Nikki Jefford is “a third generation Alaskan who loves fictional bad boys and heroines who kick butt.” Ms Jefford is the author of the Spellbound trilogy (Entangled, Duplicity). Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter is her newest novel. Full of action from the very first page, Aurora Sky is a book that will have the reader hanging onto every word, staying up late into the night to in out just what is going to happen next!
Aurora Sky has had all of Alaska she can take. She just wants to finish her senior year, get on with her life, and never look back. She’s had enough cold and snow to last a lifetime and she can’t wait to go to college anywhere else. But all that changes with a car crash on an icy road. Suddenly, getting out of Alaska is the last thing on her mind.
When she wakes up after the wreck, Aurora discovers she’s been saved by government agents because of her special blood type. In return for a medical miracle, now she’s forced to become a vampire hunter. Worse than the thought of having to kill monsters she never dreamed actually existed is the fact that she can’t leave Alaska.
Now, instead of worrying about college essays and making good grades, Aurora spends her free time training and thinking about a certain mysterious boy from school. Her old best friend doesn’t talk to her anymore, so she makes friends with some vampire groupies in an effort to find out more about the undead scene…and finds out that the boy of her dreams is more than he seems.
A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan Artwork by Todd Lockwood
Marie Brennan is a former academic with a background in archaeology, anthropology, and folklore, which she now puts to rather cockeyed use in writing fantasy. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to many short stories and novellas, she is also the author of A Star Shall Fall and With Fate Conspire (both from Tor Books), as well as Warrior, Witch, Midnight Never Come, In Ashes Lie, and Lies and Prophecy. You can find her online at SwanTower.com.
You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one’s life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. . . . All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.
Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.
Marie Brennan introduces an enchanting new world in A Natural History of Dragons.
‘A Natural History of Dragons’ brings the Victorian era to life with stunning details and such lifelike depictions that the reader will truly feel like they are on an expedition to study dragons. From the very beginning, when Isabella was just a child and fascinated with sparklings, the majesty and mystery of dragons shrouds every page. Though mystical, magical creatures to the reader, Ms Brennan brings them to startling life with each tiny detail revealed. The beautiful illustrations bring the entire world to life.
Zhagrit Mat, by Todd Lockwood
Isabella is no shrinking violet, and her rather madcap adventures grow from the natural curiosity of a child to mould her into the Darwin of dragons. Ms Brennan masterfully and evocatively tells this memoir-style tale of one girl’s love of dragons, and her willingness to sacrifice everything to study them.
P.S. I really enjoyed this book. I’ve always loved Victorian-era fiction, if done well, and this one is done extremely well. I could totally relate to Isabella searching for sparklings behind the house, since I used to always be on the lookout for different animals and plants when I was a child. If there had been tiny dragons around, well, my joy would have been boundless. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Brennan several years ago at Conestoga Writers Conference, and really enjoyed her thoughts on the different panels. She was nice enough to answer questions from aspiring writers, and her kindness made a huge impression on me. I’ve read most of her books (Witch, Warrior, Midnight Never Come, In Ashes Lie), and loved them all. If you’re looking to read something a little different, I highly recommend them.
So, despite loads of homework and reading for school, I managed to do mini-outlines for two more chapters in the werewolf story. Progress, although of the infinitesimal, snail-like variety. Three chapters down, 29 to go…but it will get done. And I promised my best friend/co-writer that I would convert ONE chapter of our zombie story to first-person this weekend. I’m also thinking about trying out Scrivener. Anybody out there used it or have any opinions or comments about it?
I also have this sitting on my desk, waiting to be read:
Personal bribery at its best…
I know, I know. The Wheel of Time series has dragged on forever. I’ve heard all the complaints. Seen all the bad reviews for the series in general. I know. Also, I don’t care. I haven’t opened it yet. IF I get all the stuff done that I need to this weekend–homework, writing, revision, blogging, cleaning, re-decorating, planting–THEN I will start reading it. If not, well, it’ll have to wait. It’s been years since I started reading the series, I don’t think a few more days will hurt me.
Thanks to author Ruth Ellen Parlour for her guest post yesterday. Also thanks to her for providing a free e-copy of her novel, Earth Angel. The winner of Earth Angel is tocksin, so tocksin, please contact me for your free copy of this new YA fantasy novel.
