Black Friday Book Sale 2024!

 

Hello, all! Happy day-after-Thanksgiving!

As per the usual, I'm here to let you know that all of my books are on sale in ebook form for just $0.99 as part of the Black Friday Book Sale! This sale runs from Black Friday (today, November 24) through Cyber Monday. In it, you'll find literally hundreds of clean and Christian indie reads from authors like Kendra E. Ardnek, Sarah Beran, H.L. Burke, Savannah Jezowski, H.S.J. Williams, myself, and many others. The sale includes free and $0.99 ebooks, as well as some special deals on print and audiobooks. I've put links below that will take you straight to my sale listings, but you can also click here to browse the whole sale.

Blood in the Snow

Mechanical Heart

Through a Shattered Glass

Bastian Dennel, PI:

The Midnight Show

Gilded in Ice

Mask of Scarlet

Daughters of Atirse

Song of the Selkies

Illusion's Reign

Have you checked out the Black Friday sale yet? Which books in it are you eyeing up? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

February Is Fantasy Month: Favorite Romance Tropes

Hello all! With Valentine's Day just behind us, I think it's safe to say that many of us have romance on the brain. So, what better time than now to talk about some of my favorite romance tropes? And to link in with February is Fantasy Month again, for every trope, I'm going to include a few fantasy book recommendations that I think really showcase what I'm talking about.

Favorite Romance Tropes

1. Slow Burn. I think my love for this trope is well-established — the surest way to make me enjoy a romance is to make it a good slow-burn, where the question isn't isn't "Will they or won't they?" but rather "How long will it take both of them to realize what's going on?" After all, half the joy of a slow burn is spotting it long before the characters do and then making much of hand-touches and smiles and definitely-not-dates. Whether this takes place over the course of a series or in a single book, I'm certain to enjoy it.
   If you want to read this, try . . . For a single-book slow-burn, I happen to be very fond of my most recent release, Song of the Selkies. Not only does it have a proper "crockpot romance" (which is to say, everything is lovely and tender and there's pining), it comes with bonus Faramir and Eowyn vibes. That said, I would also classify Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones as this type of romance — even though the book is short, the love story is drawn out and clever readers see the romance coming long before the characters will admit it. And for a series-long slow-burn, there's W.R. Gingell's City Between.
2. Princess and Rogue Parings. This is a another trope that I've mentioned loving plenty of times and that I enjoy writing as much as I enjoy reading. Happily, this dynamic shows up fairly frequently: a man — perhaps an actual rogue, perhaps just someone with roguish traits — who's been living only for himself meets a woman caught up in what everyone else needs (or expects) her to be. As a result, he finds a reason to be selfless, and she has a chance to be seen and loved solely for herself. And for the reader, that means we get two characters who probably play off each other in really fun ways, probably a healthy dose of snark, and a redemption arc. Plus, it frequently overlaps with the Ladykiller in Love trope, in which a guy known for liking the ladies in general, but not getting permanently attached to any of them, finds himself head-over-heels in love — probably with the one woman who'd never fall for his usual advances. What more could a girl want?
   If you want to read this, try . . . So many good choices — though some of my favorites examples of this trope are actually in movies, not books (and not always fantasy movies either). But probably my favorite bookish example (aside from Howl) is found in   Starflower by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. Bard Eanrin may not be a rogue, but he shares most of the essential characteristics, and Starflower certainly fits the princess profile . . . and their relationship is one of my favorite aspects both of this book and the series as a whole. I also love the way this plays out in books 3 and 4 of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, and you'll also find it in a lot of H.L Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation/Romance Project books. (I'm pretty sure Accidentally a Superhero would be the best example, but I haven't read that one yet.)
3. Friends to Lovers. This frequently overlaps with the slow-burn trope, but there's just something lovely about seeing a pair of friends turn into something more, or in reading an established romance where it's clear that the couple cared about each other as friends long before they even thought about kissing. I especially love the childhood-friends-to-lovers variant and the idea that these two characters have always been and always will be by each other's sides.
   If you want to read this, try . . . If you want the childhood friends version of this, pick up Lady Dragon, Tela Du  or Snowfield Palace, both by Kendra E. Ardnek. (It's also in the backstory for Through a Shattered Glass, just saying . . .) On the other hand, if you'd like a version that overlaps with the next trope on this list, you'll probably be very pleased with the romance in the DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul, which has a lovely antagonists-to-friends-to-lovers-to-happily-married-couple sequence over the course of books two through five.
4. Antagonists to Lovers. This is more commonly known as enemies to lovers, but I'm using the broader term of "antagonists" because the category of books I'm describing includes everything from legitimate, blades-at-the-throats enemies to people who are more just . . . rivals, or who annoy each other until they start to see things differently. In any case, the journey as couples in this trope come to see from one another's perspectives, sympathize with someone they disliked, and usually find some kind of redemption in the process is just so lovely to read . . . and the fact that the characters usually have a lot of deliciously snarky and charged interactions, as well as begrudgingly tender moments, doesn't hurt either.
   If you want to read this, try . . . For actual enemies to lovers, you can't go wrong with An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson or Gothel and the Maiden Prince by W.R. Gingell. On the other hand, if you're looking for characters who are merely antagonistic, but not necessarily outright enemies, pick up A Thieving Curse by Selina R. Gonzalez or Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer.
5. Married Adventure Couples. Does this count as a romance trope? I don't know, but I absolutely love when a fictional couple gets married and then continues having adventures and being awesome, with the added benefit of being secure in their relationship so they know they already have each other's backs and becoming a fabulous battle couple (if they aren't that already). It's both a nice change of pace from the drama of pre-marriage couples and a reminder that "happily ever after" doesn't mean nothing interesting ever happens again.
   If you want to read this, try . . . As already mentioned, this appears in the last two books in the DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul. It's also heavily present from book 4 onward in Kendra E. Ardnek's Bookania Quests series — and, conveniently, book 4 is one of the series entry points. Unfortunately, I can't think of many other examples — if you know of any, make sure you let me know!

What are your favorite romance tropes? What are your favorite books including those tropes? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

July 2023 Doings!

Hello everyone! Questionably fun fact: I completely forgot that I was supposed to write a Doings! post this week until about 6:20 yesterday morning. In my defense, it's been a weird month and a weird week, and I am tired. July was a good month, but it was far from a restful one. And if you want to know what I mean, well, that's what this post is for, so let's get on with the Doings!

Writing!

• Well, this has definitely been an exciting month on the writing front! We started out with the release of the Fellowship of Fantasy Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology on July 6. I didn't end up doing as much as I wanted with that release, but thankfully the other authors were much more with it. It's currently available in both ebook and paperback formats, so if you'd like to enjoy some feel-good short stories featuring magical doggos and guaranteed happy endings, go ahead and pick that up.
• The week after the anthology release was, of course, the Realm Makers writing conference. I had a great time at the conference, and I'll talk more about that in the Life! section, but there is one element of the conference that I want to mention here . . . which is, of course, the fact that Through a Shattered Glass won the novella category of the Realm Awards! I've said this a few times now, but I was thrilled and honored just to be on the finalist list, and actually winning is amazing. (I am also very proud of myself for managing to not embarrass myself when I went up to receive the award, as I sometimes get nervous around large crowds, and I definitely did not prepare as much as I intended.)
• The last bit of exciting news: shortly after returning from Realm Makers, I announced my next book release: Song of the Selkies, a roleswap Little Mermaid retelling that will release September 19 as part of the Stolen Songs Arista Challenge group. If you want to learn more, click here and check out my cover reveal post! I also finished drafting this novel in July, the day after the cover reveal — yes, I'm cutting it closer than I normally do, but we'll be fine. Even the first draft of this book turned out really well and has gotten great feedback from betas so far, so I'm excited to get to release it into the world.
• Even aside from all the exciting stuff, July has been a really good writing month for me. I ended up writing almost 43K words this month, spread out across three different projects. Finishing Song of the Selkies took most of those words — just over 32K — and involved a lot of 1K+ days. And my last two days of work on it both had a wordcount of around 5K, which is a lot for me! Additionally, I wrote another 4.6K words on the fourth Bastian Dennel, PI book, which isn't a ton but is respectable for the fact that I was only actively working on it for about a week. Finally, I wrote about 6K words in my D&D Feygate adventure, which has been so much fun to put together. The Middle Earth adventure was nice in that I had the storyline laid out, and I just had to translate it into D&D, but I've missed getting to do my own thing. I'm currently having a grand time coming up with potential scenarios, NPCs, and so forth, and I very much look forward to actually running them. We've already played two sessions of the adventure, and people seem to like it so far, so I'd call that a good sign.

