Here's a peek inside Chosen of Azara. Sevry is working as a guard-for-hire, and the caravan he's guarding is about to come under attack: Sevry ignored Odigar and the confusion he was causing. The last of the largest enclosed wagons started up onto the ridge. The raiders came close enough that he could count them; there were eleven of them to his nine, plus the wagon and camel drivers. The pounding of their horses’ hooves grew louder. Sevry waited, sword drawn, his heart beating hard, his horse dancing beneath him in nervousness and excitement. At moments like this, all the times in his life when he’d waited, sword in hand, for the enemy to come blended into one. He was twelve years old again, holding his first sword, awaiting the invasion of the Royal Holding at Yiz by the Madrinan army; he was twenty-three, watching as the Madrinans approached the Convent of Azara; he was a mercenary, a guard, in countless skirmishes against countless, forgotten foes. The last wagons were still trying to get into a secure position on top of the ridge when the raiders charged up the slope and barreled into the guards without checking their horses’ speed. Sevry and the other mounted guards were forced back against the wagons by the raiders’ onslaught. Sevry’s horse slipped a few feet down the gravelly slope; he brought it under control just in time to strike at a yellow-haired raider whose sword was swinging down towards his head. A knot of fighting men on top of the ridge jolted the last wagon in line, just above Sevry. With a heavy thud, the wagon’s load of smuggled jade shifted. Sevry heard the sharp crack of the wagon’s front axle as it broke, but he didn’t have time to move out of the way. Dragging its horses with it, the wagon tumbled down the slope, crashed into Sevry and his horse, and landed on its side with Sevry’s legs trapped beneath it. Excruciating pain exploded through his legs, and his scream drowned out the noises of the fight and the cries of injured horses and men. In spite of the agony flooding his senses, he remained conscious throughout the rest of the battle. Finally, the few surviving raiders turned tail and rode away, and Sevry’s men were free to turn their attention to him. He was glad to see that none of them had fallen, though most of them were injured. They freed the horses from the broken wagon and put the poor beasts, along with Sevry’s badly-injured horse, out of their misery, unloaded the jade, then moved the wagon off of him. Bliss at the disappearance of the crushing weight nearly made Sevry forget about the pain for a moment. Speaking to each other in harsh, urgent whispers, the men carefully lifted Sevry and laid him down on some blankets. Each movement brought further waves of fresh agony. He tried to bite back his cries, but they tore their way out of him anyway. One of the men poured herbed wine into his mouth. Desperately thirsty, Sevry swallowed it. Even the strong sleeping herb in the wine barely won out over the pain. Sevry dozed uneasily, only to be jolted into consciousness by new pain as his crushed lower legs and raw, scraped arms and back were being cleaned and bandaged. Finally, his caretakers finished their tasks, and he was able to sink into undisturbed darkness. Chosen of Azara is available in ebook and paperback at:
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Here's another peek inside The Lost Book of Anggird. Perarre and Roric, on the run from the law, have met a friendly woodcutter named Elmond. Here, Roric and Elmond go shopping: After breakfast, Elmond stopped at the wagon to transfer some of his money into a small leather pouch and lock the rest in the lockbox, then they walked down the street to the mercantile. Clothing was the most immediate need, Roric decided. The well-stocked store had several shelves and racks of ready-made dresses, trousers, and shirts. Dresses didn’t seem practical for a long journey on horseback, so, using his hands to estimate Perarre’s height and the size of her hips and chest — his face growing warm as he did so — Roric consulted with the shopkeeper to choose some trousers and shirts for her as well as for himself. The trousers and one remaining shirt he had brought with him from the University, besides being nearly threadbare, didn’t fit quite right any more. The Uurikhani tended to be solidly muscular, and three weeks of chopping and hauling wood had had a noticable effect on Roric’s build. To the pile of clothing on the counter he added a pair of leather-and-canvas packs that could be carried separately or fastened together and slung across a horse’s back, two large leather water flasks, a flint and steel for starting fires, a good knife, packages of hard flatbread, dried spiced meat, and dried fruit, and a pair of blankets. Roric briefly looked at a set of lightweight cooking gear, then decided not to get it. While Perarre, from growing up in an inn, might know how to cook on a stove, neither of them knew how to cook over a campfire, and, even if they did, he didn’t know how to hunt anything for them to cook. It was sheer dumb luck, he thought, not for the first time, that two people as helpless as they were had survived this long, and he had the feeling that their journey to escape from the Guards and discover the origins of the magica had barely begun. The shopkeeper showed Roric a small medical kit, and he added it to the pile, along with a pair of heavy, sturdy boots for himself and another pair for Perarre. He stepped back, contemplating his purchases as he rubbed at