Ruth Ellen Parlour, author of Earth Angel, is here today to give us some tips on writing romance. Romance isn’t the main plot in her novel, but it’s certainly present, and she has some great tips on how to weave it into your story. You should check out her first novel, Earth Angel! One person who comments on the blog today will receive a free e-copy of Earth Angel. Thanks for stopping by, Ruth and good luck with Earth Angel!
Ruth Ellen Parlour, author of Earth Angel
One of my readers made an interesting comment on the romantic subplot in my fantasy novel, Earth Angel. This particular reader was an older woman and not interested in sappy love stories or erotic scenes. She brought up the point that romance doesn’t need to be either of those things; that a romance can bloom without the characters even touching. This got me thinking about romance in books. I did a bit of research and found some useful tips to consider when writing romance. As a YA writer these tips do not include writing sex scenes!
Individual. The romance should be as unique as the characters. Romance is not a cliché, it is individual and personal. The two romantically involved pairings in Earth Angel couldn’t be more different. Pair 1 – a teenaged girl smitten by a young man who doesn’t even realise. Pair 2 – a man trying to win affection from a woman by driving her nuts. Both pairs have an entirely different relationship and conflicts.
Tension/conflict. Conflict is often a good tool to develop the relationship, whether the two characters have conflicting traits or they are put through a conflict together that brings them close. Tension between characters is good to generate an emotional response from the reader, for example, if they want to touch but can’t.
Climax/raise the stakes. Throughout the novel it might be an idea to raise the stakes of the romance or relationship to a climax at the end for added drama. Start off with small steps and increase the romance throughout.
Exaggerated awareness. From the perspective of the smitten character, they note looks, movements, speech of their loved one with exaggeration. A simple touch is heightened, tense and emotional. This is called Exaggerated awareness and draws the reader into the romance.
Genre. Genre can be used to add drama to a romance. The genre I write is fantasy so romantic elements are always subplot but I use the setting and plot to heighten the relationships. People are brought together through epic, life changing scenarios.
POV. Perspective can be a good tool to add mystery. Telling the story from only one character’s POV in one scene, we don’t know what the other is thinking or feeling which adds tension and mystery.
Details. This can be related to the point about individuality. What are the characters backgrounds, traits, personalities, wants, needs, issues that can affect the relationship? Details are a way to ground the romance in believability.
Dialogue is an essential tool to utilise that can generate a myriad of emotions. The way the characters speak and the words they choose can add drama easily.
Humour. Humour can work if it fits in with the character. One of my characters fancies himself as a joker and pokes fun at his female fancy. This point also relates to the individual aspect.
Character development. Don’t shoehorn a romance into the story for the sake of a romance. What does it add to the plot and to the characters? Your characters should develop and change through the story as the romance and plot does.
Other emotions. It’s not just about romance, what other emotions are in play? What issues do the characters have that affects the relationship: anger, sadness, fear? These tools can be used to add drama or bring the characters together through hardship.
Romance is about the relationship, not just physical attraction. It doesn’t have to be all about kissing and touching. Relationships are built on more than just the physical. The journey the characters take and issues they have to face and can more heart wrenching. This point is related to other emotions and the character development.
Earth Angel is the first novel by UK author Ruth Ellen Parlour. This high fantasy novel, aimed at young adults, is set in a world completely unlike our own. The Earth Angels, serving their gods, fight to protect Eardesha in a world filled with many familiar fantasy creatures—like dragons—and many unfamiliar ones as well, including hybrids—human-animal crosses—and the monstrous Krieger. Earth Angels is the first in a series.
Gabrielle is imprisoned in sinister Khartaz prison, along with her brother, Oz. Desperate to escape the horrors of life there, she and her brother plot their escape, only to face the monsters in the surrounding desert that snatch their friends away one by one. Faith is an Earth Angel intent on reuniting with her lover, whom she left behind, and questioning the meaning of her calling. Zenovia is an orphan who only wants to find her parents, a search that will take her places she never dreamed of.
When an army of the vicious Krieger invades Eardesha with a dark power that threatens to destroy the entire land, the military turns Khartaz prison into a training ground for the convicts in the hope of stalling the destruction. Gabrielle finds herself drawn back to the prison against her will, called by the gods to help her people. Together with Faith, she will uncover a secret the gods have kept hidden for thousands of year, and race to stop the Krieger from destroying Eardesha forever.