Reading!

• July was also an excellent reading month, as you can probably see. Most of what I read continued my Ranger's Apprentice reread, which has been a lot of fun. As I said last month, rediscovering this series has been a lot of fun, and the books hold up impressively well. At this point, I'm done with the reread portion of it, and I'm in between the two Early Years books, which are new-to-me reads. Well, technically, Goodreads claims I read The Tournament at Gorlan back in 2015, but I have no memory of doing so, and that was before I did Doings! posts, so . . . who knows? I certainly don't.
• We only have four new reads for the month. A Storm Grows is a book of poetry by Janeen Ippolito, which I primary read for purposes of a reading challenge. Power Through was my Realm Makers read — I like to read something by a Realmie author while I'm at the conference, and so far, that author has been H.L. Burke both years. Power Through is the third book in Burke's young adult superhero series, and I quite enjoyed it. Of course, it had Wildfyre in it, as well as peak dad!Fade, Voidling, and Jake and Marco both doing some growing, so the odds were very much in its favor. Finally, we have volumes 11 and 12 of Fullmetal Alchemist, both of which I really liked. I don't know why I enjoyed them more than I have previous installments? But they were both very good, especially Volume 12. (Speaking of things I can't explain: I somehow, in the space of approximately three books, got attached to Lanfan, who is very much a secondary character at this point, and I do not know how or why, other than I seriously respect both her courage and dedication.)
• So, yes. The other few books I read are all rereads, and I have nothing much to say about any of them other than that Gothel and the Maiden Prince, like most of W.R. Gingell's work, stands up very well the second time around, as does the Ticket to Write anthology.

Watching!

• Not a lot to report here, since lots of writing, plus travel, means I don't have much time to watch things in the evenings. That said, I did watch How to Steal a Million and North by Northwest towards the start of the month. I very much enjoyed How to Steal a Million — I love a good heist story, and the setup for this one was so fun. Plus, the lead actors played off each other very well.
• North by Northwest, I was a bit less of a fan of — conceptually, it was cool, with the whole "ordinary man gets mistaken for a spy and then has to go on the run" thing, and the action and adventure was great, but the romance elements weren't really my thing. Ah well.

Life!

Left to right: Wyn Estelle Owens as Breen from Mechanical Heart, me as a steampunk cowgirl (feat. my Realm Award!), and Kendra E. Ardnek as the Gardener from her Austen Fairy Tale (which is very good and you should read it).

• July was, as already stated, a busy month, but it was still a very good month for many reasons. And reason number one, above and beyond anything else that happened, was that it was the first (and only) month this summer in which all my immediate family members were in the same place for the majority of the time. My mom came back from my grandpa's the first weekend of July, and it was so nice to have her home again.
• We didn't end up doing anything much for Independence Day, even though we were all home. Usually, our Bible Study would get together, but so many people were out of town that it just didn't happen. That said, I'm not really complaining . . .
• But now we come to the highlight of the month, which was, of course, REALM MAKERS! Though this was my second year attending, it still had a lot of firsts for me: first time flying solo, first time at the St. Louis location (which I'd heard so many good things about from friends), first formal book signing thing . . .
  • After the craziness of last year (amid which I almost missed the start of the conference), I opted to fly out on Wednesday before the conference. That was definitely the right choice, even though plane schedules meant I ended up arriving super early that day — 9am St. Louis Time. Thankfully, navigating the airport on both sides was much easier than I expected, especially since my dad ended up leaving on the same day and at roughly the same time for a business trip, so I wasn't trying to do everything myself on the way out. And the early arrival time gave me some good writing hours and plenty of time to catch up with friends (namely, Kendra E. Ardnek and Wyn Owens) before the conference proper.
  • It also gave me time to run the Realm Makers-themed one-page RPG one-shot I'd prepared, which was super fun. What happens when three wizards' creature companions — an octopus (who would like you to know that he's a totally normal human man, not an octopus, why would you think he's an octopus), a hyperactive weasel, and a prim and self-absorbed cat — have to defeat the mad inventor and his machines that have put their wizards to sleep? Much chaos, that's what — including, but not limited to, the weasel overdosing on coffee, the octopus using the weasel as a projectile weapon, and the cat deciding that she was, in fact, a god. They did successfully wake their wizards, though, so that's good.
  • Thursday, I helped out with the registration desk in the morning (which was nice because I got to meet some people and also felt like I could recognize people later), and then the conference officially opened in the afternoon. The keynote address with Steven Laube was excellent, focusing mostly on the idea and value of wonder. Also excellent was going to dinner with Wyn and Katie Hanna and chatting about our various books and ideas and tropes and whatnot. (Katie Hanna, by the way, is writing a Western fantasy series that sounds fabulous). Additionally, Thursday was when I finished writing the climax of Song of the Selkies, which was most exciting. 
  • Friday and Saturday were both very busy days, with lots of great sessions. For my continuing sessions, I attended Charlie Holmberg's "Speculative Worldbuilding" series, which was interesting. Some of it I felt like I already knew, but it was cool to see her process and hear her advice and thoughts. She tends to do map-first worldbuilding, which is not my usual approach, but I do see how effective it can be. I also attended a two-part elective by Donald Maass on writing series characters, which gave me some principles I think will be super helpful as I continue to write my Bastian Dennel books. My one complaint about that elective was that the two parts were scheduled right after lunch on Friday and Saturday, so I kept having to rush out of lunch to make it to the talks on time.
  • Friday was also the Awards Banquet, which was exciting for a multitude of reasons. There's the obvious one, of course — the fact that I was one of the people who received an award. I also had fun dressing up; I decided to go as a steampunk cowgirl at the last minute, and I had a grand time talking in an accent that would have done Quincy Morris proud. (As a bonus, I discovered that I actually look rather good in a cowboy hat, if I do say so myself!) Also, Wyn decided to dress up as my character Breen from Mechanical Heart, and I think I might have gotten just as excited about that as I did about the award. I'm not even joking. Additionally, we got to sit with a couple who we'd met at the 2022 Realm Makers, and it was nice to catch up with them. (I should probably go find and friend them on Facebook, but I . . . have not managed to do that yet.) And we ended the night with several rounds of Bring Your Own Book, which is always a delight.
  • The conference ended on Saturday with the book fair. The book fair includes an opportunity to get your books signed by Realm Makers faculty and Realm Awards winners, so that was kind of my first official author signing event! I will admit that I kind of missed being able to wander around the vendor hall like I did last year . . . but it was also nice to get to sit in a comparatively quiet area and meet people and actually have conversations without struggling to hear. And, let's be real, I spent way less money than I would have if I had nothing to do but walk around the vendors.
• So, yes. All in all, Realm Makers 2023 was just as great as it was in 2022 — better, in some ways. The hotel was more comfortable, for one thing, and I didn't feel quite so perpetually overwhelmed. I will say that, contrary to what one might expect, the best and most exciting part wasn't the awards ceremony or the book fair or getting to meet authors I look up to or anything like that. Rather, it was the opportunity to see people like Kendra, Wyn, and Katie in person and the fact that I got to spend four days in the company of people who love the same things I love. That's the biggest reason I went back in 2023, and it's the biggest reason I hope to return again next year (Lord and finances willing).
• The last big event of July was both sad and happy, as my little sister officially moved to another state for her first job out of college at the end of the month. I'm happy for her; I know she's going to be doing something that she enjoys and can get excited about the way I can get excited about my work. Plus, she'll be close to many of her friends, and she has a great church community up there. At the same time, though, having to say goodbye in the knowledge that she won't be back next summer was sad, and I miss having her around and being able to talk to her about stuff. I mean, we've done several video calls since she left, but it's not the same. (Plus, my mom went back to Pennsylvania for a few weeks at the same time, so . . . yeah.)
• I think that about covers it. Work is work, crafting and baking have barely happened . . . My D&D group did get in a few sessions, which were intense. We're trying to take down one of our nemeses, and he's the literal worst, and two of the party members have lost NPCs who they were super close to. One of the party members actually retired over it, so that was doubly sad. The player is still in the group and made a new character, but still . . . sadness. Oh, and the DM said that we're probably only a couple levels away from the end of the campaign, which is . . . terrifying. Exciting! But terrifying! The group will continue with new adventures, though, so we can look forward to that.