the itchy beard that had overrun his face, then put a razor, cake of soap, small mirror, two small towels, and a comb with the other things. If Perarre was going to be able to translate the journal, she would need paper, pencils, and a writing surface. At Roric’s request, the shopkeeper added a sheaf of blank paper, a handful of pencils, and a foot-square roofing shingle to the pile. Then Roric glanced around the store one more time to see if he had forgotten anything important, and wondered how he could possibly have enough money for the small mountain of items on the store counter. But after the shopkeeper added it all up, muttering over a long column of figures scratched on a piece of paper, and Roric paid the resulting sum, he had a generous handful of coins to spare. Elmond refused to take back the money, so after buying a couple of bedsheets for Elmond to replace the ones he had cut up for bandages, Roric tucked the pouch with the rest of his money into a small pocket in one of the new packs. When Elmond finished with his own purchases, the woodcutter took a small axe, the length of Roric’s arm, from his own heap of supplies and put it with Roric’s things. “You’ll need an axe for firewood. This one’s small enough for travel, and the best blade in the store. My gift to you.” Before Roric could find words to thank him, Elmond winked. “In all honesty, my friend, you’re going to need all the help you can get.” The Lost Book of Anggird, now available in ebook and paperback from Amazon, Smashwords, CreateSpace, and All Romance eBooks
Here's something for Sneak Peek Sunday (yes, a day early, because I'm excited!) The beginning of The Lost Book of Anggird - Perarre's first encounter with Professor Roric Rossony, to interview for the job of translating old books for him: PERARRE STOOD OUTSIDE the door to Professor Roric Rossony’s apartment, nervously straightening the sleeves of her black dress as she prepared herself to knock. Her fellow Assistants had been torn between envy and pity when she told them she was being given the chance to work as a translator for the eminent Professor Rossony. He was the most respected scholar of Balance Theory in the Vorunne Dominion, and working for him would be the opportunity of a lifetime for her. A good reference from Professor Rossony would open any door that could be opened to a woman, and maybe even some that would normally remain firmly closed. On the other hand, the Professor was as famous for his picky, prudish, and generally difficult disposition as he was for his scholarship. Perarre had never taken any of his courses or seminars, had never done more than glimpse him from a distance, so she had no way to judge for herself whether the envy or the pity was more appropriate. She would find out soon enough, she told herself. She took a deep breath and knocked. A low voice responded, “Enter.” She opened the door and walked into the apartment. “Professor Rossony? I’m Perarre Tabrano. I’ve been sent to apply for the position of translator.” The Professor was sitting at a big cherrywood desk in the back corner of the apartment’s large main room. The desk was angled to face the door as well as the rest of the room. Perarre paused, struck by the Professor’s appearance. His black hair and fair skin were an unusual combination in the Vorunne Dominion, and there was something faintly exotic about his dark eyes, strong nose, and broad sweep of cheekbones. Broad-shouldered and apparently in fit condition, no longer youthful but still untouched by middle age, he was a perfect example of a man in his prime. The overall effect was quite striking. At least the view would be nice as she worked, Perarre thought. “I don’t recall telling the Assignment Office that a female would be acceptable for this position,” the Professor said. A match made in heaven, right? :D
The official release date for The Lost Book of Anggird is Tuesday, Oct. 29 (though it might *might* be live on Amazon and Smashwords on Monday!) For more Sneak Peeks, visit the Sneak Peek Sunday blog! Here's another peek inside Urdaisunia for Sneak Peek Sunday! Rashali is on the run from some nefarious men [Zashtag is the goddess of birds, Rashali's patron goddess]: AS SHE FLED, Rashali didn’t dare stop to look for signs of pursuit. The Kai-Kalle had warhorses; once the Kifa and his men escaped from the attacking birds, it wouldn’t take them long to catch up with her. But by the time she had put several miles between herself and the Kifa’s camp, there was still no one following her. Had the birds pecked Helku, Jeru, and their men to death? She could only hope, she thought with vicious pleasure at the idea. Gods preserve her from ambitious, lecherous men. Her satisfaction at the fate she imagined for Jeru and Helku dimmed as she continued running. The relentless sun beat down without mercy, her mouth and throat were parched, and her stomach was knotted from hunger. Running into the desert with no water or food wasn’t the most intelligent thing she had ever done, she thought, but Zashtag had given her this chance and all she could do was throw herself on the goddess’s mercy and take it. Surely the goddess hadn’t helped her escape only to let her die of heat and thirst in the desert. After a few more miles, though fear still urged her on, Rashali finally couldn’t take one more step. She dropped to the ground in the meager shade of a thorn tree. Despite the heat, she was no longer sweating—a more alarming sign than hunger, thirst, and fatigue combined. She pulled the shimmering