Filled with varied landscapes and vivid creatures, Earth Angel is an intriguing first novel set in a fascinating world. The characters are well written and colorful, and the relationships between them bring the story to life. The pages are filled with action and adventure, and will keep the reader racing to find out what happens.
I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It’s a different type of YA fantasy–no vampires or werewolves in sight–and the strong female characters are a refreshing change as well. I liked the idea of the hybrids, too. Sort of SF, but it gave the world a neat twist, which is always a good thing. As an added bonus, Ruth Ellen Parlour will be doing a guest post here on Friday as part of her Earth Angel blog tour, and one commenter that day will receive a free e-copy of the book! So be sure and check back Friday to see what Ms. Parlour has to say about writing romance.
So, a couple of days ago, I got an email with this little story in it from GalleyCat, about a book deal worth seven figures for a work that started out as Twilight fan fiction (Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture, by Sylvain Reynard). And no, I’m not talking about Fifty Shades of Grey. If you haven’t heard about Fifty Shades of Grey (by E L James), where the heck have you been for the past few months? It also started out as a Twilight fan fiction piece, albeit one of erotica.
However, these two works of fan fiction are not your usual, run-of-the-mill, only-read-by-fans-on-some-website fan fiction. Fifty Shades of Grey has been phenomenally successful. According to Wikipedia, “On 1 August 2012, amazon.co.uk announced that they had sold more copies of Fifty Shades of Grey than they had of the entire Harry Potter series combined, making E. L. James their best-selling author ever, overtaking J.K. Rowling.” And according to Reynard’s blog yesterday, Gabriel’s Inferno is #35 on the New York Times Bestsellers List (Ebook/Fiction).
My initial reaction to these two pieces of information isn’t exactly printable, but it amounts to something along the lines of “Are you freaking kidding me?!” Fan fiction is, by definition (again, Wikipedia), “fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator.” So, these two writers were such huge fans of the Twilight series and its characters that they went out and wrote their own stories about these characters/this world.
Okay. I can understand that. I understand loving characters and a world so much that you just can’t bear to let them go. I love The Dragonriders of Pern. I have no idea how many times I’ve read that series and wished I could be a dragonrider. I can’t even put into words how much I love Gone with the Wind (and for the record, I’ve read that something like upwards of 20 times). Scarlett kicks a**, even if she is kind of clueless sometimes and makes me a little angry (Yes, I still get mad every time I read that book. Who in their right mind would want Ashley when Rhett is right there?). But I’ve never written any sort of re-telling of the story, or written my preferred version of what happened between them.
So, again, are you kidding me? Don’t get me wrong: I firmly believe every writer has the right to write whatever they want, whatever moves them, no matter what anyone else thinks of it. But it bothers me that these two authors are making a substantial amount of money off of works that are based on someone else’s creation. Maybe they changed the names/locations/plots to distance themselves. Maybe the books, in their current incarnations, aren’t anything remotely similar to their original versions (I really can’t say. Apart from the brief bits in the GalleyCat links above, I haven’t read either of them.). Maybe these authors were so inspired by Twilight that they realized their dreams of writing a novel. However….
Writing something based on someone else’s creation would feel like stealing to me. On a personal level, I couldn’t do it. Writing a piece of fan fiction strictly for yourself is one thing. Writing it and putting it out there for others to read, even if it’s made clear that it is based on someone else’s work, is another. Yes, maybe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but still, you took someone else’s work, changed it up, and called it your own. I read Eragon, too, and it’s similarities to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars bothered me immensely, so maybe this is my own personal problem, but what does everyone else think about this?
Shanna Swenson is a local author, from Irving, Texas, who writes fantasy novels. The fifth novel in her popular Enchanted, Inc. series; Much Ado About Magic, will be out on August 15th. Ms. Swenson will also be at FenCon in Dallas in September.
The Enchanted, Inc. series follows Katie Chandler, a girl from a small Texas town who moves to New York City, and is overwhelmed by the strangeness she sees there—strangeness that no one else seems to notice. When Katie finds out she is a magical immune—magic doesn’t work on her–everything starts to make sense. Soon she’s working for Magic, Spells, and Illusions (MSI), and flirting with the cute—and very shy—Owen Palmer.
In Much Ado About Magic, New York has been hit with a magical crime wave, and as the new director of marketing, it’s Katie’s job to deflect some of the heat a rival company is directing at MSI. Owen is working hard to decipher the criminal spells, but the rival company is selling protective charms—charms that just might affect their wearers more than they imagine.