August Plans

• My number one plan for August is to do LOTS of edits on Song of the Selkies, plus formatting, tour prep, and all that good stuff. The fact that the book turned out way longer than I planned means I'm on a tight schedule now. I'm committed to making sure everything is done on time, but I do not expect it to be easy. 
• And it will only be made more difficult by the fact that my next semester of grad school starts at the end of the month. I thought about delaying and having overlapping classes again like I did last year, or even about only doing one class this semester, but I know that if I delay grad school stuff every time I have a busy writing season, it'll take me ten years to finish this degree, and the goal is not to do that, thank you.
• In between edits and class work, I'll continue working on Bastian Dennel, PI #4 and my D&D Feygate adventure. I'd like to finish the Feygate adventure this month, and I think that's a pretty reasonable goal, especially since I'm well over half done already.
• I have no idea what will happen on the blogs. I have some regularly-scheduled posts that will need to go up, and I would prefer not to take too long of a hiatus (especially as I know I may take another semi-hiatus sometime in the fall), so hopefully we'll be back to the regularly-scheduled weekly stuff? Assumed I don't get slapped in the face by the need to do three million things?
• Work will probably be busy, but I don't expect it to be notably busier than usual. I do have both the newsletter and Stewardship campaign materials this month, but those are usually pretty enjoyable projects, so I'm not super worried. I'm a little more worried about our directory project, but it'll probably be fine.
• I also want to do some more bread-baking with my fresh herbs while I have fresh herbs to bake with, but we'll see how that works out.
• I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but whatever. My basic goal for August is to survive, edit all the words, and not miss any deadlines. That should be doable, right?

How was your July? What are you looking forward to in August? Did you go to Realm Makers, or have you gone in the past? If so, what was YOUR most exciting part? Have you been doing more new-reading or rereading lately? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

July 2023 Doings!

Hello, all! Between work, writing, travel, general life stuff, and the fact that my intended blog hiatus ended up being significantly less hiatus-y than intended, June has been a very busy month. Not a bad month, necessarily. Lots of good things have happened this month on all the different fronts, many of which I'm excited to share with y'all. But things have been busy all the same, and I have spent more time sleep-deprived than is necessarily pleasant.

Writing!

• I have had a very productive writing month this May, I have to say. I racked up about 28k words on my Selkie Story, which is just about finished with its first draft. It's ended up a lot longer than I originally intended, which is why I'm finishing it so much later than I hoped I would . . . but I'm very pleased with it, and I think it'll be even better once it's fully finished and edited. A lot of those words were written on the road — the lack of consistent internet makes it a little easier to focus, so long drives when I'm the one driving are often pretty productive. (Of course, depending on the trip, the days in the car often have to be productive to make up for days of no writing at all. But still, it's good.)
• I also spent a fair bit of time this month designing the cover for my Selkie Story, which should be revealed sometime next month. I have to say, I'm super excited to show it off. I had to dust off some parts of my graphic design skill set that I haven't used since college to make it, and I think the result turned out quite well indeed.
• In addition to my Selkie Story writing, I did a fair bit of D&D writing — 5.7k words worth, to be specific. I finished writing my Middle Earth adventure (finally) and worked more on the next module, which I've been referring to as the Feygate Adventure. I also finished writing a non-D&D adventure that I started working on last year but had to set aside due to other projects taking priority. I got to playtest that one with my group last weekend, when one of our number was on vacation and we didn't want to do our usual campaign, and that was super fun! I'm looking forward to running it again with another friend group soon.
• The other writing-related news, of course, was the whole business with Uncommon Universes Press closing down and the change of publisher for the Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology. That was largely resolved with minimal input from me, thankfully. You can read my blog post about it here for more info.

Reading!

• This month involved a lot of revisiting old favorites, as you can probably see — out of the twelve books I read in June, seven of them were rereads. And I'm happy to say that all were delightful, though I knew that they would be. Some, like House of Many Ways and The 13 Clocks, I've read many, many times before (though I haven't read The 13 Clocks since before college). Cinderella Must Die is more recent, but there's never a bad time to throw a W.R. Gingell murder mystery into the mix. And I started a reread of the Ranger's Apprentice series, partially because some online friends kept posting fanart that made me miss the characters and partially because my sister was rereading the series and was talking about it. I will say that I'm very pleased with how well the Ranger's Apprentice series, at least the early books, holds up. The last time I read them was apparently before I was on Goodreads, so it's been a bit. But they're pretty much what I remembered, which is to say, pleasantly clean and easy-to-read adventures that don't go overboard on the romance, and I'm enjoying revisiting Will, Halt, and the rest of these old friends.
• On the new reads side, I finally finished my last yet-unread Discworld book, Small Gods, and completed the series. I'd procrastinated on this one because I knew it was tackling the topic of religion, and I wasn't sure how much I actually wanted to read it. Having at last gotten around to it, I don't think I'll read it a second time (it had some interesting thoughts in it, but was, on the whole, not as fun as most Discworld books), but the completionist in me is glad to have read it once.
• I also read two books for the book signing I attended (more on that in a minute): Into the Heartless Wood and Cruel Beauty. Into the Heartless Wood is by the same author as Echo North (which I devoured back in May), and while I preferred Echo, Heartless Wood was also lovely — half Beauty and the Beast, half Little Mermaid, with some very interesting magic and a nice take on a non-human perspective. Cruel Beauty is also Beauty and the Beast, but blended with various Greek myths (notably Pandora and Cupid and Psyche), a little bit of Bluebeard, and, magnificently, Tam Lin. I had mixed feelings about the start, and there was a bit more sexualness in the middle than I normally go in for (though it bothered me less as the couple in question is, y'know, married), but the ending was so lovely (allegorically so, even!) that I couldn't really complain.
• Moving on: Tide and Scale, I've been reading on and off throughout May and June. It's an anthology of mermaid and mermaid-adjacent stories, and is, as anthologies often are, a bit of a mixed bag. But it does include a Rapunzel retelling by my friend Wyn Estelle Owens, and I loved that one, so that's all that really matters to me.
• Finally, we have Wraithwood, which I picked up because its sequel is a Realm Awards finalist and I wanted to know if I should pick up a copy. The answer, as it turns out, is an unequivocal yes, abso-storming-lutely. I loved Brinnie and her story, and I heartily applaud the author for avoiding a lot of the tropes in contemporary not-quite-portal fantasy that usually bug me the most. Notably, she managed to provide a good in-world reason why characters refuse to tell the protagonist things, which I love. This is an author who looked at a plot problem and instead of just smoothing over it or handwaving things, saw an opportunity. And to that I say: well done.
• I am, of course, still reading various classics via email subscription. Notably, I've started Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, which I know nothing about, but which seems promising so far! (I'm about two chapters in at this point.) I am also somewhat regretting my decision to pick up the Moby Dick Whale Weekly subscription, but I started it and so I'll see it through.

Watching!

• Not a lot noteworthy in this section other than to say that my sister and I watched a few more episodes of Leverage. We're up to the departure of a certain character (can't say who) and still quite enjoying the show. And I have to say, the episode in which that character departs and the episode right after it may be going on my list of favorite episodes in this show. Both were super fun, even with the emotional bits, and I just really enjoyed watching the team in both cases.

Life!