feather from the stitching at the hem of her dress. Zashtag, you did not bring your daughter this far only to let her perish, did you? Zashtag, help me! In response to her prayer, there was only emptiness; something that had always been there before, unnoticed, when she prayed to the goddess was now noticeable by its complete absence. True fear gripped Rashali’s heart—had the goddess indeed abandoned her? She closed her trembling fingers around the feather. “Help me!” Her voice came out as little more than a dry gasp. To her left, a flock of small birds suddenly rose into the air with a rush of wings, and circled in place. It was probably nothing, Rashali told herself, trying to suppress the flare of hope she felt at the sight, but she was in no position to ignore any possible sign from the goddess. Stumbling on shaking legs, still telling herself it was nothing, she ran to where the flock was circling. There, amidst a jumble of rocks on a low hillside, a stream sprang from the earth and flowed less than an arm-length before disappearing underground again. Rashali fell to her knees and drank of the cool, pure water, forcing herself to take only small sips so that she wouldn’t upset her parched, empty stomach. For more sneak peeks, check out the Sneak Peek Sunday blog!
Here's another quick peek inside Urdaisunia for Sneak Peek Sunday! Prince Eruz has just explained to Rashali that the Sazars conquered Urdaisunia because the mountains where they had lived could no longer sustain them and they were in danger of dying out. Rashali is unsympathetic. [note: Kuz is the god of sorcerers.] “So you traded your own hunger for that of the Urdai, and you took all our work, all the fruits of our learning and labors, for yourselves—the dams and canals, the great temples, the palace, even these gardens. You Sazars have no skills or knowledge to make such things, so you had to steal them from us. You didn’t even have writing until you began using ours.” He flinched slightly, his pride clearly stung by her contemptuous words. “We do have skills and knowledge of our own.” “Making swords,” she said. “And breeding and training warhorses. Nothing like this.” She indicated the Jewel with a broad gesture of her arm. “You could never make something like this. Even now, you depend on Urdai slaves to maintain the gardens.” “Not entirely.” Eruz stopped beside one of the low trees with thick hand-shaped leaves—a nariyi, it was called—and plucked a tightly-curled bud from it. “We have skills besides those of warfare.” He looked intently at the nariyi bud, then whispered a few words and blew lightly on the bud. Slowly, the green sepals unwound from around the five thick white petals, which unfolded into a bowl-shaped blossom. The flower’s sweet, rich scent filled the air. “Here,” Eruz said. He took Rashali’s hand and placed the flower in it. “We worship Kuz more than the Urdai do, and he has given us a number of gifts.” If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she never would have believed it. She looked up at him, her hand still in his, at a loss for words to respond to the wonder he had shown her. “That—that was—” He bent his head down and covered her mouth with his. For more sneak peeks, check out http://sneak-peek-sunday.blogspot.com/!
Sneak Peek Sunday is something fun I found out about from author Isabella Norse's Facebook page. If you're here from the Sneak Peek blog hop, welcome, help yourself to virtual punch and cookies over at the buffet table, and feel free to have a look around :) Here's my first sneak peek, from Urdaisunia: In the drought-stricken desert land of Urdaisunia, which has been oppressed by the conquering Sazars for three generations, the Urdai peasant woman Rashali has a near-deadly encounter with the Sazar Prince Eruz. Without warning, there was a rush of pounding hooves from her right, and a voice shouted, “You, Urdaina! Watch out!” A wall of black struck hard against her right side. She tumbled to the ground, the yoke sliding from her shoulders, the buckets spilling their water onto the thirsty ground. Rashali got to her feet, stumbling on a twisted ankle. Three Sazar warhorses stood in front of her, a huge black beast flanked by two slightly smaller dark brown horses. From their mounts, three Sazar warriors clad in silver-trimmed black stared down at her. Hate and rage clouded her senses. These sallow-skinned, narrow-eyed barbarians had degraded and destroyed her people. They were responsible for the deaths of her husband and daughter and countless others. And they had spilled her water. She drew up precious moisture into her mouth and spat at the man in the middle, the man whose black horse had knocked her down. The three horses danced and snorted like demons. Two long, curved, gleaming-sharp swords suddenly loomed above her head. The man on the right jumped down from his horse and grabbed Rashali in a choke hold. The point of a knife pricked the skin beneath her chin. Tears of terror filled Rashali’s eyes and her heart raced painfully, but she refused to look away from the warrior in the middle, whose richer silver trimmings marked him as superior to the other two. She would not bow down, she would not give way, she would not grovel before a Sazar, even if it cost her her life. The moment seemed to hang suspended as the warrior gave her a long, hard, searching look, as though he were trying to peer into her mind and discover how she dared to defy him. Then he sheathed his sword. Check out the Sneak Peek Sunday site for more sneak peek fun!
