Sometimes, storytelling is a process of careful research, planning, crafting, theorizing - as is the case with Sons of Rome. I've been working on that series in some capacity since high school, and it's my baby, and my most meaningful work, and also an absolute bear to wrestle most days.

But other times, storytelling is drawing on your years of already-accumulated reading and researching, and, on a whim, throwing the dice. That was definitely the case with Heart of Winter last year. I said, "Hey, this sounds fun." And it was. 

Epic fantasy is my first love, and I'd always had a nebulous idea of writing a sword-and-sorcery, dragon-featuring fantasy series ~at some point~ in the future. But 2020 was a crazy year, and a year that seemed ripe for taking some creative leaps. About worrying less about an idea being the most unique thing ever, but about it being something worthwhile and deeply interesting. Like with the Hell Theory series, which was my King Arthur, Hannibal, Legion mashup that turned out to be a lot more interesting to write than expected. 

I've been fascinated with Norse Mythology since my first childhood readings of Tolkien, and I've already done all this Viking research for SoR (Val and Vlad's mother Eira is a Viking, remember), but hadn't been able to do much with it yet. So with the Drake Chronicles, I pondered, "What if Peter Jackson wrote and directed the Game of Thrones TV adaptation, but it was super romantic?" And then I went out and did that, and by the end of that first book, I realized oh, I'm doing it. I'm doing my epic fantasy saga. Book one was fun - but book two was FUN. I love second books; I love expanding the world, and digging deeper into characters. I have never smiled so much while reading my own work. I'm super excited for everyone to read it, so, without further ado, I give you:

Edge of the Wild (The Drake Chronicles Book 2)

“Your lordship.”

It’s a title Oliver will have to get used to: in just a few short months, he’s gone from the bastard son of a dead duke’s equally-dead brother, plain Oliver Meacham, to Lord Oliver, the royal consort of King Erik of Aeretoll. Still uncertain of his place amongst the Northerners, but cautiously hopeful that what he’s found with Erik is real and lasting, his new relationship is put to the ultimate test on the journey to the annual Midwinter Festival: a meeting of all the lords and clan chiefs of the North, across the treacherous Northern Wastes. It doesn’t help that he keeps having these visions…of blue light, and antlered shamans…and dragons.

Lady Tessa Drake traveled North with her cousin Oliver as escort with the intention of wedding King Erik. But it was Oliver who captured Erik’s heart, and Tessa was instead offered the hand of Erik’s elder nephew, the handsome and kind-hearted Prince Leif. But with Leif away at the festival, and Tessa left behind at Aeres, she finds herself growing closer and closer to Leif’s younger brother, Rune, who’s recovering from a grave injury, and putting butterflies in her stomach.

In the South, in the duchy of Drakewell, Tessa’s older sister, Amelia, spends her days scouting for outlaws with her men-at-arms – and her nights in the arms of her oldest and best friend, Malcolm, a guardsman she loves, but can’t marry if she hopes to secure an army to defend her homeland from the invading Sels. Her mother wants her to marry one of Tessa’s foppish former suitors, but Amelia has bigger things to worry about: namely, the strange happenings in the Inglewood, and the claims of “beasts” roaming there.

The second installment in the Drake Chronicles is full of action, adventure, steamy romance, danger, necromancy, magic, and, finally, actual live dragons. It’s time for the Drakes of Drakewell to learn of the power that runs in their blood, just in time to save their respective kingdoms. Featuring M/M and M/F pairings, this is an ongoing epic fantasy romance intended for adult audiences.

Look-See: Lionheart

 All my best storytelling happens when I allow myself to be incredibly self-indulgent. When I slip down into the non-linear, lush world of flashback, backstory, character recollection. People don't exist in a vacuum; we recall things; scents trigger memories, and dreams leave us nostalgic for the past. Not to mention, to study history is to leap forward and backward in time; to tread well-worn avenues, and to diverge down forested footpaths, into the unknown, the rarely explored. To dabble in theory and empathy. I can write tidy stories, but that isn't where I flourish. That isn't where I feel wild, and attached to the story, and like a conduit for its energy. I can ask myself: what's most marketable? What will the greatest number of readers prefer? Or I can ask myself: what story do these characters need me to tell?