• This month has, as I've already said, been a busy one — we were either traveling or had something going on almost every weekend.
• The most exciting trip was midway through the month, when my sister and I trekked up to Ohio so I could visit with my former roommate and attend the W.R. Gingell and Suzannah Rowntree book signing. (It was, for the record, not exclusively their signing, but they were the authors I was primarily going to see.) The signing was, for the record, awesome. I absolutely loved getting to meet some of my very favorite authors (and discovering that they're just as wonderful of people in real life as they seem to be online) — if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you probably saw my post about the signing and about both Gingell and Rowntree actually recognized my name from our online interactions. I also got to meet up with some online friends and fellow fans while I was there (and introduced them to Bring Your Own Book), which was also lovely.
• My visit with my roommate was just as lovely as the signing, for the record. Even though I see her on D&D video calls most weeks, I still miss being able to spend time with her in real life. Also, her family had just gotten a new dog, so we got to meet the pup (who is very cute). We also played lots of Sentinels of the Multiverse and, notably, finally attempted the Oblivaeon endgame-type scenario. We lost that one in the last stage, after spending about eight hours playing through it, but I was still impressed with how well the makers set it up. Even though it was a long game, the gameplay varied enough that it didn't drag like I worried it would.
• Then we got home from that trip, had about four days to recover, and set off for Pennsylvania so we could see my mom and grandpa again. For those curious: my grandpa is still recovering well, even if he really wants to push the limits of what he can do while wearing a neck brace. We're hoping for good news at his next doctor's appointment.
• Amid all the traveling, I've been doing quite a bit of baking — and cooking, since my mom's not here and my sister and I are mostly trading off that responsibility, but the baking is mostly more exciting. (The exception to the mostly is that I made ham and spaetzel for the first time, which is quite an undertaking because you make the spaetzel from scratch, and it turned out really well.) I tried out a new pretzel roll recipe at the start of the month, and that was very tasty. I also made a lovely Scarborough Faire Sourdough loaf to take up to my grandpa's house, with three out of the four herbs (parsley, rosemary, and sage) taken fresh from my plants. I was very pleased with how that came out. In between, I made shortbread (to give my roommate's family), rolls (for my dad to take to work), and flatbread pizza (also using fresh rosemary and basil pesto from my plants!).
• All the travel this month means my D&D group hasn't been able to meet much, but the sessions we've had have been fun. Stressful — a lot of people almost dying — but still fun, with some very exciting moments and some excellent roleplay. I also got to join back up with the library D&D group this month, so that was cool. It's a little bit of a struggle because I created a character who's supposed to be very outgoing and action-oriented, hoping that would help me stay involved rather than just being in the background. But because the rest of the group knows each other better than they know me, and because we meet online, it's hard to actually get into character or play my character how I want to play her.
• On the work front, things keep swinging back and forth between SUPER BUSY and really quiet because no one's in the office. I did get to take pictures of handbells and stained glass windows for the summer handbell concert, though, and that was delightful. I love the church's stained glass windows, and bells are a lovely shape to photograph, and it was just generally a very fun morning, y'know?
• I did have high hopes of doing more crafting this month, mostly in the direction of costume accessories for Realm Makers. Alas, that was not to be. Aside from working on my embroidery, I did basically no crafting of any kind. Ah well . . . maybe next month. Or, more likely, maybe August.

July Plans

• Ok, for real this time . . . the Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology releases on July 6, just under one week from today! There was a little bit of a hiccup with this caused by Uncommon Universes Press shutting down, but the book is going forward, and there's still time to preorder the ebook if you want to read my short story, "Grim Guardian," or any of the other seven stories included in this anthology. While I haven't been able to do as much as I wanted to with this launch, it's still a thing that's happening!
• In more exciting news (aka news that has had me internally vibrating with anticipation on and off for literal months): REALM MAKERS! IS A THING! WHERE I WILL BE! My books will ALSO be there, at Kendra E. Ardnek's table (because she is a fabulous person and will be handling my sales). I'll be hanging out at her table as well on and off throughout the conference, between sessions and mingling and such. I'm so hyped, and also my brain cannot entirely believe that it's so close. I'm looking forward to seeing my writer friends (and making new ones), learning from the experts, and the general adventure of it all. And, of course, I'm excited to see the results of the Realm Awards, especially with Through a Shattered Glass in the running.
• Continuing on the writing front: I'll be working hard this weekend and next week to try to get my Selkie Story fully drafted and in the hands of beta readers before I leave for St. Louis. (I also need to make sure I have beta readers to hand it to . . . that's a task for this weekend.) I'm so close to the end that I can taste it, and I've been daydreaming variations of the climax for about a month now. Once I finish that, I'll return to BDPI #4 and try to get that wrapped up — though I may take the week of Realm Makers off from actively working on any particular story. (Oddly enough, writers' conferences aren't a great place to get actual writing done . . .)
• Moving on to the rest of my life, we're expecting that my mom will be back home (at least for a while) this month, while my uncle takes a turn helping out my grandpa. I'm very much looking forward to having her back home, but I'm also perpetually paranoid that something will happen to prevent her return . . .
• As for work, it'll probably be pretty quiet, with the occasional burst of lots of activity. The first part of the month will definitely be busy, since I'll have two short weeks and I'll be working ahead to cover my time out of town. The rest shouldn't be bad. One exciting thing: the kids summer VBS thing is coming up in August, and it's a space theme, which means I'm going to have so much fun designing promo materials. (I've already had fun with the first round of promo. But now I get to have more fun. It's great, and I would like to thank the kids ministry director for her absolutely stellar choice of curriculum, pun entirely intended.)
• Finally, a word on what to expect around the blogs: I'm still hoping that July will be a semi-hiatus, but my Mid-Year Best Of/Book Roundup posts, various book releases and book news things, and one or two other things I have in mind mean it might be pretty full anyway. At the moment, my plan is to post as my time, energy level, and priority list allows, but not to default to not posting if the post in question isn't time-based.

How was your June? What are you looking forward to in July? Will I see you at Realm Makers? What's the best book signing you've ever been to? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

May 2023 Doings!

Hello, everyone! This has been quite a month, to say the least. What I hoped would be a nice, relaxing month with plenty of writing and time with my sister (and the rest of my family) has ended up being anything but that. Well, the writing has been happening. But as for the rest . . . not so much. Also, on a quick housekeeping note: my blogging will be a bit intermittent in the next couple months (June and July). I have planned posts in both months due to time-sensitive things like book releases and mid-year book celebrations, so it won't be a full hiatus, but I don't know how much I'll post outside those pre-planned, time-based posts and my Doings posts. I don't love taking even a partial hiatus so soon after my last one, but between travel plans and writing deadlines, I think this is the best choice.

Writing!

• First off, don't forget that the Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology releases in just one month! Make sure you preorder the ebook or the paperback to get your copy of these eight enchanting tales of magical furry friends, including my own slightly spooky story, "Grim Guardian." (This actually has nothing to do with what writing I've done this month, but I haven't promoted the release as much as I usually would, so . . . bear with me, ok?)
• [Note: I originally said that the Wags, Woofs, and Wonders anthology releases in "one week." This was very incorrect and is the reason I should not write blog posts when I'm stressed and running low on sleep. The actual release date for the anthology is July 6. You should still preorder, though.]
• In other writing-related-but-not-actually-writing news (that you may have already heard), Through a Shattered Glass was selected as a finalist in the novella category of the Realm Awards! I am absolutely thrilled to have made it this far, so you'll forgive me mentioning it a second time on here. The winners won't be announced until the Realm Makers conference in July, so I have another reason to look forward to that weekend . . . you know, as if I wasn't already vibrating with excitement every time I thought about it.
• Happily, this has been a much better writing month than April was, with over 30K words and seven chapters added to my Selkie Story, plus a reworked outline for the rest of the book. My weeks have kind of alternated between not coming close to meeting my writing goals and blowing straight past said goals, so that's been interesting. I am, on the whole, happy with what I've written, and I'm looking forward to writing the rest. Hopefully I can get it done before my deadlines! I've also started working on the cover for the story, which will probably be in a different style than most of the covers I've made so far, and that's going to be an interesting challenge.
• I've also been somewhat productive on the D&D front, though less so. The campaign I run only met once all month, so motivation to finish writing the LOTR module has been low. On the other hand, I started writing the next adventure for the campaign, and I am so excited to get to actually run it. We'll be back in my original homebrew world, delving into some backstory for one of the PCs and tackling a problem that should be a little quicker to solve than most of the last few adventures, and it's going to be awesome. I'm nowhere near done writing, but I'm still exciting.