When a magical flu hits the city, it’s up to Katie to figure out what’s going on—while the rest of the company is sick. Soon she realizes the crime wave and the flu are linked, and may be part of a plot that has been in the works for decades. With suspicion falling on Owen, Katie has to prove who the real threat is, and unraveling the truth about Owen’s path is key.
The Enchanted, Inc. series is a fun, light-hearted series mixing the best elements of fantasy and chick-lit into its own special blend of magic. The characters, even minor ones, are vivid and memorable, and the world itself is richly imagined and enticing. Much Ado About Magic is a long-awaited and much anticipated romp in the further adventures of Katie Chandler.
What I’m Reading Now:
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Ember and Ash, by Pamela Freeman
Celebrations, by Maya Angelou
366 Celt: A Year and a Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore, by Carl McColman
The Map of Time, by Felix J. Palma
What I’ve Read Recently:
Fury, by Elizabeth Miles
Dragon’s Oath, by P.C. and Kristin Cast
Sisterhood Everlasting, by Ann Brashares
Okay, so in reality, what I’m reading are all my textbooks from my classes. The new semester just started, and I’m eyeball-deep in homework assignments. Bleh. But no one wants to hear about Atoms First. Trust me on this. I don’t even want to read it, and I’m paying perfectly good money to suffer through take the class. Absorbing reading, it is not. So, yeah, not much actual reading going on around here. (No, I don’t think the 10 pages I read the other night of The Map of Time count, as my eyes kept drifting closed out of exhaustion—despite my desire to find out what was going on with Captain Derek Shackelford.)
But Fury was good. Awesome, even. A good, solid YA fantasy with a nice mythological twist and strong, likeable characters. Fair warning: this isn’t a standalone, so if you’re looking for a nice HEA ending wrapped up in a bow…keep looking.
Dragon’s Oath is a novella, so it’s a quick read, but it adds a nice bit of history to the House of Night world, with the story of Dragon’s origins, and how he fell inlove.
Sisterhood Everlasting…was wonderful. I love the whole series, and this was no exception. I stayed up far, far too late finishing it. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It really made me miss my friends from high school (there were four of us), and it also made me extremely grateful for the many wonderful friends I have in my life now.
The Map of Time is a Victorian England fantasy that combines a steampunk feel with time travel, H.G. Wells, and….men that tell lies. (Okay, the last bit is subject to change, as I’m not through with the book, but so far, two of the main male characters are liars. Rather grand, elaborate ones at that. And hey, as far as I’m concerned, men that lie=the devil. I’m just sayin’.)
A thousand years in the future, mankind has practically destroyed the Earth, wreaking havoc on its environment and animals before being forced to relocate to Mars and Venus while the Earth slowly recovers. The Zarc family is allowed to travel back in time to save two animals of every species from extinction, and bring them to new habitats on their ship, the ARC–Animal Rescue Cruiser—in order to repopulate the Earth when it is ready. To most people, the Zarcs are interplanetary heroes. To Haon, they are messing with things better left alone in order to steal the Earth from its rightful inhabitants: humans. And Haon will stop at nothing to prevent them.
Twelve-year-old Noah Zarc believes in what his family is doing, but when Haon kidnaps his mother and strands his father in the Ice Age, Noah, his brother Hamilton and his sister Sam are determined to rescue their parents, no matter what. After time-traveling to the Ice Age, Noah has a close encounter with a mammoth that attacks the ship, and befriends an Ice Age girl while Hamilton goes after their mother. He returns with word that Haon has kidnapped their mother to force her to create a nano virus that will destroy all animal life on planet Earth—and everything the Zarc family has worked so hard to save. So begins Noah’s quest to save his mother and the future of animalkind on Earth from Haon’s grasp.
Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble is an adventure-filled journey that jumps from present-day Earth to the Ice Age, Mars, and medieval Scotland. With plenty of advanced tech—from assassin bots to thermsuits to the ARC itself—the future looks like a pretty cool place to be, and Noah’s mission to save his parents, even in the midst of overwhelming danger, proves that things haven’t changed too much, even with mankind scattered amongst the stars. With the heaps of trouble Noah gets into, the prospect of more will keep the reader turning the pages in anticipation as Noah heads towards his inevitable clash with Haon—and discovers some astonishing things about his family along the way.
Tomorrow Is Another Day 