I'm working on book 6 of Daughter of the Wildings. Book 5 and this first part of book 6 have been interesting to write. The series has two main characters, Silas and Lainie, and through the first four books I divided up the viewpoint more or less equally between the two of them, maybe leaning more to Silas. He's a fun character to write, and seeing the world through his eyes is an interesting experience. Because of this, even though I was also spending a fair amount of time in Lainie's viewpoint, I hadn't really developed her as much, and most of the quotable quotes from the books were coming from Silas. Starting with book 5, due to circumstances the story has been entirely from Lainie's viewpoint, so it forced me to look deeper into her mind and personality and find out just what she's capable of. And I'll tell you, it's pretty impressive. She may be a Sweet Young Thing, but she's also pretty badass, and smart too. So here, to balance out all the Silas quotes I've posted, are some Lainie-isms: Heading off on a possibly dangerous errand: Lainie didn't like it. This was the perfect setup for an ambush. She checked her gun yet again, then climbed down. "Wait here," she said to the carriage driver. Seeing a ladies' fashion magazine for the first time in her life: Lainie found a seat on a couch just the right size for two people, and picked up an oversize, floppy book--all paper, with no hard covers--with a big picture of an elegantly-dressed lady on the front. 'Ladies' Fashion Monthly,' it said on the cover. Lainie flipped through it; it had lots of colored and black-and-white pictures in it of fancy clothing, fancy houses, fancy children, fancy food, fancy dogs, and short articles--like in a newspaper--about how you could go about achieving all that fanciness. It's a trap! She pushed her gun a little harder into the man's back. "What in all the hells is going on?" Facing off against seven enemy wizards (actually eight, since the one she already shot won't stay down): "I'm not the one who picked this fight," Lainie replied. She drew Silas's gun into her left hand. It was big and heavy, too big and heavy for her, but it made her feel stronger, like Silas himself was fighting at her side. "Show me what you've got." Getting her first good meal in a long time: She made her way to the kitchen, which was just as big and shiny and beautiful as the front parlor. The first thing her eyes alighted on was a pie--apple, she thought, smelling it--set out to cool on the counter. She moved towards it, wondering if Mr. Coltor was rich enough that he could afford to hire someone just to bake pies and cakes and cookies for him, like the people who read that 'Ladies' Fashion Monthly' book she had seen at the hotel in Sandostra. She hoped so, because that pie wasn't long for this world. So, it's been lots of fun getting to know Lainie a little better. Book 6 is coming along; I'm getting to that terrifying point that I've encountered in all the other books of this series, where I know how it's going to end but only have the vaguest idea of how I'm going to get there. I've picked up some good plotting techniques from Holly Lisle's books and courses, which so far have seen me through. (btw, that's my affiliate link for her store. I'm proud to recommend her books, workshops, and courses because they've worked wonders for me.) Once this draft is done, the whole series will go through the first big, deep, major revision as if it was one book, so I can get everything consistent from beginning to end, then it'll go out to the test readers. If you're wondering how long that's going to take, I can't say, but I'm hoping to start releasing the series late spring/early summer 2014. Also if you're wondering, I'm estimating that the whole series is going to come out at around 300,000 words, or approximately the length of one George R.R. Martin book. So I won't be asking you to spend the rest of your life reading big long honkin' books and waiting years for the next installment. Once I've got the series ready to start releasing, it will (hopefully) only be a few months between releases. And a final note, I got a look at the sketch for the cover of book 3 a few weeks ago, and am hoping to get the final version any day now. It's gonna be so cool! Stay tuned for cover art reveal news :D Welcome to the reveal of the cover for Sarya's Song! So glad you could stop by. Please help yourself to punch and cookies at the buffet table, and enjoy your visit :-) And here's the cover! Another amazing creation by DesignbyKatt! She did a great job of listening to what I wanted and what I was trying to convey with the cover, and found stock and brushes that fit perfectly. At first I wasn't thinking about putting Adan on the cover, just Sarya, but then he told me that considering what he has to put up with in the book he'd better be on the cover or else. Characters... As I like to say, you can't live with them, you can't whack them on the