Reading!

• Yes, I've been stress-reading, why do you ask?
• Actually, that's a bit of an exaggeration — these mostly weren't stress-reads. Some of these are books I've been reading in email subscription form and just finished this month — those include The Wizard of Oz (always a pleasure), The Return of the King (wrapping up the last few chapters so it doesn't take another year or two to finish), and Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein is a whiny little snot who doesn't deserve the title of mad scientist, and I'm not afraid to say it). Others — mainly Snow Quest Like Home and Thornrose Estate — were beta reads. Both were good, but Thornrose was definitely my favorite of the two (and one of my favorite reads of the month).
• That said, I had a lot of good reads this month. Behind Closed Doors is book 2 in the Worlds Behind series, and it was even better than Book 1 — I'm starting to develop a theory that the second book in almost any spinoff series will be better than the first one because the first one is laden with too many expectations.
• I also read and loved two books that people told me about ages ago, but I procrastinated on reading: Lord of Dreams and Echo North. Both were absolutely amazing, with magic and romance and mystery (and mysterious love interests). Lord of Dreams also had fae and portal fantasy, though my enjoyment was dimmed a little by my initial frustration with the heroine. And Echo North was a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, so you can probably imagine how much I loved it. I definitely wish I'd read both much sooner!
• The month also included two Beauty and the Beast retellings, The Scarred Mage of Roseward and A Thieving Curse, both of which I enjoyed more than I expected. (A Thieving Curse was better, though, and it stands alone despite being the first in a series.)
• That covers most of my reads this month. The rest is mostly rereads, with the exception of Martha Wells's Exit Strategy, which was cool in the same way the rest of the books in the series were cool. Wells is very good at writing nonhumans in a way that is both alien and recognizable, and the book on the whole was very exciting.

Watching!

• So, I have officially gotten my sister into Leverage, and I've continued getting her into Firefly! I am quite pleased to have someone to watch my shows with — it's more fun to watch things with people, but my tastes and schedule are different enough from those of my parents that it's sometimes to make anything happen. My sister, on the other hand, likes most of the same things I do, so that works out better. We've been enjoying Firefly, of course, and it's fun to see her reactions and predictions to the characters and situations that I'm already familiar with.
• With Leverage, since I didn't want to start over from the beginning, we temporarily jumped ahead to The Rashomon Job, the same episode my friend used to introduce me to the show. It's late enough in the show that you get an idea of the crew's dynamics, but the flashbacks also give you a very good idea about the individual crew members . . . and also, it's just a really fun episode. After that, we went back to where I had left off in Season 2.
• While I did watch a fair amount of other stuff this month (because we were at my grandpa's a lot, and he likes to watch TV shows, mostly older ones, in the evenings), the only other noteworthy thing is that, having watched one full episode and several partial episodes of Monk, I have come to the conclusion that I do not care for that show at all. Which is, you know, a bit sad because normally I can get behind a good mystery show even if I don't love the characters, but that one mostly just annoyed me.

Life!

• This month has been a rollercoaster, and I would like a break, please.
• Well, that's not actually accurate. The first week of the month was the rollercoaster. The rest of the month has just been busy.
• So, yes, May started with much excitement — I was finishing up my second grad school class, my sister was graduating, I was going to get to see some friends in Ohio; it was going to be great. And it certainly started out that way! I submitted my final project for the grad school class on Thursday; it was a little longer than I wanted, but all the extra length was in graphs that I couldn't size down, so I was generally satisfied. Then we arrived in Ohio, my grandfather in tow, on Friday, where we launched into a busy day of helping my sister pack and attending various senior celebrations. I had also made plans to hang out with some local friends Friday evening (skipping one of the senior celebrations that was basically just a chapel service). Sadly, one of the friends came down with a bug last minute and couldn't make it, but I had a pleasant time with the other friend.
• Then it was Saturday, the day of graduation, and the rollercoaster really started . . .
  • To be clear, the actual graduation ceremony went very well. The president made an excellent speech. Other people also made speeches that I don't really remember. I had a good internal laugh about the fact that formal academic garb seems to have not changed much in the last four hundred years. My sister walked across the stage and got her diploma. That was all fine. And walking around after the ceremony to take pictures of my sister and her friends in their robes also went fine.
  • And then — then, while my grandpa and I were on the way back to my sister's dorm (my parents and sister having gone on ahead for various reasons), Grandpa tripped over a parking lot bumper — fell — hit his head —
  • Thankfully, if you have to fall and hit your head, Cedarville on graduation day is a pretty good place to do it — its biggest program is nursing, after all, and between the graduates and their parents, there were multiple people with medical training nearby, including an EMT and a nurse. They were able to check him over (conscious, oriented, all limbs functioning) and keep him comfortable while someone else called 911 and I called my parents (because, as mentioned, someone else was already calling emergency services).
  • It probably didn't take that long (don't panic) for the actually on-duty EMTs to arrive, though it seemed like forever (don't panic). My parents followed the ambulance to the hospital (don't panic), while my sister and I returned to her dorm to try to get all her things packed before her move-out time (don't panic), wondering the whole time what was going to happen from here (don't panic).
  • Eventually, it was determined that Grandpa had broken a couple vertebrae, and while the exact severity and treatment of the injury was still uncertain, we definitely weren't going back to Pennsylvania that day. So, we made arrangements to stay with some nearby friends until we knew what was happening. Sunday gave us no more answers, though we spent almost the whole the day at the hospital with Grandpa. (Well, I wasn't there most of the day, because he could only have so many visitors at a time, and someone needed to do laundry, and I was the most logical person to handle that — but I still visited in the evening.) We knew he was doing quite well considering his injury, that he could walk and move around and was healthy enough to complain about the hospital food. We just didn't know when he could leave the hospital, or if he'd be able to travel, or anything.
  • (Sunday night was also when I found out about the Realm Awards finalist list, via H.L. Burke congratulating me and another person in her Discord server on making the list. It was an interesting day.)
  • We expected to be there most of Monday as well, so I made hasty arrangements to work remotely that day so I could move my last day of leave to Tuesday (when my dad and I could drive back to Virginia). Then, abruptly, the doctors declared that yes, he could leave (thank God), yes, he could travel back to Pennsylvania with us (thank God), and yes, he could go home instead of going to a rehab center (thank God). He'd have to wear a neck brace for a while, but that was more or less expected. So, we quickly repacked what we'd unpacked, loaded ourselves back in the car, and drove back to his house. From there, my dad and I returned home on Tuesday so we could be back at work on time, while my mom and sister stayed to help Grandpa.
• Since then, we've driven up to Pittsburgh two out of the three weekends: once on Mother's Day weekend and once on Memorial Day weekend. My mom's stayed up there the whole month, though my sister came back with us after the Mother's Day trip. Both the amount of travel and the not having my mom around have felt really weird, and I look forward to when things go back to normal, even if all the driving means extra writing time without the distraction of the internet. On the upside, Grandpa continues to do well — he was very active before this happened, and I think that's helping him now. Of course, he's also frustrated by not being able to do things now, but better that than any of the alternatives.
• On the one weekend we didn't go to Pennsylvania, my sister and I went to the Virginia Ren Fest with a friend. That was pretty fun — it's not as big as the Ren Fest in Ohio or Maryland, but they had a nice assortment of vendors, and the location (on the grounds of a winery) was pretty. The one downside is that we managed to go the single day on which they didn't have a joust — just our luck, right?
• Aside from all that, I've mostly spent the month writing and trying to keep up with all the things that need to be done. Work, at least, has been mostly quiet, though it's starting to ramp back up as we move into summer stuff. I'm also nearly done with another embroidery project (most of which was done during my trips to Pennsylvania so I could have something to do with my hands that wasn't scrolling through my phone), this one fanart for a band I like. I'm pleased with how it's turned out, despite a near-disaster when I spilled water on part of the water-soluble stabilizer (oops).