With Lionheart, it's a case of the latter question. It's why I've not rushed it. This is going to be a behemoth of a book. And could I streamline it? Yes, of course. But the streamlined version wouldn't be the same story at all. For me, every scene, every sentence, is the result of great thoughtfulness. I'm thinking "what do I hope to convey through showing the sunlight glint off of a ring?" "What does a scent or a sound add to our understanding of this character?" Sure, the gist of the story would be the same, without the flashbacks, and the small details; without the attention to expression or gesture or physical fear response - but without those things I would not have portrayed my exact vision of a character, of a moment, of an emotion, of a whole story. Because that's what I want to tell - the whole story. I'm not here for the gist; for the suggestion of something. I'm always chasing that particular ache that only comes from the richest kind of narrative; from the complete understanding of a group of characters. 

If I want to wander down the footpaths of Sherwood Forest with Robin, I won't set that aside for expediency's sake. If I want to pull back the curtain on a wild, violent, passionate duke-turned-king-turned-crusader, I will allow myself the indulgence. I thank those waiting on the next Sons of Rome installment for their patience: it's been a long wait, and I don't have a date for you yet, but I promise that it will be most worthwhile. 

Excerpts from Lionheart

Copyright © 2021 by Lauren Gilley 

 

Both of Robin’s parents were storytellers.

2020 Wrap-Up

I drafted this post an embarrassing number of times yesterday, each more detailed and ridiculous than the last, and finally just tossed them all out. No matter how I approached it, the post was a semi-ranty throat punch, in which it became clear how hollowed-out and overtired, and joyless I've felt about writing this year. 2020 kicked everyone's ass, and, for me,  it arrived on the heels of three years of feeling less and less like anything I was doing actually mattered. This spring, I realized it was time to step back, stop posting, stop talking about writing, stop putting any part of myself out there, and just write. And write, and write, and write. I could offer nothing in the way of joy or hope to anyone, but I could offer a few stories. 

The end result is a personal record of six published works this year, over 540k words. I don't  know when or if I'll return to having an online presence again. I still feel incredibly frustrated, and incredibly numb, and just...tired. And, ultimately, expressing myself beyond my published words never leads to anything good. So.

Here's a quick recap of this year's offerings, if you'd like to lose yourself in a book for a little while:

May: Lone Star - Dartmoor book 7..

June: King Among the Dead - Hell Theory book 1 (a new horror/dystopian erotica series that I started on a whim after reading The Mirror & The Light but which contains my sharpest prose by far of the year).

August: Homecoming - Dartmoor book 8, with a side of extra smut.

September: Night In A Waste Land - Hell Theory book 2

October: Mystic Wonderful - Hell Theory tie-in novella

December: Heart of Winter - Drake Chronicles book 1 (high fantasy romance with dragons and multiple pairings, and all the feels)

Who knew you could start two brand new series in the midst of a pandemic? I've got another very full publishing schedule for 2021, and there's lots to look forward to on that front. Stay safe, everyone, Happy New Year, and be on the lookout for new books. 

New Book: Heart of Winter

 New book alert! Book one in a new fantasy romance series is now live. You can grab Heart of Winter for Kindle HERE, and it's coming to Nook and Kobo soon.

“It so happened that Oliver’s father was a profligate, a playboy, and an exceptional warrior. He was also not at all married to Oliver’s mother, a washerwoman, who died when Oliver was only six.”

Oliver Meacham, bastard nephew of the Duke of Drakewell, and a massive disappointment to his father, has just lost all his male relatives to the war with the invading Sels from the West. Without an heir, the duchy of Drakewell stands to fall into enemy hands, unless one of Oliver’s cousins can marry a lord with an army strong enough to defend it – which is how he finds himself escorting his cousin Tessa to the Great Northern Wastes; to the kingdom of Aeretoll, with a hope that Tessa might wed the fearsome warrior king who rules there, Erik Frodeson, in order to protect her people.

But the stern, forbidding Erik refuses to marry. He offers his nephew’s hand to Tessa instead. And to Oliver he offers insult, challenge – and the sorts of loaded glances that leave Oliver as flustered as he is furious.

Tessa doesn’t relish the prospect of marrying for a political alliance, but she’s ready to fulfill her duty to her family and people – even more so when she realizes that she won’t have to wed the churlish Erik, but his charming nephew, instead. Only…the king has two nephews. And Tessa has a choice to make.

The Drake Chronicles is a slow-burn fantasy series, full of court intrigue, adventure, drama, dragons, and passionate romance. Heavily influenced by Viking history and mythology, the series follows the intertwining stories of multiple couples as they fall in love, and fight to save their families, and their kingdoms.