head with a shovel and bury them out back. (or, well, you can, but then that would mess up the story.) Anyway, so Katt came up with this, which I think is absolutely perfect for the book - dark and romantic, with music as a major element. This is the second cover she's done for me (the first one is Chosen of Azara) and it's been a pleasure working with her. The book is in the early stages of revision right now, and, at the moment, I'm looking at an early 2014 release. Finally, I'll leave you with a little snippet from the beginning of Sarya's Song: [magic is worked through musical chants, and Sarya's job is to arrange the magical chants into rituals; a wedding rite, in this case. Right now, she's handing out new parts.] "What's this?" a voice said from off to the side, where the soloists stood. Adan Muari held out one of the pages, staring at it. "I can't sing this. It's too high. What happened to my solo?" I now have in my hot little hands (on my hot little hard drive?) the cover illustration for Sarya's Song. I think I said something once about "luciously dark and romantic," and oh my, it is! It's gorgeous! I'll reveal the cover on Saturday; watch for it! For my Camp NaNo project, Book 4 of Daughter of the Wildings, I'm up to 23,252/30,000 words. Like I've mentioned before, the drafts of these books are fairly short, but I tend to "write short" in my first drafts and then fill in when I revise, so I expect them to end up in about the 50,000 word range by the time I release them. Silas is always good for a quotable quote, and here's today's: "Lainie, wait." Now, I really hate it when in books there's some kind of dangerous situation that has to be faced, and the man says, "I am the man and you are just a girl and I must protect you and keep you from going into danger because I am a manly man, and I don't care that having you along might actually be helpful or that you'll feel as bad if I get killed as I'll feel if you get killed." And the woman says, "Silly man, you can't tell me what to do because I Am Woman and no stupid man can tell me what to do even if it means I put myself in danger unnecessarily and make things harder for you because then you have to worry about me in addition to yourself."
I mean, I really hate that. But I don't think that's what's going on here. Lainie and Silas are both in a pretty precarious situation with the law (as represented by the Mage Council), and a dangerous confrontation with some other mages is coming up. Lainie believes that Silas is in just as much danger as she is, plus she has certain skills that can really help in a situation like this (that is, saved his butt more than once before), and yes, she would feel just as bad if he was captured or killed as he would feel if something happened to her. On the other hand, Silas has reason to believe that Lainie has seriously underestimated the danger to herself, and that any display of these special skills will only make her situation worse. He has no intention of getting himself killed; he just wants to deal with this situation as quickly and efficiently as possible, and then take Lainie and get the hell out of Dodge (if Dodge City existed in their world). She, however, has equally compelling reasons for not wanting to run away. Anyway, I was trying to come up with a satisfactory way to top off this argument, and that quote from Silas kind of came out of nowhere (as Silas's best quotes usually do), and I like it, along with Lainie's rejoinder at the end - she can give as good as she gets. So I really really hope I'm not doing that thing that I hate. Author spotlights coming up Thursday and Friday, and then don't forget, the Sarya's Song cover reveal on Saturday! I guess it's been a whole week since my last Camp NaNo report; been busy with author profiles and book reviews and of course the reveal of the amazing cover art for Beneath the Canyons, Book 1 of Daughter of the Wildings. Anyway, progress is being made; I'm working steadily through the last major revision of The Lost Book of Anggird, still hoping for an October release date, and the first major revision of Sarya's Song. Hoping to get that out to the test readers in, hmm, October or November? Sooner would be nice, but don't know if that's doable. Here's the report on this week's Camp NaNoWriMo production (I'm writing Book 4 of Daughter of the Wildings): 7/6 - 1369 words; 8609/30,000 7/7 - day off 7/8 - 1475 words; 10,084/30,000 7/9 - 1523 words; 11,604/30,000 7/10 - 1741 words; 13,321/30,000 7/11 - 1712 words; 15,033/30,000 7/12 - 1888 words; 16,921/30,000 7/13 - 1328 words; 18,249/30,000 Silas quote of the week (being taunted by some very offensive people who accuse him of cowardice because he says he isn't big on killing people): "I don't like killing people, because I've usually got better things to do," Silas said. "But it happens I'm bored right now." And now, time to get back to work.
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