June Plans

• I basically need to do ALL THE WRITING to get my Selkie Story done by the deadline, plus I need to do a cover, tagline, blurb, preorder setup . . . all that good stuff. So that's going to be the bulk of my free time.
• Work will also be busy — there's no big projects, but there are several mid-sized ones, many of which require people from outside the church staff to get me specific information. If you have ever worked in a position where you are reliant on receiving information from people who you cannot directly remind about things like deadlines and the reasons for deadlines, you know exactly why this is stressful. If you've never had such an experience, you are fortunate and should pray you continue to be so blessed.
• (For the record, I continue to enjoy my day job. And I recognize that the reasons behind my needing information from these people means that they have a lot of other things on their minds and plates. It's just . . . very frustrating when I'm prevented from doing my job due to circumstances I can't control, knowing that the same people who aren't getting me the information are the ones who may very well be mad when things aren't done right because they didn't get me that info by when I needed it, even with a month's worth of warning.) 
• Also looking forward to doing some travel to places that aren't Pennsylvania — by which I mean that I'm going to drive eight hours (with my sister) to visit a friend and attend a book signing. It's going to be great. It will make writing difficult. But it'll still be great. I'll also be prepping for Realm Makers in July, which will be a bit less intense than last year since I still have most of what I put together for last year. So that'll be good.
• Finally, I will continue working on my crafts. Not sure what I'll do next after I finish my current embroidery piece, but I have a bunch of ideas, so I'm sure I'll figure something out. Or maybe I'll go back to working on some knitting and crocheting so I can have some new wraps ready for fall. We'll see.

How was your May? What are you looking forward to in June? Do you think that second books in spinoff series tend to be better than first books? Have you been traveling much, or do you have any exciting travel plans? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

 

Wags, Woofs, and Wonders Cover Reveal & Other Exciting News

 Hello all! No Friday 5s today, sorry — travel, family stuff, and needing to prioritize other projects have left me without enough time to put something together. However, I do have some exciting news from this week that I wanted to make sure y'all heard.

First, of course, is the cover reveal for Wags, Woofs, and Wonders, the upcoming anthology from Fellowship of Fantasy and Uncommon Universes Press. If you follow me on other social media, you saw this earlier this week, but for everyone else, BEHOLD!

 

Every dog has its day.

Is there anything as faithful or loyal as a dog? Always ready to lend a paw, cuddle up next to you, or chase away foes (because their noses know!).

This feel-good collection features eight magical stories of whimsical, true-hearted, and rascally hounds. From a blind dog with surprising gifts to a watery pup with a winsome secret to a fiery hound, ready to test his new dog-sitter to his limits. Danger may lurk, but don’t worry! Every story is guaranteed a heartwarming, happy ending.

This sixth anthology from the Fellowship of Fantasy and Uncommon Universes Press showcases incredible authors dedicated to telling doggone good fantasy fiction that will make you laugh, sigh, and cuddle your own furry friend.

Releasing July 6, 2023

Preorder the ebook on Amazon | Preorder the paperback | Add on Goodreads

This anthology includes my short story, "Grim Guardian," a slightly spooky Southern mystery that I had a lot of fun writing and I think y'all will really enjoy reading. Also, can we all just take a minute to appreciate that cover? That is a very magical Good Boy right there, and some absolutely lovely colors as well.

Again, if you follow me on social media, you're probably already aware of this, but Through a Shattered Glass, my remix of The Snow Queen and the Alice books, was selected as a finalist in the Novella category of the Realm Awards! I'm both thrilled and honored that Through a Shattered Glass made the list, especially considering how many other amazing books and authors I know were in the running. The winners in each category will be announced at the Awards Banquet during the Realm Makers conference, and I look forward to being there and finding out who won, whether or not that list includes my book. (Also, just saying . . . if you haven't yet read Through a Shattered Glass, now is an excellent time to do so.)

Order TaSG on Amazon || Add to your Goodreads shelf || View the full finalists list

So, yes! Between all this and my sister's graduation, this has been a very exciting week. (Also stressful, for other reasons, but that's beside the point.) Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to vote for the Realm Makers Readers' Choice Award — while my books aren't in the running, a lot of other excellent books are.

Have a lovely day!

 

 

 

December 2022 Doings!

Hello all! It's the last Doings! post of 2022, with only two days left in the year — or one day, depending on whether or not you count today, a question that might depend on when in the day you're reading this. It's been a busy month, as one might expect given that it involved both a book release and the biggest holiday of the year. Hopefully January will be a little more peaceful . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's wrap up December before we move on to the new year, shall we?

Writing!

• Through a Shattered Glass is officially out! And, judging from what I've seen people posting, y'all seem to like it just as much as I do, so THANK YOU. If you haven't already picked up a copy, you can order it in ebook or paperback from Amazon — and if you've already ordered it and read it, would you mind taking a minute to leave a review either there or on Goodreads? Reviews are a big factor in helping authors get more visibility and convincing others to read a particular book. It doesn't even have to be long — just a rating and a sentence or two will do if that's what you have time for, and you'll earn yourself the heartfelt appreciation of this author.
• (That doesn't just apply to my book, by the way. That applies to all the Broken Mirrors and also whatever books you may or may not have gotten for Christmas.)
• Aside from Through a Shattered Glass, work on Bastian Dennel book 4 is coming along slowly, but progress is progress. I finished Chapter 22 this week, which means on one hand that I only wrote about two and a half chapters this month, but . . . y'know. Release month. And Christmas. I do think I'm getting close to the end of the book, and my writing speed always picks up around the climax, so there is that.
• And on the D&D front, we basically had one session and that was all. On the upside, that meant I didn't have to do additional prep, which left me free to focus on other things . . . like my family's Christmas letter, a task that fell to me several years ago and which I always manage to get more stressed about than is really necessary. I always have high hopes of getting it written and finished early, and that absolutely never works out. Alas. But the important thing is that it did get finished before Christmas.

Reading!

• This month has been a mix of Christmas reads and ARCs/new releases, with a couple mood reads and unsuccessful attempts to finish various series before the year ends mixed in.
• I've already posted about all my ARCs — Snowfield Palace, Shattered Reflection, Of Ice and Roses, and Christmas Games. The other two new releases this month were Between Friends, a collection of City Between short stories by W.R. Gingell, and Illuminare, a heist-adjacent novella set in a sort of fantasy-Venice. Both were very good, but I don't think it'll take a genius to guess which one I loved more. Between Friends contained several short storied I'd read before and loved, as well as some new stories that were absolutely lovely and gave us a look at characters' lives after the series ended. In this category, I particularly loved "Pins and Needles" . . . but you'll have to read it yourself to find out why.
• Christmas reads were A Christmas Carol, Hogfather, The Villain Who Saved Christmas, and The Enchanted Sonata. All of those are (I believe) rereads, so I don't have much to say about most of them other than that they're all as good as ever. A Christmas Carol is the one I do have a comment on — I read this via email subscription (Dickens December, to be precise) and highly recommend that reading method. The compiler sent out a short scene or two per day, timing it so the Christmas Day and day-after-Christmas bits would fall on the appropriate days, and it was just quite a fun experience.
• And finally, we have the miscellaneous other reads: Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol, which are books 2 and 3 in the Murderbot series of sci-fi mysteries, and Power Play, book 2 in H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rescue Project series. I enjoyed all three of these, but especially Power Play. The plot is essentially "teenage superheroes get trapped in a D&D game while their guardians try to get them out), and it was just really fun.
• As for the last few days of December not included? I'll probably be reading a mix of short stories, poetry, and possibly more Fullmetal Alchemist, since I have the next several volumes out from the library. We'll see what happens.

Watching!

• As I'm sure you would expect, most of what I've watched have been Christmas movies. We hit all the usual favorites — White Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph, Charlie Brown Christmas — plus Home Alone, which isn't quite a favorite but is fun. I also watched The Man Who Invented Christmas, which was very good. I enjoyed both the exploration of Dickens's personal character and life and the way the movie showed the writing and inspiration process, though I'm glad that my characters don't behave quite as badly as his did, ha! I also didn't know before watching the movie that Dickens basically self-published A Christmas Carol, so that was cool to learn.
• The only non-Christmas thing I watched was more Fairy Tale rewatching. I should probably get back to new-to-me shows at some point, but for now, revisiting these stories and characters is pretty relaxing, and I have needed that this month.

Life!

• Most of this month was super busy with a combination of book release stuff and Christmas stuff. On the upside, I did get to take a bunch of time off work because I had use-or-lose leave, which helped cut down on a little of the stress. The fact that I had two cheese Advent calendars (wherein you open the window to reveal a little piece of cheese in various fun varieties) also helped; cheese makes many, many things better. I had one last year, which I enjoyed, and this year two stores offered them, so I bought one and received the other for my birthday. Both were, as you can imagine, delicious. The best cheeses were probably the Double Gloucester and the smoked paprika gouda, but there were a lot of good ones.
• Christmas, of course, means that my sister came home on break! She got back a little later than usual, due partially to her class schedule and partially to the fact that she had to attend a friend's wedding before she could come home. But it's been nice to have her back.
• One new adventure this year was attending the Lessons and Carols service at the church where I work. I always hear a lot of wonderful things about this service, which is a blend of hymns and carols with Scripture readings and features the full choir and bell choir and guest musicians, so I wanted to experience it myself. And it really was lovely! The church I attend has a very modern worship setup, so the traditional choir and all that was a nice change of pace, and the whole service was just lovely.
• Christmas baking this year was all very last minute, but I did make three different types of Christmas cookies, one and a half of which were new. Naturally, I made my favorite gingersnaps (as usual). My half-new recipe was chocolate-mint pinwheel cookies, which are like the mint checkerboard cookies I've made the last couple years, but have the different doughs rolled up instead of assembled in squares. The general consensus was that, taste-wise, both were about equal, but the pinwheels were prettier. Of course, they're also more frustrating to roll up, so . . . we'll see what happens next year. The other difference was that we dipped these cookies (instead of just saying how good they would be dipped), which we are definitely going to do again next year because that was delicious. The final cookie I made was cranberry orange icebox cookies, which are almost shortbread-like and very tasty. In other cookie highlights, my mom made both ladylocks and peanut butter balls (like buckeyes, but fully chocolate-covered), both of which were absolutely wonderful.
• As per the usual, I also spent a good bit of time stressing about what to get people. About half of my gifts for my family didn't even get ordered/purchased until Christmas week because I couldn't figure out what to get. On the upside, everyone seemed to like what I got them, and I did manage a few surprises (always a struggle). I hoped that this would be the year that I finally didn't have a craft-based gift that I was working on up to the very last minute, but . . . nope. I crocheted my sister a little stuffed mole (because it's cute and also it's a chemistry joke), which I was still finishing up Christmas morning. Whoops. It did get under the tree before she woke up, though, so there's that.
• Getting to the actual Christmas Eve/Christmas Day: things this year ended up a little . . . weird. My grandpa came down to spend the holiday with us, but because of the winter storm and cold front and all, he decided to drive down on Christmas Eve instead of the day before that. That meant that we ended up doing about sixty percent of our normal Christmas Eve stuff on the day before Christmas Eve so we wouldn't be at church or getting pizza when he arrived. And that did work out fine (even if I was a bit disappointed at the switch), but it did mean that the actual Christmas Eve felt weird and unmoored from time. Not that weird, though; we were too busy to feel terribly adrift. And it was a lot of fun to see my grandpa again.
• Christmas Day was pretty chill, on the whole. We ended up taking so long to get breakfast cleared up, get dressed, take pictures, and get everything set up that we had to take a cookie break before we even started opening presents . . . not that I'm complaining. (I never complain about cookie breaks.) As I said, people seemed to like the things I got them, and I was quite pleased with my gifts, including my own copies of some of my favorite books from this past year and a couple new planners (one for work, one for home). My former roommate actually got me another gift I was pretty excited about: little silicon creatures that perch on the rim of your mug and keep your teabag in place! They're both cute and a clever solution to an overlooked problem, which is delightful. I've also been contemplating the fact that, at some point in most people's lives, the much-maligned gift of socks actually becomes rather exciting . . . though I suspect that depends somewhat on whether you're getting nice, soft, cozy, colorful socks (which I did) or boring, uncomfy ones.
• On the non-Christmas side of things: my family has been attending the Saturday night service at our church for the last several years, but the church recently decided to stop offering that service to reduce the strain on their pastors and staff. So, we've been trying out the other service times to try to figure out which new one works for us. Of course, with the holidays, things have been irregular enough that I don't think we've made a final decision.
• We finish out the month with a fairly chill week between Christmas and New Year's — well, chill except for the fact that my workplace decided to switch a bunch of systems over to work with the cloud and that was unexpectedly stressful and frustrating (and means I'm going to have to work with OneDrive on a daily basis, ugh — I recognize that it has its good points, but it's caused me enough trouble that I had to factory-reset a laptop to get rid of it). But New Year's Eve means Bible Study celebration, which is always a fun time.
• All in all . . . it's been a good month. A crazy month, yes, but still good, and a solid end to 2022.

January Plans

• I would like this month to be chill, in the relaxing sense and not the temperature sense. Unfortunately, I suspect I will get the latter, if either.
• I have several writing projects lined up: continuing work on BDPI #4 and my D&D campaign, a short story or two, possibly poking at a novella/novelette concept that I recently came up with. We'll see which ones end up taking precedence; some of these have firmer deadlines than others, and deadlines for a few are . . . weird.
• At work, at least, January tends to be a somewhat calmer month, so that's a relief. Most of the excitement the last couple years has come from people retiring, which no one is doing this year. I'm hoping to finish up several projects that've been in a holding pattern for a while, though, and that will keep me busy if it works out.
• On the reading front, I have several 2022 releases out from the library that I want to read (particularly Moira's Pen and The Lost Metal), and I have some ARCs to catch up on. I also want to finish up some of the series that I'm in the middle of either reading or rereading . . . of course, it's equally likely that I'll be in the mood for something else and end up distracted and read half of another series instead.
• Otherwise? Like I said, I'm hoping for chill, ideally enough so that I can take some evenings to watch shows or movies or do some gaming. Of course, realistically speaking, if I have that much time off in the evenings, I should be using it to exercise  . . .
• I think that about covers it . . . Technically, I have another thing that I could talk about that starts in January, but I'm going to hold off on saying too much about that in case something goes wrong and it doesn't work out.

How was your December? Any exciting plans for January? Did you get or give any especially fun Christmas gifts? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

Through a Shattered Glass Release Day & Broken Mirrors Release Party: A Meeting of Mirrors

You know what today is? It's RELEASE DAY for Through a Shattered Glass! HUZZAH! I'm so excited that y'all can finally read this book — it's honestly one of my favorite things I've written. If you preordered the ebook, it should be showing up in your Kindle, and if you've been holding out for the paperback, you can go forth and purchase that now! As a reminder, if you order the paperback today, you can still request your set of character art stickers. (Or, if you preordered the ebook but haven't requested your stickers, you can still do that through the 26th.) And if you still need to know why you should buy the book . . . well, I have a list of five reasons for you over on Light and Shadows.

Now, this might be my past as a fanfic writer and forum roleplayer talking, but one of my favorite character development experiments is thinking about how characters from different stories and storyworlds might interact: which characters get along like a house on fire, which ones hate each other on sight, and everything in between. And today, I wanted to celebrate all the Broken Mirror stories by sharing my thoughts on how Alys and Kai, the main characters of Through a Shattered Glass, might react if they met their counterparts (and the rest of the casts) from the other books in this release. As a side note, I'll be referring to Alys and Kai at different points in their respective timelines throughout the post, since I'm looking for the most interesting results. If you read the book, you'll understand why.

About . . .

Through a Shattered Glass

 

Drop the mirror and you break the world in two.  

Alys hasn’t set foot in Wonderland in years. Not since the White Queen’s mirror shattered; not since her best friend, Kai Hatter, was killed; not since Alys fled back to her own world with a shard of enchanted mirror in her eye. She’s done her best to set aside the past and move on — until a red-painted rose appears in her room, and the portal opens once more. 

Simultaneously desperate for hope and terrified of what she might find — or cause — Alys ventures back through the mirror. But the Wonderland she finds is not the same one she left behind, and though Kai is less dead than she thought, he still might be past saving. To make matters worse, the mirror shard is still in Alys’s eye, and Wonderland is all too susceptible to its corrupting power.  

Only Alys can save the land and friend she loves — but if she’s not careful, she might be their doom instead.  

A dark portal fantasy remix of The Snow Queen and Lewis Carroll’s Alice duology.  

Find it on: Amazon || Goodreads

A Meeting of Mirrors

Snowfield Palace

I'll tell you up front: this is the hardest of the books to talk about without giving away spoilers. What can I say? If Alys ended up in Snowfields during the actual plot of the book, she would probably make things go very sideways very quickly — though she might manage to prevent quite a bit of pain in the process, as her particular abilities would mean she'd spot the villain's true nature long before things came to a head. On the other hand, the Bethims and their household — with the exceptions of Ginny and Kaimund — are such a mess that Alys would probably end up overwhelmed. As for specific counterpart pairings, well . . . I don't think Alys and Ginny would dislike each other, but I suspect Alys would end up avoiding Ginny for her own protection, because while Ginny is an absolute sweetheart, she does not have good self-esteem, and Alys's abilities mean she is not particularly healthy for people with those types of problems to be around. On the upside, Kai would probably get along very well with his counterpart — they can bond over roses and disaster families and generally have a nice time.

Shattered Reflection

One thing's certain here: Alys and Kai would both sympathize heavily with Princess Nordica. Having your mind and heart twisted against you? Being used as a tool to cause pain to those you're meant to care about? They understand her plight all too well, and they'd probably be more than willing to do what they could to help her, though Alys would be very concerned about just making everything worse. When it comes to counterpart relationships, Alys would probably be more than a little envious of Layree's faith — it's been a long time since Alys felt she could believe in anything. She'd probably relate much more strongly to Breac, whose struggle is a little bit closer to hers. Kai and Loren would probably be friendly, but I doubt they'd end up close friends; aside from their shared role in the fairy tale, they don't have a ton in common.

Of Ice and Roses

Oh dear. I do not think Alys and Gemma would get along at all. It's no fault of Gemma's — she's a sweet girl — but I suspect her personality and situation are just such as to rub Alys in the worst way. On the other hand, Kai would sympathize a great deal with his counterpart in much the same way he would with Princess Nordica. Other than that, I don't think they'd have strong feelings on the rest of the cast.

Christmas Games

First things first: Alys, who grew up in our world and knows about technology and video games and VR, would find the world of this story fascinating. However, she has also absorbed enough second-hand knowledge of shows where people get stuck in VR worlds that she would want no part of the actual plot, even if she was invited. Kai, for his part, grew up in Wonderland, so everything here is new to him. I think he and Alys would both get along reasonably well with their counterparts (as well as Alys gets along with anyone these days), but since the story is so short and I haven't read the main series it's attached to, I'm not really sure what else I can say about them.

Are you excited for Through a Shattered Glass? And, if you're a writer, how do you think your characters might get along with some of the Broken Mirror characters? Please tell me in the comments! Thanks for reading!

Winter 2022–2023 Reads

Oh, look, a seasonal post is going up on time! In fact, it's going up early! Though not as early as it would have had I not realized that last Friday was, in fact, December 9, not December 16. (This is what they don't tell you about working at a church, y'all! You kind of end up living in two weeks at once, especially around the holidays.) Anyway. This winter has some releases I am immensely excited about — but before I get into that, don't forget that there's still time to preorder Through a Shattered Glass (and the rest of the Broken Mirrors releases) and request your set of character art stickers! Ok, advertising aside, let's get on with this season's most exciting (to me) releases.

Friday 5s: Winter 2022–2023 Reads

1. Illuminare by Bryn Shutt (December 9). I've actually already read this one — I did so within a few days of its release — and quite enjoyed it. The author promotes it as a readalike for Discworld and Six of Crows, and I could definitely pick up the influence of both of those series. Also, I vibed quite a lot with Desmond Edenry, arguably the main main character. Definitely a book I'd recommend.

2. Snowfield Palace by Kendra E. Ardnek (December 19). The first of the Broken Mirrors releases and another book I've actually read before writing this post! You'll get my full thoughts come Monday, but suffice it to say that if you liked the rest of the Austen Fairy Tales, you'll love this one — a blend of The Snow Queen with Mansfield Park — just as much.

3. Shattered Reflection by Madisyn Carlin (December 21). The second Broken Mirrors book! I'm probably in the middle of reading this book by the time you read this post — but as of writing, I'm still waiting on my ARC. In any case, I will say that this story sounds fascinating. It sounds like Madisyn will be making the Snow Queen more of a sympathetic character, and I'm excited to see how that works out. I'm also predicting now that Breac is going to end up my favorite character, but we'll see what happens.

4. Of Ice and Roses by Heather M. Elliot (December 22). Another Broken Mirrors release! Again, I'm excited to see what Heather does with the fairy tale. It sounds like we're getting intrigue, prophecies, a quest, and a heroine who starts the book married, all of which hold quite a lot of promise.

5. Through a Shattered Glass by Sarah Pennington (December 23). It's me! And my book! I'm super excited to share Through a Shattered Glass with y'all. I honestly think it's some of my best work . . . and I'm not just saying that because it's essentially an after-the-portal-fantasy story (which I really enjoy) or because I loved getting to revisit Wonderland and give it my own spin (which I did) or because it involves a magical cat in the form of my version of the Cheshire Cat (which it does). Again, there's still time to preorder if you haven't already!

6. Christmas Games by Erudessa Gentian (December 24). This is the final Broken Mirror releasing next week, and while I haven't read the series that this short story is part of, I'm excited to venture into a new world — and a new genre. I tried to write my own trapped-in-a-game story years ago (and failed), so I'm excited to see what Erudessa does with it and how she'll use the Snow Queen elements in a more sci-fi setting.

7. Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (January 1). Like every other Sanderfan on the planet, I was SO HYPED when Brandon Sanderson announced his Secret Projects. (The man wrote FOUR WHOLE BOOKS without telling us, WHILE working on Stormlight and Mistborn and everything else. HOW.) Tress of the Emerald Sea is probably the installment in the series that I'm most interested in, so I am, of course, very much looking forward to my copy arriving in January. (If you missed the Kickstarter, though, I have heard that the books will be available to buy at some point.)

8. The White Queen's Spell by Wyn Estelle Owens (January 19). This was meant to be the second Broken Mirrors release and the sequel to The Dark King's Curse, but Wyn had to push it back (alas!) due to timing concerns. Granted, I'm an alpha reader on this one, so it's not like I have to wait any longer to read the story than I otherwise would have to . . . but also, what I have read of the story is so good, and I want to talk about it so storming much. Help.

9. The Dragon's Princess by Kendra E. Ardnek (January 19). Kendra keeps sneaking out these short fairy tale retellings that swap the hero and villain. This is actually the third in the series, and it's based on St. George and the Dragon, which is not a legend I see many people retelling. I have a good guess about how Kendra is going to approach this one, but I'm excited to see if I'm right or not.

10. On Earth as It Is in Hell by Bryan Davis (February 3/15). This is the final book in Bryan Davis's Oculus Gate series, which should be exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing these characters one more time and finding out how they're going to get themselves out of the mess we last saw them in — which, if you'd forgotten, had several of the characters plunging into hell, either captured by or in pursuit of a thoroughly evil villain. Fun stuff. Anyway, this is coming in February; release dates are weird because the paperback and the ebook become available on different days. Keep an eye out for my review sometime in that span!

11. A Whisker Behind by W.R. Gingell (February 15). CITY BETWEEN SPINOFF. Not only that, a City Between spinoff focused on Athelas, everyone's favorite twisty lavender-grey fae! Athelas is absolutely my favorite character from the original series, so I cannot begin to express how much I'm looking forward to this. This spinoff also shifts settings from Australia to South Korea, which I think will be cool. But mostly I'm just looking forward to spending more time in the world of Between and Behind.

What book releases are you excited for this winter? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!